October 15, 2013

Silence almost weird. I say the word “silence” and startle myself, as though it were the only sound in the world.

After a group lecture the humanities, students are given the opportunity to name works of art and literature that have influenced their lives. One of my students, who is failing my class with all flags flying, observes that no work of art or literature has influenced him, but only his meteorology classes. This rings several distant bells, back to a time when the head of the meteorology department (now faded into obscurity) manifested so great a hatred of the liberal arts that he couldn’t open his mouth without slandering them. He held me in particular scorn, and wouldn’t come to Commencement because, for reasons of seniority or alphabet, we typically sat beside each other. The meteorology students have historically resented the humanities and often done poorly at them, shrugging their bad performance off, as my present student does, as the most an onerous task deserves. I wonder what’s said in those classrooms? What kind of culture is manufactured there? What odd perception of the world instills their sense of superiority? Where do people get the energy to live their lives by absurdities? This same student is respectful and engaged and has near-perfect attendance. Another student, whom I rather liked, said at the outset that he resented Humanities and only wanted to take courses in his major, and was often absent, and finally dropped the course, but only after writing the most brilliant paper in the class, which he will probably never know, now. I should have taken a psychology course.

Annihilated by my first day after break.