The Slip by Mark Sampson

Author:Mark Sampson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2017-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

Dr. Sharpe,

As you have no doubt deduced by now, we are sta­ging a collective boycott of your graduate seminar. We will not return to class until you have publicly condemned the remarks you made this week.

Sincerely,

The students of PHL1814F

I crumpled the note with one hand and unlocked my office door with the other. Stepping inside, I tossed the paper into the trash bin, then went over and flopped into the chair at my desk. Looking up, I could see the red message light on my phone was flashing once more. I picked up the receiver and dialled into the voicemail. The first message was, quite evidently, from an undergrad student whom I’d never met. Oddly enough, this young woman left her full name and student ID number, and then proceeded to term me a balding cocksucker. I hung up without listening to the rest.

I checked email. Seventeen new notifications from Facebook. I batch-deleted them, then leaned back and sighed. How is this even happening? I thought. It was as if a schism, a tear in the space-time continuum of my philosophical life, my self-image, had opened up. I was not in denial, dear reader. I realized how poisonous my statements were about ODS’s executives, how completely unforgivable. But the public reaction, this stake-burning, seemed so out of proportion. I guess I could understand it among the PHL1814 group: we had been grappling with these very ideas all term, the notions of justice, of equality for all before the law, and how Rousseau’s seminal work informed these ideas. I could see how my remarks on television had more or less undermined everything I had postulated this term. But what of everyone else? How could flippant comments about a bunch of corporate assholes draw such rage out of the populace? It didn’t make sense — especially considering that I and my ideals, I readily admit, seemed quaint in 2015. The Enlightenment was out of vogue. Humanism was out of vogue. Hell, the privileging of reason over emotion was out of vogue. On my best day I was, like the note taped to my door, so old school as to be subversive. So when I betrayed my values in a moment of weakness, when I did let emotion trump reason, why didn’t the unwashed masses stand up and cheer? Yes — Sharpe’s right! Throw the greedy bastards in jail! We’ll figure out their crime later!

I would need to do something about this. And like Grace said, it would have to be huge.

In the meantime, with class cancelled, I had an unexpected surfeit of free time. My usual Friday routine was to teach the graduate seminar from nine till noon, then grab a streetcar and slip back to Cabbagetown, to my local, Stout Irish Pub, for a hearty Friday lunch. The daytime barman there, whose name was also Phillip (though spelt with two l’s) could set his watch by my Friday ritual: I came in promptly at 12:30 and climbed enthusiastically onto a bar stool, ready to order pints and food.

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