Post 5

[Steven Gray]

                In reading the Graff and Christian pieces I began to think about what exactly a theory is. These two writers seem to feel handicapped by the current expanse of theory and the way in which it is taught and understood. As I read on I began to see this not necessarily as a cry for the revision of current theories and the way in which they are taught, but rather a cry for a resurgence of individualism. As humans we must never forget that all of the ideas we currently have possession of, were created by other men, women, and even children in the history that stretches forth behind us. This is a hard fact, unless we are to alter the story of Prometheus to say that he gave us fire, Marxism, Feminisim, and Postmodernism. This is of course a ludicrous idea. What we must remember is that at one time each theory we have studied, was but a single bud of knowledge and understanding in the mind of one individual. In other words at one point a theory was simply the idea of a student, who’s ardent desire to reveal his understanding eventually brought such ideas to us. Theories are not perpetual or universal, they change, but sadly these changes often simply reassociate theories with other theories. This as Graff and Christian seem to note, is the great fallacy of theory education and comprehension. We must change the notion of theory in order for it to succeed, but what is interesting about this fact is that we actually do not have to make any alterations in order to change theory. In fact all we must change is our own perception of theory, we must grapple with the beast and show it and ourselves that it and its compatriots are not the only ideas. In this way I began to feel that rather than simply having classes to teach theories already in existence, we should actually have classes which teach students to think with a theoretical mind, so that they can form new ideas, opinions, and new systems. In doing this we would thusly purify the stagnating water that has become modern theory, as we seem to have forgotten that humanity has persisted because we have ever forming new ideas, not because we chose to understand only those that preceded us.