Tag Archives: college

The Not-So-Omniscient Narrator.

3 Aug

August 3, 2011

One of last week’s Imponderables touched on a matter of ethics and morality, which brought me back to an Imponderably silly college class I once took.

As a product of education classes, I can tell you with authority that the one thing education classes do not prepare you to do is educate. I went to Brooklyn College, and what you are about to read aside, it is a very good school.

Take this class for example. The professor posed us an ethical question. This is the question he wanted to ask: “A stranger comes up to you and offers you $1,000 to drive his car to the Bronx. Do you do it?”

This is the question he asked: “A stranger comes up to you and offers you $1,000 to drive his car to the Bronx. No one will get hurt, it isn’t illegal, and there is no way you can get into trouble.” In that situation there is no dilemma, it is silly not to say yes.

Right away I knew he blew it. I also knew that he didn’t. So I did what I usually do in times like this. I sat back, crossed my arms, and waited for the fun to begin. It didn’t take long before the questions started rolling in.

“Did the stranger tell us that we wouldn’t get into trouble or are you telling us?”
“I’m telling you.”
“But in the situation, how are we supposed to know that we wouldn’t get into trouble?”
“The stranger told you.”
“Why should we believe the stranger?”
“I’m telling you to. He’s trustworthy.”

I had mentally checked out of this course weeks ago. It was nothing but textbook BS that I knew would have zero relevance to the real world, and looking back on it, I was absolutely right. But this was interesting.

“But how do we know the stranger is trustworthy if you aren’t there telling us?”
“Let’s say, for the sake of the discussion, that you have omniscience and you KNOW that he is telling the truth. There is no possible way that anything bad can happen.”

I had a sarcastic grin on my face and I managed to catch the eye of one or two others who had a similar look, but the shocking part was that most of the class was intensely, seriously interested in this nonsense.

“OK then. Case closed. Take the money, drive the car to the Bronx.”
“But what if something goes wrong? What if you hit a child, or a wheel falls off and you die?”
“You said nothing would go wrong. You said there was no possible way”
“But I can’t tell the future. You can’t predict what might happen.”
“Yes we can! You said we were omniscient!”

This was getting good. I really wanted to know how the professor was going to get out of this. I thought they had him.

“You are only omniscient about the stranger. You can’t omniscient the future.”

Aside from the fact that he actually said “you can’t omniscient the future,” the most ridiculous part of the whole stupid thing is that he has somehow limited a limitless ability. So he feels you can be omniscient about the veracity of a total stranger, but your omniscience can’t enable you to see the future. And even though your omniscience has already told you that nothing can go wrong, you should not trust it. So omniscience can not only be limited but also untrustworthy. Seems like a lousy ability to me.

He continued. “You know that the stranger is telling the truth. He intends to give you the money. True. No one will get in trouble. True. The car being in the Bronx will not be a problem, and neither will it not being in Brooklyn be a problem. It doesn’t have illegal plates and unless you drive through a red light the police don’t care about you. No one gets hurt.”

Pause.

“On the other hand you can’t see the future. Do you drive the car to the Bronx?”

There were a couple of hands raised very hesitantly. Five or six students said yes, under those bizarre, illogical, and impossible conditions, they would take the money and drive the car. As I said, I had already checked out so my hand stayed safely on my pen where it busy writing nasty things about the professor in my notebook.

“How many of you don’t drive the car?”

Some hands immediately shot up, and little by little most of the class said no, that in a fictional situation that could only be beneficial to them and harmful to no one, they would not drive the car for $1,000. The professor was satisfied and was about to move on. I am not sure what he thought he proved, but he certainly thought he proved something.

One of the sane students whose eye I had caught earlier caught mine and said, God bless her, “Professor, I don’t understand.”
She went on. “This is supposed to be an ethical question. What are the ethics here?”
“Well, it is a question of morality, really.”

Endgame. He had nowhere to go.

“But there is no moral problem here. You aren’t stealing the car. There is no crime being committed, no harm. At worst the problem is that you can’t know what might happen in the future. You may as well ask if I should go to my next class because I may trip on the way over.”

At this point the professor did the thing that no education class tells you to do, but every teacher learns it on their first day. He turned the question over to the class. “Who would like to explain this?”

Someone did and tried to explain that it came down to a choice of doing the right thing, but wasn’t quite able to explain what the right thing was, and had no way of explaining why driving the car was the wrong thing. I’m sure that most of the people who said no either had a knee-jerk reaction or simply said no because that was the answer the professor wanted. And what are the ethics of that?

The conversation petered out very quickly after that.

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Motivationally Speaking

14 Nov

from February 5, 2008

I had the extreme displeasure of bringing one of my classes to be yelled at by a motivational speaker. What is a motivational speaker? I don’t know. I thought I knew.

Way back, long ago, many of you may not believe this, but there was a time in antiquity when Saturday Night Live was funny. Some of your parents may have spoken of this time in hushed tones befitting myths and legends, but take it from me- that show was once funny. Really, I’m being serious.

