On the one hand, we have a professor who approaches Marxism in a peculiar True Believer manner and refuses to discuss historical examples of people who have actually called themselves Marxists, for good or for bad. There are no women on the reading list; we read nothing written after the turn of the century. We don't even read much--nothing actually from Capital, for example. Despite the fact that it is a small class, there is no discussion. And the worst part is the rambling, repetitive, and unchallenging lecture material. Despite my embarrassingly limited knowledge of Marxist theory, I haven't actually learned anything new from this class.
On the other, we have a class full of people who almost never ask questions, who typically make no eye contact with the professor, who barely do the already limited readings. (In fact, I think the readings were reduced at student demand) A friend of mine, in fact, was stuck on Value Price and Profit--but never mentioned this in class for any clarification. On the other hand, the professor absolutely declined to discuss or lecture on the long readings in the essay on Feurbach, which were very hard for many of the students, who have no grounding in German philosophy. (I do, but then I transferred here from a small snooty religious institootion--where I also got, actually, a very good grounding in the postmodernists...)
Anyway, between professorial pomposity and student apathy, no one is getting any good out of this class at all, and the cause of Marxism sloooowly circles the drain. Boy, when you consider how many stories the professor tells about his various struggles with the authorities, the FBI and so forth just to get this class started--well, it makes you wonder why the FBI and so on wasted their time worrying about it. No Marxists are coming out of this.
(relurkingly, your marginally-more-theorized admirer, Jane)
>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 02/10 6:29 PM >>>
Michael Yates wrote:
>I have always tried not to an elitist academic. I seldom lose my temper
>and I always treat students with respect. I am not telling you these
>things as a joke or to make fun of students. But it seems to me that
>capitalism has succeeded rather well in preparing young people to
>believe just about anything and not to know how to analyze anything.
When I talk to undergraduates I'm impressed by they don't seem to give a fuck about anything. They sit there, blankly. People tell me it's fear, but if it is, it's disguised as a great ennui. Maybe it's just me, or what I have to say, or maybe it's been the colleges I've been to. There are enough exceptions to make me think that maybe it isn't just me or what I have to say - Pace, the CUNY colleges (both of which are filled with motivated immigrant and native working class students), and the 2 Canadian universities I've visited (UBC & Laurentian). And then there are the seniors at Trinity, the elite Manhattan private school (George Soros' kids go there). They're very smart, very interested, and full of comments and questions. Of course, the school spends something like $23,000 per student.
Doug