Imagine a world where everyone goes around making sense all the time. Actually, you don’t need to imagine one, because if you’re looking at this webpage and reading closely you’re already in such a world, confined as it may be to words on a screen. Now, imagine a world where everybody goes around thinking outrageous thoughts, spilling paint and dung on canvas and displaying it with pride, writing absurd novels about fantastic worlds where bears can talk or where a spoiled shit of a person who’s always bummed-out wanders around the worst city in the country. It’s a warm world. It’s a world governed by “creativity.” It’s hell.
Let me tell you what brought this on, as my opening statements might be somewhat confusing to someone who isn’t privy to all the facts, and as you know the Grimary Gource is all about aiding people in knowing their facts. This morning I was sitting in one of Gufts University’s many fact-centric classes, taking notes and not doodling frivolous contour drawings of things that don’t exist. All of a sudden I realize that the professor has yielded the floor to some round-faced nosebleed of a human being, and this walking, talking, sushi-eating human aneurysm is babbling on about creativity in classes at Gufts. Apparently he was a member of some group of manicured beatniks (I know – it sounds like a paradox of some kind) called “Writing Fellows” who wanted to conduct a survey regarding attitudes students have about the level of creativity they’re allowed to exhibit in their classwork.
First of all: what the hell? Writing Fellows? Are my tuition dollars going towards a bunch of people who sit around putting words into word processors? Are these people getting paid? Getting laid? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes” then I imagine it’s high time I stopped by the hardware store to pick up a sledgehammer, because it’s clear that some thick-skulled administrator has made an egregious oversight, and God knows we don’t want these people reproducing. Universities are not places to foster creativity. If you want to hone your yarn-spinning skills, (or even your storytelling skills), feel free to walk barefoot in the general direction of the Pacific and join the first commune you find. I came to school to put additional information into my brain in as efficient a manner as possible. Guess what: filling out a survey that asks me whether or not I strongly agree, agree, neutrally agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that I’m given enough room for free thinking is not teaching me anything, all it’s doing is reminding me of what a mistake attending a private institution was.
You see I went to one of America’s Perfect Public Schools – where the rules are many and the curricula concrete. The kind of place where people who wore shirts with inflammatory statements were escorted to the cement slab behind the dumpsters and taught the importance of Newtonian physics with regards to steel-toed boots and their throats. Did we waste time on the vodka-soaked nonsense some Russian epileptic made a narrative out of? Absolutely not. We were taught to tests, and the tests taught us to answer questions we would be asked on future tests. This is a system that makes cold mechanical sense – which, If you ask me – is the best kind of sense. Keep this in mind the next time someone without morals or rational asks you to think abstractly about something. If an answer can’t be reached without doing some kind of metaphorical back flip then the question is probably some kind of godless lie.
Let me tell you what brought this on, as my opening statements might be somewhat confusing to someone who isn’t privy to all the facts, and as you know the Grimary Gource is all about aiding people in knowing their facts. This morning I was sitting in one of Gufts University’s many fact-centric classes, taking notes and not doodling frivolous contour drawings of things that don’t exist. All of a sudden I realize that the professor has yielded the floor to some round-faced nosebleed of a human being, and this walking, talking, sushi-eating human aneurysm is babbling on about creativity in classes at Gufts. Apparently he was a member of some group of manicured beatniks (I know – it sounds like a paradox of some kind) called “Writing Fellows” who wanted to conduct a survey regarding attitudes students have about the level of creativity they’re allowed to exhibit in their classwork.
First of all: what the hell? Writing Fellows? Are my tuition dollars going towards a bunch of people who sit around putting words into word processors? Are these people getting paid? Getting laid? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes” then I imagine it’s high time I stopped by the hardware store to pick up a sledgehammer, because it’s clear that some thick-skulled administrator has made an egregious oversight, and God knows we don’t want these people reproducing. Universities are not places to foster creativity. If you want to hone your yarn-spinning skills, (or even your storytelling skills), feel free to walk barefoot in the general direction of the Pacific and join the first commune you find. I came to school to put additional information into my brain in as efficient a manner as possible. Guess what: filling out a survey that asks me whether or not I strongly agree, agree, neutrally agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that I’m given enough room for free thinking is not teaching me anything, all it’s doing is reminding me of what a mistake attending a private institution was.
You see I went to one of America’s Perfect Public Schools – where the rules are many and the curricula concrete. The kind of place where people who wore shirts with inflammatory statements were escorted to the cement slab behind the dumpsters and taught the importance of Newtonian physics with regards to steel-toed boots and their throats. Did we waste time on the vodka-soaked nonsense some Russian epileptic made a narrative out of? Absolutely not. We were taught to tests, and the tests taught us to answer questions we would be asked on future tests. This is a system that makes cold mechanical sense – which, If you ask me – is the best kind of sense. Keep this in mind the next time someone without morals or rational asks you to think abstractly about something. If an answer can’t be reached without doing some kind of metaphorical back flip then the question is probably some kind of godless lie.
2 comments:
Yes, we DO get paid. $500 a semester. You should consider applying to be one.
I liked the sushi-eating human aneurysm part, but you could've found a stronger metaphor for calling us Writing Fellows assclowns in your blog. The griting doesnt flow very well, either. Would you say this is due to your gegligence or gignorance?
This is pretty bad, even without addressing concision. Your prose should've ended four confusing, drawn-out paragraphs ago. Speaking of paragraphs, swing by the ARC sometime and I'll show you what that nifty "tab" key on your keyboard does.
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