Worst Professor Ever

Note: this isn’t actually a review, it’s more of a meditation. And sorry, non-Classics people, I’m gonna brag a bit about my former discipline.

So I just saw The Social Network. It was really good. I was skeptical, believe me, but it’s so well executed you just can’t argue. Snappy writing by Aaron Sorkin, snappy direction by David Fincher, great soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Unapologetically slick (think Thank You for Smoking) but (in some ways) even darker and more compelling. Great cast, too. Only problem: Jesse Eisenberg may never be able to play anyone else again. And poor Mark Zuckerberg, who will obviously be thought of as Jesse Eisenberg for the rest of his life.

Anyway, the whole reason I went to see the movie was Aaron Sorkin’s appearance on Colbert. Sorkin mentioned that what he liked about the book (Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires) was the three different stories that emerged from two separate lawsuits. He had chosen to leave the stories as they were and leave the answer up to the viewer. (He also, less likably, confessed that the most of the female characters were “prizes,” mostly due to Colbert’s prodding. But we’ll leave that as a discussion question for when you see it with your daughters.)

Eureka, I thought, That’s good history! And it was: the movie takes place in 2003/4, the distant past for some of us. As promised, Sorkin and Fincher employ a light touch, refusing to nudge the viewer too much in any character’s favor.

So, point one, this is a great movie for explaining proper historical methodology. In history, as in the movie, there is no way to say this is “what really happened.” The Social Network is also an object lesson in why even eyewitnesses are unreliable — the same phenomenon recognized by Thucydides (dead, very boring Greek) as a problem, though Herodotus (dead, much less boring Greek) happily wrote down the different versions of the story he got from various people. And actually, Herodotus would be way into the “fated to change history” deal that any narrative like The Social Network is bound to assume.

Point two, The Social Network touched on a lot of the issues I’ve been thinking about recently. Self-learning and CS. The need to think holistically. The difference (or not) between real and computer languages. The need for humanities to play well with others.

There was something so familiar about the themes, in fact, that I had to do a little research. Lo and behold, I found that the real Mark Zuckerberg, before learning C++ from the “For Dummies” series (see?), was a Latin enthusiast, even planning to major in Classics when he entered Harvard. (And zowee, what an alternate history we could write if that had happened.)

Yes, this makes total sense. He’s one of ours!

Many critics feel the movie portrays Zuckerberg unsympathetically, but I got a bit nostalgic seeing a type of student I recognized well: driven but socially awkward, prone to get in your face without really knowing it, genuinely enthusiastic but not necessarily great at negotiating with other humans. Awwww. (And of course, I have no idea if the real Mark Zuckerberg is like this but as I’ve observed before, there is a tendency for hardcore math/CS people to be this way — most of the students in question were double majors.)

So here’s my idea: write to Mark Zuckerberg and get him to fund a camp that will rehabilitate Classics people into useful members of society. Or maybe a more general “the humanities don’t suck” campaign. Right now, too many history teachers want to live in the past rather than apply their knowledge, or they’re just scared of technology  and anything labeled “corporate.” But non-Classics people don’t understand the rigor of Classics, and the superb analytical skills — and yeah, okay, some weirdness — you get from dealing with two languages, several genres, and various historical eras and sources. Hence Colbert’s classification of Classics as a  “why are you doing this to your parents” major. Everybody thinks Classicists (and humanities people in general) are useless in a business environment.

I bet Mr. Zuckerberg can figure out a solution to this. And he’s definitely reachable on Facebook. So how do you write a letter to an ex-Classics computer genius turned world’s youngest billionaire? Suggestions from the peanut gallery? Anyone?

Tags: Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich, Classics, Colbert, David Fincher, Greek, Greek history, Harvard, Herodotus, historical methodology, history, humanities, Iliad, Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Latin, Mark Zuckerberg, Rashida Jones, Rooney Mara, The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network, Thucydides, Trent Reznor, useless