 |
| Reporters without Borders. Source |
 |
| Nike of Samothrace. Source |
I'm talking to my students about the heritage of ancient Greece.
I always keep one ear on the door, to listen for the approach of the Thought Police.
Political Correctness discourages me from saying what I have to say.
The Doctrine of Cultural Relativism urges me to say that all cultures are equal, except, of course, that The West is really bad – hegemonic, colonial, oppressive, androcentric, racist, sexist, homophobic. And the rest of the world is all about peace, love, and enlightenment, a never-ending chorus of "Kumbaya." I'm supposed to teach this to my students.
I've lived in Africa and Asia and I speak an African and an Asian language. I've taught animists, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists … Political Correctness is incorrect. The non-Western world is not a never-ending chorus of "Kumbaya." There's clitoredectomy in Africa and female infanticide in Asia and the caste system and tribal warfare and despotism and lots of other problems.
Edward Said's book "Orientalism" forbids any Westerner from saying … well, much of anything. Said argues, paraphrase, that all Westerners are racists and that our racism immediately invalidates anything we say. In fact, even the word "Orient" has been outlawed. Just using it, even in passing, even by mistake, identifies the speaker as a backward, racist oppressor.
I met Edward Said once. He was the single most charming, handsome, and well-dressed scholar I'd ever met. I approached him with the intention to argue with him. I am a firm supporter of Israel; he's a Palestinian who worked against Israel. I just barely managed to tell him who I was, when he interrupted me and took my hand. "You are Polish! I have a soft spot in my heart for the Poles." I melted. I thought he was just soft-soaping me, but I discovered that he wrote his dissertation on Joseph Conrad.
***
What is the impact of PC norms on education?
About a decade ago, I realized that my students didn't know what the words "The West" mean. They didn't realize what happened in Ancient Greece. They had no idea what "The East" is. They had no idea that people who did not grow up in a Western culture see the world differently than they do.
And so I had to teach them.
And I feel like I'm breaking some taboo by doing so.
I'm a Christian, and in "Save Send Delete" I do my best to present the case for my own Christian faith. I say good things about Christianity. Well, sure, you might think. You're a Christian.
When I talk to my students about Ancient Greece, I say good things about Ancient Greece. I'm not a Pagan. I'm not Greek.
I'm just aware of the miracle that occurred in Greece over two thousand years ago. I don't want the barbarians, even tenured ones, to erase it, or ruin it for future generations.
***
Some quotes I share with my students:
"As against the Oriental exaltation of one God-king far above all natural proportions (which expresses a metaphysical view of life totally foreign to us) and the Oriental suppression of the great mass of the people (which is a corollary of that quasi-religious exaltation of the monarch), the beginning of Greek history appears to be the beginning of a new conception of the value of the individual.
And it is difficult to refrain from identifying that new conception with the belief – which Christianity did most to spread – that each soul is in itself an end of infinite value, and with the ideal proclaimed during and after the Renaissance, that every individual is a law to himself."
Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1945
"Man is the measure of all things," Protagoras
"Know thyself" Temple of Apollo at Delphi
"The self becomes of first importance, and as man comes to full self-awareness, he necessarily becomes aware of nature, as well…From the Paleolithic Age we have been surveying man in a world dominated by the great beasts – threatened by them, fighting them, dependent upon them, worshipping them, conceding their might and his own weakness. Now, in Greece, he asserts that he own peculiar power – the power of intelligence – puts him afar about the beasts. But the Greek knows well the forces of the irrational against which reason must struggle constantly…
The Greeks made their gods into men and their men into gods." - Gardner's Art through the Ages
"We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness," Thucydides, quoting Pericles
I contrast these quotes about Ancient Greece with quotes about the self from India, and about polity from Islam.
"The Indian ego is underdeveloped. The world of magic and animistic ways of thinking lie close to the surface. ... This underdeveloped ego is created by the detailed social organization of Indian life, and fits into that life. The mother functions as the external ego of the child for a much longer period than is customary in the West, and many of the ego functions concerned with reality are later transferred from mother to the family and other social institutions. Caste and clan are more than brotherhoods; they define the individual completely. The individual is never on his own. He is always fundamentally a member of his group, with a complex apparatus of rules, rituals, taboos. Every detail of behaviour is regulated. Relationships are codified. And religion and religious practices lock everything in place. The need, then, for individual observation and judgment is reduced. Something close to a purely instinctive life becomes possible." VS Naipaul, India, a Wounded Civilization
"The political history of Islam is one of almost unrelieved autocracy…it was authoritarian, often arbitrary, sometimes tyrannical. There are no parliaments or representative assemblies of any kind, no councils or communes, no chambers of nobility or estates, no municipalities in the history of Islam; nothing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the Holy Law." Communism and Islam, Bernard Lewis, 1954
I always keep one ear on the door, to listen for the approach of the Thought Police.
