Future of Academia

It was now coming up on Midnight, and Marcus and Jeanne were exhausted. They left the library together, and they went back to Marcus’s dorm room.
“What do you get out of studying poetry?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. I don’t like studying poetry, but it’s required for the degree.”
“What’s the point of studying literature at all, really? I mean, what can you learn from it?”
“I guess it’s just trends, you know, being able to see how other people were influenced, and being able to see how they exert an influence. Everybody rips somebody else off. I don’t think I’ve ever read anybody completely original. The second I read something I think is original, it’s like the next thing I read proves me wrong, and there’s nothing new ever.”
“Literature is dumb,” Marcus said, “Studying it is dumb, I mean. People should just write it themselves. All this studying of it, I think that contributes to the unoriginality of it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jeanne said.
“Totalitarianism is the ultimate field of study. Of course it’s dark, but history is always dark. This is really humanity’s attempt at turning society into a machine, and getting maximum efficiency, and maximum societal benefits. Of course, it didn’t work out quite so well, I think, because of the idea that certain people and certain types of people weren’t allowed to participate in the grand scheme. They weren’t useful to it, they wouldn’t agree on it, so they had to go. That was the mistake. If totalitarianism could be gentler, we might have a real government we could rely on.”
“It just sounds like an evil word.”
“Well, if you only associate Hitler and Stalin with it, of course it sounds like an evil word. But what if Che Guevara started his own government, what do you say to that? He’s so popular in culture, nobody ever gets right down to his politics. Perhaps it’s like the opposite of what traditional totalitarian regimes wanted, but it’s still totalitarian in nature.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. There’s different words for different targets.”
“The secret is to harness the power of totalitarian government in a positive way.”
“I think the way things are now is relatively okay. A major overhaul would cause a huge uproar.”
“You don’t think we’re in the midst of a major overhaul right now?” “No.” “It’s a much slower build up. But all the warning signs are there. Don’t you think it’s weird, when you turn on a news channel, how all of the stories are so in-depth, and so many things get forgotten about right away? I mean, it’s like the news channels all get together and say, ‘Okay, this week, this is what we’re going to feed to the American people. We’ll get everyone to feel the same way about x news event. Then we’ll move on to something new, and finally they’ll all be submissive, finally they’ll all separate into one of two factions, but we know which faction’s going to come out on top. When we want to start something military, every one will be able to accept it, and we’ll be making a difference in our country.’ The news can’t be trusted, Jeanne. I think the whole apparatus is evil.”
“I think you’re a little paranoid. This is why I stay away from politics.”
“But literature has its own rules, right? Don’t you think there’s anything totalitarian about literature? How the same phrases will keep popping up in the same book, how the plot always has to be moving forward, how secrets are kept by the author from the reader until it’s the right time to reveal them, how the form of reality a book creates is an idealized world, which has a few obvious pieces missing?”
“You’re focusing your attention in the wrong direction. Books are an escape, and nothing more. Books never change the world. Books change the literary world, but books don’t change the real world. I mean, the closest comparison I can think of are obscenity hearings, or books that legitimately ‘threaten’ some institution.”
“Are you going to write books, Jeanne?”
“I just want to be a teacher. I’m not good enough to write.”
“I want to write books that threaten everybody.”
“That’s really thoughtful of you.”
“It is! People need to be scared out of their wits if they’re going to make any real change in their lives, or in anything else.”
“I don’t think most people like being scared.”
“How do you account for the popularity of horror films?”
“That’s different. They’re fun, they’re ridiculous.”
“They also introduce horrible things into the minds of the young.”
“Doesn’t everything?”