On education, getting offended, Roman Polanski, and banned books

This past week mcollinknight has posted two essays by Mark Edmundson, an English professor at the University of Virginia, called "Dwelling in Possibilities" and "On the Uses of a Liberal Education."  They may sound boring, but the second essay, published in Harper's Magazine in 1997, is one of the most photocopied essays on college campuses over the past few years, mainly because it hit a few nerves and provoked a lot of thought and debate.  It certainly did with me, that's for sure.  They're well worth the read, despite their length and Edmundson's questionable contentions.  You can read my reactions can be found here and here (respectively), because copying everything here would make this entry way too long and unwieldy, plus I'm feeling too tired and lazy to do so (mcollinknight , I hope you don't mind if I link to your journal; if you do I'll take them down and repost my comments here).  I'm very happy to have been shown this, as I found them to be well-written and thought-provoking overall, and I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions.

I also found this review of one of Edmundson's books, Why Read?, that sums up some of my myriad objections to what he argues.

With all this running in my mind the past few days, I came across a few things that were really related.  The first is the latest post on Roger Ebert's blog; it's about his fears regarding the ultra-conservative anti-Obama "teabagger" phenomenon going on right now.  Here's something that struck me:

Some of this may be connected to the weakness of American education. Yes, I know that there are splendid schools and brilliant, dedicated teachers. See my recent review of such a school. But many good teachers will be the first to tell you that they despair of some of the students sent to them from lower grades. They cannot read, write, spell, speak or think on a competent level. They aren't necessarily stupid. The schools, their parents and society have failed them. The words "no child left behind" are a joke.

Among the things the schools often don't instill is a sense of curiosity. Too many kids have tuned out. They nurture a a dull resentment against those who know more. Feeling disenfranchised, they blame those who seem to have more information and more words. Some of these victims may in fact be quite intelligent. Some of them may grow up to become fringers. Read the web sites of conspiracy zealots and you will find articulate people who can write well. Their handicap is that they missed the boat when it sailed toward intellectual maturity, and now they're rowing furiously in pursuit, waving a pirate flag. Their screeds are a facsimile of reasoned, sensical arguments. They don't know the words, but hum a few bars and they'll fake it.

Edmundson and Ebert are talking about two different problems in two different systems -- the former about the impact of consumerism and mass media culture in universities, the latter about the brokenness in public K-12 schools -- but both, I suppose, also point to the same thing.  When reading this blog post, I see echoes of Edmundson on the consequences of the distrust and devaluing of genius (which I have some problems with as well), and I would argue that mass consumer culture has in part affected the brokenness of public schools, and that the constant failure to make students curious about themselves and the world around them is a problem from kindergarten to grad school.  It's sad that education in this country is only encouraging people to resent intelligence than cultivate and appreciate it themselves, though perhaps not surprising.

I also found this, via some anarchist Discordian cyberpunk jerk I somehow have friended on Facebook.  Here's what got to me:

Blasphemy, it has been said, is a victim less crime. Blasphemy is insulting something that isn't there. Blasphemy is having the courage to say out loud that religion is bunk. Yes, people will be offended. But my rights to freedom of speech beats your right to not be offended. Being offended is good for the soul anyways. Builds character. Let's you know that you are alive. It shows you where your boundaries are. It points out which beliefs are the most important to you. In fact, religious people should be thanking us instead of yelling that we should be behead [sic] or strung up from a tree.
 

Uhhhhhhhhhh, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.  If you were "blaspheming" over something absolutely trivial -- say, somebody likes something you don't like or vice versa -- then yeah, the offended person has to get over themselves and realize it's not that important.  But when it comes to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, privilege, etc.?  EPIC FAIL.  DX  This loser is essentially telling women, POCs, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transpeople, people who belong to certain religions, etc. to just "get over it" whenever they raise any objections to discrimination, bigotry in popular culture, etc.  "Good for the soul"?  "Builds character"?  Yeah, ~*~those people~*~ shouldn't get all uppity when they get offended; they should just suck it up and take their marginalization like a man amirite?  Suuuuure.  >:[  One person's right to freedom of speech does NOT beat other people's rights to call them out on it if it's complete bullshit.  (The reason why I mention this with Edmundson's essays is that he makes the same arguments, albeit with more eloquence and tact.)

Speaking of potentially bad professors and feminist issues, I came across this blog post by one of my college's professors:

Should Polanski Have Been Arrested?

bemysty and eska_rina have already raged about this essay, so now I just want to share the love.  :D  (For the record, two years ago this professor was about to be denied tenure, but a great deal of student outrage and protest reversed the decision.  I met her once or twice; she seems like an awesome person, and the rest of her blog is amazing, but this particular entry.......yeah.  Not sure if I like what she's saying.  >_>)

Finally: Banned Books Week!  Late, but better late than never.  ;-)

......Yes, guys, this is how I tend to spend my Friday nights.  I guess this makes me either really weird or a bore, doesn't it?  (At lest it wasn't the time I spent a Saturday night reading with fascination about the secession movement in Vermont.....^_^;;)  Anyway, RL/TWS post coming up shortly.

Who knew an old geezer like him could climb a ladder upside-down?

This week wasn't too bad, despite the craziness. Bad news on the academic front: I bombed my second Enviro Econ problem set (though not nearly as bad as last time), and I don't have much confidence I did all that well in this week's midterm. And this is after I went to office hours. (Though it only counts 10% of our grade anyway, and it's not as if I haven't failed a midterm and still gotten a good grade for the class anyway.) Good news on the academic front: I got a good grade on my IEP paper, and my grades in stats and Japanese are slowly starting to improve. :D

On Thursday I, a few other students, and my IEP professor had lunch with another professor visiting from Monterey, talking about the school itself and the kinds of things one must do in order to get the career one wants in a certain field/part of the world. It was very interesting, but I also suddenly realized that the major I want is East Asian studies or international politics and economics if I ever want to have an environment-related career/job in which I can put my Japanese to good use. Or learning Chinese, because all the big environmental issues in east Asia are in China, and you would need to know both Chinese and Japanese in order to work with issues involving both countries. Or just go ahead and major in Japanese and then go into translation, either for literature or in the public sector somehow. Or just say to hell with it and major in something like history. Obviously, my environmental policy major/Japanese minor combo won't bar me from all that, but it doesn't make things easier. Anyway, I'm far enough along so that it would be really difficult to switch now. :( It was a very interesting discussion, even if I can't remember much of the details, lol XD

The schedule for the symposium has been finalized and is online! You can read all about it here. All we need to do now is advertising and we should be all set. :D

Finally got around to seeing Up tonight. I'll have to wait to give my opinions of it, since it's past 3 AM and I can't think all that well. :3

I got another care package this week, this time just some dry-erase markers because someone must've stole mine.

The radio show went well (I got a request! XD), yoga class went well, and capoeira class was all right but now I'm trying to decide whether to stop (since I'm not really enjoying it all that much) or continue (I need the exercise, and I don't have a replacement if I decide to quit). And this weekend I need to find a way to fit in a problem set and lots of reading between the farmer's market, a Latin "street festival," a screening of I've Loved You So Long, anime club, the Japanese club welcome event, capoeira class, and maybe a meeting of the gay rights organization. Lovely. ^_^;;

Finally, this week's song, "The Joy of D.H. Lawrence" by Erik Enocksson. Enjoy!!!