Does Art Serve Any Purpose?

[MarkBastable]

Have you actually been inside Buckingham Palace lately?

Not for a couple of years. Why?

[JCamilo]

Money doesn't buy you happiness, it buys you gross trinkets.

JCamilo said that no social power happens without cultural power and art is necessary there.
To me, art conveys nothing to an owner other than saying the owner has money.

But that conclusion is a jump in the sky. Rich people has money and time to be educated. It was rich poeple who paid for Michelangelo and Beethoveen.

And it is certainly a mistake: When Augustus needed to express the new order, the formation of a new empire, did he threw money on the streets or hired a poet named Virgil? He might actually have done both, but it is Virgil's Aeneid an expression of power and roman civilization over the barbaric years of civil wars.

The Sistine is just "I have money" or expression of power of the Romans?

But it is not always about the powerful, the revolutionary too: The burgoise starts out of power, with irony and comedy. The go with Moliere, Perrault, La Fontaine, which have implict the critic to the nobility. Their art have all there, it was not about the money.

If you find a griot, you will find him keeping alive tradition and it is extremelly important to african culture, because it was a culture without the power of written register of europe and they are politically destroyed by europeans, so keeping tradition alive is a form to convey cultural power related to their identidy. Without those guys, we would jump from Pharohs to Slaves in America and say that is all african culture.

The jews? Between their removal from Israel and their return, they maintened their cultural identidy, how? With Shakespeareans's sterytipes? Of course not: the literature, specially the parables and humor, gave them a sense of unity, not to mention the identidy caused by the bible (ultimatelly, a work of art).

There were societies without lawyers. Without scientists. Without philosophers. Without religion. But not without art. And whores. Humankind would not preserve something just for fancy our use.

[Drkshadow03]

One thing the rich don't have is taste.

Ah, fallacious reasoning, G L Wilson loves thee!

[prickly_pete]

By "why should we care?" I mean "why is mandatory in high schools and colleges?" because obviously somebody cares about it (or thinks they do) and thinks the rest of us should too. I'm not trying to infringe on the artists freedom to do whatever s/he likes, but imposing it on unsuspecting teenagers is something different. It is, after all, a language of sorts that is accessible only to the people who've studied it relentlessly for a long time in the same way that higher level mathematics is accessible to only a few. I'm not so sure about contemporary artists, but most of the artists of the 18th and 19th Centuries acknowledged as much and were very hostile to the idea of a newly literature public with different tastes knocking them off their high horse. Their work was intended specifically for a limited audience of the classically educated and as education became more oriented towards aquiring skills (probably because wealth was becoming based on knowledge of commerce which increasingly infringed on landed wealth) their importance in the grand scheme of things began to wane.

I don't see how much has changed. Whereas our society would quickly descend into the Dark Ages if we didn't teach math and science I don't see any need for teaching Shakespeare. Not because I have anything against art, more because its completely inapplicable outside a very narrow field. Like, say you're on patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan. Your convoy hits an IED and you start taking enemy fire. Before you PID and start rocking the .50 Cal to bring the rain you yell out "Once more unto the breach dear friends!" My point is, what use does that have when nobody knows what you're talking about? On the other hand, if you yell out "Go ahead, make my day!" that would make alot more sense because everyone more or less understands the connection and how its being used and how it can spur them to action. It has application to your situation other words. I don't know that quoting Henry V does that and in that sense what's the point of making it manditory? There's no way to contextualize it to apply to the situation is what I'm saying.

I mean, everyone is familiar with movies and they can easily be referenced in different situations without us even having to think about it. That to me is what art or a culture is. Not mandatory schooling in subjects that were - even at the time of the their creation - intended only for a small priveledged class and now seem little more than relics fit for a museum. Don't get me wrong, I read and goto art exhibits all the time but that's a personal choice based on a personal interest.

