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Lies Told in English
I should preface this post by noting I’m an (now domestic) engineer — hard “g.” English is not my proficiency, unlike my Hillsdale English major daughter, the Elder. You want help with your Math homework or figuring out how to fix the ice maker? I’m your gal.
Elder recently signed up for a 300-level 17th and 18th Century British Literature class at the local branch of CU in preparation to return to Hillsdale this fall, after identifying and dealing with some health challenges. She dropped the course after attending the first session, saying, “Mom, it’s not Hillsdale.” To which I responded, “Now you know why we insisted, if you’re going to be an English major, Hillsdale should be your top choice out of a scant handful of options.”
The first sign of trouble was the class introductions. Students were asked to give their name, year in school, and preferred pronoun. (You saw that coming, didn’t you?) Let’s keep in mind that “preferred pronoun” is an insistence that you talk about zir in the third person to someone else when xe’s not even in the room! If you were talking to they, you’d use “you, you, your” like any decent person. It’s coercive, totalitarian rubbish. I say we call the narcissistic little prigs “bastards.” Fixes everything.
Then Elder got a look at the syllabus. Nearly a third of the authors selected for study were women and none of them were named Austen. Too bourgeois, it would seem, except one of the women wrote about Islam after her experiences in Turkey where her husband was stationed as a diplomat. Oof — insert feminist scowl. And, yes, Islam was another major theme of the class about 17th and 18th Century British Literature! You can’t make this stuff up.
Finally, the class discussed an excerpt from Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum, a philosophical work first published in 1620. The professor focused on Bacon’s use of the phrase “empire over creation” (translated from the original Latin), suggesting the negative leftese connotation of “empire” (rather than the more likely Biblical allusion Bacon was making to dominion over creation). Oddly, he also asked the class the significance of the era in which Bacon was writing (early 1600s was the Age of Discovery), misleading the students to believe that Bacon could have been criticizing “empire” before the British Empire had even been established (Britain’s Imperial Century was from 1815 to 1914 according to historians), let alone before lefties had decided empire was a bad thing. Pull chute!
This incident started a family conversation about why university English departments are so corrupted and readily corruptible. Mr. C. (also an engineer — hard “g”) argued that the interpretation of literature is a subjective exercise. There aren’t hard truths built in like in Math and Science. I dissented.
Great literature reveals (absolute, universal) truths about the human condition. It isn’t subjective — it’s susceptible to misinterpretation by lefties with an agenda. Literature has staying-power when it is recognized for its truths by individuals over generations. As C.S. Lewis intimates in The Abolition of Man, it is against our human nature to continue to believe that which isn’t objectively true.
And speaking of the annihilation of our humanity, Drew Klavan makes the point that majorities don’t win — culture wins. If we don’t start fighting for the true meaning of words, I don’t see how the West survives. When the Elder was making her case for dropping the class, she said, “it lacks integrity.”
in·teg·ri·ty
/inˈteɡrədē/
noun
- the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
- “he is known to be a man of integrity”
- the state of being whole and undivided.
Just so.
Published in Literature
If I remember correctly from The Story of Civilization, her writings were well thought of. I can’t remember her name. The passages that the Durants mentioned were about the harems and the baths.
I looked it up. Was the author Lady Mary Wortley Montagu?
She didn’t write much during the period. Her best-known works were Nineteenth Century.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters.
Correct.
Nit-pickery. She made it under the wire, and even had somewhat (first-wave) feminist themes. Marry for love and all that.
She did a pretty good job on the subject for a (dare I use the word?) spinster.
Is there a better example of the world in which we live than the rapidity with which this preferred pronoun stuff has spread from fringe to (I’m assuming) the norm?
EEEKKK…and Rah! to Daughter Chauvie the Elder…
I do remember reading a few years ago that when asked to put down his preferred pronoun, one student wrote “his royal highness”. It gave me hope.
I’m thinking that the guy Gossamer Cat is talking about would prefer “Your Highness,” or maybe “Your Majesty.”
Let’s pull out all the stops, “Your Royal and Imperial Majesty.”
I prefer Eminence or Excellency. Also a kiss on the ring.
You could take lessons from the titles Andrew Klavan’s mailbag correspondents use for him.
If we can add a kiss, I have another location in mind.
Cheeky.
Well played.
“M’lord” will be sufficient.
If action and adventure books are male fantasies, then romance novels are female fantasies. In that day, already loving the one you marry, and having them love you back, both in the romantical way, was pretty much a fantasy (yes, that did happen, so it wasn’t wholly utopian, just as adventures really did happen to some men). And who would be fantasizing about that most, but someone who had never even come close to it?
Elder is not only smart but discerning. Not surprising considering who her parents are!
Absolutely agree.
For a start.
I can commiserate with her. I once took an advanced english class with 3 professors and a gaggle of girls on Medea. It was disconcerting that myself and the two male professors were the only two who saw something wrong with what Medea did.
Maddeningly brilliant analysis, Sis. Read it to your bro-in-law. He agrees.
The same thing in history departments. You don’t get published (see #4, which is a requirement for #5) unless you have something “novel” (see #4 above) to say. Repeating the truths that have been revealed doesn’t get you publication nor tenure.
A former co-worker’s son and daughter-in-law were trying to work their way up in academic history departments. Being the lefty that he was, my former co-worker thought the ever more bizarre theories his son and daughter-in-law were peddling was a great feature of the system.
This happened at Hillsdale? The Hillsdale college I think highly of? I’m surprised this wasn’t brought up to the Dean’s attention, as I thought lefty nonsense had no home at Hillsdale . . .
No – At Colorado University. Taking a 300 course to get back into the work before returning to Hillsdale.
Correct. Elder attended a charter high school which taught Hillsdale’s curriculum. She then had a semester plus at Hillsdale and still was more competent in a 300-level English class taught at the local state university branch than the other students (and maybe even the professor). She identified the early 1600’s as the Age of Exploration after waiting to see if anyone else would answer the question (her typical MO).
She is well educated (thank you Hillsdale!). They are well indoctrinated.
well played my friend
fyi: one may call me ‘His Royalness’
How is this preferred pronoun stuff doing in other languages, say French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese?