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As I come to the end of my second year of teaching at a small college in rural Maine, I am confronted by a vexing question: "Who needs philosophy?" Some people manage to sit on the question, in fact, destroy it altogether through myriad fantastic ways. Others look deep into their hearts and find that the question is both stupid and irrelevant. But seeing as I make my "daily bread" teaching philosophy, I feel compelled to answer it.
So I look to my students and together we ponder the history of the ancient world. Doug, who has just returned from vacationing in Europe, tells us that "Greece is a place in Italy!" I am surprised and flummoxed by this assertion. One student laughs uproariously in his face - as I try, feebly, to redirect the class. "Hey, look," I say, "we're all dummies here!" Oh God! Did I handle that well? As well as I could have? Perhaps I should simplify the reading and my lectures. My desire far outstrips the circumstance of this vocation.
Only last week I opened my laptop and began to expound on the Platonic theory of forms when I couldn't help but notice Shane's T-shirt. Garishly red with bold yellow letters on front, it read, "You're Scum." I thanked him for his audacity in wearing it to class. Shane is a sweet-tempered student, but psychologically he seems so distant. Ironically, he is one of my better students. On the first day of class, he had been the only one to name a philosopher - Thomas More, he said, and he wrote Utopia. Shane, dammit, that's good enough for me!
Yet the struggle is immense. My students want to know why they have to read Immanuel Kant and David Hume. What can I tell them? It's core curriculum! It teaches you "critical thinking." It's important, dammit, CJ! As if my own voice and body are now distant, the words come streaming out - like a first lie. "Well," I offer the class, "we're going to find out if this stuff is important."
I expound on the merits of Marxian theory, and what do they do? They put their heads between the pages of our text and sleep. I try to raise them with a stirring analysis of contemporary "alienation" in college - in short, I rouse the ghost of Karl Marx himself and inhabit his desperate drive for human equality and freedom. They continue to sleep through this lecture and I don't miss the irony that maybe it's natural to find college boring. My job, for all I know, might be to preserve the venerable tradition of standing behind a podium - finger waving - speaking the absurd fire of truth. My students might feel more alienated if I actually did impact their capacity for reason.
And yet, they are human beings. I must handle them carefully. They have passion both large and small - though they don't like to admit it. Perhaps the thing that drove the Greeks, Descartes, and Kierkegaard crazy will someday touch them also - after I have been returned to the proverbial dust. They seem to know this. I see it every other day in the midst of one of my diatribes when I pause for a moment and look around the room to see a few misty-eyed faces staring back. Like deer in the headlights. Only, this light is made of life. What infinitesimal estimation of it that I already understand and can give them.
During my final lecture on Kierkegaard and his lost love, I wind myself up to a frenzy and deliver a sermon on death. It's my usual rant about human beings charged with mortal self-knowledge. I'm upset, of course, because nobody seems to be listening. To my surprise, CJ begins scowling. Then she hits me over the head with it. "You know, I have been on the brink of death four times. I have struggled with leukemia for years, but now, luckily, I'm in remission." Then she proceeds to unpack her own philosophy of life, and it is charming and real. It is informed by experience that nobody else in the class can feel - not this day anyway. When she is done speaking, I thank her for being honest. And I see in this strange, intimate moment an answer to the question, "Who needs philosophy?"
Justin Maseychik lives in Northport. His writing interests include Buddhism and the New England Transcendentalists. He has just returned from four months study in Sri Lanka.
So I look to my students and together we ponder the history of the ancient world. Doug, who has just returned from vacationing in Europe, tells us that "Greece is a place in Italy!" I am surprised and flummoxed by this assertion. One student laughs uproariously in his face - as I try, feebly, to redirect the class. "Hey, look," I say, "we're all dummies here!" Oh God! Did I handle that well? As well as I could have? Perhaps I should simplify the reading and my lectures. My desire far outstrips the circumstance of this vocation
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Only last week I opened my laptop and began to expound on the Platonic theory of forms when I couldn't help but notice Shane's T-shirt. Garishly red with bold yellow letters on front, it read, "You're Scum." I thanked him for his audacity in wearing it to class. Shane is a sweet-tempered student, but psychologically he seems so distant. Ironically, he is one of my better students. On the first day of class, he had been the only one to name a philosopher - Thomas More, he said, and he wrote Utopia. Shane, dammit, that's good enough for me!
Yet the struggle is immense. My students want to know why they have to read Immanuel Kant and David Hume. What can I tell them? It's core curriculum! It teaches you "critical thinking." It's important, dammit, CJ! As if my own voice and body are now distant, the words come streaming out - like a first lie. "Well," I offer the class, "we're going to find out if this stuff is important."
I expound on the merits of Marxian theory, and what do they do? They put their heads between the pages of our text and sleep. I try to raise them with a stirring analysis of contemporary "alienation" in college - in short, I rouse the ghost of Karl Marx himself and inhabit his desperate drive for human equality and freedom. They continue to sleep through this lecture and I don't miss the irony that maybe it's natural to find college boring. My job, for all I know, might be to preserve the venerable tradition of standing behind a podium - finger waving - speaking the absurd fire of truth. My students might feel more alienated if I actually did impact their capacity for reason.
And yet, they are human beings. I must handle them carefully. They have passion both large and small - though they don't like to admit it. Perhaps the thing that drove the Greeks, Descartes, and Kierkegaard crazy will someday touch them also - after I have been returned to the proverbial dust. They seem to know this. I see it every other day in the midst of one of my diatribes when I pause for a moment and look around the room to see a few misty-eyed faces staring back. Like deer in the headlights. Only, this light is made of life. What infinitesimal estimation of it that I already understand and can give them.
During my final lecture on Kierkegaard and his lost love, I wind myself up to a frenzy and deliver a sermon on death. It's my usual rant about human beings charged with mortal self-knowledge. I'm upset, of course, because nobody seems to be listening. To my surprise, CJ begins scowling. Then she hits me over the head with it. "You know, I have been on the brink of death four times. I have struggled with leukemia for years, but now, luckily, I'm in remission." Then she proceeds to unpack her own philosophy of life, and it is charming and real. It is informed by experience that nobody else in the class can feel - not this day anyway. When she is done speaking, I thank her for being honest. And I see in this strange, intimate moment an answer to the question, "Who needs philosophy?"
Justin Maseychik lives in Northport. His writing interests include Buddhism and the New England Transcendentalists. He has just returned from four months study in Sri Lanka.
Reader Comments:
I want to be a psychology/philosophy professor someday. I just randomly came across this. It was cool to read. I love philosophy. To answer the question, I suppose I could live without it. But I wouldn't want to.
-M.A.T.T.