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Teaching the great classics of literature is no longer of interest to English professors, and hasn't been for a long time.
Since the 1980s, they've been more interested in stuff like structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, "cultural studies," Foucault, Derrida, Adorno, Baudrillard, the Frankfurt School, multiculturalism, gender identity, imperialism, etc.
A nice stew of pseudo-philosophy and left-wing fads buried in impenetrable jargon.
If they assign Shakespeare, it's probably to deconstruct his phallus-centricity, "male gaze" and totalitarian cis-gender imperialism.
It's part and parcel of social justice. It's being willing and able to take the way things actually were, the way things really happened, the things that were written... and effectively invert and rewrite them in favor of the way you wish things were, the way you think they ought to be, and the way you want them to be going forward. "Shaping" minds by shaping the literature and history.
Remember, the way to convince people of things is to get them young. But it doesn't help if they're seeing the world for the way it was and is while they're being educated, so you also have to *change* the way things were. It's for the greater good. It's an attempt to do good using the tools of evil. It's Regressive.
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I think there are three kinds of reactions those who self-identify as "liberals" would have to these kinds of articles:
1. being [or convincing oneself one is] in complete agreement
2. initially finding something not quite right with it, but through some minor mental gymnastics, feeling the tug of needing to rationalize and defend its practice against people on the right who are loudly against it
3. seeing it straight off as the illiberal truth-denying facade that it is, and therefore disavowing it
#1s are unreachable. My goal is usually to cheer on #3s and work with #2s to enable them to see that things like this do not reflect classical liberal values and are not worthy of being defended. This isn't done by insulting or throwing tantrums (and I'm not saying anyone here is doing that).
It's part and parcel of social justice. It's being willing and able to take the way things actually were, the way things really happened, the things that were written... and effectively invert and rewrite them in favor of the way you wish things were, the way you think they ought to be, and the way you want them to be going forward. "Shaping" minds by shaping the literature and history.
Remember, the way to convince people of things is to get them young. But it doesn't help if they're seeing the world for the way it was and is while they're being educated, so you also have to *change* the way things were. It's for the greater good. It's an attempt to do good using the tools of evil. It's Regressive.
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I think there are three kinds of reactions those who self-identify as "liberals" would have to these kinds of articles:
1. being [or convincing oneself one is] in complete agreement
2. initially finding something not quite right with it, but through some minor mental gymnastics, feeling the tug of needing to rationalize and defend its practice against people on the right who are loudly against it
3. seeing it straight off as the illiberal truth-denying facade that it is, and therefore disavowing it
#1s are unreachable. My goal is usually to cheer on #3s and work with #2s to enable them to see that things like this do not reflect classical liberal values and are not worthy of being defended. This isn't done by insulting or throwing tantrums (and I'm not saying anyone here is doing that).
Shakespeare is alive and well in universities and theaters throughout the world. There is always room for the works of other geniuses and for contemporaries to have a chance to be highlighted and celebrated. True talent and genius is never outdated nor can it be replaced. I adore Mozart and Pavarotti but my love for the music of Fleetwood Mac and Prince, for examples, does not negate my adoration for the former.
Shakespeare is alive and well in universities and theaters throughout the world. There is always room for the works of other geniuses and for contemporaries to have a chance to be highlighted and celebrated. True talent and genius is never outdated nor can it be replaced. I adore Mozart and Pavarotti but my love for the music of Fleetwood Mac and Prince, for examples, does not negate my adoration for the former.
I swear, a very large proportion of younger people today are straight up, irreversibly brain damaged.
Especially as one that likes to read this really upsets me. Dumb pieces of dung!
We need to rename SJWs Social Justice Nazis. I wouldn't be surprised if these kids got gold stars just for wiping their ***.
There are 25,000 students at Penn. How many know or care about a picture?
Pre Internet/ social media something like this would be limited to the school newspaper.
Somehow "a gaggle" of Penn students who replaced the picture are representative of 30 million college- aged people in the US? There's a diff between a few and many and a large proportion.
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