Tuesday, October 6, 2009

nonsense, anxiety, revolution


Well, this is great news, with midterm essays about to start pouring in: nonsense and absurdity make you smarter, "disorientation begets creative thinking."

Just kidding. Mostly. But there's a downside, too: "studies have found that people in the grip of the uncanny tend to see patterns where none exist — becoming more prone to conspiracy theories, for example. The urge for order satisfies itself, it seems, regardless of the quality of the evidence."

And for those of you who are anxious about midterm essays and presentations, you can take solace from Jerome Kagan's research. Some, anyway. Don Williams said it (and Bob McDill wrote it) best: guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be. Don't panic.


Presentations today were very good, nothing to panic about at all. Plato's myth of the cave does indeed speak to our theme, Eric, even if I think the happiness of the complacent prisoner is not all it could be. And I agree, Megan, most of us do chase the material mirage of happiness far more than our reading list would imply. The money changers and home-wrecking philanderers should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. (I hope everyone knows I'm joshing. I still want to see the Plan.)

1 comment:

stephen king said...

no need to have anxiety when you have sunlight. cause like bob marley said, everty little thing, is gonna be alright.

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