Well, folks, we're heading into final exams and, ultimately, Winter Break here at GWU, which means two things: 1) This particular section of 120 is no more; 2) This blog will be on a hiatus for a bit until it returns revamped, reimagined, and revised next semester, with some new students. In the meantime, I'll leave everyone this famous clip from Good Will Hunting. Sometimes sounding obscure and smart makes one look like Michael Bolton. Other times, sounding obscure and theoretically rigorous gets you the girl. Thoughts?
I actually think about this scene almost every day at college.
ReplyDeleteSo your thought is that you think about this scene. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteMy thought is that it's quite likely nothing like this has ever happened to anyone. I could be wrong, though.
I'm a big fan of this scene! Maybe its because I am a true liberal arts major (and therefore a fan of the obscure), but whenever there is a highly theoretical debate I get really excited. Who needs Keats or Byron quoted at them when there is so much esoteric material out there to make the opposite sex swoon!
ReplyDeleteLong live useless theory!!
One of my biggest worries is that I'll become a parrot for more intelligent people's words, hearing them and spewing them back out as if they were my own. I can't stand when people don't think for themselves, so let's hope I learned how to theorize for myself. Look, I'm a big girl now!
ReplyDeleteReplace what he's saying with the most recent article on the HuffingtonPost/DrudgeReport/Daily Show and you got GW!
ReplyDeleteHaha, fair enough. This is a return to our "how to not sound like an asshole" conversation. What I take from this scene is that Matt Damon doesn't sound obscure, and it's because he's more theoretically rigorous than the other guy. To sound obscure is a choice, it's not an inevitable consequence of reading. The other guy understands the theories he's exposed to, but like Aubrey says, doesn't think for himself. He banks on the fact that he's familiar with these texts and can speak in historical shorthand to get rich and go skiing in the future. This scene has probably never happened to anybody, and it's fantasy about being able to humiliate the intellectually arrogant in a way most people can't, because most people aren't super-geniuses with photographic memories. This scene gives us a taste of what it would be like to show them up in real life.
ReplyDeleteI also watch this scene as someone in the midst of her own overpriced education, and I ask myself two questions at the end of it: "why am I doing this?" and "why pay?" The first question is easy to answer, but answering the second question honestly is hard. Most of the time, paying to go to school for English facilitates what I don't have the self-discipline to do alone. The biggest difference between college and studying on one's own is the personal relationships you form at college. Despite not having professors, I suspect that studying on one's own would be just as fulfilling as going to college for English. But I know that if my college curriculum weren't commodified and if it didn't bear society's stamp of approval, I wouldn't do it, despite my proclaimed curiosity about literature. In this scene, Will defeats me too.
I agree with what Carolyn says about self-discipline/why pay. But when I think about my career as an English major, I don't think about the books I have to read or the papers I have to write... instead, I think about the discourse within all of my classes, and I think that is where I find my true education. It's a little hard to find like-minded English junkies willing to talk about books and ideas without the structure of a classroom, which is kind of sad.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I must return now to writing my paper...
I agree with Marielle. The discussion and discourse in my English courses is what enhances my knowledge ultimately. Yet, as I write this final paper I see me thinking about things that I hadn't thought about before this class and it's almost as if this paper and the discussions in class have gone hand in hand.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Marielle and Angela. What I wrote is just what I think when I'm in a dark mood.
ReplyDelete