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On August 4 I spoke at the Young America's Foundation conference in Washington, DC. I had the honor of following an address by Elizabeth Kantor, the editor of the Conservative Book Club and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature. Kantor's address was a superb summation of some of the values which we are fighting to defend today against the global jihad, and the monumental works of literature in which those values are articulated or embodied in character.
Being so impressed by her address, I asked Dr. Kantor if I could reprint it here so as to elucidate some of the principles that are under attack from jihadists today, and the need to defend them. I have waited to do so until her book (which is likewise excellent) became available. I hope you will read both this essay and her book, as we need to see much more of this sort of thing: forthright and unapologetic defenses of the value of the civilization which, if we do not defend today, we will surely lose.
Bravo, Dr. Kantor, and thank you.
What should students read in college? Should you be reading conservative books? Well, I’m the editor of the Conservative Book Club. And I’m also just getting ready to publish a conservative book with Regnery -- The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature. But I’m not going to recommend that conservative books should be at the very top of your reading list. You’ve got a whole lifetime to keep up with the state of the culture war or to be a political activist. But you’ve only got one chance at growing into an actually educated American citizen, a full-fledged participant in our cultural heritage, a torchbearer for Western civilization. Hundreds of young people committed to defending America or preserving Western culture aren’t going to be able to accomplish those goals if there are no young people still getting the kind of education that used to turn students into educated Americans and real citizens of the West.You should be reading Beowulf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare -- Dickens, and T. S. Eliot -- the “dead white males” who used to make up the old “canon” of literature that every educated person needed to know. Even conservative classics -- take Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, for example, or God and Man at Yale -- aren’t going to give you Western culture. They’re only going to convince you why it’s worth conserving, and set you a fine example of how to defend it. You can learn from the greats of American conservatism that there are permanent things, and that they need preserving. But the best place to learn the permanent things themselves is not from reading the classics of conservative thought. It’s from reading the classics, period.
As Americans, we’re lucky. The greatest modern body of literature -- maybe the greatest literature in world history -- is in our native language. Literature is the kind of art that English speakers have excelled at. We’re fortunate because we can enjoy Beethoven’s 9th and Michelangelo’s Pieta just as easily as any German or Italian -- they don’t need any translation -- and Shakespeare and Wordsworth are in our own language.In 1988 -- which was eighteen years ago -- that might be the year you were born, if you were starting college this fall -- Jesse Jackson led student protesters across the Stanford campus chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ. has got to go.” [Note: Since I gave this talk, it’s come to my attention that Jesse Jackson was not actually leading this chant: though he participated in the protest in which the slogan “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go” was chanted, it appears that he expressed reservations about it at the time.] Meanwhile, what those protesters wanted has pretty much happened on American college campuses. Postmodernism and literary “theory” have effectively stopped college professors from transmitting Western civilization to the next generation. In “English” class, for example, you might now watch a Michael Moore movie, or study Marx, Foucault, or Derrida, or the history of ballet, or pornography, or “Latino cultural studies,” “Caribbean women writers,” detective fiction, or Stephen King novels.
Even if you sign up for a course with “Shakespeare” or “Faulkner” in the title, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to be taught English or American literature. The professor is likely to be interested in teaching something else -- Marxism or postcolonialism or feminism. The literature is there to give you a dose of Western culture that’s just enough to inoculate you against it.
College students used to read Shakepseare’s plays for -- among other things -- universal truths about human nature. Now Shakespeare’s Tempest is supposed to be about colonialism, Othello is about racism, Macbeth is about the oppression of women, and The Merchant of Venice is about the instability of what the Marxists call “early capitalism.” (Not having learned anything from the fall of the Berlin Wall, they think we’re in “late capitalism” now.) In college today, you learn to read through Shakespeare looking for subtle signs of the “ism”s and “phobia”s that have made traditional Western culture the locus of evil in the modern world. America and the West are all about oppression, so there must not be anything but oppression in our literary heritage.It makes perfect sense that leftist professors would want to disrupt the communication of our culture to the next generation. Look at some of the things you might learn, if you actually read the great literature that’s written in English:
You might learn to admire heroes, and appreciate that war is sometimes necessary, and even noble. That’s a lesson you could learn from Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, Shakespeare’s Henry V, William Faulkner, and Evelyn Waugh, to give just a few examples.You might learn that Christianity is intellectually respectable. Once you’ve read Milton, you can never again think of evangelical Christians as “poor, uneducated, and easy to command” -- as the Washington Post described them. Medieval and Renaissance literature scholar C. S. Lewis explains in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, how reading English literature was instrumental in his conversion: Lewis realized that the authors whose works he really loved -- and whose view of the world made the most sense to him -- were all Christians. He was doing his best to stay an atheist, but he realized “All the books were beginning to turn against me.”