[prickly_pete]

The jews? Between their removal from Israel and their return, they maintened their cultural identidy, how? With Shakespeareans's sterytipes? Of course not: the literature, specially the parables and humor, gave them a sense of unity, not to mention the identidy caused by the bible (ultimatelly, a work of art).

There were societies without lawyers. Without scientists. Without philosophers. Without religion. But not without art. And whores. Humankind would not preserve something just for fancy our use.

This really the only coherent point in the entire thread. I can't debate this at all - you're correct. I'd note though that it was a sense of identiy because it was part of their culture - it was something one wouldn't even have to think about it was so firmly imbeded in everyday experience. Same with movies or rock n' roll for us to some degree. Yes, every society has art there's no debating that.

The point is why bother teaching art that is no longer relevant and is inapplicable in everyday experience. I'm sorry, but something like TS Eliot for instance was intended for only a very select field of people. It is a relic that has no applicability in the cultural lives of people in this society. Why make it mandatory then? This makes no sense to me at all.

[Drkshadow03]

This really the only coherent point in the entire thread. I can't debate this at all - you're correct. I'd note though that it was a sense of identiy because it was part of their culture - it was something one wouldn't even have to think about it was so firmly imbeded in everyday experience. Same with movies or rock n' roll for us to some degree. Yes, every society has art there's no debating that.

The point is why bother teaching art that is no longer relevant and is inapplicable in everyday experience. I'm sorry, but something like TS Eliot for instance was intended for only a very select field of people. It is a relic that has no applicability in the cultural lives of people in this society. Why make it mandatory then? This makes no sense to me at all.

But is Shakespeare irrelevant to everyday experience? Is Chaucer? Is Dante? Isn't this merely your opinion? Perhaps these works last because they still are relevant in one way or another. However, because they're older the mandatory teaching of them is necessary to allow students access to their specialized language so they can discover those work's relevancy for themselves. After all, from my experience as a teacher most students don't necessarily walk into their math and science classes seeing how it's relevant to their lives. Should teaching just be a matter of confirming our student's biases? Should I stop teaching them anything, except video games 101. Or does a good teacher show students other options and possibilities that normally would elude them? They show them how literature, old and new, is relevant to their lives by teaching them how to read it.

And that is exactly why literature is still relevant. It gives you a wider access to your life and the issues that pervade it.

[JCamilo]

This really the only coherent point in the entire thread. I can't debate this at all - you're correct. I'd note though that it was a sense of identiy because it was part of their culture - it was something one wouldn't even have to think about it was so firmly imbeded in everyday experience. Same with movies or rock n' roll for us to some degree. Yes, every society has art there's no debating that.

But the jewish people here had nothing to do with the 1st century jews. They are not escatological as in the past, they are rather ironic (the capacity for dialetic is a jewish trait they preserve), they transform the absence of the temple in a defense of the text, the vallue the disciplines that were related to the text, no more the normative (which made no sense, with Jerusalem lost). They transformed as it was necessary. They believe in this identidy by the power of tradition rather by pratice. And of course, this philosophical development was not restrict to the philosophers - many - but the dimension, how it spread, the dialogue, the dialect - happens with the help of art. Identidy came from transformation.

The point is why bother teaching art that is no longer relevant and is inapplicable in everyday experience. I'm sorry, but something like TS Eliot for instance was intended for only a very select field of people. It is a relic that has no applicability in the cultural lives of people in this society. Why make it mandatory then? This makes no sense to me at all.

Well, TS Eliot, which I find to be quite easy (not his poems, but his ideas), is no more specialized (which is) than Newton, Einstein, Darwin, or maths. I do not apply evolution on everyday life either.

Anyways, the answer is: tradition must be taught otherwise the sense of identtidy would have no place to form and develop like in the Jewish example. (I do not consider the only place to taught something the schools). TS Eliot ends absorved by the repulsion.

