Last Monday, graduate student Matt Owens asked his Contemporary Civilizations section to write a 300-word discussion post about Aristotle’s theory of happiness, due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm. Katie Benson (CC’24) submitted her post at 11:57, having written a total of 301 words.
According to a Federalist investigation, 90% of Benson’s post was just a personal anecdote about her own experience with happiness. It begins: “Aristotle thinks that happiness is important. Personally, that really resonated with me. Last summer, I decided not to do an internship so that I could be a lifeguard at my childhood summer camp.” Of the remaining 268 words, 238 went on to detail Benson’s “profound” experience yelling at six-year-olds not to run during free swim.
When asked for a comment, Owens told our journalists “I guess I was hoping that my students would use the discussion posts to talk about how the ancient Greek word for happiness — eudaimonia — is better translated to ‘flourishing’ and therefore modern readings of Aristotle often misinterpret his theory. But like, I guess Katie technically met the requirements of the assignment?”
Given that people who actually write intellectual shit for their discussion posts are fucking nerds, The Federalist fully endorses Benson’s evasive tactics.
