[Pants-of-dog]

Wait, you think the Iliad and the Odyssey were written in "free verse"?

And now that you point it out, I see I remember my lectures incorrectly. I stand corrected. Thank you.

I probably thought that because Lattimore uses free verse.

[Potemkin]

And now that you point it out, I see I remember my lectures incorrectly. I stand corrected. Thank you.

I probably thought that because Lattimore uses free verse.

It's an easy mistake to make. Part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to even approximately convey the meter of the Homeric epics in English translation. The languages are just too different. I think Rieu's prose translation, being basically an admission of defeat, at least had the merit of honesty. Lol.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Potemkin

Using a prose translation liberates the translator to focus on other aspects of the translation, like communication of culturally specific ideas that would otherwise be lost.

But I just like listening to Lattimore. So it is more of a personal preference than a good argument as to who is the better translator.

[Potemkin]

@Potemkin

Using a prose translation liberates the translator to focus on other aspects of the translation, like communication of culturally specific ideas that would otherwise be lost.

But I just like listening to Lattimore. So it is more of a personal preference than a good argument as to who is the better translator.

Meh, I don't see what's wrong with iambic pentameter blank verse, myself. If it was good enough for Shakespeare, then it's good enough for us. Lol.

[wat0n]

So... Is there any info on what did they replace The Odyssey with?

[annatar1914]

So... Is there any info on what did they replace The Odyssey with?

@wat0n ;

Actual trash, without a doubt.

[noemon]

Tories didn’t start the culture war, but they have found a way to win it

Plans to give the public a say over monuments are a blow to the woke Left’s censorship of our history

Is there really a culture war going on in modern Britain? Halima Begum, the head of the Runnymede Trust, claims not. She has described Robert Jenrick’s new proposals to involve local residents in deciding the fate of statues as an effort to “precipitate a contrived culture war, to agitate the Tory base”. But is that true?

Was it the Tories who dreamed up the idea of removing Thomas Guy from Guy’s Hospital, General Sir Thomas Picton from Cardiff City Hall, or who boarded up Robert Baden Powell at Poole Quay? Were Conservatives responsible last June for producing a map of the statues of all our empire-builders up and down the country, in order to coordinate attacks on them?

The Labour peer Lord Adonis, who wants Oliver Cromwell removed from outside Parliament, is clearly not trying “to agitate the Tory base”, nor is the activist Afua Hirsch, who wants Admiral Nelson taken down from his column in Trafalgar Square. The Black Lives Matter demonstrators who spray-painted the Cenotaph and Winston Churchill’s statue last summer did not strike me as archetypal Tory voters either.

It seems to be only when Tories finally respond to these acts of desecration by trying to extend democracy to the decision-making over it that they are accused of “precipitating” a culture war that has, if you think back to the Rhodes Must Fall movement, in fact been going on for several years. It is only when the Left sees that ordinary people are sick of it that they try to shift the blame.

The Runnymede Trust is routinely described as a “race and equality think tank” and enjoys tax-exempt status on the basis of being an apolitical charity. Yet all it ever seems to do is attack the Conservatives on its website, with article after article claiming that “Boris Johnson’s Brexit Deal Harms Ethnic Minorities”, “Theresa May Failed to Douse Burning Injustice of Race Inequality”, and urging people to “Watch Jeremy Corbyn Give Race Equality Speech”.

Policy Exchange – which is a genuine think tank – has identified no fewer than 160 occasions in which new fronts have opened up in the culture war since last summer, yet not one was precipitated by Tories. Whether it is taking William Gladstone’s name off Liverpool University, or the National Trust ignorantly lumping colonialism with slavery, or David Hume being cancelled by Edinburgh University, these are real things that are happening, up and down the country.

When a phenomenon takes places 160 times its existence can hardly be described as “contrived”. Lambeth Council has identified 22 street names they want changed, sometimes on the flimsiest of pretexts, with historical knowledge that verges on the moronic. Captain William Bligh’s tomb has been targeted because he transported bread fruit to the West Indies, for example, “which became a staple food for those labouring on slave plantations”. Would Lambeth have preferred them to starve? General Burgoyne is being purged even though he voted in Parliament to abolish slavery.

Robert Jenrick’s plans, and some steps that Oliver Dowden has taken since Sir Hans Sloane’s bust was removed from its pedestal in the British Museum, not to mention Kemi Badenoch’s dramatic and brave intervention in a recent debate, have initiated a Conservative fightback in the culture war, but only after a great deal of damage has already been done. The unleashing of democratic voting in local referenda will I suspect be a master-stroke, which will mean that much-loved statues, such as that of General Sir Redvers Buller in Exeter, can continue to be enjoyed in situ by future generations.

Just because the culture war was not precipitated in order to “agitate the Tory base”, of course, does not mean that Tories should not be highly agitated by what is happening. Luckily, Policy Exchange’s History Matters Project, chaired by Trevor Phillips – of which I’m proud to be a member – delineates the places where people can sign petitions or take action to save those parts of our national heritage that this woke onslaught is threatening to engulf. If you believe that the description of the 78th Highlanders as “Heroes of Lucknow” should not be removed from the India Cross memorial at Edinburgh Castle, you can tell Historic Environment Scotland so in a petition that has already garnered 2,613 signatures.

