Weltanschauung - n - A comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity's relation to it.
Another useful German word in common English usage.
And now, here's a question. I'm reading Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons, and I must say I'm appalled and disgusted by its picture of college life in the 21st Century. Co-ed dorms? Boys and girls together performing activities that should be private or at least confined to the same sex? Hooking-up, which means impromptu sex with someone you've just met? Courses designed to be "athlete friendly"? You've both been in college much more recently than I have, so I ask you: How much of this is true? (As for the novel, it's excellent - like every other Tom Wolfe book I've read, fiction or non-fiction. Caution: It's rated a very hard R, which couldn't be avoided given the subject.)
2 comments:
I also attended a private Christian school, or at least I was matriculated there - I didn't really attend classes that much. There were stiff penalties for having the opposite sex members in your room when it wasn't sanctioned. There were visitation days and you could go visiting (or be visited by) the members of the opposite sex. All in a controlled manner. It was a bit harder to get someone in your room, but was extremely easy to get a hotel room or an apartment outside for those kinds of activities. I won't say they were rampant, but it was a known fact they were occurring.
My only response to athlete-friendly stuff... "duh"! (see astute comments by Natalie)
Thanks for your comments. Here's another one, this time a reader's review from Amazon:
"Perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfectly described, perfectly conceptualized, perfect to the point that it makes you squirm with horror and recognition. I was expecting a light read like "Bonfire of the Vanities" but I agree with the other reviewers here who said that this book is not really satire becuase it's so eerily, scarily close to the truth.
"It took me immediately back to my own days of shock and horror when I entered college, a Christian girl from a Catholic high school in a small town in upstate New York. I remember naively remarking to my roomate that I expected to "meet the man I was going to marry" or something like that at college -- and her clutching her sides laughing, explaining to naive little me that nobody dated or got married anymore when they were in their twenties! People went to college to get laid! I remember comparing my wardrobe to hers, side by side in the closets, and wondering why all her clothing was so small. (Actually, for me, the funniest part of the whole book was Tom Wolfe's riff on the girls and their 'pubic haircuts' and waxing jobs, and his line where he asks "Were there fads in this area too? Rules? And how exactly was the knowledge transmitted from one girl to another? Did they get together and compare?" This is the kind of stuff in the book that makes a parent squirm as they wonder what they've gotten their poor children into and why they're wasting precious tuition money on this.)
"I remember feeling so cheated, cheated, cheated, that I had worked my behind off to get into an Ivy League school -- and somehow it all seemed more focussed on sex and socializing than on the life of the mind I had envisioned.
"Wolfe's characterizations are brilliant -- and he so perfectly describes that paradox -- if somehow these yahoos have taken over the campuses, where exactly is a girl like Charlotte Simmons supposed to go? Where are my kids supposed to go? Has the stinking cesspool called American culture really taken over the universities to that extent? Is this really an appropriate breeding ground for the future leaders of America?
"The people who hated this book and those who loved it should get together and talk about it -- rather than either side just dismissing it out of hand. I think it would be a great book club read."
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