Classroom Musings

While sitting in class this morning, we were treated with a speech on why the professor feels he failed the class because we were not reacting in the proper manner to the stupendously wonderful art that is Mark Rappaport's Scenic Routs. He was so disheartened by this turn of events, he felt that we needed something "easier" to work with. During the speech, he declared that ideas are not (in) film, they are a resistance mechanism employed because we are frightened of the dangerous implications of the artwork. The following is what sprang to my mind and was written during the speech (a bit of rewording has been done; it's a second draft):

<Professor's name> says he's not teaching ideas but shaping students' perceptual apparatuses. However, if one shapes the apparatus of perception, is that not teaching ideas by proxy since it is by way of what and how we perceive that information is processed and interpreted, resulting in the formation of ideas, values, and tendencies? I should answer in the positive. Stating you seek to shape the interpretive apparatuses of the students is simply a circuitous method of stating you seek to instill within the students a mindset conducive to their ideas and values echoing your own. It is different from teaching ideas in that it is almost more insidious because the perceptual apparatus is not a pre-formed thought structure or filter that is easily recognised by those who use it and just as easily discarded. Instead, it is like a sort of genetic parasite that weaves its way into the perceptual filters constructed by its student hosts when they seek to find their own way. Certainly, other forces act in a similar manner, but they will often own their part (i.e. parents, religious leaders, &c.) rather than act an innocent party.*
* Some exceptions apply (i.e. governments).

Last week, was this:

Because art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, the designation of a work as art is quite subjective. Designations of greater or lesser value to art become doubly so. As such, the only definite right or wrong answers to questions about art are those your instructor wishes to hear. The same holds true for interpretive issues as well.

Are they pompous? Possibly. Pretensious? Probably. Make sense? Maybe?

At least it's therapeutic enough to prevent assault each day when I realize I'm paying for the mostly wasted time I spend in that class?