Of course, like every revolution, this one will start to devour its own children. Haberdashers’ Adams School in Newport might have thought it had bought off the woke crowd by changing one of its houses from being named after Clive of India to the Great War poet Wilfred Owen, but how long will it be before someone affects to be offended at the honouring of the white, male, middle-class Owen who won the Military Cross fighting as a lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment in the service of the imperialist King-Emperor George V, oppressor of the Indian subcontinent?

Instead of cancelling people, we ought to be celebrating more of them. What we need is more statues, rather than fewer. Tories should follow the example of the splendid Ravi Govindia, the Conservative leader of Wandsworth Council, who has raised £10,000 to fund a statue of John Archer, London’s first black mayor, who was elected as Mayor of Battersea in 1913. That is an authentic Tory response. While others are pulling statues down, Conservatives should be putting them up.

Yesterday I was shown video images of the superb new life-sized statue of Winston Churchill which will be erected this year by the Churchill Society of Calgary, in Canada. That is what a confident people who are proud of their history should be doing, instead of trying to search out ways of denigrating their ancestors for doing things far in the past that were not crimes at the time, however much we would not necessarily repeat all of their actions today.

For all that the name of the Runnymede Trust might conjure up positive thoughts of Magna Carta and civilisation, it is clearly dedicated to fighting this unnecessary and divisive (and highly political) culture war. Ms Begum’s remark, however, implies that she fears the Tories might have found a way to win it.

Disclaimer: reposting of this article does not necessarily imply an endorsement of all or part of its claims.

[QatzelOk]

I can see how the Odyssey could be too dense (and too long) for 14 and 15 year olds.

But I can't see any reason NOT to use this text for teaching older teens and young adults.

How is the content "trash?"

I mean, if NOT using classics is a step up, why not ban literacy altogether since knowing how to read might lead to reading something even trashier. And then the reader will experience all the trauma and side effects of "bad novels."

[wat0n]

There are some versions for 9th grade. I read the Iliad using one such version.

[GandalfTheGrey]

The examples I gave above are quite real issues that affect our fundamental freedoms in very profound ways.

This conversation will unravel and come into a head in the next few years. It is inevitable.

I agree with PC, on the scale of things these are non-events.

Whats worse though is that these faux concerns, especially when they are derided with buzzwords like "cancel culture", are actually weapons of the right to deligitimize people who raise legitimate concerns about our society. Your example of the pro-zionist Canadian student is a good case in point. Western societies' ability to criticise actual human rights abuses in Israel has been crippled by a well funded and determined campaign to deligitimise criticism of Israel as racism/anti-semitism. The right naturally latch on to these isolated cases of victimhood to distract from the real, widescale injustices that they are vested in supporting.

[noemon]

I agree with PC, on the scale of things these are non-events.

Whats worse though is that these faux concerns, especially when they are derided with buzzwords like "cancel culture", are actually weapons of the right to deligitimize people who raise legitimate concerns about our society. Your example of the pro-zionist Canadian student is a good case in point. Western societies' ability to criticise actual human rights abuses in Israel has been crippled by a well funded and determined campaign to deligitimise criticism of Israel as racism/anti-semitism. The right naturally latch on to these isolated cases of victimhood to distract from the real, widescale injustices that they are vested in supporting.

Everything is a non-event in the grand scale of things. I find this kind of criticism quite arrogant and out of place. Is there some kind of threshold of importance that I or some other user must cross before we make a thread about a subject that is being discussed across the west in this moment in time?

PC took offence with the reporting of the Canadian-Jewish student so it appears you certainly do not agree with him on that.

[GandalfTheGrey]

Everything is a non-event in the grand scale of things. I find this kind of criticism quite arrogant and out of place. Is there some kind of threshold of importance that I or some other user must cross before we make a thread about a subject that is being discussed across the west in this moment in time?

PC took offence with the reporting of the Canadian-Jewish student so it appears you certainly do not agree with him on that.

There are 'non-events' and then there are 'non-events cynically used to deflect attention away from real events'. Thats a distinction I want you to consider - and my point is that your cancel culture is in the latter category.

I'm not saying the flak that Canadian student received was justified. My point is, its one anecdote that is used to make a broad stroke smear against the entire (and very legitimate) pro-Palestinian rights movement. Ditto for all the other causes that the right rail against.

[Agent Steel]

We need to allow bad ideas to be heard so that we can engage them and refute them. It doesn't help to simply delete them and pretend they don't exist.

When you censor evil, it doesn't make the evil go away. It just pushes it underground, thereby spawning yet more evil as it festers in the dark.

[noemon]

There are 'non-events' and then there are 'non-events cynically used to deflect attention away from real events'. Thats a distinction I want you to consider - and my point is that your cancel culture is in the latter category.

What on earth are you going on about? That I or others should not make these threads? And who gets to decide that? You and PC? under what standard?

I'm not saying the flak that Canadian student received was justified. My point is, its one anecdote that is used to make a broad stroke smear against the entire (and very legitimate) pro-Palestinian rights movement. Ditto for all the other causes that the right rail against.

