Strange Platypus(es) Part VI

-

"There is a thought that stops all thought."
-G. K. Chesterton

I found my own generation marked by a pronounced skepticism. Now that I am teaching, I find that in my students skepticism has run its course: they have become skeptical of skepticism. All that remains in apathy. It's as if we're burning out with each new generation until there's nothing left: ashes to be ground under foot by a coming world that has more fire in its belly.

Comments

Graf Spee said…
"Apathy! Apathy! A... P... A... Nevermind.
5:30 PM
James said…
Lol!
9:25 PM
Linds said…
Couldn't have said it better myself, Jim. The apathy this year has somehow been more overwhelming to me than before - or maybe I'm just getting worn down too much after only three years. We've bequeathed apathy to this generation. How do we tell them it's wrong when we've been feeding them cowardly nihilism for decades?
10:57 PM
James said…
My thoughts exactly. We can get through to them if we model something different, but that's really hard to do in a classroom where you can't focus on individual needs and hone in on deeply rooted bad ideas. We need the dialectic, but again, apathy rears its ugly head every step of the way.
4:52 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

-
Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
Read more