The Professor’s New Theory
A New Twist on an Old Tale
Not many years ago there was a stylish professor who became exceedingly fond of their newest theory and spent all their time on promulgating it. The theory, they found, applied to everything, to everything said or done and every ordinary interaction. Instead of saying, as one might about any other professor, “The professor is teaching,” at this college they always said, “The stylish professor is theorizing.”
“My theory is the most magnificent theory imaginable,” the stylish professor might say. “Not only is it uncommonly interesting, but only those who are unfit to be at this college, or are unusually stupid, will fail to understand it.”
"That is the theory for me," thought a typical prospective student. “When I learn that theory I will be able to discover which students in my class are unfit to be here. And I could tell the smart ones from the fools. Yes, I certainly must learn that theory.” They would pay the college a large sum of tuition money and start learning the theory at once.
In the great college where the stylish professor taught, life was always pleasant. Many students came to enroll, and they taught them their theory. The stylish professor’s colleagues soon became intrigued. “If I do not learn and teach this theory,” they would think, “my students will think I am unfit to be here. Or even that I am unusually stupid!” After a few years pretty much everyone was teaching the theory.
At first it was all pretty harmless. You know those ambiguous figures: if you look at it one way you see an old woman, another way you see a lovely young woman. “That’s the old woman’s eye,” one might say, pointing at a spot. “I only see the lovely young woman’s nose!” another would object. The theory was like that: it could help you see things in a new way, things that had been there all along but just not observed as such. With the theory you might finally be able to see the old woman, or even something else entirely.
But then it started to get more serious. “That is so offensive!” one student who had absorbed the theory might say to another. “But I only said ‘good morning,’” the other student might reply, who had not yet absorbed the theory. “Now you’re an offense-denier,” responded the first, reaching for the emergency call button installed there to mobilize the solidarity network.
“I don’t under-…” started to say the first, but then realized they did not want people to think they were unfit to be there, or unusually stupid. They said instead, “I must learn the theory.”
There was one professor who had only recently been hired whose students told him all about the theory. He decided to check it out for himself, and visited the class of one of his learned colleagues. "Heaven help me," he thought as his ears received the sounds, “I can't understand anything at all.” But he did not say anything. The colleague teaching invited him into the dialogue at one point. “Be so kind,” the teacher urged, “to tell us what you think about our excellent, beautiful theory.”
“Heaven have mercy,” the new professor thought to himself. “Can it be that I'm a fool? That I am unfit to be here? I'd have never guessed it, and not a soul must know. It would never do to let on that I don’t understand the theory.”
All the students in the class were staring at him. One, the new professor could see, had their finger on the emergency call button on their desk.
“Oh, it's beautiful—it’s enchanting,” the new professor finally said. “Such a colorful collage of ideas! I'll be sure to tell my students how delighted I am with it.”
The institution raised their tuition, and more students paid more money and came. They came and they learned that different perceptions were equally valid, and learned that even human beings could be perceived different ways. The theory taught for example that some people were perceivable as K’s and some people were perceivable as J’s, and that K’s should embrace their K-identity and J’s their J-identity, because solidarity.
“But,” said one first-year student in class, “there really is no evidence that K’s are fundamentally any different than J’s.”
There was a stunned silence as the other students attempted to process what they had heard. More than one finger poised itself above an emergency call button.
“That itself,” answered the professor triumphantly, “is the theory’s greatest strength.”
And so for solidarity the K’s began to spend most of their time with other K’s. At the dining hall they sat together, when they threw a party they invited only K’s, and soon they requested a campus space just for K activities and then a dedicated dorm just for K’s. They threw a viewing party to binge the third season of “Black Mirror,” where they voted for episode 5 as their favorite, the one where the soldiers are fitted with a brain implant so that they perceive the enemy not as human beings but as mutant vermin, so that it was easier to kill them.
“The J’s are sort of like that,” one said and they all laughed.
“I really do dislike the J’s,” said another, and most of them laughed.
“I’m sick of the way they are always marginalizing us,” said a third, and no one laughed.