Another thing to consider is that in a class, 40 kids, 1 can be a poet, just like 1 can be a geneticits and this may justify the teaching of Eliot and mendel. Also, relics in art are appliable. I wont remain on Eliot (easy, he is rather recent, not even a real classic, and was even present in the last Indiana Jones) but heck: the story of what you should do or not with the body of your enemy is one of themes of Iliad. And If one wants, the Story of Obama and Osama. There is a ethical level in Homer that would render Obama as a coward. I just applied it. If the destiny is no longer epic, it is not my fault. The heroes arent either.

[prickly_pete]

I'm not against art in schools per se, I'm just thinking that the reason that some art (for instance you're practically guaranteed to run into Shakespeare in high school) is chosen over others is an overly Romantic misunderstanding of how art actually functions in everyday life. I think school boards tend to select classical literature for instance because they're thinking in terms of mental processes or some kind of spiritual experience that is induced in the reader - they think Shakespare or Raphael is so amazing that a mere cursory viewing will produce a more enlightened individual. To me this seems completely bogus. To me a culture is embeded in the everyday lives and thinking of the indivudal members of that culture. Its not something you have to goto a museum to see. For the child of an 18th Century aristocrat Shakespare was embeded in everyday life, it was something you grew up aquiring probably without any forethought on that matter - same as, say, the Koran is imbeded in everyday life in Saudi Arabia. Now? Not so much.

Like, if you seriously believe in a geocentric universe you're a ****ing loon that's probably going to have some problems if you ever let that out largely because its so entrenched in our conceptual understanding of the world. I don't think the same is true of Shakespeare. Its just not something that is part of our everyday life or thinking the way, say, a totem pole would've been for Pacific Northwest tribes a thousand years ago. If we're going to explore something why not explore something relevant to our own culture like, say, movies or sports?

But the jewish people here had nothing to do with the 1st century jews

Wow, really? I had no idea!

At any rate religious texts are relevant in religious communities because they're part of one's upbringing and ongoing cultural life - its read from birth, its read before meals, its quoted in everyday conversation, you hear it at services, you sing hymns that are either quoted directly from scripture or inspired by scripture in some way. Its such a part of ones life that its not even a second thought - same way we would approach movies or sports for instance.

Shakespeare isn't part of our cultural upbringing in the United States. He just isn't. I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. Do you quote Shakespeare at meals? Do you take your sweetheart down to a river bank and receit sonnets from memory? Do you apply it in everyday situations? I mean we all know the answer to these questions so come on now.

You may think Shakespeare should be part of our cultural dialogue but that's a different issue from whether he currently is part of our cultural dialogue now.

After all, from my experience as a teacher most students don't necessarily walk into their math and science classes seeing how it's relevant to their lives

Yeah, but the difference is if they aquire no math skills they're going to be screwed probably both socially and economically. Same isn't true of Shakespare - there's billions of people living perfectly healthy social lives without Shakespeare. The child of an aristocrat in the 18th Century however probably would've suffered socially if they knew nothing of Shakespeare because, again, that was part of their cultural upbringing and poets wrote specifically for that audience.

Or does a good teacher show students other options and possibilities that normally would elude them?

Sure, but why does it have to be classical authors? I'm not opposed to teaching art necessarily - I'm opposed to teaching relics that aren't part of the cultural lives of people living today. If you want to grill students from 5 on up in classical rhetoric so that they can actually make something of this stuff is one thing, but just handing them Hamlet at age 16...not sure this really accomplishes anything.

And that is exactly why literature is still relevant. It gives you a wider access to your life and the issues that pervade it.

I agree, but why's it gotta be classic literature? Couldn't Twilight serve the same purpose if analyzed with a critical approach?