You 're not making any sense. The Canadian-Jewish student got compensation from the SOAS London University because he was called a "zionist" by students during a debate about Israel-Palestine and because the University refused to remove the Student Union's endorsement of the BDS.

[GandalfTheGrey]

What on earth are you going on about? That I or others should not make these threads? And who gets to decide that? You and PC? under what standard?

This is what the right and those who rail against so called 'cancel culture' do - portray this debate as them being victimised by having their right to free speech deprived. Of course you are free to make your threads, and this is right and proper. You just have to accept that others are also free to criticise them.

Whether in this case its your intention or not, the fact remains, the furore over 'cancel culture' is just another manufactured outrage, to cynically deflect attention away from legitimate criticism of fundamental injustices.

You 're not making any sense. The Canadian-Jewish student got compensation from the SOAS London University because he was called a "zionist" by students during a debate about Israel-Palestine and because the University refused to remove the Student Union's endorsement of the BDS.

Sorry I may have misinterpreted the point of this anecdote - you are saying the student himself was engaging in cancel culture by acting all precious over being called a 'zionist' - and then forced the university to compensate him for it? I originally thought it was the other way around and you were criticising those who labelled him zionist.

[GandalfTheGrey]

We need to allow bad ideas to be heard so that we can engage them and refute them. It doesn't help to simply delete them and pretend they don't exist.

When you censor evil, it doesn't make the evil go away. It just pushes it underground, thereby spawning yet more evil as it festers in the dark.

Totally agree. But you have to be careful about what you define as censoring. Yes, there are legitimate incidents where the left have gone too far in trying to silence bad and offensive ideas, and this should be called out. However the fact remains, this whole debate has been absolutely dominated by people on the right who simply get upset when their stupid ideas are criticised and mocked - and falsely label this as censorship.

[late]

The problem is that it doesn't work.

The Right has been at war with both democracy, and Democrats, not to mention human rights.

Their media does brainwashing, and it's been very effective.

Trump showed us how terribly fragile democracy is. If we want to keep it, we will need to fight for it. Which we used to do...

[noemon]

This is what the right and those who rail against so called 'cancel culture' do - portray this debate as them being victimised by having their right to free speech deprived. Of course you are free to make your threads, and this is right and proper. You just have to accept that others are also free to criticise them.

Whether in this case its your intention or not, the fact remains, the furore over 'cancel culture' is just another manufactured outrage, to cynically deflect attention away from legitimate criticism of fundamental injustices.

Sure they do, with logical arguments rather than with dismissive arrogance. Don't you think?

Sorry I may have misinterpreted the point of this anecdote - you are saying the student himself was engaging in cancel culture by acting all precious over being called a 'zionist' - and then forced the university to compensate him for it? I originally thought it was the other way around and you were criticising those who labelled him zionist.

Perhaps you should read the thread better. And it's not an anecdote.

https://www.uklfi.com/appeal-panel-reco ... nt-at-soas

The student accused the University of 'toxic antisemitism' and was compensated.

These are the examples that were cited as evidence of 'toxic antisemitism':

Mr Lewis’ complaints about the toxic atmosphere during his time at SOAS from 2018 to 2019 included the following examples:
On 01/03/2019 an email was sent from the Student Union (SU) to all students stating that “yesterday there were a group of external individuals, … apparently filming a piece on how SOAS is an antisemitic institution.”

The email continued: “We are sending round this statement to reaffirm our commitment as a Students’ Union to our Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel Policy (BDS), which passed in March 2015. SOAS SU was the first UK Students’ Union to vote for and support the BDS campaign launched in 2005.” Mr Lewis said that this was an abuse of the SU’s power and was intended to make a political statement at the expense of Jews and Israel.

Those who are Jewish or pro-Israel on campus are labelled and referred to as ‘Zionists’. The term is used as an offensive, antisemitic blanket term to label anyone with a Jewish connection who advocates a position that might be to Israel’s benefit; to them Zionism in general is akin to fascism and racism.

Antisemitic graffiti can be found on campus lockers, antisemitic symbols and statements can be found scribbled or scratched into desks in the library and on the walls of bathroom stalls.

There is a large sign in the window by the door of the main SOAS building proclaiming SOAS’s support for BDS.

So, what do you think of this case?

[GandalfTheGrey]

The student accused the University of 'toxic antisemitism' and was compensated.

These are the examples that were cited as evidence of 'toxic antisemitism':



So, what do you think of this case?

Despite being promised examples, I'm still non the wiser as to what constitutes "toxic antisemitism" in this story. Only claims that "zionist" is used in an "offensive" and "anti-semitic" way - with absolutely no elaboration. I suspect this is the same "antisemitism" that well funded pro-Israeli lobby groups go around using to stifle any criticism of Israel, and/or destroy progressive political leaders like Jeremy Corbyn.

Sounds to me you're just giving me a perfect example of how the right, not the left, engage in cancel culture.

Admin note: Rule 1 Violation

[noemon]

Sounds to me you're just giving me a perfect example of how the right, not the left, engage in cancel culture.

I did not say right or left anywhere.