Probably because they spend more time campaigning than studying the Constitution. 

Well, there's certainly enough difficulty in Shakespeare to merit several supplementary courses worth of background material, have the teacher world enough and time. And Barzun's approach probably has its merits; an Englishwoman told me she didn't appreciate Shakespeare until the year her English teacher took most of a term to cover Richard II line by line. 

Still, there's a 5th-grade teacher in LA who has his students study and perform A Midsummer Night's Dream each year, so there must be some aspect of the plays that students can appreciate before they start planning for senior prom. 

As for whether to read The Crucible, a lot depends on your goals for the course. I regard the play as a good mid-level read; the average 10th-grader can handle it without too much difficulty. Some schools teach both it and Salesman. 

What I don't understand is how The Red Badge of Courage fell off so many syllabi. Is The Kite Runner really better?

Agree about art in the service of politics. But do you think teachers of The Crucible could connect it to bogus accusations of racism, or Canada's human rights tribunal? 

(cont'd)

When I taught Brit Lit myself, I found it helpful that most of my students had had AP Euro the previous year. They knew enough about the French Revolution to understand A Tale of Two Cities. 

Moreover, while I think lit is a great way to make history vivid, much of what lit teachers should aim for involves removing the text from historical context and making it relevant to the emotions that the students are feeling. After all, the only reason great lit survives is because it transcends its age. 

Do you really need historical context to understand Tintern Abbey or Macbeth? When teaching Romeo and Juliet, should you teach the history of Italy? The novel is the form that benefits the most from contextualization, but even Pride and Prejudice translates fairly well to the modern high school (spare me the jokes about petticoats vs. hook-up culture; students still experience romantic curiosity, rivalry, self-doubt, shame, and the determination to impress a girl). 

As I said, I'm sure matching history to lit can create memorable courses. But a standard self-contained lit course can be equally memorable. 

I'm sure a good school can make this approach work, but I'm not convinced it's the dream-scheme many make it out to be. The high school I attended used this system. It was most helpful for the World History / World Lit sequence; we learned a little about India, Africa, Japan, and China while reading Nectar in a Sieve, The Dark Child, Things Fall Apart, some novel by Mishima, and some attempt at a bildungsroman by a Chinese woman. The lit wasn't "great," but we weren't mature enough to care about that; the stories did promote good discussion. 

In the American History / American Lit sequence, the match-up was only occasionally illuminating. Historical context is irrelevant to American Romanticism, Dickinson, and Whitman; a single class period on the Jazz Age gets you all you need to know about Gatsby (ditto McCarthy and The Crucible); Crane wrote Red Badge before he'd even seen war. 

Sorry. I'm typing while distracted by an infant, so it's the former. 

I think my main suspicion is that Libertarianism requires an unrealistically high standard of virtue. Even if one generation has it, the prosperity that follows from focusing on trade will create decadence in future ones. (cf. America since 1950.)

Moreover, the dark side of human nature all but ensures that governments eventually become tyrannical. Exceptions can occur among small, culturally homogeneous groups (Switzerland). 

Finally, I'm not convinced that tyranny is bad. Substantial elements of Western culture were created under governments that were hostile to freedom (European monarchies). 

I think markets are the greatest device for advancing prosperity that people have made. However, when Tolstoy tried to dramatize human nature on a large scale, he titled his novel War and Peace. Note the first word. 

Precisely. It sounds to me like you've implicitly defined "emergent order" as spontaneous order that does no harm. But any order, from an edged tool to a government, can be used to cause harm. 

Look folks; it's too much sunny talk for me. I suspect that most Libertarians are good-natured, not particularly impassioned people who think that the rest of the world can be just like them. They want to be left alone to improve their property and socialize with their friends. The human heart is darker than they realize, but as they are themselves so good-natured, such good neighbors (and I speak with the utmost sincerity), we can't really be surprised that they don't recognize as much. 

When I hear Libertarians start to talk about how bloody-minded humanity is at its core, I'll start to pay more attention. Until then, I'll continue to regard them as really nice people whose ideas about government are necessarily naive. 

In summer of 2000: "I think if Bush were elected, he would have to be assassinated." Even I, seriously considering voting for Nader, was shocked. 

OK, but I don't see the internet as substantially different from the markets that have developed throughout human history. Moreover, like all trade, it is also good at satisfying the human lust for power over fellow humans (cf. slavery, child porn, stealing trade secrets, bullying nations, etc.) 

I'll accept that natural impulses create spontaneous order. It's in the nature of birds to flock and of humans to trade. But there are other aspects of human nature. Would you consider mob violence an example of emergent order? What about a cult of human sacrifice? 

The blacksmith sells swords as well as ploughshares. 

I'm encountering a different species of libertarian on this thread than the ones I encountered on the open borders threads. I'll try to bear your points in mind in the future. 

I've made these comments because to me, Libertarians often sound too blithe about what it takes to preserve civil society and rule of law. I don't think the NAP will provide a check on the blood-dimmed tide of human history or that human aggression will naturally channel itself into trade alone. Remember that the founding fathers enjoyed taking lands from Indians and tried to take land from British Canada.  

I'll take back the suggestion that Fred's proposals might produce anarchy. As I've suggested above, humans will continue to create systems of political order. 

My original point was to dispute Fred's use of the plant metaphor by saying he was appealing to the state of nature as an ideal. Looks like I was wrong about that as well. 

However, as I've suggested in my most recent post, the Libertarians on this thread are, as usually, deluded about whether systems of spontaneous order would be an improvement on--or even more Libertarian than--our current ones. Consider this review of The Rule of the Clan (h/t Sabrdance). 

Also, I don't buy these appeals to natural systems as metaphors for human society. Let's review some of the ways in which plants (Fred's metaphor) and flocks of birds (Dan's metaphor) are radically different from human beings. 

- They don't have consciousness. No need to plan for half a century into the future or to consider how to improve on the past. 

- They don't have egos. They don't defend principles, revenge themselves on enemies, or take pride in trifles. They don't find pleasure in subtle manifestations of power, nor do they decree stately pleasure domes. 

Most ironically, from the perspective of this discussion, they have no interest in sitting up late debating the ideal arrangement of their roots or the proper training of their flocks. 

Of course civil society will recover after breaking down. It's what human beings create--it's what makes us different from plants and animals. There's even a certain beauty to watching the "Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the / Dream-led masses down the dark mountain."

People just shouldn't delude themselves into thinking that that this new order will be better. 

Well, you are certainly right; if the state disappeared tomorrow, humans would adapt. But the Libertarians would be shocked and dismayed by the way the adaptation played out. (For example, religion would probably make a big comeback.)

Oh. I forgot--so long as you aren't advocating something, you aren't responsible when your policies produce it.