Recently I had some time to check out television shows. Unsatisfied by pop culture, I decided to explore the seldom viewed “intellectual” channels and stumbled on a show called Visionaries on something called UCTV. That caught my eye as I expected to encounter modern day rishis with clairvoyant visions, perhaps even God-inspired priests, strong warriors, or even bright-eyed cosmologists. Instead there were two hours of monologues by various tenured professors; I endured a large part of three of them.

One of them was a black philosophy professor from Harvard. In a reversal of stereotype, he was the passenger in taxicab articulating a pop philosophy to the driver, when it is usually the captive passenger who is forced to listen to the pseudo-wisdom of the driver. In a rapid, staccato rap, the professor quoted one liners from a medley of philosophers who were not at all compatible with each other. He sounded more like your crazy uncle who took a philosophy course at university 20 years ago, listens to too much talk radio, and regales everyone with his opinion on any subject.

It sounded like the outtakes from Waking Life, but without the virtue of the luscious Tango soundtrack. He did point out that the philosopher requires the courage to explore the darkest corners of the mind, though, one feels, that he believes his role is rather to point out the darker corners in everyone else’s mind. Keep in mind that a tenured professor at an Ivy school earns a six figure salary for a nine month year and can never be terminated. Since professors all think alike, the worst that could happen is that he would have to attend yet another awards dinner for visionaries.

On the other hand, a year ago or so, the Dean of that school was intimidated into resigning for stating a somewhat unpopular truth by those very professors who praise the virtue of their own intellectual courage. That points out something the professor omitted to say: a true act of courage requires an element of risk.

Tomorrow: The African Ass vs the English Ass