How did Harold Bloom rise to such a level of eminence?

[Alfred001]

There seems to be a level of reverence around this guy and even I, who knows no other scholar of literature, have heard of him. How did this reputation get made?

[ennison]

Probably through the quantity of his critical output. He's written one novel. Mostly he leaves that to the big boys and girls.

[tailor STATELY]

While I don't revere him I enjoy his critical voice. I have a book to return... today if possible, Walt Whitman selected poems from the American Poets Project, where he is listed as the editor; his introductory pages are quite insightful.

• Shmoop's's article does him some justice... https://www.shmoop.com/harold-bloom/

• article from a fan: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/the-immortal-harold-bloom-the-greatest-literary-critic-on-the-planet-a7681621.html

• article from a critic: http://www.cosmoetica.com/D1-DES1.htm

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Ecurb]

Probably through the quantity of his critical output. He's written one novel. Mostly he leaves that to the big boys and girls.

Why the anti-intellectual snark, ennison? Bloom is an academic, not a novelist (despite the one novel). Should historians be out there making history, instead of chronicling it? Should journalists murder people, instead of reporting on the murders of others? Should theoretical physicists blow up cities instead of theorizing about sub-atomic principles?
A basic principle of criticism is that we should criticize a work for what it is, not for what it isn't.

It is true that critiques are not novels, that mathematical proofs are not feats of engineering, and that analyses of political movements are not revolutions. Why this should make them somehow immature is beyond me. In addition, it seems (to borrow ennison's approach to criticism) a juvenile objection to “ivory tower” intellectuals. On a literary forum where people gather to criticize works of literature, ennison's position seems particularly strange.

[ennison]

Well there you have it

[EmptySeraph]

Bloom—an academic? And what right of meaning should this term be lend exactly? The notion strikes me as sacrilegious, and indeed it proves itself to be so to the utter region, but then again, it could be a lapse in judgement from my part: perhaps an academic is a degenerate novelist, one that, being thoroughly acquainted with his total inability to prove himself worthy of any valuable artistic finality, sets out to obtain his revenge for being a lesser artist, a nicely made up ersatz, a simulacrum of the true subject that he makes into his object, and thus distorting its beauty, brought down to his prosaic level, for having had the temerity to be infinitely more gifted than him. What a lovely thing an academic is, then.

[Red Terror]

It has been said many times that litetary critics are frustrated novelists.

[Ecurb]

The notion that critics are jealous of those they criticize is a fairly common one. But it can hardly apply to Bloom, He is the first to say that Shakespeare is “infinitely more gifted than him (sic)”, to borrow empty seraph's meandering prose. Saying Bloom is jealous of Shakespeare is akin to saying that the angels are jealous when they sing God's praises.

Bloom is (and has been for decades now) a Professor at Yale. That makes him an academic. His job is to teach young people about literature, and he has offered his services to those who can't afford to go to Yale, or can't get admitted to Yale, or simply don't want to attend Yale by writing dozens of books. I've read only a couple, so I'm no expert on Bloom.

Nonetheless, I think literature is a worth Humanity to study, and to think (as empty seraph seems to, although it's difficult to tell) that discussing literature “distorts its beauty” and brings it “down to his (Bloom's) prosaic level” is not only incorrect, but silly. Why would it?

I'll grant that some secondary schools teach their students that poems are riddles, the meaning of which must be deciphered. This too is silly, although many young students benefit from learning how to comprehend the literal meaning of transposed poetic lines.

Criticism is a natural and essential human function: Philosophy involves critiques of modes of thinking and behavior; Theology involves critiques of sacred literature; mathematics involves critiques of mathematical language (i.e. discovering what can be logically inferred from a set of postulates and definitions). Science itself is dependent on literature, if scientists didn't write down the results of their experiments, they could not “stand on the shoulders of giants”. In a sense, any critique of the report of an experiment in a scientific journal is a form of literary criticism.

Why should novels, poems and plays be immune from criticism, when other forms of literature (math, science, philosophy, etc.) are not? I'm sure any critic worth his salt hopes for the best when reading a novel, although he is sometimes disappointed. Bloom – of all literary critics the most worshipful – hardly seems jealous, or eager to diminish the achievements of others (although he occasionally bashes some authors, often anti-Semitic ones, like Eliot and Pound).

[ennison]

Should Mr H Bloom's opinions on an author or text happen to agree with mine I would not be upset. Same applies to Mr Pope on spiritual or moral matters. The word "worshipful" is the one that troubles me. (But only a little since I don't care really about the opinions of any prof of literature) It is of course true that one need not be able to bake to criticise a cake or go to the North Pole to know it's damn cold in the winter. But the comment of GBS has a little relevance : "Those who can etc..." GBS omitted to add that those who cannot teach actually teach the teachers. Tessimond saw through the uncreative who wrote "books on books on books" but perhaps that was during one of his bipolar episodes. But Mr HB has not read everything (no one has) and his tastes are only as democratic as his personal opinions allow. The last point seems to support that. Should I dismiss or bash Mr Bellow as a writer because he was a bit of a crud, or Vonnegut because he was a hypocrite? Well I guess I could but I won't ... not yet.

[JCamilo]

While the status of Bloom as critic and academic cannot be ignored, he is famous because he wrote (Just like Dawkins, Umberto Eco and many others did) a book very accessible (or more than one) that made people who had no commitment to study literature to feel as if he was going deep in the knowledge of literature (or biology, or semiotics). This pop status does not translate in the academic field, he is a well-known more because of his popularity but had not the same impact of better critics. The whole defence of canon is itself a marketing thing, rather than academic matter.

[Ecurb]

I myself have made no commitment to study literature (I like literature, and I like the form of literature called "criticism", but I haven't made any formal study of it, nor, equally likely, made a commitment to study it which I did not fulfill). The only Bloom book I own is "Genius", the title of which implies that Bloom loves to praise other authors. Indeed, his enthusiasm for the canon (and for literature in general) is infectious, and that's probably why his books are popular. I'd guess he's an outstanding teacher, because enthusiasm is an important attribute for a teacher.

It's ironic, I suppose, that partly due to his love of the canon, Bloom has become a canonical critic (in popular circles, at least). According to the book jacket of "Genius" he's a "master entertainer" (Newsweek), "the indispensable critic" (NY Review of Books), and "Our most valuable critic" (Boston Globe). Academics sometimes dislike popular entertainers (like Bloom) because they are TOO accessible (and too popular). Nonetheless, Bloom appears to have read every important (Western) literary work and to be able to make entertaining and insightful comments about most of them. To the non-professional, literature (critiques included) must be entertaining, or why bother with it? Bloom (it seems to me) qualifies in this regard.

[JCamilo]

That is where the pop status of him is overated, reading Bloom, I got the exactly oposite impression, very knowlledable on specific areas of western literatura (almost the anglo-saxon canon, some extra spice for french or close enough cannons) but lacking a lot elsewhere. Granted, he is not a blind bat, so he knows the main names of spanish, portuguese, latin-american literature, but his comments about them are swallow and pretty much uninteresting. I enjoy the texts where he is talking about, for example, Emily Dickinson, because it is his area and his passion is over there and there is no taint of his Shakespeare obssession.

This is something else, I find odd that his Anxiety of Influence starts with him having to remove Shakespeare from the object of analyse, as if Shakespeare didn't belong to the same process of formation and influence of all others. It is weird, because either he wants or not, Shakespeare is all over the place, but it seems to me he refuses to work with the idea Shakespeare had "anxiety". His bias towards this freudian aspect of literature is a big nagging. Also his war against the so called school of ressentiment (marxism, feminism, etc.) seems to me an early and intelectual way to go "political correctness is killing our culture" "SJW", a very narrow conservative position (and his israeli nationalism got him in weird places latter too), instead of reckogning the importance of such authors and how this debate is part of the force of maintainence and transformation of the cannon that is beyond his power to contain and an academic should have a more objective approach to the matter.

[ennison]

If you consider that in, say the UK, there are about 180000 books published a year and a few hundred others in minority languages (Welsh, Ghaidhlig...) then you would have to admit the impossibility of any one person keeping up with that. Many of these titles are manuals, textbooks, first readers, non-fiction of a very specific kind etc. but that still leaves a substantial amount of what might be described as literary fiction. We rely on arbiters like reviewers and critics to give us guidance. Some of these we trust. Some we don't. I trust Allan Massie in that respect as I find him a sympathetic and intelligent reviewer who never seems to be nastily waspish and he himself is a practising author. Perhaps many people like Bloom's style, perhaps many find he gives them angles on texts which help to enlighten them, perhaps others find his opinions chime with their own. There are those who read reviewers / critics rather than texts because they are not inclined to the (fairly minimal ) intellectual exercise involved in reading or grudge the time. It is probably quite useful for a young person to have the guidance of a well-read critic. It is absurd for a well-read adult to require it. At some point you develop enough knowledge and taste of your own to create your own "canon"

[Ecurb]

Although critics occasionally help illuminate the text (I read Ulysses with their aid), the main reason to read critiques is for their own sake. If a book about baseball or football can be entertaining, why not a book about books?

[ennison]

Why not indeed. But I neither idolise nor revere any author or critic. Bloom is interesting. Kenneth Rexroth is very interesting. Allan Massie knows what he is talking about when it comes to distinguishing the good from the better. So I trust Massie's literary opinions. On politics he is frequently right-wing-foot-in-mouth (to mix metaphors for clumsiness' sake)I remember him clearly trying to defend the UK's (and USA's) support of Saddam Husssein during his assault on Iran. So I do not trust him on politics. Bloom, Rexroth and Massie can all use language well. As can many other critics, commentators and guides.

[WICKES]

He is an interesting and entertaining writer. But he also holds fairly conservative views, and many people love him for it. Bloom believes in, and defends, 'the canon'. Unfortunately, just because that canon consists of dead, white European males some seem to think it's worthless and should be ditched. I don't know about other countries, but here in the UK the academic/literary world is dominated by people with liberal-Left views who seem more interested in race, identity and sexuality than artistic excellence. Right now, there is a campaign by black British academics to "de-colonize" university curriculums, which is another way of saying "cut out as many dead white Europeans as possible and replace them with black writers." Imagine a group of Africans going to China and telling them that their Universities were "too Chinese"!! Another group were trying to have the poet laureate replaced by Benjamin Zephaniah, a Jamaican poet influenced by hip hop and rap music. I am reading a biography of the 19th-century English poet Swinburne at the moment (almost forgotten today- just another of those dead, white European males). He once wrote a selection of poems for a literary magazine, one in French, one in Latin, one in Italian and one in ancient Greek. And by the standards of his time that wasn't extraordinary. Benjamin Zephaniah can barely write coherent English, let alone French or Latin!

