It seems that modern criticism and schooling has become totally obsessed by playing ‘identify the offended minority’ to almost the complete exclusion of everything else. Why are we constantly applying 21st century politically correct baggage to art and literature? To what purpose does it serve, other than offering an interesting aside? It shouldn't take centre stage all the time.
How much longer must we punish the Victorians for being sexist/homophobic/racist? Discussing the role and representation of women in…? Or considering whether Conrad was a racist or not? These are the wrong questions.
In seven years of doing literature I don’t think I had faced a question regarding the actual quality of a text. So obsessed by ‘correcting’ the past, such things are often neglected and works are often selected by the issues they raise, not necessarily because of the works themselves. To me this is just crazy.
In a recent interview I had to select a text for a class of 12 year olds. Without even realising it I found myself choosing a book from which I could challenge negative attitudes towards the disabled. Why? Was I applying as a moral guidance councillor or some form of modern ethical spokesman? No of course not, but I have become subconsciously fed to think this way. It is also a fact that all teachers in the UK must tick the box that challenges negative minority attitudes to qualify in the first place! Similarly, I stumbled across a thread the other day comparing Milton with another writer, fair enough, but one of the points of comparison was their attitudes to minority figures – what? What the hell, for what reason? Such thinking has become so embedded, evidently.
I am not, for one second, suggesting that we return to the late Victorian aesthetic movement and I’m all for opening up a text and discussing all manner of things, it’s just that I think I have had just about enough of the ‘minority spotting school of criticism’ to last a lifetime, besides it has become such a distraction. To take a hobby horse of mine as an example, I can’t think of how much merit and wisdom has been missed in the works of Wilde to the endless pursuit and criticism of Victorian attitudes of sexuality – what a waste I think. This is the danger of leaving the text aside in pursuit of such side issues.
It is also not possible to portray misguided characters, by which I mean racists, sexists etc, in any modern work, unless they are ‘bad’ characters who are ‘punished’ for exhibiting that attitude in the works conclusion. Imagine a character who is openly racist and gets away with it. Imagine the complaints if this were to air on a popular TV series for example. I don’t know about other countries, but here in the UK the number of complaints would get that programme off air overnight. Why is this? Can a writer not portray such ‘faulty’ characters openly without the need to punish them in a neat conclusion or are they no racists/sexists/homophobics left in Britain? This is once again a case of morality stepping on the toes of artistic licence.
Of course, I am not suggesting for one second that a writer/director/artist should promote such behaviour, but they should be free to paint realistic characters if they so choose, all the same. Not content with punishing the artist for such expression however, the ‘minority spotting school of criticism’ has for a long time taken it up with the Victorians, the Elizabethans and every other custodian of every other age, for not having followed 21st century rules of morality.
OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little here and there, but in my view there is still far too much focus on such issues to the neglect of other matters and I think it is about time we put things a little more in perspective and returned to such things as the actual text; the quality of the writing, the historical context and biographical detail etc, etc. Biographical detail is particularly frowned upon in some circles of literary studies, in my experience anyway. Again this to me is just ridiculous.