You could also learn about chivalry: English literature is an education in this uniquely Western arrangement between the sexes. For example, consider the work of the great medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer. When Chaucer was writing, courtly love was still mostly a kind of literary fad or a hobby. The feminist theory is that that putting women on a pedestal was some kind of a trick of the patriarchy for oppressing them more effectively. But you can find out what was really going on when it all started. Just read Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”
If you get your idea of what women in the Middle Ages were like from the feminists you’d think they were all silent, submissive -- “erased,” as the feminists say. But the women in Chaucer aren’t like that at all. They’re mostly engaged in a ferocious and well-matched battle of the sexes with the men in their lives. But a few of them have discovered chivalry. They’re wishing for, or even enjoying, a different kind of arrangement. If chivalry and courtesy are applied to marriage, then a man can be a woman’s “lord in marriage” -- and at one and the same time her “servant in love,” too. This is the beginning of the chivalrous relations between men and women that were in force in America and the rest of the West until 20th-century feminists started arguing that all distinctions between the sexes—even the courtesies that seemed to elevate women—were really demeaning.
If chivalry just keeps women submissive, then the West ought to be the place where women have the least freedom. In reality, it’s just the opposite, of course. Women in America have unexampled freedom and dignity. We inherited those things from Western culture -- ultimately, from the Middle Ages. If we cut ourselves off from that past, can we be sure we’ll always keep that freedom and that dignity?
Here’s another thing could learn from English and American literature: What’s wrong with leftist morality. Our great novelists will teach you all about unintended consequences -- and about the horrors of revolutionary expedience.
Dickens is the great example for this one. His Tale of Two Cities was such a good criticism of revolutionary ideology that Margaret Thatcher gave Francois Mitterand a copy. Think about what’s wrong with revolutionary morality. What exactly is the answer to the Leninist idea that you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs? Why doesn’t the end justify the means?
A moral philosopher will tell you that it’s never right to do evil that good may come of it. A historian can show you that revolutionary expedience always seems to lead to atrocity following on atrocity: Good intentions without moral absolutes are a recipe for terror.
But if you’ve read the great 19th-century novelists, you’ve internalized the traditional Western respect for those absolutes. You feel the force of the principles that are finally the only check to totalitarianism. You’re not just convinced of the abstract proposition that the ends don’t justify the means. Your character is formed to recognize that it’s disastrous to do evil that good may come of it.
You’ve learned from Dickens, for example, that good and bad actions have their own internal logic, which the best intentions in the world can’t override. Every choice you make has results that aren’t controlled by your intentions. Those results flow naturally from the character of the choices themselves -- as Dickens shows in hundreds of fascinating plots twists.
Dickens is known as a crusading liberal reformer, and there’s a lot of truth to that reputation. But he had a novelist’s eye for the truth about human characters. And he was also grounded in the traditional wisdom of Western civilization. So his books are actually full of severe critiques of liberalism. Hard Times shows the dehumanizing effects of the modern science-based education that was already replacing humane education in his day. And Bleak House gives us a picture of the evils of liberalism in Mrs. Jellyby. Mrs. Jellyby is not a violent revolutionary, leaving a trail of bloody destruction in her wake. She’s a respectable English philanthropist who cares deeply about the -- very real -- problems of Africa. But she neglects (to the point of physical danger) and even persecutes her own children in her cause. She has turned her oldest daughter a miserable, overworked secretary for her charitable correspondence. She blackmails her little boy into contributing his small allowance to the cause she loves better than she loves him.
Sir Philip Sidney, writing in the Renaissance, argued that the purpose of literature is to teach and delight. A philosopher can teach you abstract principles. But the poet shows you what’s noble, and what’s base -- so that you actually learn to love what’s good and aspire to it -- and to despise what’s not. Americans didn’t use to consider themselves educated unless they’d been formed by Shakespeare, at least -- among the great classics in our language. Literature used to be such an important part of the typical undergraduate education because it civilizes people. If you want to be a citizen of the West, you need to read our great literature.
