My students and I talk a lot about "ideology" lately. They are writing research papers in which they are required to come up with a conspiracy theory (or simply a reading of a thing or event against the mainstream accepted narrative). I asked them for suggestions of a film we might watch later in the term. Overwhelmingly, I got requests for--you guessed it--Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson. A close second was everybody's favorite ideology-in-a-box movie, The Matrix. But this morning--in a computer lab because I am tragically without computer this week due to a laptop meltdown--I came across this article about Ferrets watching The Matrix. Apparently,

(P.S.: When I watch The Matrix, I think I lose 20 percent of my brain.)

Well, I want my students to use all of their brains, so thank god for this study. Too bad there isn’t a comparable study for Bladerunner. I bet that would get their little ferret brains going.

But back to the papers themselves. It’s striking that pretty much all of my students are doing projects that criticize American culture. I want to think this has nothing to do with me, because so far I have stayed away from direct political engagement in the classroom (except that day we spent the whole hour talking about Vietnam). I suppose I did start off the topic of a research paper by telling them what I wrote my research paper on back when I took freshman comp---a 12 page persuasive essay about why America should switch to the metric system. I wrote angrily about “American exceptionalism” and “xenophobic science.” It was very, very nerdy. And probably very, very poorly written.

But you can’t argue (well, maybe you can, but I hope you can't) that I run a classroom in which I take the traditional liberal-democrat-intellectual stance and ask them to copy it. For example, a scene from class this week:

So I encouraged them to not take a shot at Bush, or the oil industry, or big tobacco, but rather PBS, PETA, Meals on Wheels. Thinking through that critique may be harder, more creative (and probably funny). And because it’s a lighthearted assignment I know--or I hope--that a student blowing the whistle on PBS being behind some massive conspiracy, doesn’t mean any of us will actually stop watching. Just like my student writing about MacDonald’s admitted her research made her hungry.

Only one student took up this challenge. His hypothesis: certain non-profit, cultural and humanitarian organizations are directly responsible for the imbalance in power between conservatives and liberals in the United States. “So, a conservative has 200 bucks, right? And he goes and invests it on Wall Street, and doubles or triples his money. Ensuring his dominance in politics. A liberal takes his 200 dollars...and invests it in an NPR tote-bag.”

For the most part, my students focused on major corporations or more abstract things like the SAT or fashion industries. For instance, I learned yesterday that Microsoft and Apple are trying to polarize the world in order to stage a (literally) bloody brand war in the future.

“That’s good, Student Z. I would think about how Apple or Microsoft users describe themselves, using words like ‘die-hard’ and ‘loyalist.’ And you might think about whether or not people are likely to own an iPod and a PC, or if people really don’t cross the brand lines. For instance, I use Apple products exclusively.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you can’t answer any of our emails on time this week.”