Disclaimer: The Ivory Belltower is purely satirical. Don’t take it too seriously.
- Invoke Foucault and misquote him. “The body is the prison of the soul.”
- Claim that they understand Heidegger, or the ending of “HIMYM.” Both are absurdly confusing.
- Blame it all on the corporations. “Those greedy bastards are just in it for the money.”
- Reference the stuff talked about in another class. “In my class on sub-Saharan politics…”
- Try to play all subtle on their phones. Everyone knows you’re doing it. Pay attention for more than 20 minutes.
- Claim that globalization is the cause of all of it. “I would know; I watched Zeitgeist the movie.”
- Use lazy arguments that have become platitudes. “Marx had some good ideas on paper, but they would never work out in real life.”
- Confuse a conspiracy theory with an actual theory. “JFK was killed by the Illuminati and the federal reserve because he signed executive order 11110.”
- Deny climate change. It’s happening people; it’s inconvenient, but you need to come to terms with the fact.
- Use tautologies. “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
- Interrupt another person during their speech. “I’ma let you finish, but Faulkner is really boring.”
- Start a semantic argument. “You said farther, but you meant to say further.”
- Make a feeble attempt at a joke. “I Kant say that I agree with you on your stance on Utilitarianism.”
- Talk awkwardly loud. Seriously it sounds like “ME NO HAVE SMART IDEAS. BUT TALK LOUD MEAN I RIGHT.”
- Not do the reading. The rest of us and the professor can smell your BS from a mile away.
- Spout pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (Thank you Donald Trump for the inspiration)
- Drift off topic. “I know we were just talking about the first Industrial Revolution, but Henry Ford did…”
- Use the word “Kafkaesque.” We get it; you’ve watched Breaking Bad and/or heard of “The Metamorphosis” (his easiest book by far).
- Use the prefix neo- or post- inappropriately. “We can chalk up Japan’s negative population growth rate if we look at neo-industrialism.”
- Give their inputs on everything the teacher says. It’s way too obvious that you’re trying to milk a letter of recommendation out of them.
- Think that they’re above the class material. I’m looking at you engineering students.
- Borrowing my pilot G2 for the whole semester. I’m looking at you there, Jake.
