the way educators (tertiary and secondary) have dismantled and then abandoned the canon has been one of the most impressive feats of military strategy since erwin rommel retook el alamein (against superior forces). this strategy may have been improvised on the fly but it has been brilliant nonetheless.how to destroy the west's incomparable cultural inheritance in 5 easy steps:
1. criticize the canon for not being inclusive enough.
2. adulterate it with inferior "steerage class" literature reflecting the new diversity.
3. further adulterate the syllabus with tv shows and movies.
4. eliminate all qualitative judgments.
5. admit the triviality of the subject and abandon it altogether.
unfortunately the problem with this otherwise winning strategy is that it produces too many people incapable of recognising literate jokes when they encounter them; in woody allen films, for instance: "when it comes to women i'm the winner of the august strindberg award". it also greatly reduces one's ability to insult others in very sophisticated ways, as joseph epstein did in this morning's edition of the "wall street journal": "i have always considered the clintons as little more than a branch of william faulkner's snopes family, in their cases snopeses who have given high sat scores a bad name". these are important "life skills".
it is simply negligent of educators to graduate students who aren't equipped to appreciate jokes they must "process" when watching "the simpsons". really, what else is education for? parents have a right to be upset.
2 comments:
While we're on the subject of the Simpsons I thought you would have brought up the Argentinian's Government's complaints for sure. I mean if I was in Argentina I'd be kind of happy that the Simpson's were interested in my country! But there we go...
Gretta x
i've read those jokes which got the argies agitated. they're funny.
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