too much education, maybe?

when i was in high school (or maybe a freshman in college), i saw the dead poets society. being the english major that i am (even though i didn't know that's what i was for sure at the time), that movie SPOKE to me. robin williams opened those kids' minds! they love poets and shakespeare and he taught it to them! so much that neil is willing to sacrifice everything for art! exclamation point! i wanted to be a teacher like robin williams--electrifying my students into loving literature and loving writing and loving art.

then in one of my classes last semester, we were learning about teaching composition and the debates surrounding the field. we watched freedom writers (another movie i saw freshman year and loved) and discussed how teaching writing is portrayed in the media and film.

and during that discussion, we smashed dead poets society to bits as unrealistic, dramatized, and ridiculous. because it kind of is.

when i was a sophomore in college, i read extremely loud and incredibly close. and again, it opened my eyes to this incredible story about oskar trying to deal with his father's death during 9/11. the new techniques jonathan safran foer used! postmodern writing like i'd never seen before! and oskar searches the whole city of new york and ends up being okay at the end!

then in my senior seminar class at byu, we read that book and a lot of the critiques written about it after it was published. and we discussed how it was sentimental, annoying, and overall, all the techniques he used (like the pages full of nonsense words or random pictures thrown in everywhere) were gimmicky. and you know what? i kind of agreed.

i mean, i still like both dead poets society and extremely loud and incredibly close. but not like i used to, and not for the same reasons. but this just makes me wonder: can you really ever LOVE anything when you study it from an academic perspective? am i going to end up totally dissatisfied and disillusioned with the books and movies i currently love? if you know too much, can it ruin your ability to enjoy things for their emotional value instead of their academic correctness? i think you just have to be able to keep your emotional response and your intellectual response to things distinct from each other. but it's hard to keep liking something when you know that there are people out there rolling their eyes at how stupid it is. particularly when those people are better trained and more knowledgeable than you are.

this is why i would be afraid to name a child after a character in a book that i love. somebody who hates the book would hate me (and my poor child) for doing that.

maybe this is why people major in biochemistry: it won't affect their everyday pleasures so much. (i don't know why else anyone would want to study biochemistry.)