There is a dangerous trend going around the institutes of higher learning and is recognizable by a nasty label some people attach to it called "jarheadism". A jarhead is someone who is under the assumption that the accumulation of information constitutes the whole process of learning. By pouring in the facts and ideas into one's head one can be expected to actually know about what is being taught. Of course, those who know better take into account assimilation and thoughtful selection of information as equally important, and one can argue the interrelation of these ideas with personal experience within the bounds of here and now as integral to the purpose of knowledge . . .
The point is that it can be seen that this particular institution of higher learning is often guilty of jarhead philosophy. After all, the original Greek method of dialectic teaching has devolved into a passive process we call Lecture-Discussion (sort of like watching tv) and knowledge is quantified and judged by standards of quantification. For example, on a history exam students are expected to view an essay (a rhetorical work originally valued for its artistic/poetic value as well as its argumentative power -- you know the form from Aristotle of a thesis, supporting arguments, conclusion, etc.) as a basket in which to fill ideas and facts -- the more facts and ideas the better. However cohesive the metaphor is, it is easily perverted into a game format (just how many facts can you put into the basket before the buzzer rings -- remember the rules take no account for the persuasive value but only the specificity of facts only in relation to an arbitrary temporal distinction we in the 20th Century call the medieval period). The essay here has been reduced to a jarhead exercise where the student has to regurgitate lists of things which seem to have no current value or relation to current existence other than to edify the pedantry of the [greying] jarheads. So what is wrong with answering a question such as "what remnants of the Graeco-Roman civilization survived the fall of the Roman Empire?" with a discourse on the continuation of such an empire as evidenced by idealogical institutions which exist today? I guess it does not follow the rules of the game, the arbitrary law of Lecture-Discussion which dictates that the student must put events and names on lists that are taken from notes which are given by the all-omniscient lecturer. I guess that in a sense the medieval process by which the Catholic Church and their eidetic monk-scribes preserved Graeco-Roman culture for our own use and benefit also continues today. All that copying of literature which they did as a ritual, non-thinking action has also affected us deeply. But that idea isn't even within the rules of History 111, so I guess it shouldn't even be mentioned. [I marked this for rewrite:] It shouldn't even matter to me anymore, these lists and rules and mockery of dialectic, since in a few weeks I won't be a student of this University and I won't have to play Lecture-Discussion anymore. I'm just bitching, though. Being a little picky wouldn't you say? [end rewrite] Yet it must be noted that it does take picky people to affect meaningful change in our society, such as the picky people who argued that separate but equal as a rationalization for segregation was not a valid reason for an institution responsible for the continuance of racial bias. My dissatisfaction stems from a narrow vision brand of pickiness which isolates the academic world into their ivory tower; the pickiness which twists the spirit of learning the foundations of our Western culture as a historical perspective of our specific fields of learning into a rote memorization of apparently useless facts. If a student expresses the type of knowledge and understanding being sough for by those who wish to imbue it (that is, by requiring a history class to be taken one learns the inherent value of history pertaining to one's particular field of learing [boss, you wrote this before you even heard of Barthes]), then he should be rewarded rather than be put down as being impertinent. My aim in writing is to make things palatable, or even interesting. [new text starts here] The product of staid, formulaic, details-oriented, "picky" writing is anything but palatable, let alone interesting. 'Nuff said.