Another thing to consider is that in a class, 40 kids, 1 can be a poet, just like 1 can be a geneticits

So should we make piano lessons mandatory on the off chance we might find a Beethoven? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

[JCamilo]

I'm not against art in schools per se, I'm just thinking that the reason that some art (for instance you're practically guaranteed to run into Shakespeare in high school) is chosen over others is an overly Romantic misunderstanding of how art actually functions in everyday life. I think school boards tend to select classical literature for instance because they're thinking in terms of mental processes or some kind of spiritual experience that is induced in the reader - they think Shakespare or Raphael is so amazing that a mere cursory viewing will produce a more enlightened individual. To me this seems completely bogus. To me a culture is embeded in the everyday lives and thinking of the indivudal members of that culture. Its not something you have to goto a museum to see. For the child of an 18th Century aristocrat Shakespare was embeded in everyday life, it was something you grew up aquiring probably without any forethought on that matter - same as, say, the Koran is imbeded in everyday life in Saudi Arabia. Now? Not so much.

Absolutely, he is the author more adapted by Hollywood, the current (maybe I am a year or so outdated) teenage boom is Twilight, which have impossible love romeoandjuliet like tones, I just saw a Manga of Shakespeare (I am in Brazil), so it seems to me he manifest quite well enough for someone so absent. But do you really study him so much in the class? I have no idea, but how much 1 or 2 works?

Like, if you seriously believe in a geocentric universe you're a ****ing loon that's probably going to have some problems if you ever let that out largely because its so entrenched in our conceptual understanding of the world. I don't think the same is true of Shakespeare. Its just not something that is part of our everyday life or thinking the way, say, a totem pole would've been for Pacific Northwest tribes a thousand years ago. If we're going to explore something why not explore something relevant to our own culture like, say, movies or sports?

Like THor? A Shakespearean bastard movie? I agree whole hearted that the Cult of Shakespeare cann't be the sole reason of the universe, but the question is if Shakespeare should be shared (in literature class I suppose) with modern writers? Sure. Studying Shakespeare is a specialization, which belongs to the real of academy and not school.

Wow, really? I had no idea!

At any rate religious texts are relevant in religious communities because they're part of one's upbringing and ongoing cultural life - its read from birth, its read before meals, its quoted in everyday conversation, you hear it at services, you sing hymns that are either quoted directly from scripture or inspired by scripture in some way. Its such a part of ones life that its not even a second thought - same way we would approach movies or sports for instance.

Well, of course it is not just language (hidiche language was even lost in a sense) but considering Shakespeare coined a handful of words in english more than anyone else in english, you do quoth him a lot.

Shakespeare isn't part of our cultural upbringing in the United States. He just isn't. I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. Do you quote Shakespeare at meals? Do you take your sweetheart down to a river bank and receit sonnets from memory? Do you apply it in everyday situations? I mean we all know the answer to these questions so come on now.

Hollywood is a bastard child of Shakespeare, of course, again it is also important to show the childs of Shakespeare. Just teaching him alone in a island is bad teaching.

You may think Shakespeare should be part of our cultural dialogue but that's a different issue from whether he currently is part of our cultural dialogue now.



Yeah, but the difference is if they aquire no math skills they're going to be screwed probably both socially and economically. Same isn't true of Shakespare - there's billions of people living perfectly healthy social lives without Shakespeare. The child of an aristocrat in the 18th Century however probably would've suffered socially if they knew nothing of Shakespeare because, again, that was part of their cultural upbringing and poets wrote specifically for that audience.

Rudimentar maths may go for everyone, but geometry? Calcs? In the end, you can find good reasons to dismiss many stuff we were taught.

Sure, but why does it have to be classical authors? I'm not opposed to teaching art necessarily - I'm opposed to teaching relics that aren't part of the cultural lives of people living today. If you want to grill students from 5 on up in classical rhetoric so that they can actually make something of this stuff is one thing, but just handing them Hamlet at age 16...not sure this really accomplishes anything.

Ethan Hawke had a hamlet movie recently, didnt he? Emos are quite hameltian

I agree, but why's it gotta be classic literature? Couldn't Twilight serve the same purpose if analyzed with a critical approach?