Posted by Robert at November 13, 2006 8:17 AM
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What can one say. Yes, yes, yes, oh so very yes. Dr. Kantor has the right of it. Thank-you, Mr. Spencer, for bringing this essay to our attention.
Dominic.
Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 13, 2006 9:04 AM
What is the use of literature?
If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
On the other hand, a defense of poesy, one that includes but does not rely exclusively on such a blast from the past as Sir Philip Sidney (Et in Arcadia ego, he whispers with his last breath from Zutphen, alors!) but includes those who have observed at close hand what hapless students, not always and everywhere, but often and in many places, must now endure, is always bracing and should be welcomed by ever writers and never readers alike.
Posted by: Hugh at November 13, 2006 9:07 AM
In the beginning was the word. And then there was English.
The ideas of freedom and liberty are inherent in the language. The values are reflected in it's classical literature. I knew there was a reason why I did not read (post-)post-modernist works. You will notice a trait in the old literature which always dishes out punishment for those who deserve it. And evil is evil, and not excused by poverty or any other disadvantage or perceived slight.
Take Vanity Fair. In the latest film adaptation, we are meant to sympathise with Becky Sharpe. She is a new heroine, doing what she can to beat her disadvantage as a poor woman who shouldn't be expected to settle as a governess. But when you read the book, there is no doubt that she is a selfish and repulsive creature. Give me Jane Eyre over Becky Sharpe. There is a true patient heroine.
Our values have been replaced by moral driftlessness, and one of the ways they have done this is to let immigrants come to the country without making them learn English. Oh no, they say, your language is as good a currency here as ours. In fact, we'll put up signs in your language and do everything to accomodate you and to stop you from integrating. I mean, why would you want to live with us nasty selfish English people.
If America ever adopts Spanish as its national language, then it will never be the same country ever again. In Britain, I rile against crowds of people walking through the town streets speaking any other language but English.
Don't get me wrong, you can be black, or brown, or yellow, and take part in your traditions, but I want you to do it in English - at least when I am within earshot, please.
Orwell wrote about Newspeak where free and expressive thought was crushed by the stifling of, and the restriction placed upon the extensiveness of the language. Expressive English is under attack from something as mundane as text messaging, but it is also under attack by the insistence of the Left for the country to become like Babel. When no one speaks English, no one has the thoughts and ideas that are inherent to it.
Having said that, I don't fear for the future of English (like the French fear for their language), and I adore it's ability to evolve. Like the Forces of the Market, a very English thing (with a nod to the Dutch), people will use it as they require, and there will always be a demand for a unifying and flexible language.
Posted by: FREE LEE at November 13, 2006 9:08 AM
On the other hand, a defense of poesy, one that includes but does not rely exclusively on such a blast from the past as Sir Philip Sidney (Et in Arcadia ego, he whispers with his last breath from Zutphen, alors!) but by those who have observed at close hand what hapless students, not always and everywhere, but often and in many places, must now endure, is always welcomed, or should be, by ever writers and never readers alike.
It's in English, but I don't know what it says.
Posted by: FREE LEE at November 13, 2006 9:10 AM
Hmm, an impressive list of literature. Match that against the following list of Islamic literature:
Looks like the West wins yet again.
at November 13, 2006 9:18 AM
Yes I think Feminists have a lot to answer for, as do so many of our "Elites"
Posted by: BlowHammed at November 13, 2006 9:40 AM
FREE LEE -
If nothing else English is more practical. Compare a book written in Spanish to a book written in English. The length is always increased. Which is added expense to the publisher. That goes for French also.
Don't believe me? Try looking at the directions for any item that is written in multiple languages and see the difference in length of the various languages.
Posted by: Borg at November 13, 2006 10:03 AM
Near my house, the lady at the used bookstore described a ‘wicked big’ surge of young people buying of Western Classical literature.
Posted by: limes at November 13, 2006 10:19 AM
"On the other hand, a defense of poesy, one that includes but does not rely exclusively on such a blast from the past as Sir Philip Sidney (Et in Arcadia ego, he whispers with his last breath from Zutphen, alors!) but by those who have observed at close hand what hapless students, not always and everywhere, but often and in many places, must now endure, is always welcomed, or should be, by ever writers and never readers alike."
It's in English, but I don't know what it says.
