[anewhnaccount]

Interesting. My thoughts were this was the weak half-rationalisations of a teacher taking out his anger at himself for his own career having plateaued on his students. I think that's a shame that just because the film doesn't explicitly criticise this viewpoint (apart from through the whole narrative of course -- he ends up dropping out of school when he could've been happy being a good gigging musician with a girlfriend -- and someone commits suicide) people internalize it. See Fight Club I guess.