AZUSA, Calif. (U-WIRE) — In the realm of scholarly study it is healthy from time to time to take a step back and laugh at oneself, but who wants to do that? Serious self appraisal often leads to severe blows to the ego and leads one to ask hard questions about the intellectual value of their work. You’re treading on dangerous ground there, friend. I say, better to laugh at someone else’s expense!
That is all well and good in theory, but in practice laughing at the ignorance of complete strangers or criticizing your friends and loved ones (however temporarily fulfilling) and writing long winded, shamelessly self-promoting pompous letters to the editor does little for one’s popularity. The inherent risk outweighs the possible rewards.
Neither of these approaches can be entirely pleasing except to the most shallow ofnarcissists, but do not despair, there is a third way — literature.
Over a period of three decades Professor Anders Henriksson mined the wisdom poured forth into countless papers and blue books submitted to him (and to various colleagues) and came up with a wholly fresh and cutting edge view of history which he lays out in “Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students.”
Henriksson derived his title from a common (well, common to college students) corruption of the Latin phrase “non compis mentis” — to lose the use of one’s senses — and judging from the proliferation of non sequiturs, malapropisms and some very creative interpretations of historical events, the book’s numerous anonymous authors live up to the title.
“History,” we are told, “(is) a record of things left behind by past generations, starting in 1815.” And that, “from the secondary sources we are given hindsight into the future. Hindsight, after all, is caused by a lack of foresight.”
If you are not feeling better about yourself already, there are another 136 pages left to achieve that ego stoking satisfaction you so crave.
Who can forget that:
“Judyism” had one big God named “Yahoo.” Or Homer’s epic hero Ulysses Grant. Or that Mary and Joseph were refused admission to the inn because they were Jewish. Or that “Cesar” was assassinated on the “Yikes of March,” and his last words were “Me too, Brutus!” Or that Rasputin was a “pheasant” by birth. Or that Hitler’s “instrumentality of terror was the Gespacho.” And finally the great civil rights activist “Martin Luther Junior’s famous ‘If I Had a Hammer’ Speech.”
This is merely the beginning. “Non Campus Mentis” follows the course of history from the dawn of time to “the age of now.”
“Non Campus Mentis” weighs in at a light 145 pages and can be easily read in two sittings and includes a three page reader quiz consisting of questions a student would be expected to know after taking a world history survey course. I believe I held my own.
The book is selling in the top 100 at Amazon.com — a testament to its sad truth and unquestioned humor. There were many times when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
With mid-terms looming ominously in the near future, “Non Campus Mentis” provides a breath of fresh satiric air at the expense of faceless cretins (see, you can call them that with a clear conscience because they’re faceless), while affording us all the opportunity to reassuringly tell ourselves that we could never be that foolish at APU, right?
Don’t answer that.