This letter is in response to Fritz McDonald’s blog contribution posted on Sunday, March 30.

Most esteemed sir,

I cannot begin to describe the euphoria that overwhelmed me as your invaluable insights graced my life again! If I only I had the foresight to recognize how lucky I was, I would have never even contemplated learning how to support myself. What’s wrong with drowning in debt to obtain a degree that imparts virtually no marketable skills when you can join a Harry Potter club and see an opera for ten bucks? Most students believe that they have to work and as the true advocate of their best interest, you must disabuse them of such pernicious notions.

Working students are ignorant of the true joys of the life of the mind and that is why they are in danger of spoiling the best full-time job they will ever have! Indeed, societies have a moral obligation to subsidize art and no form of art could be loftier than “giving an account” of Roderick Chisholm’s Free-Will defense. The world owes your students these golden years, why should they try to become productive members of society?

Why don’t you tell us about the lifelong friends you’ve made in college? What year did you meet them and what’s your argument for why your experiences will be shared by today’s OU students? What kind of “deep stuff” will your students be discussing with their lifelong friends when they confront the reality of the job market?[1] Who am I to challenge a scholar of McDonald’s caliber, it will all work out somehow. If the job market is beneath you, just go to graduate school![2]

If my four years at OU granted me the best full-time work I could find, I can only imagine what graduate school could have offered. Feel free to dismiss me as an envious libeler, what could I possibly know about the joys of the life of the mind!?[3] You’re a good man, Fritz: you truly have the best interests of your students in mind. The luminaries of philosophy are almost unanimous in their proclamation that intellectual pursuits are much more rewarding than the practical. Your assertions convey nothing but the higher truth about life: so let the students work as little as possible, the world owes it to them!

Your Sincerest Admirer,

-Aleksey