Political Correctness discourages me from saying what I have to say.
The Doctrine of Cultural Relativism urges me to say that all cultures are equal, except, of course, that The West is really bad – hegemonic, colonial, oppressive, androcentric, racist, sexist, homophobic. And the rest of the world is all about peace, love, and enlightenment, a never-ending chorus of "Kumbaya." I'm supposed to teach this to my students.
I've lived in Africa and Asia and I speak an African and an Asian language. I've taught animists, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists … Political Correctness is incorrect. The non-Western world is not a never-ending chorus of "Kumbaya." There's clitoredectomy in Africa and female infanticide in Asia and the caste system and tribal warfare and despotism and lots of other problems.
Edward Said's book "Orientalism" forbids any Westerner from saying … well, much of anything. Said argues, paraphrase, that all Westerners are racists and that our racism immediately invalidates anything we say. In fact, even the word "Orient" has been outlawed. Just using it, even in passing, even by mistake, identifies the speaker as a backward, racist oppressor.
I met Edward Said once. He was the single most charming, handsome, and well-dressed scholar I'd ever met. I approached him with the intention to argue with him. I am a firm supporter of Israel; he's a Palestinian who worked against Israel. I just barely managed to tell him who I was, when he interrupted me and took my hand. "You are Polish! I have a soft spot in my heart for the Poles." I melted. I thought he was just soft-soaping me, but I discovered that he wrote his dissertation on Joseph Conrad.
***
What is the impact of PC norms on education?
About a decade ago, I realized that my students didn't know what the words "The West" mean. They didn't realize what happened in Ancient Greece. They had no idea what "The East" is. They had no idea that people who did not grow up in a Western culture see the world differently than they do.
And so I had to teach them.
And I feel like I'm breaking some taboo by doing so.
I'm a Christian, and in "Save Send Delete" I do my best to present the case for my own Christian faith. I say good things about Christianity. Well, sure, you might think. You're a Christian.
When I talk to my students about Ancient Greece, I say good things about Ancient Greece. I'm not a Pagan. I'm not Greek.
I'm just aware of the miracle that occurred in Greece over two thousand years ago. I don't want the barbarians, even tenured ones, to erase it, or ruin it for future generations.
***
Some quotes I share with my students:
"As against the Oriental exaltation of one God-king far above all natural proportions (which expresses a metaphysical view of life totally foreign to us) and the Oriental suppression of the great mass of the people (which is a corollary of that quasi-religious exaltation of the monarch), the beginning of Greek history appears to be the beginning of a new conception of the value of the individual.
And it is difficult to refrain from identifying that new conception with the belief – which Christianity did most to spread – that each soul is in itself an end of infinite value, and with the ideal proclaimed during and after the Renaissance, that every individual is a law to himself."
Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1945
"Man is the measure of all things," Protagoras
"Know thyself" Temple of Apollo at Delphi
"The self becomes of first importance, and as man comes to full self-awareness, he necessarily becomes aware of nature, as well…From the Paleolithic Age we have been surveying man in a world dominated by the great beasts – threatened by them, fighting them, dependent upon them, worshipping them, conceding their might and his own weakness. Now, in Greece, he asserts that he own peculiar power – the power of intelligence – puts him afar about the beasts. But the Greek knows well the forces of the irrational against which reason must struggle constantly…
The Greeks made their gods into men and their men into gods." - Gardner's Art through the Ages
"We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness," Thucydides, quoting Pericles
I contrast these quotes about Ancient Greece with quotes about the self from India, and about polity from Islam.
"The Indian ego is underdeveloped. The world of magic and animistic ways of thinking lie close to the surface. ... This underdeveloped ego is created by the detailed social organization of Indian life, and fits into that life. The mother functions as the external ego of the child for a much longer period than is customary in the West, and many of the ego functions concerned with reality are later transferred from mother to the family and other social institutions. Caste and clan are more than brotherhoods; they define the individual completely. The individual is never on his own. He is always fundamentally a member of his group, with a complex apparatus of rules, rituals, taboos. Every detail of behaviour is regulated. Relationships are codified. And religion and religious practices lock everything in place. The need, then, for individual observation and judgment is reduced. Something close to a purely instinctive life becomes possible." VS Naipaul, India, a Wounded Civilization
"The political history of Islam is one of almost unrelieved autocracy…it was authoritarian, often arbitrary, sometimes tyrannical. There are no parliaments or representative assemblies of any kind, no councils or communes, no chambers of nobility or estates, no municipalities in the history of Islam; nothing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the Holy Law." Communism and Islam, Bernard Lewis, 1954
0 comments:
Post a Comment