The next battleground-'Cancel Culture & Identity Politics' - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15150529
annatar1914 wrote:I will say this; one cannot understand the Western civilization or it's politics unless one understands the Illiad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. That is in a political sense, the quests for;

1. ''Liberty''

2. ''Self-understanding and self-actualisation''

3. The foundation of the ''perfect Society''

The Homeric epics are the foundational texts of Western culture. I think every writer, past or present, feels this in their bones. I think Jorge Luis Borges (who, like Homer, lost his sight) expressed this feeling best in his prose poem, El Hacedor, The Maker....

The Maker (El Hacedor) :: J. L. Borges

He had never dwelled on memory’s delights. Impressions slid over him, vivid but ephemeral. A potter’s vermilion; the heavens laden with stars that were also gods; the moon, from which a lion had fallen; the slick feel of marble beneath slow sensitive fingertips; the taste of wild boar meat, eagerly torn by his white teeth; a Phoenician word; the black shadow a lance casts on yellow sand; the nearness of the sea or of a woman; a heavy wine, its roughness cut by honey–these could fill his soul completely. He knew what terror was, but he also knew anger and rage, and once he had been the first to scale an enemy wall. Eager, curious, casual, with no other law than fulfillment and the immediate indifference that ensues, he walked the varied earth and saw, on one seashore or another, the cities of men and their palaces. In crowded marketplaces or at the foot of a mountain whose uncertain peak might be inhabited by satyrs, he had listened to complicated tales which he accepted, as he accepted reality, without asking whether they were true or false.

Gradually now the beautiful universe was slipping away from him. A stubborn mist erased the outline of his hand, the night was no longer peopled by stars, the earth beneath his feet was unsure. Everything was growing distant and blurred. When he knew he was going blind he cried out; stoic modesty had not yet been invented and Hector could flee with impunity. I will not see again, he felt, either the sky filled with mythical dread, or this face that the years will transform. Over this desperation of his flesh passed days and nights. But one morning he awoke; he looked, no longer alarmed, at the dim things that surrounded him; and inexplicably he sensed, as one recognizes a tune or a voice, that now it was over and he had faced it, with fear but also with joy, hope, and curiosity. Then he descended into his memory, which seemed to him endless, and up from that vertigo he succeeded in bringing forth a forgotten recollection that shone like a coin under the rain, perhaps because he had never looked at it, unless in a dream.

The recollection was like this. Another boy had insulted him and he had run to his father and told him about it. His father let him talk as if he were not listening or did not understand; and he took down from the wall a bronze dagger, beautiful and charged with power, which the boy had secretly coveted. Now he had it in his hands and the surprise of possession obliterated the affront he had suffered. But his father’s voice was saying, “Let someone know you are a man,” and there was a command in his voice. The night blotted out the paths; clutching the dagger, in which he felt the foreboding of a magic power, he descended the rough hillside that surrounded the house and ran to the seashore, dreaming he was Ajax and Perseus and peopling the salty darkness with battles and wounds. The exact taste of that moment was what he was seeking now; the rest did not matter: the insults of the duel, the rude combat, the return home with the bloody blade.

Another memory, in which there was also a night and an imminence of adventure, sprang out of that one. A woman, the first the gods set aside for him, had waited for him in the shadow of a hypogeum, and he had searched for her through the corridors that were like stone nets, along slopes that sank into the shadow. Why did those memories come back to him, and why did they come without bitterness, as a mere foreshadowing of the present?

In grave amazement he understood. In this night too, in this night of his mortal eyes into this he was now descending, love and danger were again waiting. Ares and Aphrodite, for already he divined (already it encircled him) a murmur of glory and hexameters, a murmur of men defending a temple the gods will not save, and of black vessels searching the sea for a beloved isle, the murmur of the Odysseys and Iliads it was his destiny to sing and leave echoing concavely in the memory of man. These things we know, but not those that he felt when he descended into the last shade of all.

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Mildred Boyer]
#15150538
Pants-of-dog wrote:I will admit that I find any translation of The Iliad or The Odyssey other than Lattimore to be unenjoyable.


Frankly, I do not believe that you have ever read the Iliad or the Odyssey. I think your knowledge of both is merely the knowledge of whatever your eyes have merely glanced on via pop culture, some program, some tv show, Potemkin perhaps, myself and other glances from here and there, perhaps you happened upon Lattimore in some library or the radio and that demarcates the very extent of your knowledge, saved in your memory in case you ever happen upon a conversation to pretend that you at least are aware of one of the translators.

