On the Campus ^
WE might agree with Forrest Gump that “Life is like a box of
chocolates,” partly because, as his mama told him, “You never
know what you’re going to get,” but also because we realize that
it can be full of nuts! More significant on this day in which we honor
those who walk another path is his statement, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Having chosen to come to college, you strive to avoid stupid behavior and
to attain knowledge; college is for learning.
But you also know that there are those, even here, who scorn learning,
who are here for other purposes, or who do not know what their purpose
is, whose behavior not only illustrates “Stupid is as stupid does” but who
are content with that motto. These people drift. They may drift out of
college and into some other endeavor as the wind of circumstance blows
them, or they may graduate, still with no purpose, knowledge, or under
standing. Though Gump graduates from the University of Alabama in the
movie, we can take some comfort that in the
novel he flunks out after his first semester. In
Gump’s words, we read what Coach Bryant tells
him.
I can understand how you flunked remedial
English, but it [mystifies me] how you managed
to get an “A " in something called Intermediate
Light, arul then an "F” inphys-ed class—when you
is jus been named the Most Valuable College Back
in the Southeastern Conference! ... I regret . . .
having to tell you . .. but you is done flunked out
of school, and there is nothin' I can do. ”
Stupid
Is
as
Stupid
Does
An address delivered
at
spring semester
HONORS CONVOCATION
by
John H. Davis, Ph.D.
Professor of Er)glish
Forrest says, “... it... come to me what he is
saying—I ain’t gonna get to play no more
football.” Unfortunately, such grade discrepan
cies are less far-fetched than the book or the
film.
More amazing and encouraging is that Bear
Bryant could or would do nothing to salvage a
football player who did not belong in college.
College is not for all. Those we honor here
evidently answer “yes” to what are ironic
questions on this day: “Do you enjoy learning?”
and “Is a place dedicated to the pursuit of
knowledge for you?”
C. S. Lewis says, “.. . Progress means getting
nearer to the place where you want to be.”
Deciding where you belong begins with a
serious assessment of your purpose, your
attitude, and yourself. Henry David Thoreau
advises: .. Explore thyself” “If you are on
the wrong road,” Lewis adds, “progress means
doing an about-mrn and walking back to the
right road’ and in that case the man who turns
back soonest is the most progressive man.” But
Thoreau cautions, “If you have built castles in
the air, your work need not be lost” that is where
they should be. Now put the foundations under
them.” College is the place where many build or secure those foundations.
Before your time and my remembrance, Gabriel Heatter, a radio
reporter, always began his newscasts, no matter what had happened that
day, “Ah, there’s good news tonight!” Well, there IS good news. People
here are part of that news. And radio is an analogy for that news. Like
silent movies, radio is a pure medium. It is one-to-one, like teaching and
learning. One need only be receptive, not simply accepting but receptive,
open to good AND bad news, agreeable and disagreeable formation. As in
reading, the true receptor participates, not just sitting and inhaling words
whole but savoring them, appreciating and rejecting but
willing to understand. Even without spoken words, the
reader gains full value from exchange, an engagement in
debate with words and meaning. These honored engage.
They and you learn from this debate, gaining through
involvement.
However, as more contemporary newsman Paul
Harvey says, “Now for the rest of the story.” We seem no
longer to live in a time when we can laugh at as we apply
to ourselves Mark Twain’s statement, “Let us be thankful for the fools.
But for them the rest of us could not succeed.” Now, many seem to praise
or envy the fools. In a recent speech, Carl Sagan bemoaned, “One trend
that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media are reassur
ing people it’s all right not to know anything—that in a way it’s cool.” In
fact, in his latest film, Pauly Shore looks at the camera, directly address
ing those watching, and does say, “Sometimes stupidity can be pretty
cool” (Vincent E5). Sagan says of this attitude: “That to me is far more
dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.”
