According to the teachers who founded the group #DisruptTexts ... They believe that the Bard of Avon should either be removed from school curricula entirely or rebranded in a way that dumps significant criticism on his work as a symbol of white supremacy and colonialism.
Well, sure, if your entire world view is shaped by ideological concepts, allowing no room for consideration of aesthetic quality, then why the heck not toss old Shakespeare in the trash? But if you are that blind to actual literary quality, how the hell did you become an English teacher? Science too hard? The humanities just offer more opportunities for political power trips and general idiocy?
But if it can happen with English teachers then why isn't it happening with Music teachers? Or does the usual requirement that you actually have some skills in music tend to weed out the whackos?
Whenever I read about these incredibly stupid people and their SJW cancel-culture ideologies, I almost have to force myself to step back and refrain from laughing, but I eventually, soberly realise that these people actually are serious and think they are doing something good. No, you are not, you are dangerous. Maybe in a few years there will be some theatre production highlighting the absurd nonsense we are currently being put through. Of course, it would have to be a comedy.
ReplyDeleteWhat music teachers?? Everyone is taking an online course. And how much instruction does pop music take? Most people in the past just copied stuff from recordings.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: a very black comedy, I think.
ReplyDeleteOh right, no music teachers either, right now!
Infection rates are plunging so maybe we can get back to normal soon: English teachers trashing Shakespeare, music teachers saying "no, TWO beats in a half note!" And maybe the occasional concert.
Stumbled over this essay, about maintaining 'a studied disinterestedness that allows me to stand neither above nor below but simply very far away from these tawdry spectacles' earlier today-- he uses Beethoven's criminality as a central example (Walther writes for The Week et al-- is in fact very opinioned and so not an absolutist about this 'staying far away' business).
ReplyDeleteOne's intended interlocutors are simply not arguing in good faith....
There are only three conceivable responses to such idiotic assertions. The first, that of the indefatigable John McWhorter, is to attempt meaningful adult conversation, which is a bit like trying to convince someone making fart noises that your preferred translation of an 11th-century Japanese court romance is worth reading....
Am moving slowly, slowly through your Bach posts.
Whew, that was a fairly long read. I agree, pretty much. In fact, writing this blog enables me to keep a distance from most of these silly controversies. While mentioning them occasionally.
ReplyDeleteFor someone who has a more nuanced approach, have a look at Ethan Hein's comments on "Bach Not Worth the Trouble..."
Your quote is from a conservative blog that is itself summarizing an article in a conservative news outlet about the Disrupt Texts movement. That's multiple layers of oversimplification and ideologically motivated distortion. The actual story is that teachers want to point out in the course of teaching Shakespeare that Elizabethan gender politics were pretty horrific, which... is uncontroversially true? When I say that cancel culture mainly exists in conservative imagination, this is what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteThey are all focussed on power and politics. It is hard to imagine they would give Shakespeare a fair hearing.
ReplyDeleteIt might be easier to imagine what the motivations are of the Disrupt Texts movement by engaging them directly, rather than through biased summaries of biased reports about them. My own colleagues in this movement view their work as giving Shakespeare a *more* fair hearing by not eliding or ignoring the full meaning and context of his words.
ReplyDeleteI deleted my comment here, Bryan, so that you wouldn't have to. Nonsense is the polite and concise summary. They played this trick before, Foucault and Kristeva and that lot: read us, engage us, we will go forward together, comrades. Pft. Am not going to waste an ungodly number of hours on that sort of truly deplorable nonsense ever again, whichever iteration of it may be on the table.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marc. Yes, I think we have had much more than enough political commentary for the present.
ReplyDeleteThis was exasperating to read: "does the usual requirement that you actually have some skills in music tend to weed out the whackos?" I was just reflecting on how, when Philip Ewell came to cancel Schenker, he did from a position of such expertise that he had published a paper in Timothy Jackson's very own Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The best that Jackson himself could do response was to throw ad hominem attacks and cite Wikipedia. Who is actually doing the work?
ReplyDeleteEthan, I'm sorry, but we will entertain no more comments of a political nature here.
ReplyDelete