DkrShadow here will point that some people do use Harry Potter. (I think Twilight is bad, but must be someone). I think it must be all.

So should we make piano lessons mandatory on the off chance we might find a Beethoven? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Well, do you see, it is the whole problem of the democracy. They try to guess and hit the button. It is as ridiculous as expecting a professional doctor.

[prickly_pete]

I feel like its probably my fault that I seem to be missing the mark with my examples. Let me just summarize what I've said thus far:

1) Art is something that is used and applied to everyday life. I gave an example from Iraq. When I say "Go ahead, make my day" before a firefight this resonates (though how it works in application might be slightly different for each individual) with the people who hear it. If I said, "Once more unto the breach dear friends" nothing is achieved - the phrase doesn't resonate and it can't be applied. This is what I mean when I say art is something that can be used

2) In order to use art one has to be indoctrinated in that culture. Quoting a Dirty Harry line during a firefight in Iraq is an application of art that occurs quite naturally. It's not something that has to be 'taught' per se. Its not an action that would occur to you just watching Dirty Harry in isolation, but is something we've learned to do because of ongoing exposure and indoctrination in a wider cultural setting and dialogue. Same with religious texts - folks in those communities quote scripture or make analogies with scripture not because they went to a class and were told "make analogies to Moses" or "quote Mohammed in x,y an z situations" but because its been part of the cultural life they've been engaged with since birth.

3) Shakespeare wrote for a very narrow audience. Namely folks who'd recieved a classical education, instruction in rhetoric, familiar with the theatre - you know, the whole deal. If he was writing for a very narrow audience in his time, what makes you think his work is applicable to the entire population (or at least a majority of it) in our own?

4) (Using Shakespeare as an example again) if you want Dante or Shakespear or whoever to be part of the cultural life of most people than this is something that folks are going to have to be drilled with from birth (or at least grade school) on up. Since this - at least for the foreseable future - isn't something that is going to occur naturally its will have to be imposed on people from the top down - perhaps similar to how Marx was imposed on Soviet school children from the top down.

5) Shakespare is not part of the cultural life of most people - actually, the VAST majority of people. This doesn't mean they're not exposed to art since every society has a common cultural dialogue in art. It just means they're getting it from film and popular music.

6) Film and popular music are just as capable of exposing students to different ideas and opinions as classical literature is.

Tell me where I'm wrong...

[Drkshadow03]

I'm not against art in schools per se, I'm just thinking that the reason that some art (for instance you're practically guaranteed to run into Shakespeare in high school) is chosen over others is an overly Romantic misunderstanding of how art actually functions in everyday life. I think school boards tend to select classical literature for instance because they're thinking in terms of mental processes or some kind of spiritual experience that is induced in the reader - they think Shakespare or Raphael is so amazing that a mere cursory viewing will produce a more enlightened individual. To me this seems completely bogus. To me a culture is embeded in the everyday lives and thinking of the indivudal members of that culture. Its not something you have to goto a museum to see. For the child of an 18th Century aristocrat Shakespare was embeded in everyday life, it was something you grew up aquiring probably without any forethought on that matter - same as, say, the Koran is imbeded in everyday life in Saudi Arabia. Now? Not so much.

Like, if you seriously believe in a geocentric universe you're a ****ing loon that's probably going to have some problems if you ever let that out largely because its so entrenched in our conceptual understanding of the world. I don't think the same is true of Shakespeare. Its just not something that is part of our everyday life or thinking the way, say, a totem pole would've been for Pacific Northwest tribes a thousand years ago. If we're going to explore something why not explore something relevant to our own culture like, say, movies or sports?



Wow, really? I had no idea!

At any rate religious texts are relevant in religious communities because they're part of one's upbringing and ongoing cultural life - its read from birth, its read before meals, its quoted in everyday conversation, you hear it at services, you sing hymns that are either quoted directly from scripture or inspired by scripture in some way. Its such a part of ones life that its not even a second thought - same way we would approach movies or sports for instance.