Bloom's real gripe is that we've replaced deep learning and study with an insipid political correctness. In other words, it doesn't really matter what you read, or how much, or how intelligently, so long as you hold the 'correct' PC views. I have printed off his list of the great books ('Bloom's canon' as it is known) and am following it closely.

[JCamilo]

Bloom real grip is a BS conservative non-sense. He is quick to add like a hypocrite several modern jewish writers in his "world canon" list because he is Jewish. He is doing exactly what he "complains" about african americans (in the case) or feminists. Also his claims that the canon is purely aesthetic is infantile since aesthetics is in many aspects ideological and he also goes for it, when he leaves some very relevant dead white man such as Foucault or Derrida from his lists only because they are marxists.

The world canon does not belong to anyone or any culture, when afro-american academics go to introduce african authors in universities, they are not damaging the Canon at all. Chinua Achebe didnt remove Conrad from the canon, he added several names, after all and several women writers from XIX century (and before) were added to the canon because the efforts by XX century feminists and their close readings of the works. Literature is open and so it is the canon, that is the point. You are not replaced (if you are not good enough to survive without a circunstancial reading by students, then you are just not canon. Melville, Dante, Machiavelli, Homer, and god know how many authors had periods of ostracism and bigger enemies than some random teacher somewhere and they still canonical), the canon grows. It is absolutely ridiculous to think when you add several perspectives and culture (like England, hardly a dead white man country now), they will read and vallue the same literature. And please Swinburne created a national sport: to pinpoint how over-the top his poems were, already in the XIX century by several white man now dead. He is not that impressive and talking four languages? Are you sure guys like Keats or Cervantes are such multilingual prodigies?

Bloom failure is probally his own sucess, because otherwise, he would have killed works of art with aesthetical merits just because they do not fit his ideological standpoint.

[ennison]

I wouldn't argue with the idea that Swinburne could write badly but he wrote a lot and some of it is good. He ain't as powerful as say Tennyson or Browning but poetry needs its Swinburnes too.

[JCamilo]

Tennyson, another dead white man, was quite maligned in the XX century, way more than Swinburne because Tennyson was the main representative of that age, yet, his reading never went to the point he was not read anymore or that his influence couldn't be denied. Swinburne, with his ocasional merit, is less read than then because he is a lesser poet, not because he was a dead white man having his reputation smeared by some imaginary conspirary of diversity pawns.

Let's face it, Ideology has a say on the canon, just like in any canon, but it is not something that can be corrupt "the canon".

[Ecurb]

Swinburne probably never had sex with a monkey and then ate it, although he once claimed he had. His poetry is noted for his skill with rhymes and rhythms. He was also (to return to the subject of this thread) a noted critic, who wrote:


To Walt Whitman in America

Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

[OrphanPip]

He is an interesting and entertaining writer. But he also holds fairly conservative views, and many people love him for it. Bloom believes in, and defends, 'the canon'. Unfortunately, just because that canon consists of dead, white European males some seem to think it's worthless and should be ditched. I don't know about other countries, but here in the UK the academic/literary world is dominated by people with liberal-Left views who seem more interested in race, identity and sexuality than artistic excellence. Right now, there is a campaign by black British academics to "de-colonize" university curriculums, which is another way of saying "cut out as many dead white Europeans as possible and replace them with black writers." Imagine a group of Africans going to China and telling them that their Universities were "too Chinese"!! Another group were trying to have the poet laureate replaced by Benjamin Zephaniah, a Jamaican poet influenced by hip hop and rap music. I am reading a biography of the 19th-century English poet Swinburne at the moment (almost forgotten today- just another of those dead, white European males). He once wrote a selection of poems for a literary magazine, one in French, one in Latin, one in Italian and one in ancient Greek. And by the standards of his time that wasn't extraordinary. Benjamin Zephaniah can barely write coherent English, let alone French or Latin!

Bloom's real gripe is that we've replaced deep learning and study with an insipid political correctness. In other words, it doesn't really matter what you read, or how much, or how intelligently, so long as you hold the 'correct' PC views. I have printed off his list of the great books ('Bloom's canon' as it is known) and am following it closely.

Decolonizing a classroom is not simply about cutting out white European males. Whether we like it or not our classrooms have changed. I look at my students in a first year survey class, very few of whom are white, and they go several months before they get to read an author that somewhat speaks to their personal experience. I believe strongly in the value of the canon, I work on eighteenth century precursors to the the novel (mostly Defoe), but teaching with a mindfulness to the full experiences of our students and to the message we are putting across as educators is important. Looking at my specialty, eighteenth-century British literature, I conceive of decolonizing a classroom on the subject as more akin to making sure if I teach Johnson's Rasselas or Behn's Oroonoko I also make sure to teach Equiano's Interesting Narrative so I don't perpetuate the silencing of minority voices.

[ennison]

If I was sitting in Mongolia studying English literature I would expect the writers not to be speaking to my experience but their own. Why study what you don't like because these writers didn't grow up in a blackhouse. For that I'll read my own poets etc.

[OrphanPip]

If I was sitting in Mongolia studying English literature I would expect the writers not to be speaking to my experience but their own. Why study what you don't like because these writers didn't grow up in a blackhouse. For that I'll read my own poets etc.

I think that ignores the pedogogical purpose of the classroom and the context of the institution. I don't think students of colour expect Middle English lyrics to speak directly of their experience, but we should be conscious of the dynamics we perpetuate when choosing course content. I personally think historical surveys need to be scrapped in favour of generic, theoretical and mechanical frameworks for first year classes. It sends a bad message to students to suggest through the curriculum that their interest in something like African American literature is not relevant unless they first pass through the gates of canonical literature that may not be as relevant to them. I'm merely commenting on what "decolonizing" the classroom means as a practice rather than as a supposed bogeyman of anti-white resentment.

Also, the racialized rhetoric above (the first post I responded to not yours) caries a problematic suggestion that a person of colour is less authentically Canadian/British/American than white students.

[JCamilo]

If I was sitting in Mongolia studying English literature I would expect the writers not to be speaking to my experience but their own. Why study what you don't like because these writers didn't grow up in a blackhouse. For that I'll read my own poets etc.


This is very strange. It is like a teacher like Pip is the sole responsable for your choices and you can only read what he suggests/demands. There are or should be multiple places that will allow some exchange of experience for a reader, not just the school class such as libraries, book shops, clubs, foruns... And more strange is the idea you will study what you like. It is study, some degree of challenge and lack of knowledge is expected and the teacher has every chance to work with you and everyone in the class (and one student that "likes" a book you don't already justify that inclusion) before you can judge it out.

[Ecurb]

Another problem with Bloom's "Canon" is that many high school and (even) college students find it difficult. I've spoken to teachers who are expected to teach Shakespeare to teen-aged students for whom English is a second language -- and who can barely read modern English. Heck, on these very pages, Kev (a smart, well-read guy) confesses to finding Shakespeare difficult.

Learning to read difficult texts is important, of course. But I fear we scare teenagers off. They may learn to think that "literary" novels, plays and poems are beyond them, or boring, and that they should stick to genre fiction, Young Adult novels, etc. Teachers should try to instill a love of literature in their students -- and canonical texts are not always the best way to do that (or, if they are, texts should be chosen that are both canonical and geared to the interests and reading comprehension levels of the students).

I'm guessing that Bloom's students at Yale are better equipped to read many of Bloom's canonical texts than many students attending Community College.

In response to ennison: why read any fiction you don't like? Yet that's exactly what teaching the canon in public (state) schools attempts to force children to do, often unsuccessfully. Political Correctness cuts both ways. Bloom thinks admiring the canon is "PC"; others think reading about other cultures is. My opinion: high school students should be encouraged to read those books they actually like (although, of course, tastes differ, and you can't please everyone).

[JCamilo]

A world canon is obviously filled with other cultures and nobody is making anyone not read what they like. As I said, the classroom is not the only place you will have contact with literature. It has specific objectives. Also, the ideas of "reading what I like" reduces reading experience to pleasure. It can be, but it also create a generation a bit too pampered.

Anyways, Shakespeare is difficult. Addults must admit it. He is Shakespeare, one of the most complexes artists ever. There are however plenty of ways to approach him. Sometimes I wonder, every student that would give up shakespeare because some sort of difficulty and go back to, i dunno, Hunger Games, has the same attitude playing the very complex videogames we have today. WIll him give up and come back to River Raid and Pac Man from Atari? Why instead of pleasure we dont say the satisfaction?

Of course, in Brazil we have similar debates, and I remind about Guimarães Rosa. He is a XX century author, so, language is supposed to be less a challenge. Supposed, because Guimarães is joycean: he prefers to work with the way the words sounds, so he even refused to use the register of words that we would find in a dictionary. Also, he used a specific form of portuguese, used in a countryside region (so specific that people tought he invented it until the day he went to Rio de Janeiro with a cowboy from this parts and the dude talked like they talked in the book). He wanted to represent the text with flow of oral speech and used wallet-words and what to not. To make it harder, he was a modernist, he has books swaping chronologies and his most famous book, Grande Sertões Vereda, in almost a continual stream of conciouness for 600 pages in that style. Hard for students to tackle? Yeah, except in Guimarães City, if you go there, you find group of kids 8-14 years old, able to recite entire portions of book. They will work as tourist guides for you and sometimes they are put together for shows and what not. Quite amazing. Those kids - it is a small countryside city, so nobody is exactly born within "high" educational groups - enjoy and learn Guimarães Rosa. Perhaps the difference is in how the work is done with them?

[Danik 2016]

Hi, Camilo,

I´m putting this link in (seems to be the most recent translation), so that people might get an idea of Rosas´s language:

https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/july-2016-brazil-beyond-rio-grande-sertaeo-veredas-joao-guimaraes-rosa

[ennison]

I repeat that if all you want from a course of literature in another language from another culture is to have your own experiences validated then you are in the wrong bleeding course pal.

[OrphanPip]

I repeat that if all you want from a course of literature in another language from another culture is to have your own experiences validated then you are in the wrong bleeding course pal.

