Apocalyptic Rant
Aug. 28th, 2008 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenRant time.
On the plus side, in Ancient Greek today we had a fun discussion over whether in the passage we’re translating thanatos should be translated as simply ‘death’ or if death is being personified enough to justify a capital D...
Alright, so this semester I’m doing a unit on millenarian thought and apocalyptic cults as part of my history minor. Part of the assessment is we’ve all got to do three presentations discussing the lecture topics during the tutorials. It’s a good way to spark discussion in class and ensures at least someone’s done the reading for each week.
So today’s one of the days I’m marked down to do a presentation. The topic is secular millenarian narratives, and the reading is extracts from Marx and Fukuyama. So I’ve got some notes prepared arguing that one of the features of western historical views is the tendency to view history as a narrative, with an assumption of constant progress and the present as the end of the process, and how this can be compared to the apocalyptic narratives common in western Christianity. So apocalyptic Christianity sees all of history as prologue to the immanent Second Coming, Marx sees all human development as leading up to the inevitable Communist society, and Fukuyama sees the fall of the Soviet Union as proof that liberal capitalism will soon triumph over all other societies and remain the dominant social structure for all time. I also had notes comparing the European colonial narratives of the White Man’s Burden and the Mission to Civilize as examples of seeing one’s current society as the ultimate society.
So I’m ready to do my presentation when this guy shows up, claiming he’s also presenting this week. Now he hasn’t shown up to a single tute this semester, but, hey, maybe he had a clash or something. Whatever, I let him go first. And then he starts talking and he drones for literally twenty minutes about Marx and Fukuyama’s philosophies. He’s got no argument, no points, no attempt to make what he’s on about relevant to the topic for the week or to the unit. Now sure, he’s missed some tutes, doesn’t know the format for our presentations or the sort of discussions we tend to have. But surely if you’ve been given Marx and Fukuyama as reading for a unit on millenarian thought, you should be able to work out that the topic is, in fact, “How are these writers relevant to Millenarianism?”, not “What is Marxism and what is Fukuyama on about?”
And how the hell do you make it to second semester of a second year subject without realising that you’re expected to have an argument, not simply a list of facts? Let alone a list of irrelevant facts…
So today’s one of the days I’m marked down to do a presentation. The topic is secular millenarian narratives, and the reading is extracts from Marx and Fukuyama. So I’ve got some notes prepared arguing that one of the features of western historical views is the tendency to view history as a narrative, with an assumption of constant progress and the present as the end of the process, and how this can be compared to the apocalyptic narratives common in western Christianity. So apocalyptic Christianity sees all of history as prologue to the immanent Second Coming, Marx sees all human development as leading up to the inevitable Communist society, and Fukuyama sees the fall of the Soviet Union as proof that liberal capitalism will soon triumph over all other societies and remain the dominant social structure for all time. I also had notes comparing the European colonial narratives of the White Man’s Burden and the Mission to Civilize as examples of seeing one’s current society as the ultimate society.
So I’m ready to do my presentation when this guy shows up, claiming he’s also presenting this week. Now he hasn’t shown up to a single tute this semester, but, hey, maybe he had a clash or something. Whatever, I let him go first. And then he starts talking and he drones for literally twenty minutes about Marx and Fukuyama’s philosophies. He’s got no argument, no points, no attempt to make what he’s on about relevant to the topic for the week or to the unit. Now sure, he’s missed some tutes, doesn’t know the format for our presentations or the sort of discussions we tend to have. But surely if you’ve been given Marx and Fukuyama as reading for a unit on millenarian thought, you should be able to work out that the topic is, in fact, “How are these writers relevant to Millenarianism?”, not “What is Marxism and what is Fukuyama on about?”
And how the hell do you make it to second semester of a second year subject without realising that you’re expected to have an argument, not simply a list of facts? Let alone a list of irrelevant facts…
On the plus side, in Ancient Greek today we had a fun discussion over whether in the passage we’re translating thanatos should be translated as simply ‘death’ or if death is being personified enough to justify a capital D...