---- from a posting above
A Defense of Poetry: see Sir Philip Sidney, “An Apologie for Poetrie,” which appeared in two editions in 1595. One under that title (“An Apologie for Poetry”) was “printed for Henry Olney” and the other, published under the title “The Defense of Poesie, ” was “printed for William Ponsonby,” The two texts are not identical though close. Most often it is Ponsonby’s text that has been reprinted, but both titles – An Apology for Poetry, The Defense of Poesy – are used interchangeably by modern readers and applied either to the Olney or the Ponsonby edition.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) is most famous for four things:
1) writing “The Arcadia”
2) writing “An Apologie for Poetrie” or “The Defense of Poesie.” Now is the moment to recall that French grammarian who on his deathbed said “Je meurs. Je suis en train de mourir” and then to his worried students sitting in the ruelle carefully noted that “both are acceptable.”
3) Having as his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, who wrote “The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.”*
4) Giving a draught of water to a fellow soldier dying at the Battle of Zutphen, just as Sidney would himself die, several weeks later, of wounds received in that same battle.
5) Writing the sonnet-cycle “Astrophel and Stella”
6) Having Spenser dedicate his “Shephearde’s Calendar” to him, a figure far from that of Colin Clout. He was also the dedicatee, unbelievably, of two books by Giordano Bruno, whom he met through Fulke Greville. Bruno, of course, had studied at Wittenberg where his classmate was that dreamy Dane Hamlet. The decision of the Inquisitors of Rome to burn Bruno at the stake for heresy in 1600 -- Il bruciamento di Bruno – is well-known. There’s a nice statue of Bruno in the Campo dei Fiori, where he was executed, just a stone’s throw from the Piazza, and therefore the Palazzo, Farnese.
7) The Latin tag “Et in Aracadia ego” was famously employed by Claude in a painting showing a group of shepherds in a classical landscape, that of a mythical Arcady, right on top of the real one that exists on the Peloponnesian plateau, who are looking at the lapidary incision on a large tombstone: Et in Arcadia ego. Even I (says Death) am in Arcady. It may be in the Wallace Collection, but perhaps I’m confusing that painting with the one now popularly known, and not only thanks to Anthony Powell, as “A Dance to the Music of Time.” In other words, you can’t escape death anywhere, as we already have learned from Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makars,” and from Smirnitsky’s excerpt used as an epigraph to the first chapter of Nabokov’s“The Gift,” and from a song sung by Ralph Stanley in “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and also from a million other things, including those tombstones in that cemetery we walked in, you and I, just the other day.
“Zutphen, alors” was generated from “zut, alors!” which is a French exclamation no longer used, sacrebleu, et mon dieu de la France, and known nowadays only as a comical ejaculation found in “Astérix” and similar bandes dessinées, though the phrase once had a wider use.
“Ever writers and never readers” – see Master W. S.’s introduction to “Troilus and Cressida,” not to be confused with Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” or any other Troilus or any other Cressida.
The original posting was a subliminal lightning attempt to abide by both the law, and the spirit of the law, laid down in her talk by that gentle cultural jurist Elizabeth Kantor.
And to provide one more little example to add to the growing literature of "Why We Fight."
* No, je blague et je divague. And for any girls out there, je drague as well. It was Sidney who wrote “The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.” The Countess of Pembroke, on the other hand, wrote the works of William Shakespeare. What William Shakespeare wrote I am not, alas, at liberty, not even in The Liberty of the Clink, to discuss.
Posted by: Hugh at November 13, 2006 10:26 AM
"In “English” class, for example, you might now watch a Michael Moore movie, or study Marx, Foucault, or Derrida, or the history of ballet, or pornography, or “Latino cultural studies,” “Caribbean women writers,” detective fiction, or Stephen King novels."
I think this is good for the USA..i mean after all, even though English is the predominant language America is not England. I mean why should'nt we study Marx and than compare and contrast it with Adam Smith? We should study the broadest set of opinions in school. I think the above mentioned authors offer a breath of fresh air excluding Michael Moore...Shakespeare is good too but a little too cliche.
Posted by: sikhy at November 13, 2006 11:05 AM
No! No! No!
Worst homework years of my life!
I'd rather convert to Islam than to read Shakespeare and Dickens again.
There's only one Ollie, by golly, and Molly is his puppet.
There. I'm in.
