In just a few days, it will be my job to enrich the minds of our youth. To spread the gospel of “Rhetoric” and “Composition.” In short, I have been entrusted with the most sacred duty there is: to ensure that undergraduates at the American collegiate level are able to see a prompt and write a response to it. You could say this is [Matt Damon voice], “The most important fucking thing in the history of the world.”
As part of this mighty task, I must share with these fine young students some key texts. It’s important that they are challenging, nourishing, pedagogically useful, frustrating, stunning, sexy, intellectually thrilling, just so sexy, vital, civic-minded, and under five pages long each. It’s unclear if the average person will read anything more today.
Here is the main shape my syllabus will take—but don’t worry, it’s not completely settled yet. If our pathetic subscribers have any suggestions that aren’t baby food for the most unserious intellects, I’d consider looking into them.
Principles, Ray Dalio
The most obvious choice; let’s just get it out of the way now. If you want to be taken seriously, at any level of society, you just have to have read this. This is not just about “business”—this is about being a fucking sick guy, and knowing the principles of business and life success and absolute grindset at a young age. This is America, we’re talking about. The Gaping Maw of global capital, bro. The lifeblood of the world (Money…) runs rich through her (America’s) bountiful veins (Rivers?)…It’s fucking America…I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own…America’s not a country…It’s just a business…Now fucking pay me.
Cool stuff, right?
The Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle
The way we’re living today, with all these people doing everything and stuff and like being like that, you’re telling me these kids don’t need Ethics? I mean, turn on the damn TV and get back to me. Need I say more? 😂
This video about one man’s quest for truth
“And when that happens, buckle up.”
The prose style here is impeccable, of course, but I will also be teaching students the art of public speaking. And so to study from this kid’s peerless cadence, his purposeful tone, his choice of background music and visuals and when to point his fingers? Sometimes, as a teacher, you gotta know when to step back and let someone else run the class.
Man who spoke his truth too clearly for those in power to be comfortable
Again, the line delivery here is impeccable. They just wanted to silence him, and we all paid the price for it.
Students will learn, in my class at least, how to speak truth to power, and how to use our words to clearly articulate our positions.
The Palermo Stone, Unknown
By studying one of the oldest surviving ancient texts, my students will hopefully become just a bit more informed about where this whole thing on this spinning blue rock started from. We’re all the same, you know?
The Names, Don DeLillo
Famously, one of DeLillo’s most accessible and shallow works. Only fucking idiots wouldn’t be able to interpret both the text and subtext. I understood every word perfectly on the first try, and it does not nag at me or continue to haunt the dusty crags of my brain years later. My students—if they truly are mine—should similarly have no trouble.
Do Revenge, dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
I didn’t actually watch this movie, and I don’t actually care about teaching this to my students. I just want to study, with deep concentration and a generous research grant from the Syracuse University Institute for the Humanities, why this movie was called that. Why did they call it this. Why. How did they land on this as a title. Why call it this, and why make people say it out loud. Why make me read it.
These are the types of questions I want my students to be asking. If any parents of future students want to reach out to me, hit me up!
Ritam’s Footnote
The “What It Feels Like To Die” video is the core of my personal religion.