I really think that fetishizing alienness and avoiding it are flip-sides of the same coin.
Totes agree. Though fetishizing does present the possibility of leading to actual knowledge. (*looks uncomfortably at a childhood obsession with anime/manga*)
Oh and the entitlement. Man, I'm a little nerd, but college students (espec ones who want to be teachers) should have passed the "will this be on the test" stage by that age. Because learning makes you a better person and since you want to devote your life to teaching you better hope that learning for learning itself is important... because I hope they didn't pick that career for the money or respect or cushy hours (aw, the teacher situation in the US).
there was actually a white student last quarter who declared she had to stop reading Stendhal's 'Charterhouse of Parma' 'cause she didn't know anything about 19th century France or Italy.
wait. what. I mean, the logical thing to do there is to learn about ~exotic 19th century France or Italy, not declare anything having to do with it off limits forever. How does one ever get new knowledge under this model? (Though tbh, I would probably keep reading and just wonder if I was getting real or made-up history, and just hope I wouldn't confuse fiction with history the next time I needed to know something about 19th century France/Italy.)
I've been reading more political and news blogs and basically, in the final analysis, I think most people are happily anti-intellectual. It often boils down to stupid, but in kind of a really sad way.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2012-02-10 09:41 am (UTC)I really think that fetishizing alienness and avoiding it are flip-sides of the same coin.
Totes agree. Though fetishizing does present the possibility of leading to actual knowledge. (*looks uncomfortably at a childhood obsession with anime/manga*)
Oh and the entitlement. Man, I'm a little nerd, but college students (espec ones who want to be teachers) should have passed the "will this be on the test" stage by that age. Because learning makes you a better person and since you want to devote your life to teaching you better hope that learning for learning itself is important... because I hope they didn't pick that career for the money or respect or cushy hours (aw, the teacher situation in the US).
there was actually a white student last quarter who declared she had to stop reading Stendhal's 'Charterhouse of Parma' 'cause she didn't know anything about 19th century France or Italy.
wait. what. I mean, the logical thing to do there is to learn about ~exotic 19th century France or Italy, not declare anything having to do with it off limits forever. How does one ever get new knowledge under this model? (Though tbh, I would probably keep reading and just wonder if I was getting real or made-up history, and just hope I wouldn't confuse fiction with history the next time I needed to know something about 19th century France/Italy.)
I've been reading more political and news blogs and basically, in the final analysis, I think most people are happily anti-intellectual. It often boils down to stupid, but in kind of a really sad way.