The Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion piece about a Massachusetts school that has banned Homer's The Odyssey, because it contains non-PC ideas. Under #DisruptTexts critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss."
The reasoning:
"Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”
The subtle complexities of literature are being reduced to the crude clanking of “intersectional” power struggles. Thus Seattle English teacher Evin Shinn tweeted in 2018 that he’d “rather die” than teach “The Scarlet Letter,” unless Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel is used to “fight against misogyny and slut-shaming.”
I cannot even express how scary this is to me. When we erase the past we dishonor the writers. We do our children no favors because they won't realize how ideas and principles evolve over time. Our children will condemn everyone in history -- if they are even made aware the "offensive" books exist..
It's the same mindset of people who want to tear down statues of historical figures like George Washington.
I remember reading Huckleberry Finn in high school and understanding that Mark Twain was writing at a time when racism was commonly accepted. It didn't turn me into a racist.** I read The Scarlet Letter and it didn't make me a judgmental person intent on slut-shaming.
If we insist on giving children a sanitized view of history how will they understand how ideas have changed over the centuries?
Or perhaps the idea is to simply condemn everyone in history. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, arguably the greatest document ever written. He said in it "all men are created equal." Yet, he owned slaves. He was born into a class at a time when that was acceptable, and common. You don't have to approve of slavery to be able to grasp that human beings are complicated creatures. Many great men [FDR, JFK, pretty much every English king] take mistresses. Does that erase their accomplishments? Should we dismiss the good they did because they were morally flawed human beings?
I say no. I do not approve of racism, or misogny, or many of the ideas expressed in my favorite book, Gone With the Wind. I will defend writers who explore those ideas, though, because History must never be ignored or sanitized.
If we do that, we will never learn.
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** My friend who posted the link to the WSJ article made this comment about Huckleberry Finn: "And I’ll point out that as far Huck Finn goes, people who freak out that it contains the n-word totally miss the entire point of the novel. Who is the one person is Huck’s life who is compassionate, steadfast, capable, and honorable? It sure ain’t his dad or the white conmen he meets. It is, of course, Jim, the runaway slave. Huck’s literal journey with Jim is a metaphorical journey FROM racism TO enlightenment."
Amen
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