Gov. 20: An Editorial

Harvard - 2008

My TF told me before that my idea of an introduction was a total failure, and that I should be more direct. Because that raging dickface controls my grades (and by proxy, the only thing that gives me any sense of self-worth) I must cede to his demands.

My thesis is as follows: that I hate this course, and that political science as a science is about as real and substantive as my chances of getting laid in the next three to four years.1

I would begin with a physical description of the various physical and mental deficiencies which plague myself and the others around me, but my TF criticized that idea as being irrelevant to my thesis.2 As such, I will begin with a discussion of what political science has managed to reliably predict in the past fifty years.

1) Ethnic conflict happening somewhere in the world
2) That Africa would industrialize.3
Wow! What a track record! I wonder how that compares to the other sciences. Let’s pick one, just at random. Let’s say, chemistry?

What has chemistry given us?
1) Life as we know it.

Physics?
1) Life as we know it.

Robotics?
1) Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as well as the island nation of Japan.
2) Oh, and life as we know it. I love you, Roomba bot.

Things are looking pretty grim for political science. According to marginalization theory, a “new paradigm for suck is generated each time I read a new Gov. Reading” (Cunha, 13) If this is true, then we can determine that there is an overall detrimental effect to people doing work in this field.

If we look at the data in table 1 [not provided, make your own], we can see clear exponential trends in a reader’s desire to stop working, and instead get really, really high.4 We call this Budman’s law.
Budman’s law applies to a variety of different subjects, including French, expository writing, and cleaning up the extraordinary filth which has crusted over every single thing in my suite. If a certain threshold is passed, people will eventually be forced to stop for a “Bud Break.”
The Bud Break threshold can be broken only by powerful external stimulus, such as the smell of three week old Falafel Palace schwarma or your TF threatening to beat you LAPD style if you “give [him] another piece of academic shit like [I] did just now.”

Breaking this threshold doesn’t make you care more, but, to quote Office Space, “It’ll make you work just hard enough not to get fired.” Or, in this case, expelled and forced to join the roster of colorful hobos who live in Harvard Square.

In conclusion, work sucks and fuck you Steven Woodworth, you Ph.D wannabe.

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1 NOT VERY.
2 He was just unhappy I spent so long describing him.
3 Oh wait, that didn’t happen at all! Fuck you modernization theory.
4 My hands have hands! My hands have hands!

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