Yale students demand that the school stop teaching English literature
The coming dark age: Students at Yale University have issued a petition demanding that the English Department stop teaching the poetry and literature of straight, white, wealthy males.
Their reasons have nothing to do with the quality of literature, only the race, gender, or economic status of the writers. In fact, the demands express a complete disinterest in learning anything about the work of these authors, people like Shakespeare and Yeats and Pope and Hemingway. Instead, these fascists add that if their demands are not met, the university could face some violent protests.
As noted here, “The students … seem to think they’re not at college to be educated,” he wrote, but that “they are at college to educate everyone else.” As a result, they come to college with closed-minds, unwilling to learn anything. And they will leave college just as ignorant, but they will leave holding a degree from a Ivy League college that will guarantee them access to future positions of power.
The future does not look good.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The coming dark age: Students at Yale University have issued a petition demanding that the English Department stop teaching the poetry and literature of straight, white, wealthy males.
Their reasons have nothing to do with the quality of literature, only the race, gender, or economic status of the writers. In fact, the demands express a complete disinterest in learning anything about the work of these authors, people like Shakespeare and Yeats and Pope and Hemingway. Instead, these fascists add that if their demands are not met, the university could face some violent protests.
As noted here, “The students … seem to think they’re not at college to be educated,” he wrote, but that “they are at college to educate everyone else.” As a result, they come to college with closed-minds, unwilling to learn anything. And they will leave college just as ignorant, but they will leave holding a degree from a Ivy League college that will guarantee them access to future positions of power.
The future does not look good.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
One of those evil, dead, white guys: William Butler Yeats
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
“straight, white, wealthy males.”
Might not be true of Shakespeare. 57th sonnet.
Stupid people never know they are stupid….
Why fools are endowed by nature with voices so much louder than sensible people possess is a mystery.
“Stupid people never know they are stupid….”
The problem is that our society is no longer willing to tell them they are stupid. Instead, we give them Ivy League college degrees and put them in charge of society.
So a liberal arts degree from Yale will be worth even less than it was before. I’m not sure that a degree from an Ivy League college will be an automatic ticket to a power position for very much longer.
Isn’t it nice how “inclusiveness” has turned into the practice of excluding certain people?
From the article: “It is your responsibility as educators to listen to student voices.”
The danger is that the inmates are demanding to run the asylum.
Mr. Zimmerman wrote: “And they will leave college just as ignorant, but they will leave holding a degree from a Ivy League college that will guarantee them access to future positions of power.”
I agree with PeterF. Universities need to be careful. It does not take much to lose a reputation that was decades or centuries in the making. Queens college in New York is a good example. I once worked with someone who got his degree from Queens, back when it was reputable. Queens chose to let in lower-achieving students, and its reputation was quickly lost.
The article’s post script tells us the direction that Yale is taking, so it’s reputation will suffer: “In tangentially related news, Nicholas and Erika Christakis—who declined to protect students from offensive Halloween costumes—have finally resigned their positions at Yale.”
Just wondering, that if they do stop teaching old white poetry, such as John Skelton. That should put an end to Skeltonic Verse, which is pretty much what all rap music is. Call me a cross eyed optimist, but I’m seeing upside to this.