Category: the Rant Board
Taken from my blog on DeviantART. I want to know what you guys think about this--maybe not so much the subject of the book in question, as whether you think my professor should have assigned it at this point in time. So basically, if it were you in my shoes, would you be pissed, too? Has something like this ever happened to you?
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Disclaimer: It is very rare that you will ever see me quite this angry.
I am on home stretch about to graduate college, and I have two papers to write, one of which is over Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals. Now tell me, what's wrong with this picture? It's not that I'm not learning a lot or taking what Foer says to heart, but damn, seriously? Right before finals, when I already have trouble eating but need nourishment most of all? As we speak, I am skipping my rhetoric class. Why? Because I've been busy all day and haven't eaten since seven-thirty, and I am weak as a result, yet now I dare not eat for fear of inability to keep anything down. Plus, I am just so raving mad that I would have to seriously refrain from saying all of these things to my professor who probably doesn't deserve this only somewhat misdirected outrage.
This rant hardly touches upon why I am so furious, but here I am, angry beyond reason, perhaps both because of what I read in Foer's text and because of the time my professor decided to assign this text. I like him as a person, so I wouldn't say this is a jerk move so much as a somewhat mindless one. Part of me wonders if I'm not the only student who feels this incensed by our professor's seemingly bad kairos, or sense of right timing.
But then again, did he do this on purpose? Did he save Eating Animals for last so that we would feel more passionately about its subject matter? I guess I could see a teacher doing that, but in a way I think it was a bad judgment call. I find myself asking, much like he and my other rhetoric professor do, "So what? What's the point of this?"
Ugh, I just had to write about this, and it was too long for Facebook or Twitter to do my venting any justice. So thanks for reading, if you braved it.
Mel
Did you mean to finish the sentence?
I think you're just overly paranoid about your professor's reasons, myself. I don't know what the book is about, but I highly doubt that other students probably saw this the way you did, and if there were, then no offense, but you guys may have been in the minority from where I'm standing. The way you feel about what may have been written in the book along with your professor's motivations are probably just a coincidence. I usually allow much of what is in books to just kind of be shrugged off without affecting me to the capacity it seems to be affecting you, and as I understand it, most other people do the same as well.
I sort of agree. It's only a book, after all.
I would think the same, too, usually. But that book was just really not cool, haha. I mean, I think people should be able to make a decision about whether or not to read that. I could go into detail here as to what it was about, but I don't think it fair to tell people what was in the book, in case they aren't ready to know. I'm one of those people who, once I know something, I have to change my course of action. I cannot, as yet, make a life change regarding eating animals, but this book was very disturbing to me and I guess the reason I was upset was because I am not exactly in a place where I can make a life change based on what I learned.
You can always post the information about the book, and prior to it you can perhaps suggest that the content that is contained in that post is not for the faint of heart or something similar. I'm curious to know what all of this is about, because I really can't foresee it affecting me in this kind of way, even at an extremely stressful time.
Ideas are things you think about. No one's asking you to make an immediate impulsive life-changing decision right now, no matter how persuasive the book was.
As a former college professor, I always wanted my students to think for themselves. Sounds like your professor accomplished this goal.
The fact that he did it at the end of the term to torment you sounds like paranoia to me.
How's that for something to worry about!
Bob
I found info on the book. To me, it looks like a thought-provoking one. Of course, finals are over now, but maybe it might be something to check out, now that you don't have finals hanging over your head. For anyone interested, here is a page with an excerpt: http://www.eatinganimals.com/site/book/