Either way, it is self-evident to those initiated that you never have been, and that you have absolutely no clue of the Homeric epics.

It doesn't matter if you did or you didn't, at least give that gift to your children. They will thank you for it.
#15150539
"We need to encourage the free exchange of ideas. Self-criticism and reflection is how we improve as a society and what separates us from totalitarians. Free and independent thought is what grants democracies victory."

Feminists and other groups having opinions, criticizing Western culture, calling for reshaping the curriculum, acknowledgement of social problems.

"No, not like that."

:roll:
#15150544
Fasces wrote:You're totally right noemon, feminists and other "woke" groups are completely intellectually bankrupt, have no theory, have no critiques, and should just be abolished. :roll:


Putting words in my mouth and creating silly strawmen, just demonstrates your lack of argument.

Where is the criticism you spoke of? In our free society you bring forward your criticism of whatever that may be and we discuss it. Best argument wins.

So where is it and we shall. :)
#15150549
My honesty or lack thereof is irrelevant.

Regardless of my honesty, it is a true fact that the epic poetry of Homer is one of the most important, if not the most important contributions to western literature in history.

It is also a true fact this importance does not make the actions of this teacher censorship.
#15150553
Pants-of-Dog wrote:It is also a true fact this importance does not make the actions of this teacher censorship.


Of course it doesn't and noone claimed that it did.

It is the unwarranted action against it that makes it so.

So far, the reason provided is that "its trash from which our youth need to be liberated from".

That is not a reason for a logically thinking human being.
#15150575
Fasces wrote:It looks like at some schools, participating in the free market of ideas, "woke" ideas have been more convincing and won.

So what are you whining about, then?


So you have "no criticism" against Homer to offer.

Why did you claim that you or the crowd who hate the Homeric epics, have valid criticisms against it?

Ah, yes, they have been "so convincing" that all involved have refused to comment when approached by the WSJ and when confronted have exclaimed:

"We have been misunderstood" :lol:
#15150580
The only action taken against The Odyssey was to remove the book from a grade 9 English Language Arts reading list.

This happens to a number of books each time a reading list is changed. Since this is not an example of suppression or prohibition of the works in question, this is not censorship.
#15150582
@Fasces High-school not university and the reason provided is:

"Homer is trash from which our children need to be liberated from".

The system of that school is clearly not working as intended.

Now that she and the headmaster have been exposed, the system will sort them out eventually.

That's the great thing about this system :)
#15150585
The system of that school is working precisely as intended. It taught critical thinking and analytics skills which were used to determine that a certain work contained problematic elements and that it shouldn't be in the curriculum. Teaching these critical thinking skills are a core component of all Western curriculums.

You honestly just appear upset that these students and teachers are applying their critical thinking skills to reach conclusions you disagree with.

Which is fine, many curriculums consider scientific, moral and cultural education to be more important than critical analysis, such as those in East Asia, such as China or Japan. They tend to consider the individualism, dividing nature of critical analysis, which encourages social atomization and critique of authority in all realms at the cost of social harmony and collective identity to be undesirable and causing more problems than it solves.
#15150587
Fasces wrote:The system of that school is working precisely as intended. It taught critical thinking and analytics skills which were used to determine that a certain work contained problematic elements and that it shouldn't be in the curriculum. Teaching these critical thinking skills are a core component of all Western curriculums.

You honestly just appear upset that these students and teachers are applying their critical thinking skills to reach conclusions you disagree with. Which is fine, many curriculums consider scientific, moral and cultural education to be more important than critical analysis, such as those in East Asia, such as China or Japan.


The reason provided is: "Homer is trash from which our children need to be liberated from". That is not critical thought nor analysis, at least not in our civilisation. Perhaps it is so, in East Asia where local morality may be more important than logic and critical analysis as you say.

You appear upset with western civilisation and since your relocation to China you have been proactively trying to undermine anything associated with the west.

I ask you honestly, is it because of China's social credit system?
#15150589
Pants-of-dog wrote:It would be illogical to assume that the wording of the tweet was a comprehensive and specific explanation as to why the curriculum was changed.
It would make more sense to assume that the discussion was far more prolonged and complex.


It would be illogical to assume that something that actually exists, doesn't, and that something that doesn't exist, actually does.

All 3 of these people, disrupttexts, the teacher, and the headmaster have all failed to provide a single explanation other than the one they already provided, despite being chased for comment by newspapers and by tweeter users.

The reasoning "it's trash" is used very often in our everyday lives by low-quality human specimen and it illustrates their own trashness.
It doesn't mean it qualifies as critical analysis nor that it's anyhow valid.
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