I think it’s important for students to realize that I don’t always enjoy the act of reading or everything I read. Some reading is just work: it’s something that I have to do to prepare for class, to cover my bases while doing research, to fill a gap in my knowledge, or to stay current in my field. G. K. Chesterton once said, “There are no boring subjects, only disinterested minds.” I understand the point, but it seems to me pious nonsense, and I’m not sure it does much in the way of helping students. Some things are boring, though what counts as boring will of course vary from person to person for whatever reason. I just finished today a book whose subject matter I found boring, and it has nothing to do with being disinterested. I actually went into the book with a conscious decision to attempt to make it interesting, and I just couldn’t do it. I think the subject is important, and the author’s take on it will be useful for a future project on something else. I’m just not that interested in it. Or take another example. With apologies to my colleague, I don’t find a lot of the minutiae in biblical studies all that interesting. Again, this is not to say that such things aren’t important; it’s just to state in another way the obvious: I’m not a biblical scholar. So, to the students: pay no attention to that pious professor who tries to give you the impression that something is wrong with you if you don’t find his or her field interesting. You won’t find everything interesting, which is to be expected. That does not mean, however, that you don’t have to read it, because finding something boring is not the same thing as being lazy.

It’s true, of course, that one has to be fairly intelligent to earn a Ph.D. and succeed in academia. But mystifying the whole process and the individuals engaged in it behind a cloak of genius doesn’t do much good and, I would argue, actually hinders education, even if many professors and institutions actively play up such mystifying behavior. In what follows and in later posts, I want to work towards demystifying the professoriate, primarily for the benefit of students, using myself as an example.

I certainly know quite a bit about my areas of study, much more than my students at least. But it’s not the result of some superhuman ability. To begin with, I spent a total of 12 years in higher education (3 undergraduate, 2 master’s, 7 doctoral) to get to the point where I am considered qualified to teach at the college-level. During my graduate work, I took numerous specialized classes in a relatively narrow area of study. This is why, for instance, I seem to know a lot about and can reliably quote Nietzsche: I took a class devoted solely to him. If you (the student) took a class on Nietzsche, paid attention and did the reading and research, you would probably know quite a bit about him too. The same could of course be said about most other areas of study.

After I finished my coursework, I had to do qualifying exams in four major areas of study, so that I could be considered at least competent in those areas. During the year I spent studying for them, I did nothing but study for them. I pretty much read all day long, five days a week in preparation. One learns a lot by doing that, even though I’ve forgotten a good deal of it since.

I then wrote a dissertation. The dissertation is, of course, the big hoop that you have to jump through; it’s what allows you to put a Ph.D. after your name. It’s certainly not easy to write a dissertation. It took me about 4 years total to do mine, and I did a tremendous amount of research and writing in the process (most of which did not even make it into the dissertation). But there’s nothing magical about it. Everyone has his or her own way of doing things, but the way I did it was to treat it as a task or job: 1000 words a day, then no more work for the day.

I’m not saying that all of this is easy. It’s not. What I am saying is that I’ve put a lot of time and effort into my work and have been helped in the process by some very good people (who also have put a lot of time and effort into it). That’s why I appear to know quite a bit. If I put the same amount of time and effort into something else, say playing an instrument, I’d probably be pretty good at it. So, to the student who walked into my office, I respond, “I’ve just read a lot more than you.”

1. I really don’t think that many in older generations understand the problem of student debt. It’s common, for instance, to hear people from older generations tout the fact that they worked themselves through school, thereby avoiding the whole problem of taking on debt. Students today, so this line of thinking goes, are just lazier, unwilling to work. The problem, however, is that it is virtually impossible to use work as a means to put yourself through school today. Wages have remained stagnant (or even declined), the cost of living has gone up–and tuition and the cost of education in general have dramatically increased in the past years. Most students have to go into debt to get an education.

2. Not getting an education is not really an option, so for many it’s really a forced choice to go into debt. Of course there are still jobs out there that do not require a degree, but these are getting fewer and are paying less. The fact of the matter is–and it is a fact reiterated in almost all sectors of society–one has to get a degree to secure a good-paying job (though, as we all know, not even this is certain).

3. We need to stop viewing student debt in moralistic terms. I think it is counterproductive, and entirely dishonest (partly for the reasons mentioned above), to pin the sole responsibility for student debt on individual borrowers. “You’re the one that took out the loan, you should have known what you were getting yourself into. Don’t complain if you are having trouble paying it back”–this is the moralistic point of view. The problem with this line of thought is that, on the one hand, it ignores the fact that going into debt for education is often a forced choice, so it really doesn’t matter whether one knows what one is getting into or not. On the other hand, such moralism ignores the fact that our entire higher education system–and the broader economy–now depends on students taking on what often becomes an unmanageable amount of debt. Blame individual borrowers if you like–the fact is that if they stop borrowing, higher education as we know it grinds to a halt, along with the industries that have been built up around it and the debt it creates.

4. Behind the constant moralism is an individualistic ideology, which asserts in part that we are not entitled to anything from government. The main problem with student loan debt, so the ideology goes, is that students feel that they are entitled to something, in this case education and the money for it. The seemingly constant complaining about the latter is merely a symptom of a larger problem: a heightened sense of privilege and expectation of entitlement on the part of younger generations. Nevermind the fact that those who make this critique are, in fact, the privileged (and often received a great amount of government assistance). The ideology should be directly challenged: we should expect things from government, things like affordable education; when such things are not provided, this is not the fault of the individual but those in power.

In that sonic fugue, I recalled Saint Augustine, and his astonishment at Saint Ambrose who was reputed to have found a way to read without sounding out the words. It does seem an odd thing—it strikes me now as it did then—that we can comprehend words without voicing them. For Augustine, the weight and inner life of sentences were best experienced out loud, but much has changed in our idea of reading since then. We have for too long been taught that the sight of a man speaking to himself is a sign of eccentricity or madness; we are no longer at all habituated to our own voices, except in conversation or from within the safety of a shouting crowd. But a book suggests conversation: one person is speaking to another, and audible sound is, or should be, natural to that exchange. So, I read aloud with myself as my audience, and gave voice to another’s words.

The Daily Show approaches American religion in the spirit of tolerance, but not with the wimpy, eager-to-please hand-wringing that characterizes so much liberal dialogue in this country. Rather, religions are shown to be strange and possibly cringe-inducing: our job is to take an honest look, then tolerate them anyway. It’s a call to rigorous citizenship.

Humor actually proves to be one of the best devices to help skeptics or the uninitiated talk about religion. And it offers a great litmus test for believers: how confident are you in your beliefs? After all, no confident believer should be afraid to chuckle about religion’s seeming absurdities — just as no mirthful human being should pass up the chance to laugh along with the unbeliever. The Daily Show has more fun with religion than any show on television — more fun, in fact, than many religious people have in their own observance. Jon Stewart may not be a believer —he did boast that he had a bacon croissanwich for Passover — but he is one hell of a teacher.