I’ve got a monkey on my back, and its name is philosophy.

See, I’ve thought about something… I’ve got a monkey on my back, and its name is philosophy.

See, I’ve thought about something (someone gets a gold star!): Those of us who study esoteric stuff like philosophy or religious studies or, God help me, history and philosophy of science, know that there is no lucrative pot at the end of the rainbow for us. We study it for different reasons, each no doubt uniquely our own.

I study philosophy because I’m addicted.

See, I’m a pretty hateful guy. I basically hate everything. Puppies? Check. Television? Check. Happy feelings? Check. Xbox? Check. No. No, I don’t hate Xbox. I shouldn’t even joke about that.

The point is: I love me some hate. I can’t get enough of it. I like to wake up early some days just to tap that keg of Haterade and get in some before-noon hating.

And philosophy gives me plenty of opportunity to hate. I mean, what could be more incensing than studying a subject devoid of practical use, which will never land you a job, taught by most brilliant, insane and demanding people, all of whom are convinced that there could be nothing more important or rewarding than something like determining whether we can be logically certain that the ground beneath our feet is there? We spend a lot of time on questions like that. And we write about them. A lot.

And then there are the other students. There’s a reason to hate everyone there. Chances are, if you’ve found your way into enough philosophy classrooms, you’ll develop the appropriate pathologies to go along with the kind of hairsplitting we do. Does deductive logic entitle us to conclusions about negatives that aren’t intuitive? Say it ain’t so! These people have decided to dedicate a lot of money and time to talking about this stuff. So, needless to say, these ain’t the same kids as the ones in your intro to psych class.

Class offers a multitude of opportunities to hate. I sit in the back with my equally dejected philosophy buddies and hate all damn day. See, in class, the only people you hate more than the people you’re smarter than are the people who are smarter than you. Actually, no, the people you hate the most are the ones you’re convinced think they’re smarter than you but you know are actually stupid. Wait, that’s everyone. You get the point. And by “you,” I want it to be clear that I mean “me.”

There are even consistently hated archetypes: There’s taking-this-class-for-a-requirement guy.

“Hey, who the hell is that guy? I haven’t seen him in every single one of my other classes on ontological empiricism. He must be an outsider.”

“That’s Kenny. He has a cell phone. And he’s known the touch of a woman!”

“I hate that guy.”

There’s always-read-every-last-word-of-the-text guy:

“Hey, did you read this section?”

“No, I thought about reading it and the very notion drove me to drink and play Xbox.”

“Sounds like Bill read every page. He’s made verbal MLA citations. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah. I hate Billy. I hope his grandma gets killed in a bizarre chainsaw incident of some sort.”

There’s won’t-back-down guy:

“Dude, what’s with Steve? He’s obviously wrong and he won’t back off this skepticism thing. Nobody cares. Man’s desperate. He’s gone ad hominem.”

“Yeah, this is a total waste of time. Even the professor is getting mad, I can tell. He almost made a facial expression just now. I hate Steve. And the professor, come to think of it.”

It should be noted that I’m using all men’s names because there is about one woman in every 500,000 philosophy sections. That’s an empirically verifiable fact.

And if you don’t find someone in the class to hate, you can always hate a philosopher:

“Dude, Camus has no rigor. I freaking hate Camus. I mean, what’s with this ‘the only question is whether to live’ crap? Could you possibly be more French and existentialist?”

“He’s not as bad as Schopenhauer, though. I hate Schopenhauer. Damn Germans and their existential malaise.”

If you’re not the gregarious type, you can still get your fix by hating the entire human race vicariously through Nietzsche until you identify way too much with him and end up crying yourself to sleep after banging your head against the wall for an hour just so you can feel something.

So, in the end, it all somehow works out. I need my hate fix, and philosophy gives me plenty to hate. I love it, though, you know? It’s the major you love to hate. I may graduate college deeply in debt with no job opportunities in sight, but watch out. After I ask you if you’d like fries with that, I just might convince you that you don’t exist in the time it takes me to get your change from the drawer. And then what? Dan, one. Lunch crowd, nothin’. I believe it was Wittgenstein who once said, “You got served.”

Tell Dan Richey he’s a jerk at [email protected].