Shakespeare isn't part of our cultural upbringing in the United States. He just isn't. I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. Do you quote Shakespeare at meals? Do you take your sweetheart down to a river bank and receit sonnets from memory? Do you apply it in everyday situations? I mean we all know the answer to these questions so come on now.

You may think Shakespeare should be part of our cultural dialogue but that's a different issue from whether he currently is part of our cultural dialogue now.



Yeah, but the difference is if they aquire no math skills they're going to be screwed probably both socially and economically. Same isn't true of Shakespare - there's billions of people living perfectly healthy social lives without Shakespeare. The child of an aristocrat in the 18th Century however probably would've suffered socially if they knew nothing of Shakespeare because, again, that was part of their cultural upbringing and poets wrote specifically for that audience.



Sure, but why does it have to be classical authors? I'm not opposed to teaching art necessarily - I'm opposed to teaching relics that aren't part of the cultural lives of people living today. If you want to grill students from 5 on up in classical rhetoric so that they can actually make something of this stuff is one thing, but just handing them Hamlet at age 16...not sure this really accomplishes anything.



I agree, but why's it gotta be classic literature? Couldn't Twilight serve the same purpose if analyzed with a critical approach?



So should we make piano lessons mandatory on the off chance we might find a Beethoven? Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Me thinks thou dost protest too much. It seems to me your delineating very artificial boundaries of where our culture begins and ends and are presenting a rather idealistic version of sports and movies place in our society. Let's take your examples that supposedly demonstrate Shakespeare's unimportance. I don't know about you, but I don't really quote many movies or sport figures to begin my meals anymore than I do Shakespeare ("I could've been a contender! Alright, please pass the chicken thigh"). I also don't serenade my lover with the latest quotes by Lebron James. Oh, I talk about movies and sports sometimes with friends. However, I also talk about Shakespeare too. It all depends on who I am with. Some of my intimates are bored to tears if I begin talking about basketball and only are interested in discussing the arts, while others are the opposite. Certainly my fiance is more interested in my literary interests than she is in my love of basketball. The problem is that with a more complicated society you get a more fragmented one, hence why I don't believe you can claim Shakespeare isn't part of our culture. There are numerous sub-cultures. More importantly if it's being taught in high schools across America then that too is part of a culture. Certainly a culture's education systems and what it chooses to teach is by definition a part of that culture.

Even so, Shakespeare is quite popular in the United States. There have been countless scholarly books written documenting the history of Shakespeare in America. Most states host annual Shakespearean festivals. Despite your claims, I guarantee I could walk up to most people on the streets with a minimum of education and they would recognize select Shakespeare lines ("A rose by any other name . . ." or "To be or not to be"). So I don't even accept your premise that Shakespeare isn't a part of our culture since this is demonstrably false looking at the various productions put on yearly that often sell out and how even the average non-literature Geek can usually recognize popular Shakespeare lines. In other words, I would challenge your assertion and suggest Shakespeare is in fact part of our cultural dialogue (but, of course, so is many other things).

Could you survive in the real world without much knowledge about Shakespeare? Sure. Could you survive without personally having knowledge of trigonometry? Sure. Could you survive without having any knowledge about how DNA works? Certainly. Could you survive in the workforce without basic reading skills or basic arithmetic? Probably not.

[prickly_pete]

Oh so every weekend Shakespeare plays gross billions upon billions of dollars? Every fall Sunday 15 stadiums of 80,000 people are filled to capacity to watch Shakespearian drama? Tonight I'll assume there'll be 20 some odd million people reading Hamlet instead of watching Game 5, right? You hear about the 'Shakespeare Tour' holy moly that grossed like 100 million in ticket sales already! There's countless television programs, radio shows, preview shows, round-the-clock analysis, entire sections of the New York Times and every major newspaper in the country devoted to Shakespeare huh?

lol, this is beyond dillusional. You're taking your own particular sub-culture which doesn't even form a spec on the map of the American cultural landscape and saying its indicative of a general knowledge and appreciation for Shakespeare. Its ridiculous mate. No point comparing it to math or sciene either by the way. If we never knew who Shakespeare was we'd have no problems. Take math and science out and the entire society folds.

