Course Selection and the Cretin

by Benjamin Kepple

There is a nice quote by a Women's Studies professor who was asked about graduate school by a student worried about her chances of getting into one of those fine institutions. The professor then replied, "I did badly on my SATs, and even worse on my GREs, and I'm a professor of Women's Studies!" Well, somebody didn't notice the double­edged aspect of that. In a similar vein, I fear that some of my readers may not have noticed that when I wrote my "Ben's Worst of Winter" column, I was indeed serious. While I did intend it to be humorous, it was a serious, un­facetious piece (for those of you who were wondering).

These suggestions that I made back in January regarding the University's class offerings and a student's class selection have been the target of some rather nasty complaints sent the Review's direction. Now, my suggestions were grounded in common sense, logic, a healthy amount of anecdotal evidence, and a healthy dose of conservative thought. Hence, many students hated it and found it unacceptable. This prompted these individuals to send veiled threats of violence, personal attacks, and cruel and vindictive insults my way. Others, who merely detested the piece, sent me polite, well­written letters that challenged me to debate my supposedly untenable position.

For the most part, the writers were clear­headed, intelligent people. They were able to construct a complete sentence, and even use adjectives correctly. However, some of the negative letters were, quite frankly, appalling. Here is the unedited text of one comment:

"I can see why he is hiding in the Caribbean ... He is a loser, who has deemed himself intellect. How do you know about all things courses? You pretend know far too much about the courses to merely have HEARD about them. Save your self the embarrassment and keep your narrow-minded opinions to yourself."

This letter written by a student, albeit in Kinesiology contains the worst prose I have seen in my twenty­two years on this Earth. What was my initial reaction? Obviously, I thought the letter writer could only think in (to quote a phrase) short, staccato bursts; that this mindless wretch with the intellectual capacity of an sixth­grader was obviously taxed by this one paragraph message. I also wondered how this individual got into this University, although as he is in Kinesiology, maybe he can score touchdowns or shoot baskets. But after re­examining the message, I dismissed my earlier opinion, and put the poor quality of the message down to the writer not thinking. I have a feeling that was my subconscious subtly trying to keep alive my faith in Man.

This faith of mine is on life support after four years at the wonderful University of Michigan. After all, only on the college campus of today could we have, say, Jessica Curtin taken seriously. Only at Michigan could this uber­Nazi for the downtrodden thrive and have her own screaming mob of cretins goose­step to an ideology that sane humans have discarded. Only at Michigan could we have a Michigan Student Assembly that refuses to allow the student body to decide in a non-binding referendum whether it supported affirmative action, but yet take firm and courageous action to protect the rights of laborers, working for near­slave wages, who live literally on the other side of the world. Only at Michigan could we have administrators who lie through their teeth on a daily basis and even worse, people who actually believe them. (Race is one of many factors in admissions, my eye.)

It's really rather appalling, and the only reason there isn't more outcry about any of this is because we live in an island of modern liberalism. In the Fairfax, Virginias and the Kalamazoo, Michigans of this nation, groups like the By Any Means Necessary coalition (BAMN) are an aberration. In the real world, people care about issues that affect them first, not suffering workers in Indonesia being ground into dust by some faceless corporate tyrant. And most people in the real world know bloody well when they hear a lie wrapped up in bureaucrat­ese.

But not here! Everyday, it seems, you are always within earshot of some cretin with rocks in his head, most likely an American Culture major, babbling on about social justice and empowerment and imperialism and other words he doesn't know the meaning of. You turn a corner and you're face to face with 300 misguided souls in the Fishbowl protecting their so-called right to go to class by ... not going to class ... during the National Day of Inaction. Then you'll be accosted by someone, whose capacity to think for himself is comparable to that of a handball, passing out leaflets or pamphlets protesting this cause or another and is it a civil discourse or protest? No! Not on your life! You can rest assured that these left­wing protesters will be loud, obnoxious, and annoying! If it's a speaker they're protesting, he'll be lucky to even get ten words out of his mouth! And finally, you'll meet some Sociology professor, whose ideology rests on a vast total of four misguided and poorly written tomes purporting to hold wisdom in their pages, who will tell you that affirmative action is needed because of inherent social injustice and inequality that can never be corrected (although that last part, they generally leave out).

And all of us even those of us who are die­hard conservatives become slowly used to living on Fantasy Island. We think it's perfectly normal for a screaming group of thugs that never numbers more than 25 students to create fifteen different important­sounding splinter groups (have you ever noticed that BAMN, NWROC, and the ARA people are all the same?). We tamely accept the indoctrination that is spoon­fed to us at (Dis)Orientation when we arrive. We don't become outraged when the leader of such a group comes out and says that the question of affirmative action shouldn't be put to the ballot because of the conservative nature of voting, as happened in the Daily of February 27, 1998. What arrogance! What self­righteousness!

This same arrogance and self­righteousness is taught in the very courses which I condemned. One professor I had for a History course, whose name I do not wish to remember, decided to go into a long harangue about the steel industry and the evils of the American steel industry during the 1960s and 1970s. The man knew nothing about steel, didn't have a whit of knowledge about business or how a modern corporation works, and he stands up on the stage, prancing about, ranting and raving as if there was no tomorrow. My family comes from around Pittsburgh I've seen those old steel towns, or rather, what's left of them. It wasn't pretty. My disgust must have shown, because the professor stopped and looked straight at me, and admitted (at least he admitted it once during the term), "OK, I'm over­exaggerating it, but you've already turned in the course evaluations and there's nothing you can do."

There's nothing you can do. That is the underlying theme in so many messages today. When was the last time you stood up and said, "The hell there isn't!"

We can all make a conscious decision in our minds to take a positive step towards taking a stand for our beliefs and ourselves. Don't give in to the cretins who teach these courses and attempt to indoctrinate you with their pathetic, outmoded theories and their guilt­laden course readings. Don't give in to the cretins who run the departments. If you don't like a course or you feel uncomfortable in it, you have every right to drop it it's fun and easy to do so and take a different course.

And if you like the course but you don't like the way it is taught, for God's sake, don't just sit there. Antagonize the teaching assistant and refute the theories being taught in class that tell you Europeans are inherently evil and men are scum. You don't deserve to be taught these childish, pathetic untruths. You're an adult demand to be treated like one. MR

Are you angry enough to write the Review about Kepple's latest column but want to be original from other critics? The following phrases have ALREADY been used to criticize him at some point in his collegiate career:

· racist
· bigot
· white devil
· trite
· petty
· loser
· fascist
· sick bastard
· close­minded
· insensitive
· knee­jerk
· embarrassing
· emulator of neo­conservative pundits

Benjamin Kepple is Editor­in­Chief of the Review. He was last seen running across the Diag pursued by an angry mob and a 1971 AMC Pacer. You can send more irate letters to mrev@umich.edu.

This article was published in the 11 March 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 16, Number 8).
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