I think students taking a course in a foreign language are beyond the scope or relevance of the conversation. I'm referring to my Canadian students of colour. Also, I don't think your point substantively addresses the appropriateness of foregrounding certain canonical texts in the education of students.

A teacher selecting material for a course reading list has to consider a number of factors: relevance, accessibility, and coherence. More goes into selecting a reading list than simply slotting in a random assortment of important works. The course will always be more effective by selecting texts that speak to each other in some way.

The first course I taught 6 years ago when I was fresh out of my MA was titled "Sexual Rebellion" and was focused on a selection of texts that dealt with the topic of taboo sexuality. I organized it into three subunits: Banned or censored texts, 20th-century American feminist and queer texts, and post 1980s film. Students need digestible chunks.

The course materials included: Fanny Hill, Libertine poetry, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Sex-positive and sex-negative feminist theory, The Vagina Monologues, The SCUM Manifesto, Paris is Burning, and Crash.

I think as educators we have a duty not simply to teach a text but also to justify its relevance to the student. Students should be challenged but they should also be considered as agents in their own learning and the teacher has a responsibility to them that is complex and begins with the choice of subjects. Cleland and Shaw can be made to be relevant to current students by framing discussions around pornography, prostitution and the male gaze. My pedagogical opinions may disagree with those of my colleagues.

[Ecurb]

Bloom's canon clearly supports elitist principles. Familiarity with the "canon" provides entree into certain social circles. There's nothing wrong with this, in a way. All those Cambridge and Oxford men familiar with the "Western Canon" (in the good old days, that meant Homer, Virgil and the other Classics, not modern literature) could identify each other by such familiarity, and could seek the company of those with similar educations (and class backgrounds) as those they had enjoyed themselves.

Back in 19th Century England (if the novels I've read have informed me correctly), Greek and Latin classics were mandatory at Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton. Byron, Shelley, Austen (and to a lesser extent Shakespeare) were light, leisure reading. I somehow feel that discovering Blake or Keats in one's rooms at Winchester, and seeing such a discovery as a secret pleasure, gave the young scholars a thrill that assigning those texts in school does not.

Perhaps I'm prejudiced. I read constantly as a teenager, but hated the assigned readings from school. I'll grant that this was probably mere contrariness. I had good taste in literature: I loved Lord of the Rings, Huckleberry Finn, Orlando Furiosso, Kidnapped, and a great many other novels that I continue to think excellent). I have read most of the assigned novels I disliked as a teenager, and some are very good. Nonetheless, I don't think "Moby Dick" would appeal to many 15-year-olds. They read it as a duty (personally, I felt it was my duty to avoid reading it. I thought that a C+ on a pop-quiz about a chapter one HADN'T read demonstrated superior intelligence to an A on a chapter one had.)

I know I'm merely rambling (lest anyone think I'm attempting a cogent argument), and I defer to Orphan Pip and any other educators (especially high school teachers) for their opinions. What is the best way to teach English Literature in High School (years 9-12, prior to University)? Does the notion that the "canon" is clearly elitist (in the ways I mentioned before) turn off some students? Do high school teachers still run on about "character development" (which may have been a sort of post-Freudian fad back 4 decades ago when I was in high school)? Why did I (who discussed novels continuously with my friends and brothers) find English Literature classes in high school so intolerable?

[ennison]

So you aren't really teaching in Kuala Lumper. I'd be hard put to think of many significant contributions to English literature that emanated from a non-English speaking area. (Yeah I know about India but that is an exception and the majority of its literature is not English anyway) If it is in Canada you are teaching then your point is entirely coherent.

[OrphanPip]

So you aren't really teaching in Kuala Lumper. I'd be hard put to think of many significant contributions to English literature that emanated from a non-English speaking area. (Yeah I know about India but that is an exception and the majority of its literature is not English anyway) If it is in Canada you are teaching then your point is entirely coherent.

I haven't updated my location in a while, I moved back from Asia 3 years ago.

[JCamilo]

And If I recall correctly, Bloom does not have Rosa in his World Canon, which implies Bloom is not familiar with the World and with the Canon.

[JCamilo]

Bloom's canon clearly supports elitist principles. Familiarity with the "canon" provides entree into certain social circles. There's nothing wrong with this, in a way. All those Cambridge and Oxford men familiar with the "Western Canon" (in the good old days, that meant Homer, Virgil and the other Classics, not modern literature) could identify each other by such familiarity, and could seek the company of those with similar educations (and class backgrounds) as those they had enjoyed themselves.

Back in 19th Century England (if the novels I've read have informed me correctly), Greek and Latin classics were mandatory at Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton. Byron, Shelley, Austen (and to a lesser extent Shakespeare) were light, leisure reading. I somehow feel that discovering Blake or Keats in one's rooms at Winchester, and seeing such a discovery as a secret pleasure, gave the young scholars a thrill that assigning those texts in school does not.

Perhaps I'm prejudiced. I read constantly as a teenager, but hated the assigned readings from school. I'll grant that this was probably mere contrariness. I had good taste in literature: I loved Lord of the Rings, Huckleberry Finn, Orlando Furiosso, Kidnapped, and a great many other novels that I continue to think excellent). I have read most of the assigned novels I disliked as a teenager, and some are very good. Nonetheless, I don't think "Moby Dick" would appeal to many 15-year-olds. They read it as a duty (personally, I felt it was my duty to avoid reading it. I thought that a C+ on a pop-quiz about a chapter one HADN'T read demonstrated superior intelligence to an A on a chapter one had.)

I know I'm merely rambling (lest anyone think I'm attempting a cogent argument), and I defer to Orphan Pip and any other educators (especially high school teachers) for their opinions. What is the best way to teach English Literature in High School (years 9-12, prior to University)? Does the notion that the "canon" is clearly elitist (in the ways I mentioned before) turn off some students? Do high school teachers still run on about "character development" (which may have been a sort of post-Freudian fad back 4 decades ago when I was in high school)? Why did I (who discussed novels continuously with my friends and brothers) find English Literature classes in high school so intolerable?

I think Moby does not appeal to many addults either. But then, how many find physics appealing? Or biology? Or maths? But that prevent us from flat earth....

[Ecurb]

I think Moby does not appeal to many addults either. But then, how many find physics appealing? Or biology? Or maths? But that prevent us from flat earth....

That's a good point. However, let us posit some 15-year-old kid who is fascinated with physics. He studies it on his own. He reads physics journals. But, somehow, physics class in high school bores him, and this antipathy prevents him from studying physics further. Wouldn't that be a problem? Shouldn't schools foster enthusiasm in those already enthusiastic?

What is the point of studying literature in high school? I'm not a professional educator (and, again, I'd appreciate their feedback) but I'd suggest:

1) English classes promote basic reading skills and literacy.

2) Literature classes promote writing skills. Writing well is not only important in many fields, but it also promotes precision and accuracy of thought (just as math classes promote and develop logical thinking, even if the students will never prove geometry theorems once they graduate).

3) Literature classes can provide students with the skills and knowledge that they need in order to develop life-long love of literature. I'll grant that many students who already have basic literacy need help learning to read poetry (or Shakespeare's plays).

4) Literature classes should promote basic cultural literacy. Kids who graduate from high school should know who Romeo and Juliet are, and should be aware of Homer and Tolstoy. That's one point of the "canon"; it creates common ground from a cultural, moral, and aesthetic perspective. Perhaps the Bible is the most essential Western canonical book in this regard (and it is never taught in U.S. schools).

I think #1 and #2 are the most important goals of English class. But #3 and 4 are important as well. The question is: how can they be most effectively realized?

[Ecurb]

One more point:

If English Lit. classes are designed to teach writing skills, shouldn't students who are expected to write critical essays read critical essays? Back when I went to school, we wrote critical essays and read novels, short stories, poems and plays. Since we were never expected to write novels, short stories, poems or plays, this seems misguided.

[Pompey Bum]

Decolonizing a classroom is not simply about cutting out white European males.

Correct me if I'm wrong, OP, but I believe your use of "white European males" refers to race (and of course sex) rather than location or national belonging. In other words, you are talking about males whose ancestors (at least some of them) were Europeans. If your decolonization project "is not simply about" exclusion based on race and sex, it follows that it is also about those things. I have some questions.

Will you be excluding male authors with DNA from the English and French colonists of Canada? In light of China's aggressive imperialist policies (in Africa, for example), will you be excluding male Chinese authors too? Will that include Chinese males from Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere in the considerable Chinese diaspora? How about "white Europeans" (ethnically speaking) from former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South or Central America? These are not rhetorical questions. Please answer them.

[OrphanPip]

Correct me if I'm wrong, OP, but I believe your use of "white European males" refers to race (and of course sex) rather than location or national belonging. In other words, you are talking about males whose ancestors (at least some of them) were Europeans. If your decolonization project "is not simply about" exclusion based on race and sex, it follows that it is also about those things. I have some questions.

Will you be excluding male authors with DNA from the English and French colonists of Canada? In light of China's aggressive imperialist policies (in Africa, for example), will you be excluding male Chinese authors too? Will that include Chinese males from Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere in the considerable Chinese diaspora? How about "white Europeans" (ethnically speaking) from former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South or Central America? These are not rhetorical questions. Please answer them.

I was using the language of the post I replied to. I don't think it is about exclusion, of course cutting is necessary when we have limited space in a curriculum, but about making room for marginalized voices. I think you omitted the part where I also spoke about my research being focused primarily on Defoe. Of course in a Canadian context the inclusion of First Nations writers is usually a primary concern for us as educators.

Edit: Note that in the same post I gave the example of teaching writing by a black author, Equiano, alongside white eighteenth-century authors.

[Pompey Bum]

I don't think it is about exclusion, of course cutting is necessary when we have limited space in a curriculum, but about making room for marginalized voices.

With all due respect, OP, how dumb do you think I am? :) "Cutting" anyone on the basis of a race/sex victimology (even glucosed as "making room for marginalized voices") is the same thing as excluding them because of race or sex. Of course there are legitimate criteria for not using a given author based on the needs of a particular class (we're already doing Dickens so let's spare them Trollope), but you're just using that to further an ideology that has nothing to do with teaching the humanities (and which I would argue is toxic to it). Reducing individuals (including individual writers) to paradigms of racial and sexual identity groups bullying one other in and out of the margins cheapens what it means to be a human capable of liberality. You will find there is room for all of us.


I think you omitted the part where I also spoke about my research being focused primarily on Defoe.

