Partly Cloudy, 64°
After a lengthy department meeting last Thursday, the Philosophy Department announced that
it had adopted a "Causal Friday" policy. Adjunct Professor Timothy Peirce introduced the idea after his wife complained about the cost of dry-cleaning his chalk-coated corduroy blazers twice a week.
"She grumbled-and I was rather distracted at the moment-about the possibility of something like a causal day one day of the week, which could cut costs, and also about trying to be a little more careful and working to understand the consequences of my actions. I didn't know what it might entail, or how it would help with the dry-cleaning costs, but I figured trying something like a causal day couldn't hurt," he said. After careful consideration, the department faculty voted in favor of the idea, and the first Causal Friday was scheduled for the following day.
Professor Jarvis Mill awoke that morning with trepidation. "To be entirely honest, I was afraid what the fluttering open of my eyelids might provoke. I mean I had to shave before I left for work, and I still use a straight-edge razor. I could have been dead if I affected the flight of a butterfly that would have then landed on my finger as I was shaving, causing me to slip and cut myself. It was overwhelming."
While grading papers, Trent Wittgenstein GS gave pause. "If I gave them all A's, they wouldn't hassle me during office hours, but if I gave them all B's, then they might work extra hard on the final. I really had to sit there and consider what to do. And in the end, I couldn't decide. So I just sat there."
Department Secretary Gillian Beauvoir had missed the meeting the previous evening due to a crisis involving two of her five cats, and she showed up Friday morning to what she called "an entirely different atmosphere." She further explained that "no one got anything done except me."
"I walked in for a signature, and Professor Hilbert couldn't do it. He sat me down and lectured me on the multitude of terrible things that could eventually result from such a signature. He mentioned Tina Fey, whipped cream, lobsters, and garden gnomes, but I didn't follow what he was saying."
"I know it sounds cliché, but I did ask myself 'why am I here'," explained Professor John Badiou. "Students from my existentialism class kept asking why I was sitting on the bear statue on the Main Green, and I couldn't give them a succinct answer. It was too much to explain, too much to even contemplate."
Students in various philosophy classes approve of the idea. "We don't really get much done. I asked what caused the idea of a cause to first take hold, and my professor stared at the carpet for a good 20 minutes before uttering something, which ended up being incomprehensible," explained philosophy concentrator Jonathan Russell '11. "It was awesome!"
However, some students aren't as enthusiastic. William Bentham GS, who is in the process of writing a dissertation on fatalism, didn't see what the big deal was. "There's really nothing to worry about," Bentham said. "It's just another day where we're powerless to do anything other than what we actually do."
Department Chair Dan Whitehead hasn't fully warmed to the idea, either. "It seems rather harmful to productivity. And I'm not sure what the big fuss is about. How do we know if we really know what we know about causation.to be." he trailed off.
