When I signed up for the course in the winter I was all excited about doing all this awesome class that was all German philosophy. Finally, apt discussions of Hegel and Nietzsche! I was ready to give it my all and read all these sick books and have my mind blown. I was talking to a friend about how awesome this class was going be and when I mentioned that Forster was teaching it she turned her head and began to look a little distraught. “Don’t get too excited… Forster is teaching it”. “Fuck that.” I said, “the course is gonna be ill. People don’t come to philosophy classes so that teachers will light firecrackers and do song and dance routines. I just wanna get down to brass tacks and get ballz deep in some muthafucking PHILOSOPHY!”
Oh boy was I disappointed. On the first day of class I showed up and eagerly exchanged some hellos with people that I have not seen in a little while. Scanning the room, I saw the potential for a good 10 weeks. The room was one of my favorites, the ones in Stuwart that have those incredibly comfortable chairs that are detached from the desk and roll. Throbbing with anticipation, I finally see Forster walk into the room. With an air of completely nonchalance he reaches into his bag for a couple of papers. “Okay, lets get started”. The voice could not be more monotonic even if he tried. It was crushing. “It’s just him getting warmed up, in a couple of minutes he is gonna be droppin some ill fucking phil-verse and its gonna be ill”. No. It wasn’t.
For about 3 weeks I got my ass out of bed at 8 in the morning to go see Forster pace the room and read from the essays that he wrote for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I would listen, trying to make the best out of the class, but Forster’s lurch of a pace made this impossible. My attention would drift in total abandon from my hands, to the way Forster’s head was placed on his shoulders (much like statuary) to the person who was shopping for shoes on her computer. I would force myself to listen and catch the trailing bits of a conclusion that was mad. “Oh fuck. I just missed what he was saying. This would be enjoyable if I just paid the fuck attention”. I would tune in and find that he was making some qualification to what he was going to say. He’s gonna make a point! This point is going to be epic! He’s about to make a point. Holy crap make the point already. I’ve been listening for a full fucking 15 seconds and you havn’t said anything about anything yet. Are you doing this on purpose!? How is this possible? Am I going crazy?
Time spent this way is not healthy. One finds themselves staring into the room trying to acknowledge everything at once just because there is nothing else to do. Your vision becomes fuzzy and even the thought of what you are going to do when you leave becomes boring. I spent 22 hours in a holding cell in NYC jail once and that was the only time that I felt more pure desperation from sitting in a room.
Needless to say I didn’t go to this class after I realized that the essays I would have to write can be limited to the material presented in the first two weeks.
Of course, it is unjust to lambaste Forster this much. Although his lecture will stand out in my memory as a shining example of why I love music as much as I do, he is the necessary asshole in the philosophy department that just takes everything slow and methodologically. I completely understand how he has been as successful as he has.