True. I didn't mention your research because I was not directing my comments at you personally but at the moral flaws in "decolonizing" a classroom through excluding writers on the basis of sex and race. You, as I remember, are completely cool. Good luck with your research. Defoe was a bit of a pisser but at least had the courage to go against the grain.


Of course in a Canadian context the inclusion of First Nations writers is usually a primary concern for us as educators.

It sounds interesting. Will you be including accounts of first contact by Jesuit missionaries (who were, by and large, savaged by them)? Nothing like a little historical context. :)

[OrphanPip]

With all due respect, OP, how dumb do you think I am? :) "Cutting" anyone on the basis of a race/sex victimology (even glucosed as "making room for marginalized voices") is the same thing as excluding them because of race or sex.

I think there's a substantial difference. If you approach the process of choosing the text with the goal that the course material be diverse and relevant not only to the interest of the students but also to the current state of scholarship in the field. Why are you assuming certain texts have an a priori position within the curriculum and that not choosing them for a course list is cutting them on the basis of race.


Of course there are legitimate criteria for not using a given author based on the needs of a particular class (we're already doing Dickens so let's spare them Trollope), but you're just using that to further an ideology that has nothing to do with teaching the humanities (and which I would argue is toxic to it). Reducing individuals (including individual writers) to paradigms of racial and sexual identity groups bullying one other in and out of the margins cheapens what it means to be a human capable of liberality. You will find there is room for all of us.

It's not a matter of reducing individuals to particular categories. Race and sexuality are topics of literature whether written by white people or by straight people. If you want to have a discussion about the construction of race in the 18th century it only makes sense to include the voices of racialized writers in the discussion.




True. I didn't mention your research because I was not directing my comments at you personally but at the moral flaws in "decolonizing" a classroom through excluding writers on the basis of sex and race.

Again it can just as easily be thought of as including authors who have previously been excluded into a discussion. Why was their exclusion legitimate but swapping them into current discussions is illegitimate?

[Pompey Bum]

I think there's a substantial difference. If you approach the process of choosing the text with the goal that the course material be diverse and relevant not only to the interest of the students but also to the current state of scholarship in the field.

I don't see how silencing voices promotes diversity, but I am speaking of diversity of thought. Perhaps you are referring to racialist diversity. I have no respect for the concept nor is it axiomatic that I should. You have a better point with current scholarship, as odious as it is. Students seeking graduate work will need to know about it, if only to put an end to the racist claptrap. The times they are achangin'.


Why are you assuming certain texts have an a priori position within the curriculum

Perhaps you could show me where I claimed that "certain texts have an a priori position within the curriculum". I am almost certain I said it depends "on the needs of a particular class". And even that's not a priori knowledge.


and that not choosing them for a course list is cutting them on the basis of race.

Well, that's not something I need to assume since you've already told me decolonizing the classroom requires (among other things) "cutting out white European males".


If you want to have a discussion about the construction of race in the 18th century it only makes sense to include the voices of racialized writers in the discussion.

Why would I want to have such a discussion with those who play by self-evidently racist rules? That would be a mug's game indeed.


Again it can just as easily be thought of as including authors who have previously been excluded into a discussion. Why was their exclusion legitimate but swapping them into current discussions is illegitimate?

Both were and continue to be wrong (to the extent that "swapping them" means excluding voices on the basis of sex and race).

[Ecurb]

It seems to me that the "cult of the author" is called into question by Pompey and Orphan's discussion. Why would the race (or gender, or sexual orientation) of the author be significant to the importance of a novel or it's potential for inclusion in a class? It seems to me that the subject, style or substance of the story might be more relevant.

p.s. Pompey is arguing Bloom's position; Bloom hates the trend toward what Pompey would call a gender, racial and culturally biased cirriculum, and what Orphan would call an inclusive one. Inclusion can, of course, involve racial bias. But some see it as fighting fire with fire.

pps. Any "affirmative action" program is, by it's very nature, unfair and (if it's based on race) racially biased. We need not automatically conclude that that they are morally or politically reprehensible.

[JCamilo]

It does not matter much if it is affirmative or not. This is not new, the canon is flexible and will always change and include authors that were left behind (one person, one teacher will never really change the canon, if an autor is "forgotten" is because he was not part of the canon in the first place). Let's not get carried with new terminology doing the samething the greeks gave another name.

Anyways, why an author race is relevant? Since race is a socio-cultura construct, his race will be in the perspective of his creation. It will be everywhere. There will be always perspectives lost because humankind is not that good with that. Take the novel for example, the inclusion of the novels in the canon has to do with social changes. Their style, themes, etc has to do with a lot with the social class that favored them. I am not sure if other cultures (those with literary culture) will not offer quality works, take for example, the day Brazil became a world wide leader and all, they will review the canon to include brazilian writers. They will find writers that are as good as Poe, Byron, Faulkner, Tolstoy, etc. It will not be Paulo Coelho.

Now, your previous post... I dont think every literature class has the same objetive. I think most will work with improving the student reading, few with his writing. I may be wrong, but High Schoolers should know already basic reading and writting skills? I think most must work with creating conditions for ideal development of literary culture, but this should be done beyond the school class by all of us.

[Danik 2016]

I am not sure, but Pip can set me right on it, that his thematic choice for his course, was in the line of what today is called "cultural studies". I am never sure about "cultural studies", but it seems to me that instead putting period or esthetics or even the quality of certain authors in the foreground, they focus on certain themes. For example, if one wants to discuss the theme of slavery in US Literature one can put together in a course Hucklebery Finn, Gone with the Wind, Light in August, Invisible Man, Don´t Kill the Mockingbird etc. and make these texts converse among them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_studies

[Pompey Bum]

It seems to me that the "cult of the author" is called into question by Pompey and Orphan's discussion. Why would the race (or gender, or sexual orientation) of the author be significant to the importance of a novel or it's potential for inclusion in a class? It seems to me that the subject, style or substance of the story might be more relevant.

Your comments are interesting, Ecurb, and I appreciate them. My view is that an author's sex, sexual orientation, or the experience of living within his or her ethnicity can be enormously important to a novel. I do not wish to silence the expression of anyone's individuality. Quite the contrary.


p.s. Pompey is arguing Bloom's position; Bloom hates the trend toward what Pompey would call a gender, racial and culturally biased cirriculum, and what Orphan would call an inclusive one. Inclusion can, of course, involve racial bias. But some see it as fighting fire with fire.

Actually I reject Bloom and all literary orthodoxies (including the woke one). JCamilo and I talk at length about this on the Literature Ramble thread. Pip's idea that I was ascribing a priori value to certain authors couldn't have been more off base.


pps. Any "affirmative action" program is, by it's very nature, unfair and (if it's based on race) racially biased. We need not automatically conclude that that they are morally or politically reprehensible.

Affirmative action is morally reprehensible. It tyrannizes those it discriminates against and degrades those it purports to help. We shall overcome.

[Pompey Bum]

Anyways, why an author race is relevant? Since race is a socio-cultura construct, his race will be in the perspective of his creation. It will be everywhere.

Yes, potentially, but I think it has more to do with the personal experience of individual authors within the context of their ethnicity (or sexuality or whatever) rather than constructed social identities. I'm not saying that societies don't try to create such limitations, but one can be free even in a cage (and how much better not to step into one in the first place).


I may be wrong, but High Schoolers should know already basic reading and writting skills?

Not in the land of do as you please. I am, let's face it, approaching a certain age now, so please forgive me for sounding like an old man. But when I went to grammar school, we put on a production of Macbeth in sixth grade and began learning French in third. We did three Gilbert and Sullivans in what was then called Junior High School; we understood the Victorian English and got the jokes. There were plenty of Korean immigrants among us, and their parents made damn sure their English was better than ours before the first day of school. The Jewish kids studied Hebrew while the rest of us watched the Flintstones. Those days, obviously, are gone. American public education has become tax-supported supplementary day care at best and woke indoctrination camps at worst. It is still, I think, fair to say that a student who cannot read Shakespeare in tenth grade (much less master reading and writing skills) has no business entering a non-technological English-speaking college. And yet.


I think most must work with creating conditions for ideal development of literary culture, but this should be done beyond the school class by all of us.

Well, communities could help in principle--but communities have mostly degenerated into online Twitter mobs. Unfortunately the only solution I can see (I'm speaking for the United States only) is private education. That's unfortunate because it only contributes to the cultural divide that is already ripping us apart. Oh well, my migraine is almost gone now. Think I'll go read some Shakespeare.

[JCamilo]

Yes, potentially, but I think it has more to do with the personal experience of individual authors within the context of their ethnicity (or sexuality or whatever) rather than constructed social identities. I'm not saying that societies don't try to create such limitations, but one can be free even in a cage (and how much better not to step into one in the first place).

I don't see this as a disagreement. Race is relevant (as representant of socio-cultural background), even if we study Dante or Shakespeare, which individual skill is unique, etc. Race may be not the most important, but to say (as Ecurd suggested) that there is no important it is too much), even to works which tematic is not cultural differences. I think we believe too much in the propaganda that has hyperbolic nature (death to author! dead white guys) and less in real pratice.


Not in the land of do as you please. I am, let's face it, approaching a certain age now, so please forgive me for sounding like an old man. But when I went to grammar school, we put on a production of Macbeth in sixth grade and began learning French in third. We did three Gilbert and Sullivans in what was then called Junior High School; we understood the Victorian English and got the jokes. There were plenty of Korean immigrants among us, and their parents made damn sure their English was better than ours before the first day of school. The Jewish kids studied Hebrew while the rest of us watched the Flintstones. Those days, obviously, are gone. American public education has become tax-supported supplementary day care at best and woke indoctrination camps at worst. It is still, I think, fair to say that a student who cannot read Shakespeare in tenth grade (much less master reading and writing skills) has no business entering a non-technological English-speaking college. And yet.

Yes, but I do not think the degradation of humanities is because the canon's "corruption" (being exagerated here) that Bloom see. The do as you please has more to do with include Harry Potter because literatura has too be fun (and unrelated to Pip, which I understand is teaching something more advanced) and promote love of literature than include Toni Morrison instead of Philip Roth or Harlan Ellison over Cormac McCarthy (no idea if those are realistic examples).