Posted by: Shy Guy at November 13, 2006 11:07 AM
Excellent article -- but Dr. Kantor seems to have conflated two different characters in Bleak House. Mrs. Pardiggle is the one who's forced her sons (five of them) into giving their entire allowances to charities, and in fact, Mrs. Pardiggle disapproves of Mrs. Jellyby's not getting her children involved in her charitable work. Except for using her daugher Caddy as her ink-stained and put-upon secretary, Mrs. Jellyby neglects her children and household completely. But Caddy, bless her heart, escapes from the faux-charity world.
Sorry to go on at length, but this is one of my favorite Dickens novels. Brilliant psychological portraits throughout.
Posted by: Columba at November 13, 2006 11:47 AM
"I'd rather convert to Islam than to read Shakespeare and Dickens again."
-- from a posting above
That remark tells me that you are in need of a very special Twelve-Start Program, for which I would like to claim amazing results with thousands of patients but, alas, I just thought of it this instant.
Nonetheless, here it is:
1. Read Richard III
2. Memorize the opening speech which begins "Now is the winter of our discontent..."
3. Rent or buy the video of Richard III in the Ian McEwan version, and watch it.
4. Reread Richard III.
5. Re-watch the movie of Richard III.
6. Study carefully the song sung in the scene of celebration by the House of York, the one based on a Marlowe song
7. Find the Marlowe poem -- "Come with me and be my love" -- which forms the basis for that song.
8. Memorize that Marlowe poem.
9. Find "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" and memorize that.
10. Find Donne's "The Bait" and memorize that
11. Think about "Come with me and be my love" and "The Nymph's reply to the Shepherd" and "The Bait" all at once.
12. Now go back to #1. Start over.
Repeat ad libitum.
Report back.
The other members of The Group are eagerly waiting for that report.
at November 13, 2006 11:54 AM
Hugh, give me time. I need to find all my withered Monarch Notes booklets.
Posted by: Shy Guy at November 13, 2006 12:22 PM
I agree with most of her statement except one...
"Hard Times shows the dehumanizing effects of the modern science-based education that was already replacing humane education in his day."
This is my one fear with literature types (Conservative or Liberial) is their fundamental misunderstanding of science. Conservative attack it becuase they think science attacks god and liberials (even though they claim to defend it) attack science becuase they don't like absolute facts of any kind.
Example of a Liberial attack on science
(1) In the Newton Mass. school district the primary goal of math teachers is to teach diversity according to the mandates that were handed out last year. No wonder Johnny can't add becuase he is being told that Mathematics is a western thing to be hated which is silly on the surface becuase mathematics was advanced by more then just the Greeks (such as the Hindus).
(2) Another wonderful example in the 1970s is the book Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson which put forth the theory (based on facts from other species) that we are somewhat a product of our genetics (not all) and that things like personality are not learned but are born. That every oraganism and individual does things in its own self interest. The libs from the social scinces and humanities depts had a meltdown becuase it proved that communism went against human nature to be well "selfish". They attacked him by calling him a racist and even dumped a bucket of water on his head at a symposium. Today the book Sociobiolgy is considered one of the great works of 20th century science and has been proven to true for the most part.
Conservative examples are well known with of course the biggest attacks occuring in Biology in relation to well known facts like evolution and its mode of selection: Natural Selection. They fight it based on belief not fact but that is another story. The point is not only is western values, culture and literature under attack but so is western sciences and mathematics. Liberals claim to defend it but they really don't becuase true science seeks facts and truths something liberals just don't like. 2 + 2 = 4 but liberals would prefer 2 + 2 = any number becuase after all we can't offend Nos. 1 thru infinity.
And what about those poor negative numbers....
My disagreement with her statement is that science education is bad and moral and western values education is good. No the truth is they are parts of the same coin. Without one the other is weakened and shall fall. Without values then science falls into the hands of people like the Newton School Administrators. Without science all moral values, western literature and religion fall into the hands of the man with with biggest gun. The best quote I ever heard on the subjects of Islam, Western Values and Science is from Winston Churchill in his book River War. He Said..
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
Some food for the mind....
Western Vales and Science beats Islam
Western Values alone loses
Science alone loses
Posted by: greatcometof1577
at November 13, 2006 12:36 PM
Dr. Kantor writes:
"Good intentions without moral absolutes are a recipe for terror."
That may be the peculiarly Gnostic-Leftist, Revolutionary recipe we have seen in recent history (beginning with the French Revolution); but the Islamic recipe for terror is subtly different:
Evil intentions with moral absolutes are a recipe for terror.
