While I was in art school, I can't count the number of times I heard the phrase: "Would you like fries with that?"
#2 was always something about underwater basketweaving.
I guess the humor/affirmation didn't translate. Maybe I hit "reply" too far down, took a while for the fries thing to bubble up from 19 years ago. Maybe not such a common phrase in this context as it was back then.
This was a snide remark about education as emotional entertainment, a bourgeois pleasure if there ever was one.
Alternatively, it was about some claim that English majors are likely to be employed at fast food establishments.
Alternatively alternatively, it was about the fast food nature of the life experience gained in an English course.
Any other interpretations?
I can get insights from literature... and other things. I can also DO other things. Lit as the only source of insight is inaccurate, misleading, and inefficient. Don't confuse this with the logical opposite and assume I'm saying there's no insight in lit... I love to read, especially the "good stuff". I just acknowledge there's a whole world out there.
I got a fail on the paper and a summons to the professor's office. He raked me over the coals for failing to do the most important thing--respect the material. After all, what was I trying to achieve? Ultimately, nothing--I was just spewing my anger at religion, in the same way that stereotypical fundamentalists spew their anger at infidels. Like a hurt animal, I was using my best offensive skill--a young adroitness with language--to make a childish swipe at something beyond my understanding.
In other words, he called me out for my empty intellectual exercises. I was hurt and broken. Then I mended myself, and I thank him forever for doing that.