Unrelated, but canonical reavaluation is good for the canon, not bad. I keep wondering which will be the momment stuff like Lord of the Rings will be accepted as Dickens is accepted. That would probally help to reduce its popularity :D




Well, communities could help in principle--but communities have mostly degenerated into online Twitter mobs. Unfortunately the only solution I can see (I'm speaking for the United States only) is private education. That's unfortunate because it only contributes to the cultural divide that is already ripping us apart. Oh well, my migraine is almost gone now. Think I'll go read some Shakespeare.

Communities for me are liberaries, bookshops, family, etc. I think the burden of creating a literary culture falling only on school created a bit of this generation that see literature as a step towards somewhere that you abandon in the way addult life. Online communities sure, but I have no seen anywhere, anything that can replaced good old libraries and book shops with selected books and professionals who actually can help your way there (even if you do not need) and not suggest you to go to the videogaming area.

[OrphanPip]

I am not sure, but Pip can set me right on it, that his thematic choice for his course, was in the line of what today is called "cultural studies". I am never sure about "cultural studies", but it seems to me that instead putting period or esthetics or even the quality of certain authors in the foreground, they focus on certain themes. For example, if one wants to discuss the theme of slavery in US Literature one can put together in a course Hucklebery Finn, Gone with the Wind, Light in August, Invisible Man, Don´t Kill the Mockingbird etc. and make these texts converse among them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_studies

It was a pre-uni course on literary themes. Quebec pre-uni college students are required to take three English courses as part of their diploma: literary genres, literary themes, and program specific (like journalistic writing, or technical writing). The first set includes courses like: Shakespeare, American Literature, Romantic poetry etc. The second set would include courses like the one I had designed.

In relation to your question, my approach to literature often foregrounds historical/material criticism grounded in some of the approaches of critical theory which inform cultural studies as a medium. Although, I wouldn't consider the class to have been a cultural studies one because I still pay attention to matters of form, affect, and presentation over critical theory.

[Pompey Bum]

I don't see this as a disagreement. Race is relevant (as representant of socio-cultural background), even if we study Dante or Shakespeare, which individual skill is unique, etc. Race may be not the most important, but to say (as Ecurd suggested) that there is no important it is too much), even to works which tematic is not cultural differences.

There is some overlap. The experience of ethnicity in an author's life may be a significant part of what he or she brings to a novel. Information about "socio-cultural background" (as you put it) can be helpful in understanding an author when little else is known (Shakespeare may have been a crypto-Catholic because...). But that is not same (and I'm not saying you're doing this) as constructing genetically identified victim groups "swapped out" in an perpetual power struggle between master and marginalized. That's Marxism with race or sex or sexuality (in any case, victimhood) swapped out for class struggle. We've seen this movie before. It doesn't end well.


I think we believe too much in the propaganda that has hyperbolic nature (death to author! dead white guys) and less in real pratice.

I'd rather not take the chance.


Communities for me are liberaries, bookshops, family, etc. I think the burden of creating a literary culture falling only on school created a bit of this generation that see literature as a step towards somewhere that you abandon in the way addult life. Online communities sure, but I have no seen anywhere, anything that can replaced good old libraries and book shops with selected books and professionals who actually can help your way there (even if you do not need) and not suggest you to go to the videogaming area.

I couldn't agree more (about the abandonment of the life of learning, I mean). But the kind of community you describe has been dead up here for some time. The life of the mind is becoming a solitary pursuit. The young intellectuals are all about AI or intersectionality. I'm retired, so it's easy enough for me to take the Benedictine option. I just hope I'm dead before the robots come for me. ;-)

[Ecurb]

Affirmative action is morally reprehensible. It tyrannizes those it discriminates against and degrades those it purports to help. We shall overcome.

Are you opposed to all forms of reparations? Weren't former slaves given an acre of land and a mule? Isn't that an example of affirmative action?

I'll agree that some forms of affirmative action degrade beneficiaries, but may also benefit society. What were the freed slaves expected to do without the acre and mule?

[ennison]

Affirmative action can't go on forever but clearly when certain groups were obviously hindered for whatever reason it is not enough to just take the obstacles away and the shackles off. I had a crutch the year before last. I chucked it away after a bit.

[Pompey Bum]

Are you opposed to all forms of reparations? Weren't former slaves given an acre of land and a mule? Isn't that an example of affirmative action?

I'll agree that some forms of affirmative action degrade beneficiaries, but may also benefit society. What were the freed slaves expected to do without the acre and mule?

Actually it was 40 acres and a mule, which wasn't a discriminatory hiring practice, so no, it doesn't affect my view of affirmative action.

[Pompey Bum]

Affirmative action can't go on forever but clearly when certain groups were obviously hindered for whatever reason it is not enough to just take the obstacles away and the shackles off. I had a crutch the year before last. I chucked it away after a bit.

Hey, Ennison. Long time, man. Glad to hear the crutch is gone. You be well, eh?

[Danik 2016]

It was a pre-uni course on literary themes. Quebec pre-uni college students are required to take three English courses as part of their diploma: literary genres, literary themes, and program specific (like journalistic writing, or technical writing). The first set includes courses like: Shakespeare, American Literature, Romantic poetry etc. The second set would include courses like the one I had designed.

In relation to your question, my approach to literature often foregrounds historical/material criticism grounded in some of the approaches of critical theory which inform cultural studies as a medium. Although, I wouldn't consider the class to have been a cultural studies one because I still pay attention to matters of form, affect, and presentation over critical theory.
Yes, you would certainly pay attention to the specific aspects of the literary texts. My objection to cultural studies is when they focus only on the content forgetting these specifities.
What astonishes me is that it was a pre-uni course. Are those Literary Courses you referred to taught to aspirants to the University?

[OrphanPip]

Yes, you would certainly pay attention to the specific aspects of the literary texts. My objection to cultural studies is when they focus only on the content forgetting these specifities.
What astonishes me is that it was a pre-uni course. Are those Literary Courses you referred to taught to aspirants to the University?

Quebec's education system is structured after European models.

k-6 primary school
7-11 secondary school
2 years pre-uni college or 3 year vocational college
3-4 year bachelor degrees

[Danik 2016]

I see. What interests me, Pip:
How does one reach de pre-uni college and the uni level? The students probably have to pass an examination or a contest to become accepted at the university.

[Pompey Bum]

Quebec's education system is structured after European models.

So much for decolonization. :)

[OrphanPip]

I see. What interests me, Pip:
How does one reach de pre-uni college and the uni level? The students probably have to pass an examination or a contest to become accepted at the university.

There's no entrance exams, students in Quebec colleges receive what is called an R-Score which is a relative grading model where your score is higher based on how much better you do than the average of your class and in relation to the class's average grades on government high school leaving exams. Entrance requirements for McGill, where I did my undergrad are typically in the 30+ R-score range, which is the top 15% of students roughly.

http://www.bemarianopolis.ca/choose-us/r-score/
https://www.mcgill.ca/applying/requirements/qc

My R score in college was 33, I went to Marianopolis which is a private college, but most students attend public pre-uni colleges that are essentially free and admit everyone.

[Ecurb]

Actually it was 40 acres and a mule, which wasn't a discriminatory hiring practice, so no, it doesn't affect my view of affirmative action.

I was wondering how far one acre would go toward supporting a family.... OK, that policy was a discriminatory economic advantage practice instead of a "hiring practice". That seems like a distinction without a difference.

All competitive hiring practices are "discriminatory" (as I'm sure Pompey is well aware). The question is: what are reasonable bases for discrimination? Would it be reasonable (to use just one obvious example) to hire only black actors to play Martin Luther King in a movie?

The problem with so-called "reverse racism" (of which a subset is affirmative action) is that it is prejudiced and overly generalized. I think many people would agree that it would be reasonable to admit a black kid from the inner city to Harvard who scored 1300 on his SATs over a white kid from Choate school who scored 1400 (other qualifications being equal). There are several reasons:

1) The inner city kid would probably have scored higher than the Choate kid, had he the same training and advantages. He's probably smarter, if not as well trained for the standardized tests.
2) We can guess (I don't know, but studies have probably been done) that the Choate kid would, after 4 years at Harvard, score 1400 on his GREs (the standardized tests for entering Grad school equivalent to the SATs). I'll bet the inner city kid would score 1360 or some such. His score might still be lower, but whom has the Harvard education benefited more? Shouldn't Harvard (among other things) want to provide the greatest possible benefits by educating their students?
3) If the student body at Harvard comprised 95% Choate grad, the students would not have that diverse group of friends and colleagues which might further their educational experience. Harvard probably has admissions policies, for example, that favor geographical diversity (which is a form of "affirmative action").
4) There are doubtless a number of other reasons we could suggest.

The problem with affirmative action programs based on race is that many black applicants might have gone to Choate, and had parents who were M.D.s. So they might benefit unfairly from programs designed to help the first kid. "Race" (which is a culturally constituted category,not a biologically constituted one) is a lazy shortcut.

Nonetheless, whining about "reverse racism" is pathetic. OK. You didn't get into Harvard. Go to Dartmouth. "We shall overcome" what? Our many advantages? (I'm not saying you're whining, Pompey, but your "we shall overcome" slogan could be interpreted that way, although I would never make such an interpretation because it would be uncharitable.)



Not in the land of do as you please. I am, let's face it, approaching a certain age now, so please forgive me for sounding like an old man. But when I went to grammar school, we put on a production of Macbeth in sixth grade and began learning French in third. We did three Gilbert and Sullivans in what was then called Junior High School; we understood the Victorian English and got the jokes. There were plenty of Korean immigrants among us, and their parents made damn sure their English was better than ours before the first day of school. The Jewish kids studied Hebrew while the rest of us watched the Flintstones. Those days, obviously, are gone. American public education has become tax-supported supplementary day care at best and woke indoctrination camps at worst. It is still, I think, fair to say that a student who cannot read Shakespeare in tenth grade (much less master reading and writing skills) has no business entering a non-technological English-speaking college. And yet.

Thank God I didn't have to attend Pompey's sixth grade play! It's great that your education was so fabulous, Pompey, but perhaps you shouldn't trash the education of others. I think my son got a perfectly good education in public school in Eugene, Oregon. At any rate, it was good enough for him to go to a top university and become a successful writer. I'm not an educator, but I think you are unfairly insulting many teachers with your comments. Your diatribe is also ageist. A modern 15-year-old who has difficulty with Shakespeare might be great at other languages - like computer programming. His skill with language suggests that he might BENEFIT from a non-technological English-speaking college, and we all might benefit by helping to educate him.

