[TheForge] back to school...(OT, was stoopid question, about academia, more beer-chatter)

[Justin Fellenz]

> I minored in rhetoric( philosophy) at NAU  Flagstaff, Majored in
> PSYCH. 
> In '91.

Funny. I did a "rhetoric and technical communication" M.Sc. (of all
things) at michigan tech in the early 90's. Not too many of us trained
rhetoricians out there. 

> I found that most phil. professors have a personal agenda, And stay
> away 
> from the Existentialists
> Like Sartre and Nietzsche. At least that was the story at NAU,

The Taoists warn against reading too much, and I've come to agree,
having read to much. I can say without hesitation that my master's
degree was crap, really an education in the way many humanities depts
work--damaged people who are professors not because they can do what
other's can't but because they can't survive in the outside world.
Having lived in the outside world some and being certain I wanted to go
back there I had some trouble following the intellectual rules. I
thought the university was a place for free thought but I discovered
it's a place where ideas are reproduced, not created. You have to know
the right thing to say and the right person to quote and if you don't
you're not just wrong, you're bad. I was bad a lot--I knew the stuff
but argued anyway, which really ticked em off. The spread of
postmodernism throughout humanities departments is an emblem of the
death of those disciplines...any value it could bring gets eclipsed by
the fact that it's a way to foster endless meaningless (sorry, little
joke there) discussions that keep people employed--and to support
"theories" that elevate unresolved personal issues to the level of
academic discourse, which can then be forced down the throats of grad
students. The ones who swallow are the ones who carry on to do it to
their students later. Only the very strong can spit it back up and
still make a place for themselves in the pit.

Once cherished memory was listening to a prof wring her hands about the
"plight of the masses" and then in the next breath dismiss the "guys
down at the doghouse in the their workboots and plaid jackets" as being
uneducated boors. The masses are great in theory, smelly in person. The
irony was too great. She didn't notice I was wearing my hard toes that
day.

Having said all that, there are certainly great profs in the game,
worthy of deepest respect. But there's a lot of the other kind. Maybe
Fine arts depts are different--I've ben toying with doing an MFA too,
focusing on scuplture. Not sure yet if it's a good idea.  Andy, since
you're already a grownup and not likely to be a good little student
boy, I might suggest doing industrial design or even an
apprenticeship--something with some necessary time to the world you
live in--than waste your time swimming with a bunch of emotional
cripples hiding behind their foucault. At least be very creful when you
pick your school. Pure theory can be a monumental a waste of time, fun
as it is to play with. 

> Nothing 
> against Theology, except when the department's theology nails the
> door 
> shut on certain  discussion. 

Exactly. So many of these topics are dead precisely because their
keepers in the academy make them so.

I should stop now. 

Yeah, me too. I may be sorry if I offended anyone who has a different
opinion--well, I'm sorry for the offense if not for the opinion. I'm
painting with a large brush here and I know it. As I said there are
great profs and perhaps even great departments in the humanities. But I
know a lot of people from different schools who have had the same
experience and I've watched the flow of pet theories and thinkers
around the industry enough to have a sense of the ubiquity of the
process. If I've offended anyone I'll be happy to defend or qualify
what I've said here offlist.

JRF