And the problem of the West today is that it still cannot recognize and analyze that evil.
Posted by: remote_control at November 13, 2006 1:57 PM
Remote Control,
How fittingly apropos. When I was in my first year at Catholic high school, the first book we read in English class was Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities". Even though I am a voracious reader, it is still my favorite book. It had a profound effect on me, and for good reason.
Dickens' expose on how hatred creates nasty behaviors and left unchecked, creates even nastier societies is an eye opener. What would happen to Islamic societies if they had to read that book? Not because of the hatred, because they've got that part down pat, but rather because of the theme of sacrificial love. Sidney Carlton was really a loser, but he became a hero when he sacrificed his life in place of Charles Darnay's for the love of Charles' wife, Lucy. He new he would never have her but he loved her so much that he gave his life so that she and Charles could be together. Wow! And in the end, this unselfish act, which was "far, far better than (he) had ever done before," empowered him to help another who was all alone, face death with a friend and receive a simple and pure love back without ever having expected it.
How amazing. How unlike anything we hear about in Islamic societies. Perhaps it's time to start bombarding Islamic countries with the classics so that they may get some idea of what true humanity is all about.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 13, 2006 2:18 PM
I want to point out that ancient Greek literature and philosophy belongs on any serious Western Civ. reading list.
---
sikhy said: "I mean why should'nt we study Marx and than compare and contrast it with Adam Smith?"
We should, and to to some extent, but not enough. Depends on the school, and the professor. Courses involving such comparison aren't unheard of, although I haven't heard of it ever coming from an English department. Econ or Poli Sci, more likely.
---
greatcometof1577: I second your comments on Sociobiolgy, and am also familiar with the left's reaction. I think Western civilization has potential allies in honest people who understand Wilson and Pinker.
There is a difference between Communism and its PC spin-offs, and real scientific inquiry. The latter is quite compatible with serious literature and a committment to a free culture. It is the former that isn't.
at November 13, 2006 4:52 PM
May I put in a word for two great observers of the human condition and masters of the language?
As an unrepentant Yank I'll fight anyone who says Mark Twain doesn't belong in the Pantheon and Rudyard Kipling (his anti-semitism notwithstanding) should be read by anyone trying to get a handle on the madness that is the Middle East. He deserves immortality on the strength of "If" alone.
Posted by: USBeast at November 13, 2006 5:55 PM
Isabellathecrusader,
And now we are reminded not of a Tale of Two Cities, but of Two Worlds -- the Dar-al-Islam and the Dar-al-Harb: and love will not bridge the chasm between these two.
at November 13, 2006 6:27 PM
Remote,
You are so right. But the lessons from A Tale of Two Cities teach us what we can be in spite of all the hate coming at us. We may be able to stave it off, we may not, but we will be able to be who we are when it comes. In my world I do not recognize either of those two terms you mentioned. They exist in the minds of those who seek to impose their beliefs on us, but we do not live in Dar-al-Harb. We live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the greatest country to ever exist on planet earth.
Really, what do they want it for? What is their vision of a USA under Sharia law and an Islamic Caliphate? I was thinking about this when I woke up this morning, how much the girls in the Hefty bags resemble the demons in the movie "Ghost". Remember when the guy who killed Patrick Swayze's character dies and those demons come and drag him off to hell, well picture those demons but with a little more opagueness to them and walking down the streets in the thousands. Is that what we want America to look like in 50 years? Faceless, soul-less drones, walking on and on, never getting anywhere. Is that what we can look forward to? Remember what the Ayatollah Khomeini said, that there is no laughter in Islam. So why would we want Islam? Why would anyone want it? And what happens to those of us who know and cherish our freedom and will not give it up for any reason? A fight to the death, hopefully theirs.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 13, 2006 8:16 PM
Isabell, you're comment on resemblances got me to thinking.
To me our enemies resemble fire ants. They thrive in hot climates. They react violently to any perceived affront, intentional or otherwise, and the only way to deal with them is to destroy them. If you don't have them in your part of the country count yourself lucky.
Posted by: USBeast at November 13, 2006 8:50 PM
Posted By USBeast
As an unrepentant Yank I'll fight anyone who says Mark Twain doesn't belong in the Pantheon and Rudyard Kipling (his anti-semitism notwithstanding) should be read by anyone trying to get a handle on the madness that is the Middle East. He deserves immortality on the strength of "If" alone.