Anyway, there was a man named Chris Farley. Large, rotund in fact, he had the girth of three men and did the drugs of five. In fact, many is the time, it is said, that he would do drugs only available for sick elephants and imported from the Philippines. But I digress. Farley also did a hilarious character, motivational speaker Matt Foley. Here I quote liberally from Wikipedia for the sake of my sheer laziness:

Matt Foley was a motivational speaker character performed by Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live although he had performed the character in other comedy groups before being a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Essentially, Foley was the very antithesis of a good motivational speaker: abrasive, clumsy, and down on his luck. Foley appeared in eight Saturday Night Live sketches, and the sketch usually started with Foley being brought into a specific situation by someone to speak to a group. In addition to appearing disheveled, overweight, and unstylish, he would yell, disparage, display cynicism, and give a clearly negative motivational message. Foley’s trademark line was warning his audience that, like him, they could end up being “…35 years old, thrice divorced, and living in a van down by the river!” When members of his audience claimed any kind of accomplishment he would respond with a drippingly sarcastic “Well, la-dee-freakin-da!” or something similar. The sketch would often include Foley giving wildly exaggerated gestures and falling (or jumping) onto a piece of furniture, destroying it, or injuring himself in the process. At the end, he would usually be quickly herded out of his speaking location, where the people left behind would huddle together and comment on him, usually bemused and fearful. Though his speeches always backfired, the end results would usually be successful, in that the recipients did not want to be associated with Foley.

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH: Once, there was a boy who liked to throw things. He started out throwing eggs. Then, he threw the big game. Then, he threw back a shot of whiskey. Then he threw up. Then he got thrown out of the house, and then he moved into a van down by the river!

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH TWO: You kids are probably saying to yourself, “Now, I’m gonna go out, and I’m gonna get the world by the tail and wrap it around pull it down and put it in my pocket!” Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably gonna find out, as you go out there, that you’re not gonna amount to JACK SQUAT!” You’re gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river!

 SAMPLE MATT FOLEY MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH THREE: You’re gonna be doin’ a lot of doobie rollin’ when you’re living in a van down by the river!

 So I had some high expectations for this motivational speaker.

She didn’t meet them.

This speaker spoke ALL IN CAPS. EVEN WHEN SHE WAS NOT YELLING SHE SOMEHOW MANAGED TO TALK LIKE THIS. Often, she managed to underline her speech, LIKE THIS, and often SEEMED TO USE AN INORDINATE NUMBER OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, she motivationally spoke in a manner that makes it very easy for me to write.

Unlike Matt Foley, she didn’t fall over or pass out or die of an OD, she just yelled and abused the kids about things they didn’t know and probably shouldn’t be expected to know, like “how many accounting classes do you need to graduate from Briaircliffe College?” Really, she asked and expected an answer. BTW- her name was “Ms. Mona” and I guranteee that is a fake name.

I’m not really sure what she was there to motivate them to do, but here are my impressions copied directly out of my notepad, written as it happened in convenient (lazy) bullet point format. Reporters in world War Two did the same thing when filing  their reports, but they were seldom as funny. What was wrong with those guys?

* “Ms. Mona” cannot be her real name. I bet she appears as “Ms. Moaner” at batchelor parties. I bet she does an act with a donkey that has to be seen to be believed.

* “Ms. Mona” (Ha!) is still angry that she has only a 3.946 GPA. Or as she said “I HAVE A 3.946 GPA AT BRIARCLIFFE COLLEGE AND I’M STILL NOT OVER THOSE TWO A MINUS’ THREE YEARS AGO!!!!!”

* I can be a motivational speaker. I can yell and bullshit too.

* Whoever paid her for this got ripped off. She intimidated the kids, yelled about stuff they don’t need to know, and badgered them to the point of insensibility. (Mine.)

* She screamed at about the same speed, volume, and wavelength as a star going supernova emits RF. I believe the SETI Project picked her up. (Google that, kids. It is real sciencey-type stuff.) For me, the high point had to be when the bust of Lincoln sitting on a shelf behind her actually got up and committed suicide by tying a window-shade cord around its neck and jumping off the shelf. Only quick action by the Shakespeare bust saved Honest Abe’s life.

Now, in the name of fairness, and you know I am all about the fairness, I did learn two very important things from “Ms. (bullshit) Mona”- Number one- if you are not a morning person do not take morning classes. Number Two- If you take night classes expect to meet a lot of old people.

That’s about it. She yelled at the kids and demanded to know why they waited to see their advisor until 2012 when the graduation requirements changed in 2010. Yes she did.

She told them a lot about what classes an accounting major needs to graduate from Briarcliffe College, and when asked if they offer courses in Psychology, she said “No, Briarclifffe isn’t for you” and made the kids fill out info cards so Briarcliffe could send them lots and lots of ads and come-ons, I mean college info.

She was loud and abrasive. She didn’t tell them one single thing. When I asked the kids what they learned I  heard such gems as “I don’t want to take five classes in one day” and “where is Briarcliffe College?”

They also learned that Briarcliffe offers a direct shuttle from Atlantic Avenue to Briarcliffe and back. Wow.

I managed to fill nine pages of her crap in my notepad, so it was not a total waste of time. Oh Hell, I take it back, those were 45 minutes I will never get back and I truly believe that I aged about six months sitting there. It really was a total wate of time. The only thing sadder than the speech was the fact that the students walked out thinking they had learned something. They all liked her because “she was loud and funny.” What a freakin’ racket Ms. Moaner has. SHE GOT PAID FOR THIS!!! What is wrong with me that I’m not yelling all the way to the bank? And why do I insist on giving you this blog for free???????

MATT FOLEY TRIVIA: In the first Matt Foley sketch, most of the actors had to restrain themselves from laughing. David Spade spent most of the sketch with his hand over his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

 

I kept my hand over my mouth to keep from telling her to go jump in a lake.

 

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