[Ecurb]

Anyways, why an author race is relevant? Since race is a socio-cultura construct, his race will be in the perspective of his creation. It will be everywhere. There will be always perspectives lost because humankind is not that good with that. Take the novel for example, the inclusion of the novels in the canon has to do with social changes. Their style, themes, etc has to do with a lot with the social class that favored them. I am not sure if other cultures (those with literary culture) will not offer quality works, take for example, the day Brazil became a world wide leader and all, they will review the canon to include brazilian writers. They will find writers that are as good as Poe, Byron, Faulkner, Tolstoy, etc. It will not be Paulo Coelho.
.

To quote Pompey, "how dumb do you think I am?" Of course an author's cultural background affects what he writes and how he writes about it. For example, if an author is a native English-speaker, he may very well write in English.

But if the writer's culture affects how he writes, isn't it reasonable to focus on his writing, instead of the biographical details of his (or her) life? Surely the goal is to promote interest in a diverse set of literary styles, subjects, and points of view? By focusing on biographical details we may accomplish a similar goal, but we risk the kind of discrimination against which Pompey is inveighing.

If we focus on authors' biographies, wouldn't a course in English (language) literature exclude Conrad and Nabokov?

[Pompey Bum]

I was wondering how far one acre would go toward supporting a family.... OK, that policy was a discriminatory economic advantage practice instead of a "hiring practice". That seems like a distinction without a difference.

No, plenty of non-slaves had already been or would be allocated free land by the government (much to the Indians' chagrin). Terms varied depending on where you were and what the political situation was. Sometimes you had to farm it, sometimes not. But regardless, it wasn't a discriminatory hiring practice and does not affect my opinion about affirmative action.


All competitive hiring practices are "discriminatory" (as I'm sure Pompey is well aware).

Yes, but they aren't all race based (needless personal reference omitted)


Would it be reasonable (to use just one obvious example) to hire only black actors to play Martin Luther King in a movie?

Try it and see how many people come to your movie. But pass a law mandating an what actor's race has to be? You really want to live in that world, Ecurb?


I think many people would agree that it would be reasonable to admit a black kid from the inner city to Harvard who scored 1300 on his SATs over a white kid from Choate school who scored 1400 (other qualifications being equal).

Some would, others wouldn't. In a liberal democracy we can (still) disagree with one another. And both sides have political recourse. God bless America.


The problem with affirmative action programs based on race is that many black applicants might have gone to Choate, and had parents who were M.D.s. So they might benefit unfairly from programs designed to help the first kid.

No, the problem is that it's morally relativistic. Race discrimination wrong. Jacking around with it is only going to prolong things. Time to be done with it.


Nonetheless, whining about "reverse racism" is pathetic.

You're the only one talking about "reverse racism" (whatever the hell that is).


OK. You didn't get into Harvard. Go to Dartmouth.

Who says I didn't get into Harvard? ;-)


(I'm not saying you're whining, Pompey, but your "we shall overcome" slogan could be interpreted that way, although I would never make such an interpretation because it would be uncharitable.)

Ah well, no reason to speculate. We Shall Overcome was a protest song from the civil rights movement.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day.
Oh, oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
That shall overcome some day

It was sung over and over and over in near hysterica at Dr. King's funeral in 1968, which I watched on TV while my mother sat next to me and sobbed uncontrollably. Seeing your mother cry like that is upsetting when you are a little boy, so it made a big impression on me. It has long been my standard response when confronted with racism. It just means love is going to win eventually. We shall overcome.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sfKtyertvKM

Still gives me chills.

[Ecurb]

Ah well, no reason to speculate. We Shall Overcome was a protest song from the civil rights movement.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day.
Oh, oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
That shall overcome some day

It was sung over and over and over in near hysterica at Dr. King's funeral in 1968, which I watched on TV while my mother sat next to me and sobbed uncontrollably. Seeing your mother cry like that is upsetting when you are a little boy, so it made a big impression on me. It has long been my standard response when confronted with racism. It just means love is going to win eventually. We shall overcome.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sfKtyertvKM

Still gives me chills.


I'll defer to your knowledge of the post-Civil-War period. I also admire your faith in love, a faith that I try to share, often unsuccessfully. We may disagree on which policies, some of which are laws (always enforced by coercion and violence) some of which are mere policies (which require less moral certainty to be appealing) best further our common goal.

I'll post more tomorrow.

[Danik 2016]

There's no entrance exams, students in Quebec colleges receive what is called an R-Score which is a relative grading model where your score is higher based on how much better you do than the average of your class and in relation to the class's average grades on government high school leaving exams. Entrance requirements for McGill, where I did my undergrad are typically in the 30+ R-score range, which is the top 15% of students roughly.

http://www.bemarianopolis.ca/choose-us/r-score/
https://www.mcgill.ca/applying/requirements/qc

My R score in college was 33, I went to Marianopolis which is a private college, but most students attend public pre-uni colleges that are essentially free and admit everyone.

Thanks, Pip.
Unfortunately this score system wouldn´t work here, we have to stick to the exams, which is something very stressy for the students. What I find interesting in the system is that you have this pre-uni period as preparation for the university . I suppose it tries to bridge the gulf which often exists between the secondary school and the university.
By the way i visited Mc Gill many years ago, when I was in Quebec.

[Pompey Bum]

I'll defer to your knowledge of the post-Civil-War period. I also admire your faith in love, a faith that I try to share, often unsuccessfully. We may disagree on which policies, some of which are laws (always enforced by coercion and violence) some of which are mere policies (which require less moral certainty to be appealing) best further our common goal.

I'll post more tomorrow.

And I admire your integrity. Now if we could only get this polarized people to see its common goals despite differing opinions that would be something. It's going to be a rocky road ahead, I'm afraid.

[JCamilo]

To quote Pompey, "how dumb do you think I am?" Of course an author's cultural background affects what he writes and how he writes about it. For example, if an author is a native English-speaker, he may very well write in English.

But if the writer's culture affects how he writes, isn't it reasonable to focus on his writing, instead of the biographical details of his (or her) life? Surely the goal is to promote interest in a diverse set of literary styles, subjects, and points of view? By focusing on biographical details we may accomplish a similar goal, but we risk the kind of discrimination against which Pompey is inveighing.

I think you are mixing details of his life (which are interesting, it is not because shakespeare didn't exist that we have to pretend Dickens didn't as well, and I think some of the spark that brings interest to an author can be details about his life) with studying from a "race perspective". While you care about details, it is more Derrida than Dr.Johnson. And as you said it works. I believe that all forms of criticism and approaches are welcome, the seven blind guys and the elephant kind of approach.

As the criticism, Pompey aside, politics will make this criticism ever come. Now, Pompey and Pip... one says "I am adding", other points "you are excluding" while they are talking about the same act basically. I am sure Pompey accepts that under the limitation of a course, you have to select the works you will deal and it does not need always to be "the best of the best". For example, Borges course in English literature does not have a class for Tennyson, Keats, Shelley but he talks a lot about Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is a selection that is odd if the critery is the best quality authors, but is it bad? Borges have more affinity to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and uses him to cover the period, or what he wanted to cover about the period. So, there is obviously a middleground and the notion that you have to be open to criticism in any extreme case. To anything.


If we focus on authors' biographies, wouldn't a course in English (language) literature exclude Conrad and Nabokov?

I think it will be easy to exclude both from a good english course, even if the critery is not biography.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, since my name has been taken in vain. :)


So, there is obviously a middleground and the notion that you have to be open to criticism in any extreme case. To anything.

Yes, fine, as long as we've all read Rules for Radicals and understand that liberal democracy is to be hanged by the garter of its most sacred principles. So a postmodern authoritarian says: "Let all fish swim in the aquarium of free thought. My piranha is hungry."


I believe that all forms of criticism and approaches are welcome, the seven blind guys and the elephant kind of approach.

The problem is that Derrida is Nietzsche reduced to Marx (and ultimately to DeSade). "Each of those blind men wants something from that elephant they're feeling up," says Nietzsche. "They say they want knowledge. They're regular philosophers. Philosophers don't know what they want, yet they can't help but tell you. Just look where their fingers are going. What they want is power. But power is complicated. It is what makes us moral."

"Yes, power!" cries Marx who has been getting a little deaf lately. "There are no blind men but only revolutionaries at perpetual war with the elephant. If any of them tell you they are blind men--or men of any kind--get rid of them!"

"Yes, get rid of them," cries Derrida, deafer still. "Where are the post normative blind women? Where is the blind woman of color? The white European blind man is the elephant! Get rid of him first! Cut him from the curriculum!"

The white European blind man grasps the elephant's tail. Furrowing his brow, he says: "An elephant is like a whip."

"Kiss the whip," says DeSade.


Now, Pompey and Pip... one says "I am adding", other points "you are excluding" while they are talking about the same act basically. I am sure Pompey accepts that under the limitation of a course, you have to select the works you will deal and it does not need always to be "the best of the best".

As I've said from the start, texts would necessarily depend on the class. But I add that it would require a return to the grand old literature survey classes that have (predictably) fallen from favor with the postmoderns. And of course a diversity of thought among the more focused classes from other than Otherwise it's just going to be another "how dumb do you think I am?" mug's game. Gee, white European males don't fit into any of our classes (since we only teach classes on decolonized post normative women of color). Who knew? It would be Pip's decolonized classroom writ large.

So no, we're really not talking about the same thing. I'm talking about making room for everyone (even the piranhas) and he's talking about pushing special targets (connected to special victims) into the margins.

My apologies to Pip for taking his name in vain, especially since he seems to have left the conversation. As before my comments are not directed at him but at woke authoritarianism, here in the handy stiletto of postmodern literary theory.

[OrphanPip]

Well, since my name has been taken in vain. :)



Yes, fine, as long as we've all read Rules for Radicals and understand that liberal democracy is to be hanged by the garter of its most sacred principles. So a postmodern authoritarian says: "Let all fish swim in the aquarium of free thought. My piranha is hungry."



The problem is that Derrida is Nietzsche reduced to Marx (and ultimately to DeSade). "Each of those blind men wants something from that elephant they're feeling up," says Nietzsche. "They say they want knowledge. They're regular philosophers. Philosophers don't know what they want, yet they can't help but tell you. Just look where their fingers are going. What they want is power. But power is complicated. It is what makes us moral."

"Yes, power!" cries Marx who has been getting a little deaf lately. "There are no blind men but only revolutionaries at perpetual war with the elephant. If any of them tell you they are blind men--or men of any kind--get rid of them!"

