Losing our Culture, Losing our Orientation

For John, BLUF:  This is about Lawrence Public Schools banning the classic Greek Homeric tale, The Odyssey♠.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Even Homer Gets Mobbed

Here is the sub-headline:

A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’

From The Wall Street Journal, by Journal Reporter Meghan Cox Gurdon, 27 December 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #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.

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.”

We get to the part about Lawrence, Massachusetts further down in the article:

The demands for censorship appear to be getting results.  “Be like Odysseus and embrace the long haul to liberation (and then take the Odyssey out of your curriculum because it’s trash),” tweeted Shea Martin in June.  “Hahaha,” replied Heather Levine, an English teacher at Lawrence (Mass.) High School.  “Very proud to say we got the Odyssey removed from the curriculum this year!”  When I contacted Ms. Levine to confirm this, she replied that she found the inquiry “invasive.”  The English Department chairman of Lawrence Public Schools, Richard Gorham, didn’t respond to emails.

“It’s a tragedy that this anti-intellectual movement of canceling the classics is gaining traction among educators and the mainstream publishing industry,” says science-fiction writer Jon Del Arroz, one of the rare industry voices to defend Ms. Cluess.  “Erasing the history of great works only limits the ability of children to become literate.”

Since I live just down the 495 Freeway from Lawrence, in Lowell, Massachusettts, I got this EMail from someone out on the Coast:

Cliff,

Did you see the attached article from yesterday’s WSJ?  Don’t you live in Lawrence?  Is it true that they have removed The Odyssey from the high school reading list?

Did you know about this?  If so, why didn’t the citizens burn the high school to the ground?  Why didn’t they picket in front of Ms Levine’s and Mr. Gorman’s houses?

Of course I was outraged at being confused with someone living in Lawrence, but we all have to live somewhere.  I composed a reply:

NO, I DON’T LIVE IN LAWRENCE!!!

Too bad I am on my iPhone.  Otherwise I would put it in red.

Yes, I saw the article.  I will bring it up with the lady in charge of Lowell Curriculum the next time I see her, Robin Desmond.  Not the infamous Robin DiAngelo.  By the way, teachers can be found living all over, from Maine to Connecticut.

I am not advocating burning anything down, but this is a sign that “the long march through the institutions”♥ is resulting in the loss of those Anglo-Saxon values that gave us freedom of thought and action and helped us think our way out of human sacrifice, slavery and genocide.

Just a little while back Lawrence schools “went into receivership” and were taken over by the state.  I think DESE gave back control recently.

I am embarrassed that Lawrence is five miles up the 495.  Just as I am sure, deep down inside, you are embarrassed by that previously wonderful City, Portland.  Local leadership is important.  Obviously lacking in both locations.

My concern, as I stated to my interlocator, is that it has taken centuries, maybe millenia, to get to where we are.  We are not perfect, but the Anglo-Saxon heritage has gotten us from living in trees and painting ourselves blue♦ to where we have a democracy going and are recognizing each other has humans, worthy of respect.  We aren't perfect, but we are on the path.  To continue to move forward we need to know from whence we came, thus history and literature are important. Confederate General Robert E Lee is important because he was one of those who showed grace and grew in his understanding of humanity.  Do we think we are so smaarth that we can invent a perfect humanity without seeing the path along which we came?  That would border on hubris, which the Greek stories help us to understand.

Automobile Magnete Henry Ford said "History is bunk."  While Mr Ford was a very bright and practical man, he missed the boat on history.  One does not start building the Empire State Building at the 100th floor,  So, one does not start building a political and social culture without looking at the hundreds of years of substructure.  In the United States we have built up an Anglo-Saxon substrata, with cultural additions from around the world.  That substrata builds up what the Romans and Greeks gave us, and our Hebrew forefathers.  And all of those came from previous civilizations.

We have overcome some human traditions that turned out to not be congeniel to Democracy.  For example, when those of us from Europe came to the Western Hemisphere we stamped out human sacrifice, which I think was a good thing.  We learned to overcome our human habit of slavery.  Not all at once, but by and large we have eliminated it.  And, even today we see signs of genocide here and there, but we recoil at it, even if we can't always stop it.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer.  It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his ten year journey after victory in the Trojan War.
♥  Thanks to German Marxist Rudi Dutschke for this phrase explaining how Marxism would overcome the Western Liberal approach.
♦  A characterization I picked up from a Staff Course Classmate from India, who attributed it to his Father, a Sergeant Major in the Indian Army during WWII.  Long story, a cultural misunderstanding, for another time.