Thursday, March 29, 2007
A True Story
Just a reminder of how easily the world of academia can surprise you.
In the few brief minutes before class today, another student asked me what I got on one of the homework questions (the answer was 承和12年). I was curious to see if their other answers resembled mine (how many Han emperors were there, exactly?) so I took a glance at their paper. I was immediately struck by this question-and-answer:
I'll be fair here and mention that English was obviously not this student's first language, but whichever nation s/he comes from they surely must recognize that human mortality is a global constant. Ask me this question in Russian and I'm still going to know the answer is more than one! True, there has only been one imperial family in Japan but that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of men and women have sat on the throne over the last 2000+ years because they all die after a while.
Can you tell I'm ready to put this phase of my life behind me? I need a break from college students more than I need one from college.
In the few brief minutes before class today, another student asked me what I got on one of the homework questions (the answer was 承和12年). I was curious to see if their other answers resembled mine (how many Han emperors were there, exactly?) so I took a glance at their paper. I was immediately struck by this question-and-answer:
Between 986 and 1085, how many Japanese emperors occupied the throne? How many reign titles were there?My gentle readers, even if you know nothing of Japanese history, surely you must recognize that is would be nearly impossible for a single Emperor to reign over any nation for an entire century, if for no other reason than the simple, universal realization that most people don't live that long (FYI, the record length for a single reign is 64 years. You probably remember him). When I pointed out this obvious error to the student, s/he raised the Clueless bar one notch higher: "I thought Japan only had one emperor."
Emperors: 1
I'll be fair here and mention that English was obviously not this student's first language, but whichever nation s/he comes from they surely must recognize that human mortality is a global constant. Ask me this question in Russian and I'm still going to know the answer is more than one! True, there has only been one imperial family in Japan but that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of men and women have sat on the throne over the last 2000+ years because they all die after a while.
Can you tell I'm ready to put this phase of my life behind me? I need a break from college students more than I need one from college.
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Any good philosophy student could explain that since the Emperor of Japan was [until 1945] divine, then there has been only one emperor because each of the human occupants of the throne has been a manifestation of this single divine spirit. Of coures there have been two "mortal" emperors since 1945. The academic mind can always find an explanation that contradicts anyone else's view of the reality.
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