"Yes, get rid of them," cries Derrida, deafer still. "Where are the post normative blind women? Where is the blind woman of color? The white European blind man is the elephant! Get rid of him first! Cut him from the curriculum!"

The white European blind man grasps the elephant's tail. Furrowing his brow, he says: "An elephant is like a whip."

"Kiss the whip," says DeSade.



As I've said from the start, texts would necessarily depend on the class. But I add that it would require a return to the grand old literature survey classes that have (predictably) fallen from favor with the postmoderns. And of course a diversity of thought among the more focused classes from other than Otherwise it's just going to be another "how dumb do you think I am?" mug's game. Gee, white European males don't fit into any of our classes (since we only teach classes on decolonized post normative women of color). Who knew? It would be Pip's decolonized classroom writ large.

So no, we're really not talking about the same thing. I'm talking about making room for everyone (even the piranhas) and he's talking about pushing special targets (connected to special victims) into the margins.

My apologies to Pip for taking his name in vain, especially since he seems to have left the conversation. As before my comments are not directed at him but at woke authoritarianism, here in the handy stiletto of postmodern literary theory.

I don't see the relevance of affirmative action to the topic, if I'm picking an author of colour for a purpose in a curriculum it is because their text is a superior example of what I want to teach. Everyone seems to be responding to a strawman version of what decolonization means without ever clearly articulating exactly what are to be the agreed upon means of determining appropriate classroom topics.

Decolonization is not the process of exterminating or excluding European culture from the curriculum. A common mantra is rather to teach with a mind to: respect, relationship, reciprocity, and responsibility. No one is seeking to eliminate white authors for being white from English classrooms, but rather to be more mindful of what we are doing with our institutional power as educators to acknowledge diverse viewpoints.

The only thing that will determine whether an author survives in the curriculum is if they continue to resonate with research. Surveys are in decline for multiple reasons, but the primary one is the growth of specialization in the last 50 years. Literary scholars focus on very narrow topics for their research and their comprehensive exams for teaching competency are relatively narrow. My own comprehensive exam for my PhD only covered 1660-1750. The diversity of scholarship arising concurrently with a declining level of literacy amongst freshmen means that English Departments feel the need to teach basic reading and writing skills more than a broad historical base.

[Pompey Bum]

I don't see the relevance of affirmative action to the topic, if I'm picking an author of colour for a purpose in a curriculum it is because their text is a superior example of what I want to teach.

Neither do I, although I enjoyed talking to Ecurb about it. He can speak for himself about why he brought it up, but I don't think he was making a strawman argument. It was more like an appeal to common practice. I also think it was directed at me more than you.


Everyone seems to be responding to a strawman version of what decolonization means without ever clearly articulating exactly what are to be the agreed upon means of determining appropriate classroom topics.

I have not advanced any strawmen. I have not really given any thought to decolonizing a classroom. As I have said, I am concerned about authors being silenced as a consequence of race (and sex) discrimination, especially as a consequence of postmodern literary theory. I have also made it clear that I have not been directing my comments at you personally.


Decolonization is not the process of exterminating or excluding European culture from the curriculum. A common mantra is rather to teach with a mind to: respect, relationship, reciprocity, and responsibility. No one is seeking to eliminate white authors for being white from English classrooms, but rather to be more mindful of what we are doing with our institutional power as educators to acknowledge diverse viewpoints.

And yet, as you admitted, they are being eliminated. As Nietzsche says in my satire, watch where the fingers go.


The only thing that will determine whether an author survives in the curriculum is if they continue to resonate with research.

And if the research and research institutions themselves become corrupt? What would happen, for example, to a researcher who defied the fetish of racialist diversity? That is a rhetorical question since we both know the answer.


Surveys are in decline for multiple reasons, but the primary one is the growth of specialization in the last 50 years.

Yup. There go the fingers. :)


Literary scholars focus on very narrow topics for their research and their comprehensive exams for teaching competency are relatively narrow.

I agree. It's a big part of the problem--just not a coincidental one.


My own comprehensive exam for my PhD only covered 1660-1750.

It's a fascinating period, the Restoration. I'm sure you are an outstanding lecturer.


The diversity of scholarship arising concurrently with a declining level of literacy amongst freshmen means that English Departments feel the need to teach basic reading and writing skills more than a broad historical base.

Hmmmm. Now I wonder how we could fix that. :)

[Ecurb]

I wasn't including "affirmative action" in my post to argue with any particular person. I think it's fair to compare an attempt to diversify a curriculum by including a percentage of minority authors with attempting to diversify a student body or a work place by including members of minority groups. The comparison doesn't seem particularly far fetched. (All analogies, of course, compare things that are different.)

Of course a teacher should choose texts that provide examples of what the teacher wants to teach, and should also choose texts (if possible) that both the students and the teacher will enjoy. Enthusiasm on the part of both parties will enhance the educational experience.

[ennison]

And that simple answer seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[Pompey Bum]

Having an educator be the one to "choose texts" (Ecurb) "because their text is a superior example of what I want to teach" (OP) is inconsistent with adopting a "percentage of minority authors" (mandatory if Affirmative Action is the standard). It would not be a choice but a tyranny in sheep's clothing--neither "fair" (Ecurb) nor "reasonable" (Ennison).

Of course, in good Marxist fashion, an educator could always choose texts from a legally mandated group (here the inherently racist "authors of color" category). That would be rather like what the CCP did to Hong Kong when, after luring them into reunification with the promise of free elections, they informed them that Peking would let them know who the nominees were. #HDDYTIA? (How Dumb Do You Think I Am?)

There are things we can do to bring more voices to the curriculum without purging others (if we agree that is our shared goal), but mandatory percentages of racially defined identity groups are not going to get us there. As we have seen, there is already an impetus to exclude "white European males" by throwing up one's hands and saying, "Hey, space!"

[Ecurb]

I wrote that the comparison was "fair", not the practice. Nor do I think all "affirmative action" must be "mandatory" (that's a matter of definition, and there's no need to argue about it). Although I stand by my position that choosing texts because of the biographical details of the author's life (including his or her race) is not ideal, I might be persuaded otherwise. One reason teachers give for choosing books by minority authors is that they think their minority students will be motivated to educate themselves by the example set by authors of their own race. I have no idea whether this is correct or not, but if it is correct, then wouldn't choosing texts on this (albeit racist) basis be reasonable? Isn't the goal to motivate and educate children? Perhaps the greater good is to use (mildly) unfair practices if they yield superior results. (I'll grant that Kant might disagree.)

Let's suppose that African-American children read texts by African-American authors more willingly, carefully, and mindfully than texts by white authors. Let's further suppose that the goal of the teacher is to choose those texts that best educate his students. Of course it's fair to argue that the students are (in a minor way) racist. But I'm not sure the teacher is when he chooses those texts that educate his students most effectively. He's just adapting to circumstances.

[Pompey Bum]

Although I stand by my position that choosing texts because of the biographical details of the author's life (including his or her race) is not ideal, I might be persuaded otherwise. One reason teachers give for choosing books by minority authors is that they think their minority students will be motivated to educate themselves by the example set by authors of their own race. I have no idea whether this is correct or not, but if it is correct, then wouldn't choosing texts on this (albeit racist) basis be reasonable? Isn't the goal to motivate and educate children? Perhaps the greater good is to use (mildly) unfair practices if they yield superior results. (I'll grant that Kant might disagree.)

It would not be racist at all. As I've said from the start, teachers ought to choose texts in accordance with the needs of their classes. What is racist is when that admirable goal is used to exclude other authors on a racial basis--typically with the excuses we have seen here.

Go back and look. First came the breezy assertion that cutting "white European males" from the curriculum was a requirement (among others) for the political/postmodern project of the decolonized classroom. When that was challenged as racist, the first line of defence was giving voice to the marginalized. This is an especially pernicious excuse since giving voice to the marginalized is often an admirable goal. But here it masks a racial purge to achieve a revolutionized standard of racial purity in the curriculum. When That doesn't work, all is denied, shoulders are shrugged, and the cry of "Hey, space!" goes forth. I've heard the same excuses many times.

There is a simple solution to the "room at the inn" roadblock, but it requires wanting to solve the problem rather than using it as a smokescreen for a political agenda (I'm not saying Pip is doing that, by the way, but many are). The solution is a return to the freshman survey classes you probably remember from college, as preqequisite to the specialty classes. Yup, that's all.

Pip hit the nail on the head when he said:

Surveys are in decline for multiple reasons, but the primary one is the growth of specialization in the last 50 years. Literary scholars focus on very narrow topics for their research and their comprehensive exams for teaching competency are relatively narrow...The diversity of scholarship arising concurrently with a declining level of literacy amongst freshmen means that English Departments feel the need to teach basic reading and writing skills more than a broad historical base.

And on case you missed it:

The diversity of scholarship arising concurrently with a declining level of literacy amongst freshmen means that English Departments feel the need to teach basic reading and writing skills more than a broad historical base.

And that's great news because it means that the problem is solvable if we want to solve it. It simply requires that students master grammar in, um, grammar school, "basic reading and writing skills" in secondary school, and that those things be required for college admission. So the question becomes: why are we not doing this?


Let's suppose that African-American children read texts by African-American authors more willingly, carefully, and mindfully than texts by white authors. Let's further suppose that the goal of the teacher is to choose those texts that best educate his students. Of course it's fair to argue that the students are (in a minor way) racist. But I'm not sure the teacher is when he chooses those texts that educate his students most effectively. He's just adapting to circumstances.

It would not be racism in a minor or major way. You are preaching to the choir.

[Ecurb]

. So the question becomes: why are we not doing this?


.


I think that there are several questions involved Prior to WW2 (I haven't looked up the stats -- I'm guessing) maybe 20% of high school students went on to college. For a number of reasons (GI bill, better economy) now maybe three times as many students go on to college (if anyone wants to research the stats, I'd appreciate it). Now, Pompey thinks our educational system is failing -- but I'm not so sure of that. I'm guessing the top 20% if high school students have about the same literacy skills now as they did then. The difference is that the next lower 50% of students are now going on the University. Is this a bad thing? We have a rich country; we can afford to pay for a delayed adolescence. What's the problem? College students today may not be as intellectually competent as students 80 years ago, but that's because they wouldn't have gone to college 80 years ago. Will denying them that opportunity really benefit society?

