Well, this is sort of a sequel to the recent blog where I chose to illuminate the incredibles by writing a sequel. I just realized they should do this sort of thing in English classes, instead of the sitting around and talking about your feelings and impressions type thing. Creative writing! You learn more by doing it yourself. And the students should perform their own writing and should perform other people's writing. In public. In local coffee shops or on the big grassy places colleges have, where people sit around and ponder the slow disintegration of their dreams. I'm kidding of course, since i would never have made English my major if they'd made us read in public. I'd have chosen something even more useless, which would be tricky. So tricky that it would have taken more mental effort to find that hypothetical degree than it would take to pass any course required by the English Major. I could begin a whole new field of humanities study, an entirely new Major, simply by requiring students, daring them, to find a degree more useless, more completely without any practical merit whatsoever, than an English degree. And I already know about Poly Sci. And Pre-law and Pre-Med, and Personal Studies. These are not contenders. We're looking for a very hypothetical entity. There are very few people, I would guess, who would even understand how difficult this problem would be. It's almost a mathematical proof. The modern English Major is the culmination of years of organic selection pressure on universities and colleges, all seeking to produce graduates out of all caliber of students, from the few very smart to the many many very not-smart. These not-smart represent as much of a funding source as the very smart. And just as the myriad wonderful forms of life have evolved amazing techniques to compete for food with other life, so the universities have evolved Majors to lure dumb students and extract packets of government loans or parental savings in a minimum number of years. Thus the English Major. When I sort of attended college, there was a choice of emphasis, for English Majors, between Creative Writing and British Literature. The more serious choice, the sober, responsible choice, of those two options, was British Literature; reading stories and poems written 100-1000 years ago. Not studying the history which was occurring all around the individuals who authored those stories and poems, just studying the completely fabricated stuff they dreamed up while they avoided any real work during, say, the Industrial Revolution. Try topping that, poly Sci Majors. At least Poly Sci, or pre med or pre law, are studying something real. The English degree with emphasis on British Literature was dedicated to studying Not Real things. And I did not choose that emphasis. It seemed a little too practical, too utilitarian. It reeked of job training. I chose Creative Writing, which is the purest distillation of the English Major. I've read about some abominable innovations in Creative Writing programs of late; courses designed to help students with the business side of writing; marketing; financial management, consumer trends! All part of a ghastly effort to help students with the practical side of creative writing. The well intentioned nimrods who design and implement such programs have lost sight of the true purpose of an English Degree with Creative Writing emphasis, which is to provide courses and a diploma to students who could not possibly make it through any course demanding real study, but who have as much money to spend as the smarties. Marketing? Financial Management? Bestselling Authors do not need such things. They will have ample time to ponder marketing while they wash dishes for Red Lobster, and as for financial management, the exciting hands on training provided by student loan defaults will drive home the knowledge and skills necessary for implementation of the financial management techniques most utilized by English Majors: Top Ramen, Pabst, and the local Thrift Store.
Couldn't find an appropriate illustration for discussion of college majors. Most people would put some kind of a graph, but I don't have a graph maker app. So I've included my Tribute to Thanksgiving. It's a dinner with pilgrims and Indians. I feel that the complete lack of any historical veridicy in the picture demonstrates my point nicely. If you don't see the connection, maybe you should have studied a little harder in that absurd lib Ed class you and your sciencey friends made fun of.
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