It isn’t clear what exactly triggered the episode. It was the weekend of the annual procession, near the end of the academic year, and there was unrest across the country, unrest across the globe, and almost worse there were people even nearby the college undermining solidarity by denying the unrest. The stylish professor who had developed the theory was finally to be honored this year—they had longed for this honor, for sartorial reasons among others—and there were rumors flying that some within the community objected to the selection.
“I bet it’s those damn J’s,” a few K’s had said among themselves a few days earlier, throwing back shots of pomo, the popular campus concoction made from pomegranate seeds, molasses, and only a select few knew what other secret ingredients.
“So full of themselves,” said another.
“My professor just gave a whole lecture explaining how the J’s try to manipulate college decisions,” said a third. That professor was a favorite among the K’s, always teaching with a large K-pin on their lapel.
“We should show them who’s really in charge,” said the first student, others nodding vigorously.
The procession to the great hall was just underway. At the head of the procession was the stylish professor, walking under the splendid canopy borne by four students who had been honored with the selection. Everyone in attendance said, “Oh, how fine are the stylish professor’s new clothes! Don't they fit them to perfection? And see their long train!” The stylish professor was wearing the splendid new garments created just for the occasion, for them, of magnificent fabric, excellent and beautiful colors in intricate patterns, with silk and gold threads, and a long train flowing behind that could only be captured by the adjective, “unsurpassed.”
Following behind them in the procession were the faculty, with their academic robes signaling their differing degrees of prestige, some quietly explaining just how the theory, which taught solidarity, was consistent with the hierarchy expressed by the procession, and anyway “consistency” was the hobgoblin of those objectionable anti-theory empiricists and realists, thank goodness none of those were here at this college!
Behind the faculty came the students, assigned locations in the procession according to their identities. The J’s were toward the front, while the K’s were at the rear. “They think they’re special,” a K, nervous and excited about what was soon to come, muttered to their identity-mates, even though the J’s were only toward the front because they were the smallest identity group on campus and the K’s the biggest.
They filed into the great hall and took their assigned places, some explaining how the idea of assigning places was consistent with the theory, not that consistency mattered. One person tentatively thought about pressing the emergency call button but thought better of it.
“Remember,” the K’s whispered among themselves in their seats, “exactly five minutes after the professor starts to lecture, we launch. Operation J-Storm.”
What were they planning, exactly? Just some harmless college prank? They were just kids, after all, even though the theory taught them that they were actually the boss of the college. There were rumors of weapons, but only small weapons, rocks, pocket knives, harmless stuff, the rumor that some firearms were smuggled in being simply not credible. Maybe yell a little, bang a head or two, throw a scare into them, that would be enough to teach those J’s a lesson, their place, their lack of place, it didn’t need to be anything more. The theory would be satisfied by establishing solidarity, nothing more, nothing less.
The stylish professor went to the podium to deliver their invited lecture, luxuriating in their fine garb of many colors, attendants carrying the train to protect it from the floor.
“Comrades,” they began.
K hands went into K pockets, gripped whatever was there, the whole K section of the audience was rippling with excitement and tension and bravado and fear and maybe a little pomo-buzz, wondering how they would contain themselves for five whole minutes until launch-time.
Minutes ticked excruciatingly by as the stylish professor waxed eloquent on the endless virtues of the theory, which itself was the essence of virtue, properly perceived. Everyone in attendance was thinking, “Oh, how fine is the professor’s theory!” Nobody would confess that they couldn’t understand a thing, for that would prove them either unfit to be there, or a fool. No theory promulgated before was ever such a complete success.
It was just a moment before the five-minute mark when that annoying first-year student suddenly stood up toward the very front of the hall.
“But it’s all bullshit,” he said loudly.
The college president quickly stood up. “Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" they said quickly, nervously. And one person whispered to another what the student had said, “It’s all bullshit. The student says it’s all bullshit.”
“It’s all bullshit!” nearly the whole audience cried out at last.
The K’s removed their hands from their pockets, without whatever they had been gripping therein.
“It is all bullshit,” some mumbled among themselves, and then more mumbled, and one of them even remembered that they actually liked some of the J’s.
The stylish professor shivered, even in their thick luxury garb, for they suspected they were right. But they thought, "This lecture has got to go on. And anyway, these magnificent garments!" So they stood more proudly than ever, as their attendants held high the gloriously colored train.