The Cure for Fundamentalist Thinking

It had been a few months since I’d graduated from college, and I was running out of money and still struggling to find a job. The major on my diploma might have offered a clue as to why: Slavic Languages and Literatures. One night, despairing about my dismal career prospects, I heard my dad call to me from the den. “Hey, there’s a new comedy I just finished called ‘Ad­ventureland.’ I think you’d relate to it,” he said with a grin. I started watching. When I got to a certain scene, it clicked. Cut to two young people talking in a nightclub. “What are you majoring in?” the girl asks. “Russian literature and Slavic languages,” the guy answers.