************
Yes I agree on that. Although it may appear his works seemed to be pro-colonial, he did find the best of people. I think Kiplings poem Tommy is the most appropiate work that I have ever read (especially in the past twenty years)
Mark Twain was definetly a master of the human condition. I say ban those people who say he should be banned in schools. Compared to the language you hear in rap music(?) he was rather tame.
Ah the joys of the classic authors
Posted by: Paladin3000 at November 13, 2006 8:54 PM
Remember, forget at your peril, the USA's Supreme Court Judgement in Grisold v. Connecticut, 1965.
Wasn't it Goethe who said: "A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul"? I agree with him. I can't recall where the quotation is from. Maybe others here can.
Dominic.
at November 13, 2006 9:30 PM
greatcometof1577
I agree with most of her statement except one...
"Hard Times shows the dehumanizing effects of the modern science-based education that was already replacing humane education in his day."
Sure.
It is not either or.
Islamic education is based on looking back.
Let's not forget that ancient societies, in the absence of machines, relied on slave force. That is why the Arab Caliphates had so many slaves and Mecca was a centre of slave trade. That is why so many slaves were brought to plantations in colonial times.
Let's not forget we have reached present standards thanks to science. We could have been the slaves in one of those idealized societies.
Posted by: rocky at November 13, 2006 10:09 PM
In 1988 -- which was eighteen years ago -- that might be the year you were born, if you were starting college this fall -- Jesse Jackson led student protesters across the Stanford campus chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ. has got to go.”
That was the year I was born, this is what I get to expect from higher "education"
I'm going to business school.
at November 13, 2006 10:34 PM
FREE LEE wrote:
...as Sir Philip Sidney (Et in Arcadia ego, he whispers with his last breath...
It's in English, but I don't know what it says.
....................
Nothing like a little Latin to spice things up. Classical Arcadia was the metaphor for the place of the happy, primeval "noble savage", or classical shepherds. (a bit more complex than this, but you get the idea).
One day the carefree shepherds find a cenotaph with the latin phrase engraved on it, Et in Arcadia Ego--I am here, even in (idyllic) Arcadia. This is Death, which exists in even the most ideal human societies. It is a "Memento Mori" (more foreign terms, I'm afraid). Remember Me (Death).
Probably the most famous painting illustrating this phrase is by Nicolas Poussin. Shepherds gather around the cenotaph, suddenly distracted from their play. Here's one link:
at November 14, 2006 3:07 AM
US Beast,
I lived in the Florida panhandle way back when and I remember those little buggers! How interesting that you would make that comparison to ants because on another thread a few days ago one of the trolls was going on about watching some show about a crab that was weakened and eventually destroyed by ants. We all jumped on that one.
People who aren't from here may see us as a bunch of lazy, hedonistic self-absorbeds (is that a word?) but they don't understand the deeper, sometimes darker shades of our complex American make up. They don't understand the fierce need we have to be free and our unapologetic demanding of our right to have it. They don't understand that we did read A Tale of Two Cities, we did read Ivanhoe and all the Jane Austin books and the Gulag Archipelago, Animal Farm and 1984. We've contemplated the ramifications of oppression and we fiercely oppose it for ourselves and for others around the world. Perhaps that is why my kids didn't learn any of this in school. But luckily they've had me to de-program them when they got home and I also made sure that they saw all the movies regarding these stories and we always talked about what those stories meant.
Does anyone here remember a movie made back in the 1930's called Drums Along the Mohawk? It starred Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert. It was about the Revolutionary War and the people who fought it and won. I saw that when I was a very small child and was mesmorized by it. That movie planted a deep and lasting patriotism in me that can't ever be eradicated. I recently found the DVD and brought it home and it's had the same affect on my kids. At first they were teasing me about what they thought was the corniness of the way movies were made back then. But then I was working on the computer and I looked back at them and noticed that they were all quietly watching and it had a profound effect on them.
People outside the US who come here with an agenda that is against us don't realize what lies still and quiet in us but what can be summoned forth when pushed far enough. And our blood has already fought a war to protect our freedom. Honestly, they don't know what they are dealing with.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 14, 2006 7:36 AM
"Although it may appear his [Kipling's] works seemed to be pro-colonial..."
What's wrong with Colonialism? Western Colonialism was, on balance, a good thing, for the West and for the world, not a bad.
Posted by: remote_control at November 14, 2006 1:31 PM
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