Consider the popularity of such movies as Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,
Forrest Gump, Dumb and Dumber, any film with Pauly Shore, as well as
the perhaps unintentional dumbness, and mindless violence, of some
Stallone action pictures, in which we are led to sympathize, empathize, or
even admire people who succeed not only without using intelligence but
mainly and often because they lack intelligence. Chance, circumstances,
and instinct move these people through life and play stronger roles in their
lives than mental ability. We may like Forrest as a person and wish him
well; his film is well-made and affecting.
Is he a model? Some say these movies affirm that anyone can attain
(please note: not “achieve”) success—despite obstacles—if he or she is
sincere; these critics forget to add “obnoxious” and SCSHP
“crude” as labels for some of these characters. Like Beavis i
and Butthead, Pauly Shore seems entrenched at MTV. ;
Should we emulate them? This situation is not entirely
recent. Jerry Lewis has long been considered a comic
genius in France. Are pencils up the nose and slobbering
water as witty as they were in the fifth grade? Nothing is
wrong with laughing at these
characters except as they convey
and certify certain attitudes
toward Ufe and learning. Why
praise stupidity and denigrate
intelligence? In the media, if not
mad scientists, intelligent people
are mocked or presented nega
tively—the absent-minded
professor, the genius without
common sense, the pompous
egghead. This day denies those
views.
But assumptions about the virtues of gaining
knowledge have decreased as cheating has
increased in schools at all levels. Many are
content simply to get by without learning or
proud to deceive, smug in their ignorance.
Studying is sneered at; those who study are
outcasts. Words like “nerd” and “dork” have
gained prominence in recent years in the search
for more abusive epithets than “bookworm” to
describe those who seek knowledge earnestly
and honestly; their original and their altered
meanings express some current attitudes. The
definition of “nerd” is “a dull, ineffectual or
unattfactive person” or one “dedicated to a
nonsocial pursuit.” Has the pursuit of knowl
edge become nonsocial? A dork, omitting its
sexual meaning, is “a stupid, awkward, or slow-
witted person.” Reversing the meaning to apply
to a studious person demonstrates a contempt
some people have for intelligence. I recently
heard a zoologist say that the human being is the
only animal with round buttocks. We gaze in
awe at this uniqueness, especially when pack
aged attfactively, but neglect the uniqueness at
the other end, the brain. We use them to watch
television more than we use our brains to think
about what we see on TV. Mark Twain said that we are the only animals
that blush, or need to.
In the Renaissance, the philosopher Desiderius Erasmus could write a
book entitled The Praise of Folly to be perceived as satire; today, we are
unsure, just as we might now take seriously Thomas Gray’s poetic line,
“Where ignorance is bliss,/Tis folly to be wise.” Calling his religious view
“the philosophy of Christ” Dutch scholar Erasmus could combine in his
life the critical, rational, and secular attitude of classical antiquity and
Italian humanism with the religious piety of the German middle ages
without fear the humanism would
anger Jerry Falwell or the merger
burden the “mere Christianity” C.
S. Lewis, in our own time, feared
can be caught and lost in entangle
ments. The theologian had no such
fear because he considered them
one, his life; Gray does not repudi
ate rationality but refers to inno
cence, a lack of awareness, as he fondly recalls life at Eton College where
he learned to be an adult, knowing one cannot remain a child and that
growing, becoming a complete person and achieving a full life, means
learning and leaving behind foolish ways; for Lewis, this life means not
only religion but intellectual awareness of religion, even—or especially—
in its merest form, as part of a whole.
As he wrote, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!... let your affairs be
as one or two ... not a hundred or thousand ...” Thoreau, hke Erasmus,
sought the wholeness of life, to understand the many as one, as does
Robert Frost, who reacts to those who judge him a fool for cutting his
own wood. “My object in living is to unite/ My avocation and my
Continued on Next Page
DR. JOHN H. DAVIS
“Progress means getting nearer to
the place where you want to be.”
—C. S. Lewis
“College can
provide a
core and a
foundation
for further
teaming,
for college is
not the
end of
study but
preparation
for and one
step toward
a lifelong
pursuit.”
CHOWAN TODAY, March 1996 — PAGE 5