I mean, if this is the type of thinking that goes on in English departments you can count me out.

[Rores28]

So I'll answer this assuming the question is now why teach "old" art in public schools. Also you keep bringing up math and science which are not directly relevant unless you are suggesting that math and science classes be expanded to take up the time currently inhabited by literature classes. But you don't seem to be suggesting that. You are suggesting teaching sports and movies instead.

Here are my objections:

You have to realize that school is essentially the ultimate long-view-putting-off present-pleasure-for-future-pleasure situation. Very few people like school in general, many only enjoying a few subjects, if that. But none of them graduate high school saying that they wish they hadn't done that. School is essentially the societal manifestation of eating your vegetables. Because of that it is sort of a waste of time teaching/viewing hackneyed hollwood movies or sports. People are obviously gorging themselves on these things anyway, they are plenty adept at watching and continuing to watch **** movies as well as sports. It's sorta like saying we should teach beer pong and flip cup in school because they have become such a shared cultural experience. Surely more people know the intricacies of beer bong than the intricacies of Othello. Kids got partying down... they need no top down motivation.

Further sports are already taught in schools (Phys Ed), along with the myriad after school and intramural sports available. Sports at every school I've ever walked into are constantly shoved down one's throat, so I don't really think they warrant more exposure, they're merit at this point is plateaued.

As far as movies, I agree that they should be taught in school and of course many universities have degrees in film etc...But movies are art, so this is sorta in contradiction I think to your initial premise.

So none of this really addresses why old literature should be taught in school, just why more sports and popular movies shouldn't be. This point is a little harder to defend perhaps but I still think literature should be taught, and at the very least I don't think the time that literature currently occupies should be filled with more math and science.

I'll post reasons pro lit later though

[Drkshadow03]

Oh so every weekend Shakespeare plays gross billions upon billions of dollars? Every fall Sunday 15 stadiums of 80,000 people are filled to capacity to watch Shakespearian drama? Tonight I'll assume there'll be 20 some odd million people reading Hamlet instead of watching Game 5, right? You hear about the 'Shakespeare Tour' holy moly that grossed like 100 million in ticket sales already! There's countless television programs, radio shows, preview shows, round-the-clock analysis, entire sections of the New York Times and every major newspaper in the country devoted to Shakespeare huh?

lol, this is beyond dillusional. You're taking your own particular sub-culture which doesn't even form a spec on the map of the American cultural landscape and saying its indicative of a general knowledge and appreciation for Shakespeare. Its ridiculous mate. No point comparing it to math or sciene either by the way. If we never knew who Shakespeare was we'd have no problems. Take math and science out and the entire society folds.

I mean, if this is the type of thinking that goes on in English departments you can count me out.

I NEVER said anything about Shakespeare having equal cultural currency to sports. So stop attacking your own imagined strawman. I just said it has some cultural currency. One having more doesn't require the other to have none if you failed to comprehend my point.

As far as general knowledge. Of course, everyone has general knowledge about Shakespeare since pretty much EVERY student has to read it in high school. Whether they enjoyed him, paid attention, or ever would bother to see one of his plays on their own volition again is another question entirely.

While Shakespeare doesn't typically sell out entire football stadiums every Sunday, he still manages to pull in close to 80,000 people every summer to Central Park and fill up English classes at universities across the nation (and world). And while not grossing billions, most of the recent Shakespeare flicks are capable of grossing millions: Midsummer Night's Dream - 16,000,000+, Romeo and Juliet - 46,000,000+. All I'm saying is there is still a large and literate sub-culture in America that is interested in Shakespeare that extends beyond just English Majors.

