by William Deresiewicz

A professor is walking across campus one afternoon when he spots a student coming the other way. “Excuse me, young man,” the professor says, “am I walking north or south?” “You’re walking north, professor,” the student replies. “In that case,” the professor says, “I must have eaten lunch already.”

This is not a joke anyone would think to make up these days. The absentminded professor, that kindly old figure, is long gone. A new image has taken his place, one that bespeaks not only our culture’s hostility to the mind, but also its desperate confusion about the nature of love

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