After reading the article, that colon and closing parenthesis symbol at the
end of Joe's e-mail looks more like a condescending smirk than a
smile. Let me react to some of the insulting and condescending remarks
contained in the article he recommended to us.
> The event was designed to bridge the growing gap between
> the science majors who "actually contribute to society"
> and the humanities majors who "pretty much just jack
> around all the time, but in a cute way."
This is an insulting expression about what humanities major do, and as
condescending a remark about the way they do it as I have heard since the
early 1970s when these kind of condescending remarks were constantly being
levelled at women of the liberated persuasion.
> "We didn't organize the day thinking, ÔWe're going to
> show these philosophy majors how
> pointless their lives are.
Maybe the day wasn't organized that way, but this article certainly is.
> We love our humanities friends
Some of their best friends are Humanities majors?
> t's important for them to know what goes on with us from
> the time we get out of
> bed for physics lab at 9:10 until the time we stumble
> home from Teer at 1 or 2 in the
> morning.
Are we to assume that all Humanities classes at Duke are taught between
12:00 noon, to let Humanities majors get their beauty sleep, and 2:00 p.m.,
so they can get ready to party or whatever it is the "humanity buddies" do
while the science en engineering students keep their nose to the
grindstone, or whatever it is they do until past midnight.
"And to give them some credit, the humanities buddies
were pretty brave and sometimes
> enthusiastic about the idea of tagging along for a day.
Scared is scared, it doesn't really matter what one is scared of. Might we
assume that math, and engineering students are never scared of what goes on
in some of the Humanities courses? I had assumed that they were since we
seldom have the pleasure of their company in our classrooms where they
could be analyzing poems, playing music, painting canvases, speaking a
foreign language?
> I heard a report that somebody's humanities buddy peed
> his pants in Computer Science
> 196,
Do I really need to comment on the condescension and insult contained here?
> "My roommate was my humanities buddy," said freshman
> electrical engineer Alice Ford.
> "She was doing okay for a while there, telling me about
> her math and physics classes in
> high school and what-not, until we got to the LSRC
> staircase. I'm walking down the stairs
> chatting away about this or that, thinking she's right
> behind me, until I turn around and
> see her at the top of the stairs sweating and breathing
> heavily while clutching the handrail
> for dear life. I had to walk back up the stairs, take
> her hand and lead her down to the
> class."
I'd like to make this conceited freshman take a performance music class, or
a studio art class, or especially a conversational foreign language class,
and see how much she sweats and breathes hard.
> "My mechanical engineering professor thought ahead and
> brought lollipops for all the
> little hu-buddies
Shame on this professor!
> They were talking loudly and overtly about the nuances
> of Rembrandt-era impressionism, as if desperately trying
> to come to terms with the fact
> they haven't learned diddly-squat since they've been at
> Duke. The poor things wouldn't
> know a derivative if it jumped up and bit them in the
> a--. It's sort of endearing, though, how
> they stick together for support like that."
Since knowing about the nuances of Rembrandt-era impressionism seems like
not having "learned diddly-squat," I would suggest that the author also has
not learned much of anything.
> "My humanities buddy was my best friend Ryan," said John
> Gatlin, a math major and
> Trinity sophomore. "During my differential equations
> class, the professor went into some
> pretty intricate and scary detail when proving the
> Lenoir theorem, but Ryan didn't even
> flinch. I was really proud of him. After class he said,
> ÔI understood everything up until the
> Jesus-fish started shooting laser beams at that
> horseshoe.' I started laughing and said,
> ÔUh, that was omega equals alpha.' You know what he said
> after that? Nothing.
I am sure that first verb is in the correct tense!
> But not everyone is as tolerant of the humanities majors
> here at Duke,
Not as tolerant as whom? Certainly we are not speaking about the author of
this diatribe!
> The average humanities
> person will never have the full respect for what us
> science people go through," said
> admittedly salty Pratt senior Clark Jeffries. "I mean,
> I'm in statistics 101B this semester,
> finishing my major requirements, and this public policy
> chick leans over to me one day
> and says, ÔThis class is hard. I'm so bad at math.' I
> thought, ÔAre you kidding me? This
> isn't math. We're flipping coins, for Christ's sake. I'm
> over here in CPS 666 talking about
> fast Fourier transform matrices... meanwhile you're
> wondering what the probability of
> getting two heads in a row is. You want math? I'll give
> you math, you skank.'"
Why should ANYONE respect this person with an overinflated sense of
self-worth? And that should be "what WE science people go through". Maybe
that humanities class--English 101--was too tough for this author.
> In other news, a massive meteor has knocked the eastern
> hemisphere of earth into
> space, killing billions of people and severely altering
> the gravitational framework of the
> solar system. After conferring with top University
> officials, President Nan Keohane has
> decided that classes will continue as scheduled.
The fact that this is all supposed to be a spoof, does not in any way
diminish the quality of the gaze down the author's nose.
At 11:36 AM 1/30/03 -0500, Dr. Joe Dumas wrote:
>One of my Computer Science students sent me this article. It might be
>good for a laugh or two ...
Not even one!
Lala
>but humanities faculty proceed at your own
>risk :)
>
>Joe
>
>http://www.chronicle.duke.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2001/10/01/3d768a749a0b9?in_archive=1
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