Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Kevrob <kjrobinson@mail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Demonization of Shakespeare
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2025 10:59:18 -0400
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On 4/9/2025 10:39 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Kevrob <kjrobinson@mail.com> writes:
>> On 4/8/2025 11:05 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> I regularly see screeds like this and they are usually better-written and
>>> more coherent, so let me quietly recap the arguments that the original message
>>> meant to make.
>>>
>>> The argument is that not enough attention is being paid in schools to the
>>> Great Western Books, and that time is being wasted by introducing students
>>> to literature of other cultures.  There is also the whole argument that doing
>>> this implies that the literate of other cultures can be as good and as
>>> important as the Great Western Books.
>>>
>>> This author is using Shakespeare as a proxy for the Great Western Books, which
>>> seems odd to me because high schools that I know of are still teaching
>>> Shakespeare.
>>>
>>> On top of that, Shakespeare is extremely "woke" by their standards, as anyone
>>> who actually read his work would realize.  Othello is basically a story about
>>> racial tolerance.  Julius Caesar shows the futility of violent revolution.
>>> Romeo and Juliet is about a couple pre-teens who couldn't keep their hands off
>>> of one another in spite of the best efforts of their families.  So a I am not
>>> quite sure that Shakespeare is in any way a valid example.
>>>
>>> Oh wait, there's Henry V which is all about embracing enemies and other
>>> cultures like the French.... at least once you get to the ending.
>>>
>>> Now, personally, I do wish that more time was spent teaching the Great Western
>>> Books in school, as well as teaching books from other cultures.  But from my
>>> perspective, the first problem is that kids aren't reading anything at all on
>>> their own.  Fixing that by giving them anything they can relate to seems like
>>> a beginning to me.  Yelling about the lack of Shakespeare in schools is
>>> merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.
>>> --scott
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Paul Craig Roberts was a big shot in economics in the 1980s, an advisor
>> to Rep. Jack Kemp and a Reagan administration official.
>>
>> The Brain Eater got him long ago.
>> Criticism from the libertarian-leaning Prof Volokh.
>>
>> https://volokh.com/2004_01_25_volokh_archive.html#107532483671082814
> 
> The brain eater got to volokh.  The heritage foundation supports
> a bankrupt ideology (liberatarianism is the most selfish -ism).
> 
> http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2021/03/libertarianism-is-bankrupt.html

Heritage is more conservative than libertarian.

For libertarians†, "non-predatory self-interest" is a feature not a bug.
"Selfish" is a snarl word, seen from that vantage point.

† For values of "libertarkan" encompassing minarchists, and not the
strawman of anarcho-capitalism.

-- 
Kevin R



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