Fuck! Student Who Never Does The Readings Just Made A Better Point Than You
Campus CultureSchool September 24, 2024 The New England Classic
GASSON HALL — Shock and disbelief gripped POLI4526/PHIL4526: Philosophical Basis and Considerations of Political Science Theory when notorious non-reader and serial doodler Coe Stir (MCAS ’25) somehow delivered a profound and easily understandable analysis of Hobbesian political theory, despite clearly having no idea what was going on.
“I’ve literally never seen him do anything besides play 2048 or stare blankly at the Canvas homepage,” said an exasperated classmate, Val Idation (MCAS ’25), who had spent 6 hours the previous evening diligently highlighting her well-worn copy of Leviathan. “I mean, I know for a fact Coe doesn’t even own any of Hobbes’ writing. Last class, he asked if ‘Hobbes was that tiger from Calvin and Hobbes,’ so you can imagine my horror when he started dismantling centuries of political thought with what I can only describe as sheer dumb luck.”
The moment of unearned brilliance came during a class discussion on Hobbes’ view of the state of nature. While most students struggled to navigate the dense philosophical arguments, Stir, who had spent the majority of the class drawing a picture of Clifford the Big Red Dog, suddenly looked up, proved he can indeed raise his hand, and delivered what some have called “the most insightful take of the semester.”
“Yeah, so like,” Stir began, “Isn’t this whole Commonwealth thing just, like, all of us pretending to be collective and united? Like, we’re all scared of each other, so we make up this giant fake ruling entity — the government or whatever — and we’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s in charge now and that’s what we should be scared of.’ All so we don’t have to deal with the fact that we’re really scared of the way that we actually don’t trust each other because we can’t trust our very own human nature? But also, the government’s just scared of us too, right? Because we’re the ones who made it up so we can also be the ones to bring it down? Or something like that.
The professor blinked in disbelief. “Honestly, I’ve been teaching political theory for 12 years, and I’ve never seen someone come so close to accidentally nailing the central critique of Hobbes,”
Stir, blissfully unaware of the intellectual earthquake he had just caused, stretched and resumed doodling what appeared to be Clifford’s latest adventure, a ride on a comically small skateboard.
His classmates, however, were left grappling with the fallout. “I’ve done every reading, highlighted all the important passages, and spent hours crafting my arguments,” said a still-shaken Tryan Harhd (MCAS ’26). “Meanwhile, Coe, who once said that ‘Plato should still be a planet, no matter how small it is’ just dropped that like it was nothing. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
When asked for comment by the Classic, Stir remained characteristically tuned out. “I dunno, man,” he shrugged. “Like, I haven’t actually read any of this stuff. I just sorta vibe in class and, you know, sometimes things make sense in a weird way. Didn’t Hobbes just get high…and like… I don’t know, think about stuff? I sorta get that”