[Pompey Bum]

I think that there are several questions involved Prior to WW2 (I haven't looked up the stats -- I'm guessing) maybe 20% of high school students went on to college. For a number of reasons (GI bill, better economy) now maybe three times as many students go on to college (if anyone wants to research the stats, I'd appreciate it). Now, Pompey thinks our educational system is failing -- but I'm not so sure of that. I'm guessing the top 20% if high school students have about the same literacy skills now as they did then. The difference is that the next lower 50% of students are now going on the University. Is this a bad thing? We have a rich country; we can afford to pay for a delayed adolescence. What's the problem? College students today may not be as intellectually competent as students 80 years ago, but that's because they wouldn't have gone to college 80 years ago. Will denying them that opportunity really benefit society?



So let's not deny 'em the opportunity. Let's teach 'em.

[ennison]

A teacher will always teach better what he/ she knows well. From a pragmatic point of view there is nothing unreasonable about that. As a student who knows less (or he wouldn't be a student) this is also a desirable situation. The argument for and against having more graduates in the population probably boils down to "why"? Many companies send staff to study in their twenties. This is good for the company and the individual. I personally do not think it necessary to make nursing an all-graduate profession. You end up with educated nurses who cannot nurse. I've known teachers with two brains but who can't teach for toffee. Many 18 year-olds do not benefit from further education at that level because frankly they are too immature and too ignorant. It is also the case that some degree courses are fluff dressed up by jargon to appear profound.

[Pompey Bum]

A teacher will always teach better what he/ she knows well. From a pragmatic point of view there is nothing unreasonable about that. As a student who knows less (or he wouldn't be a student) this is also a desirable situation. The argument for and against having more graduates in the population probably boils down to "why"? Many companies send staff to study in their twenties. This is good for the company and the individual. I personally do not think it necessary to make nursing an all-graduate profession. You end up with educated nurses who cannot nurse. I've known teachers with two brains but who can't teach for toffee. Many 18 year-olds do not benefit from further education at that level because frankly they are too immature and too ignorant. It is also the case that some degree courses are fluff dressed up by jargon to appear profound.

I don't entirely disagree, Ennison. Applying for college ought to be a carefully considered personal decision. But pre-college educators have a duty to make it a real choice--not one made for the student because nobody prepared him or her to think critically, write cogently, read perceptively, or do math and languages. And developing those skills will benefit anyone, whether they decide to go to college or not.

[Ecurb]

A well educated public is ideal. Most educators I know take their "duty" seriously, but there are no simple, sure-fire methods that work for everyone.

I recently read Tara Westover's best-selling memoir "Educated", by the way. Westover was supposedly home schooled, but her parents actually did very little to actually educate her. She had to teach herself. Nonetheless, she ended up getting a PhD. in history from Cambridge, which demonstrates I'm not sure what. Perhaps there are many different ways to become educated.

[Pompey Bum]

Most educators I know take their "duty" seriously

That's not my experience but, okay, we disagree. In any case, the radical change required to approach the educational ideal you mention is not something our society has any intention of doing (for various more or less nefarious reasons). But requiring students have "basic reading and writing skills" (to quote Pip) before letting them into college is something we can do now.


I recently read Tara Westover's best-selling memoir "Educated", by the way. Westover was supposedly home schooled, but her parents actually did very little to actually educate her. She had to teach herself. Nonetheless, she ended up getting a PhD. in history from Cambridge, which demonstrates I'm not sure what. Perhaps there are many different ways to become educated.

Thank you for two things. First for bringing up the subject of home schooling, which I should have mentioned before. If conscientiously done, it is a better option than private or (tragically) public school. And since local schools (here at least) are required to admit home schoolers to after school sports programs, it presents fewer problems with socialization than sometimes claimed.

Thank you also for letting me know what Educated is about. Bozo (that is, Amazon) has been nagging me to read it for what seems like forever. I am interested in the lost dream of the autodidactic Internet-- though only for adults. I think it would be disastrous (in an unstructured form at least) for most minors.

[Ecurb]

That's not my experience but, okay, we disagree. In any case, the radical change required to approach the educational ideal you mention is not something our society has any intention of doing (for various more or less nefarious reasons). But requiring students have "basic reading and writing skills" (to quote Pip) before letting them into college is something we can do now.


How is rejecting kids for admission to college going to improve their "basic reading or writing skills"? That seems counter-intuitive. Surely admitting students to college is more likely to have that effect.

High School graduation rates are at an all-time high in the U.S. To the extent that some (silly) people see this as indicative of a well-educated public, I'll agree that it may be misleading. Diplomas are accolades; education is an achievement. Because these statistics mislead the public, I'll further concede that some educators probably think that improved graduation rates will persuade the public that State financed education is performing well, and are willing to lower standards to protect their jobs and reputations.

What I don't concede is that there was a mythical past in which we did a better job of educating children. Diplomas may have been a better INDICATOR of a decent education in the past, but since fewer children earned them, we cannot assume that the public was better educated, or that our schools were doing a better job. Indeed, I'm pretty sure basic literacy rates in the U.S. have had a steady, upward trend (I didn't look it up anywhere).

Nor will I concede that, to quote Pompey, "Those days, obviously, are gone. American public education has become tax-supported supplementary day care at best and woke indoctrination camps at worst." Obviously, public schools have always "indoctrinated" children. Public school teachers when I was a child were adamant that the U.S. was the "land of the free" and that Democracy and Capitalism and freedom were somehow synonymous (this when legally sanctioned racial discrimination still existed in the school systems of some states). Was this "(woke or sleepy) indoctrination"?

[Pompey Bum]

How is rejecting kids for admission to college going to improve their "basic reading or writing skills"?

I'm not talking about rejecting them from admission to college. I'm talking about teaching them now so they can really go to college rather than paying for what they should have learned on the taxpayers dime. It would help them by providing an incentive for those who actually want to go to college. (And, I mean, be honest, it's a pretty low bar).


Surely admitting students to college is more likely to have that effect.

How is admitting students to college whether they have mastered basic English skills or not going to motivate them? As mothers used to say to their daughters: why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free?


High School graduation rates are at an all-time high in the U.S. To the extent that some (silly) people see this as indicative of a well-educated public, I'll agree that it may be misleading.

Such people would be silly indeed given Pip's witness of "declining literacy rates" and a lack of freshman survey classes because students are arriving without "basic reading and writing skills." It sounds like you and I agree that lower standards are what's producing diploma inflation. So--say it with me now :) --raise the standards.


Indeed, I'm pretty sure basic literacy rates in the U.S. have had a steady, upward trend (I didn't look it up anywhere).

Me neither, but I can't imagine we're very different than Canada (which Pip says is declining. But it's a red herring in any case. Literacy and mastery of English skills (grammar, spelling, etc.) are not the same thing--or are you actually talking about letting illiterates into college?


Nor will I concede that, to quote Pompey, "Those days, obviously, are gone. American public education has become tax-supported supplementary day care at best and woke indoctrination camps at worst."

Okay, it can be better at best. But it's much worse than I said at worst--metal detector bad. I think you missed my point in any case. It was not that my g-g-generation was so smart or that we lived in the myth age. It was that children are capable of doing much more than we ask of them intellectually. And you would have LOVED me as Banquo, by the way. I scared the sh*t out of everyone when I came back as a ghost. Nowadays, though, that would be-- upsetting (and surely patriarchal in some mysterious way).


Obviously, public schools have always "indoctrinated" children.

And was that a good thing, Ecurb? Is it something we want to keep doing to our children? In any case, "concede" or don't. There's no reason intelligent, well meaning people can't disagree--despite what we teach students.

[Ecurb]

My point is that of course we hope our schools do as good a job as possible at teaching children. The goal is not in question; the means of attaining it are. I doubt that making college admission standards stricter would further the goal (although maybe it would).

"Indoctrination" sometimes means "teaching people values to which (I) object." One person's "indoctrination" is another's "instruction". My memory of my son's public education is that schools preached tolerance and promoted anti-bullying programs, which seems reasonable (especially when one recognizes that it is in the school's interest to prevent violence and promote order and good will).

[ennison]

I like the way this has drifted from Bloom. I'm sure that most Primary school and secondary school teachers in Scotland do their best to teach literacy and numeracy. There are numerous reasons why it is not happening as well as it should but I won't dwell on these here. I agree that education is beneficial to the individual but when should that education happen, within what age range? If you have reached the point of not having any further interest in learning what the school has to teach then it's time you left. Unfortunately with some "learners" that lack of interest happens very early and before they can legally leave. It is beneficial for the state to have an educated population so the state invests some of its wealth in education and decides what the minimum length of time in education should be. At some point though you need to take over responsibility for your own learning or your employer needs to take some responsibility. If you want to continue, you need to grasp early the importance of basic literacy and numeracy. Further education centres are reporting more 17 year olds who are having to be taught basic literacy at a stage when they should have already acquired that. But that could be as much about more people going on to do further education as about lower standards. There were probably always a significant number of school leavers who had only achieved basic literacy. Some of these would develop more fully later but their limitations in that area would not have been noticed as they were in occupations that did not require much more than basic literacy. Their skills might have quickly developed in other areas once they began to work.

[Pompey Bum]

Ecurb, nothing personal, but I'm getting a little bored. I think we've expressed our views at this point, and I know we're big enough to live with our differences. So let's go do another Shakespearean sonnet or something now, okay? :)

Added: Hey, Ennison. Didn't see you there. You two talk, huh?

[Ecurb]

On a brighter note, I'll bet little Pompey made a very cute Banquo.

[OrphanPip]

According to international rankings, Canda's average high school student's reading and writing skills are apparently the best in the English and French speaking world (It has declined in recent years from #1 to #3 behind South Korea and Finland). Even with relatively high level of achievement most undergraduates who enter into the humanities lack writing skills. I think this is due to a number of factors, but I believe primarily it is due to the fact that more talented students tend to pick health sciences or other STEM fields to pursue in university. This is coming from someone teaching at what is generally considered to be a top university in Canada that is difficult to get into. I can't imagine what it must be like for the teachers at the local colleges.

[Pompey Bum]

On a brighter note, I'll bet little Pompey made a very cute Banquo.

I was terrifying.

[ralfyman]

His anxiety of influence is part of literary theory anthologies.

[Pompey Bum]

So's your school debt. ;-)

[ralfyman]

What debt?

Also,

"Harold Bloom, Critic Who Championed Western Canon, Dies at 89" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/books/harold-bloom-dead.html)