Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
The Progs are winning the culture war. Maybe there is not enough spine in the conservative wing?
Maybe there aren’t enough of us left to make much of an impact, but we still must model and insist, yes? The chief anesthesiologist at Mom P.’s hometown hospital insisted that his young scrub staff (nurses, including Mom P.) speak ‘professionally’. He’d gently correct their usage. A gift she imparted to her children and grandchildren.
Definitely not in the vast majority of our politicians. But, it’s not simply a lack of courage (although there’s that). It’s a lack of awareness of how dangerous the Left is to our freedoms. Many conservatives project their own decency onto leftists. They seem blithely unaware the Left will dox your kids, kill the vulnerable (not just the unborn), and steal your family’s earnings — in the name of “justice.” It’s going to have to get personal for them before they get it. And by then (now), it may be too late.
Yes but the average Dem voter would both argue the first sentence and be sent to the gulag early in the next “reign of terror.”
I get that the average Dem voter would argue re: “killing the vulnerable and…stealing your money [in the name of ‘justice’]”, ST; could you clarify the quoted part, above?
I think you’re saying that even the most ‘loyal’ of Dems outside the Beltway/on the coasts (now)won’t be loyal enough for the next wave of true-believing Progressives upcoming . Am I close?