Posted on 05/18/2014 5:44:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Should students about to read “The Great Gatsby” be forewarned about “a variety of scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence,” as one Rutgers student proposed? Would any book that addresses racism — like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “Things Fall Apart” — have to be preceded by a note of caution? Do sexual images from Greek mythology need to come with a viewer-beware label?
Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as “trigger warnings,” explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
The warnings, which have their ideological roots in feminist thought, have gained the most traction at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where the student government formally called for them. But there have been similar requests from students at Oberlin College, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, George Washington University and other schools....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Honestly, I think nowadays college makes one stupider.
We have become a nation of pussies.
That’s a good question, no doubt. The most important question is “Can what’s left of this nation win the next big war?”
We were a different people in a different time and place. Today’s inculcated fragile flowers have no interest in winning any war except the one against traditional thought and values.
Assuming college is still viable, period, I think the only way to go is parochial— at least for undergrad. The Christian colleges, especially, might still venerate the Western canon; they in fact seem to go together very well.
Oh, should I have warned you about the truth?
Here’s my suggestion. WARNING: This book was written before politically correct censorship. You may learn something you didn’t know before.
Who said we won ?
Anti-gun organizations raise protests to stop teaching “literary canons.”
I know, but remember, 33% of the country wanted independence, 33% wanted to stay with the king of England, and 33% didn’t care either way...It’s which 33% wants to win badly enough. Remember also that the 33% side that lost the war was considered much more powerful.
“...Heinlein’s two most famous novels are Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. The first challenges the orthodoxy of the Left as much as the second does that of the Right. But in his day, few science fiction readers were offended by his or anyone’s ideas. Science fiction was proud to be a literature of the new and startling. A spirit of intellectual fearlessness was paramount.
A darker time followed. The lamps of the intellect were put out one by one, first in society at large, then in literature, then in our little corner called science fiction. What we have now instead is a smothering fog of caution, of silence, of an unwillingness to speak for fear of offending the perpetually hypersensitive.
Science fiction is under the control of the thought police. The chains are invisible, but real. For a genre that glories in counting George Orwell as one of its own, this is ironic, to say the least.”
—John C. Wright, from here:
http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2014/05/07/heinlein-hugos-and-hogwash/
Pretty good article, points out that Heinlein couldn’t win a Hugo today. Have to think that a lot of the supposed classics of literature wouldn’t cut it either if they came out now.
Freegards
Real literature deals with the issues of life. If students can’t handle a book, I don’t imagine they can handle life either. Better that they crawl under the bed, assume the fetal position, and suck their thumbs. Or, and this is a novel thought, they could break themselves away from idiotic professors and frigging grow up.
““The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “Things Fall Apart””
Two great novels.
As far as “warnings” go, bleah. I can see it, maybe, in a very few cases of younger kids given challenging material. For example, in junior high we read the Greek fable “The Rape of Persephone.” My English teacher took a moment out to explain that “rape” in this case, was referring to a kidnapping, not a sexual assault (or what Whoopi would call “rape rape”). It cleared things up without further issue.
But for grown adults? Get real. If you can’t handle a few bad words in Huck Finn or Grapes of Wrath by the time you’re old enough to go to college, I think you have deeper issues than just dealing with offensive language.
It seems like maturity is coming later and later these days. Our generation’s boys went through the “pajama boy” stage at about age 8. From my perspective, this generation is just maturing much, much slower. Age 20 is more like where we were at 13 or 14. Age 25? Time to start thinking about full time work and a real career. Age 30? Maybe get married (children later). There are exceptions of course, but that’s how I see it. Add maybe a decade or more of immaturity for leftist males, and some of them never grow up.
Uhh, hate to dispute your teacher, but Hades rape-raped Persephone too.
Or at least as much as any of the captive women in the Iliad were rape-raped. Women of the time were aware that captives became the sex slaves of the conqueror, so possibly violence was less necessary than for a modern woman with different expectations.
For God’s sake, don’t let the little dears near the Bible!
Oh...wait...
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