Besides your comments about Shakespeare being for the elite is beyond ignorant. Shakespeare wrote for everyone, not just a rich elite.

While I agree society wouldn't fold if Shakespeare disappeared tomorrow the way it would if science and math did, my comments about the necessity of the average person's general knowledge of those subjects still stand, and I've heard too many firsthand experiences about individuals who have had their lives changed by reading and performing Shakespeare and literature in general for the better to dismiss it as comfortably as you do. Society might not fold, but thousands of individuals within society would've been poorer or have led worse lives without having read Shakespeare (such as the many disadvantaged students of the Hobart Shakespeareans who have changed the course of their lives through literature and art).

What happens if we substitute an actual American author into the discussion? Nathaniel Hawthorne might not be as popular as football for the average American either, but I think it would be a pretty dumb argument to claim he is therefore not a part of the American cultural dialogue at all. Hell, they even make updated movies based on his works too (just like the apparently "irrelevant" Shakespeare).

As the weirdest irony of all, your whining about English departments for wanting to defend the study of traditional figures (and you should be the last person criticizing anyone's thinking considering your argument consists of made-up "facts" about Shakespeare's audience and a false comparison to sports that at best only proves one activity is more popular than the other, not that the other activity lacks popularity or interest altogether), whereas when most people whine about the presumably "bad" type of thinking that goes on in English departments its typically when those departments change their focus from old well-respected books to studying popular culture films or the culture of sporting events or the anatomy of beer pong (the very types of things you claim would be more relevant to our current cultural condition).

[prickly_pete]

While Shakespeare doesn't typically sell out entire football stadiums every Sunday, he still manages to pull in close to 80,000 people every summer to Central Park and fill up English classes at universities across the nation (and world).

Grasping at straws is what I think its called. Look at it like this: tens of thousands of people attend dog shows in the United States every year. There's magazines that cater to that niche market. There are products that cater to that niche market. There's been films and documentaries about dog shows that cater to that niche market...

With that said is it really an accurate portrayal of things to say that dog shows are part of the American cultural dialogue? Does that mean that the vast majority of people know what a "major" means and other terminology applicable to dog shows? If the average person on the street can give a general summary of what a dog show is does that mean that dog shows are part of his/her cultural life?

Of course not. We both know that only trainers and dog breaders can get the full-spectrum of experience when it comes to dog shows. The rest of us (in so far as we ever found some reason to goto a dog show at all) are just watching a bunch of muts walk around in a circle. But does that mean we have to educate everyone about dogs and dog shows and cram it down the throats of high schoolers and college students? I know plenty of people who have had their lives changed by studying dogs and interacting with them for the better so why shouldn't Cynology be mandatory in schools? I mean, my subculture is important to me so surely it should be important to everyone else.

Acknowledging that dog shows are relevant to practically no one and probably shouldn't be taught in schools seems common sense that everyone would agree on, but somehow when we start talking about poetry instead of dog shows the rules all change. Its understandable since we care deeply about what we read about, but that still doesn't make Shakespeare anymore relevant to the vast majority of folks out there. I agree with Rores28 - keep it in the academy with the rest of the antiquaited cultural relics where it belongs.

I mean, again, I have no problem teaching art in school if it has some applicability to the cultural life of Americans. Shakespeare doesn't hold any significance, is not used at all by the vast majority of folks so why bother? Why not start studying Lao-Tsu or Shikubu or Averroes or some other material that is irrelevant to the life people live now?

Besides your comments about Shakespeare being for the elite is beyond ignorant. Shakespeare wrote for everyone, not just a rich elite.

So because I can pay $20 to get in a museum or art exhibit (which pretty much makes it accessible to everyone) than that means the artist creates for the general public? That means that the works on display can be easily grasped by everyone and applied to their everyday life?

lol Got it.