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Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm
The New York Times ^ | May 17, 2014 | Jennifer Medina

Posted on 05/18/2014 5:44:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

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How did this country win two world wars and the cold war? Seriously.
1 posted on 05/18/2014 5:44:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Honestly, I think nowadays college makes one stupider.


2 posted on 05/18/2014 5:48:07 PM PDT by Maceman
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

We have become a nation of pussies.


3 posted on 05/18/2014 5:48:22 PM PDT by JusPasenThru (Posting here = IRS audit.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

That’s a good question, no doubt. The most important question is “Can what’s left of this nation win the next big war?”


4 posted on 05/18/2014 5:48:36 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

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.


5 posted on 05/18/2014 5:48:37 PM PDT by reformedliberal
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

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.


6 posted on 05/18/2014 5:50:20 PM PDT by MoochPooch (I'm a compassionate cynic.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
We're raising a nation of pussies...

Oh, should I have warned you about the truth?

7 posted on 05/18/2014 5:50:43 PM PDT by Feckless (I was trained by the US << This Tagline Censored by FR >> ain't that irOnic?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Here’s my suggestion. WARNING: This book was written before politically correct censorship. You may learn something you didn’t know before.


8 posted on 05/18/2014 5:51:22 PM PDT by luvbach1 (We are finished. It will just take a while before everyone realizes it.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Who said we won ?


9 posted on 05/18/2014 5:51:42 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Anti-gun organizations raise protests to stop teaching “literary canons.”


10 posted on 05/18/2014 5:52:06 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

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.


11 posted on 05/18/2014 5:56:51 PM PDT by Phillyred
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“...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


12 posted on 05/18/2014 5:59:21 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

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.


13 posted on 05/18/2014 6:00:29 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

““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.


14 posted on 05/18/2014 6:04:22 PM PDT by DemforBush (A repo man is always intense.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

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.


15 posted on 05/18/2014 6:04:23 PM PDT by CitizenUSA (America for Americans first!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Well, next they will be putting a warning label on the Holy Bible. The old testament is about the most violent book there ever was. And then of course the whole Bible must be condemned and burned because God says what will happen to homosexuals.
16 posted on 05/18/2014 6:05:46 PM PDT by Vinylly (?%)
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To: DemforBush

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.


17 posted on 05/18/2014 6:14:33 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Ransomed

18 posted on 05/18/2014 6:14:48 PM PDT by null and void (When was the last time you heard anyone say: "It's a free country"?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

For God’s sake, don’t let the little dears near the Bible!


19 posted on 05/18/2014 6:18:31 PM PDT by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)
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To: Seizethecarp

Oh...wait...


20 posted on 05/18/2014 6:19:13 PM PDT by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)
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