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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 84% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 3% Intervene massively—as it's doing 3% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 1% Something else (specify) 9% Total votes: 76
 Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
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The Flight of Literacy Submitted by Daniel Walden on Sun, 2007-07-15 05:14.
There was a time, years ago, when I looked forward to middle school and the beginning of proper English classes. What a joy it would be to read great books and experience the wonder of a first-rate mind guiding and expanding my own. I was woefully unprepared for the vapid junk that I was soon to be force-fed. First, a small helping of context. I had begun reading about a year later than most of my classmates, although I wasted no time once I started. My first great conquest was C.S. Lewis; Narnia enriched the last few dismal months of second grade and may very well have been the only thing that kept me from running out of the classroom in disgust and horror. After that, I thought that there was nothing I couldn't read. Mostly I read ancient mythology punctuated with the occasional light children's mystery as brain candy, but after a few years I finally worked up the nerve and the attention span to tackle Homer in translation. The Odyssey took my fifth-grade self a solid month to work through, but it was worth every minute of effort. I was left intellectually exhausted and emotionally spellbound, realizing that until that point I hadn't truly known just how much I loved books. Then sixth grade arrived, with all the aforementioned excitement. Sure we'd read a few books in elementary school, but this would be different! Now it was time to take the kiddie gloves off and really get to the meaty stuff. But what was I greeted with? Crap. Boring, uninteresting, morally simplistic bullshit. Where were the ideas? Where were the real people? Where were the books that would make me better for having read them? I changed schools after sixth grade, and I received two small respites in seventh and eighth grade in the form of Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet, both of which I read through multiple times just to experience that utter mastery of language again and again. Surely, I thought, high school would bring more gems like this! And it did...but at the same time, it didn't. Sure, I was getting graded for reading fantastic books, but I was almost entirely alone in going through them. I thought that a teacher might be able to show me something that I hadn't seen before, but all my teachers were too busy going through the plot to bother with anything else. And worst of all, at the end of every book we would talk about what the "message" of the author was. But that wasn't the bloody point! We were supposed to be reading novels, not sermons! At that point, I gave up on English class entirely until my final term this past school year. I'd signed up for this particular class after hearing that the teacher was a godsend, and all the rumors proved to be true. We spent the entire term going through the mammoth Moby-Dick, which is now probably my favorite book. This teacher knew the book back to front, and his enthusiasm for it was absolutely infectious. But most importantly, he stressed engaging the book on our own and THEN discussing our impressions and findings in class. We went through that book with a fine-tooth comb, and even so, I'm sure I'll still be wrestling with that enigmatic whale until the day I die. But now I'm left to wonder: what happened? There was a time when reading books was considered to be a real undertaking; a book was not something to be simply taken in, but something to be chewed on and considered and argued with and confounded by. Most of my English classes, by contrast, resembled an ill-maintained assembly line: we would take a book, go through the motions, and move on to the next, and nobody would notice that the machine was slowly breaking down. The addition of third-rate derivative literature didn't help the process. After all, how can you expect to get good results with bad materials? The sad truth is that, by and large, we have lost the art of reading, and the art of thinking is perilously close to following it. Morally simplistic garbage is alright for young children just learning to make their way in the world, but it's hardly suitable for young men and women who will soon be off on their own, governing and educating themselves. And yet more and more schools are feeding students just that. We were supposedly taught about the issue of war when we read a book that preached "war is evil." Apparently The Iliad was either too long or didn't clearly tow the line. Books that grapple with real, pertinent issues of the human condition are shunned in favor of those that provide easy, repeatable answers. Obviously the education system needs reforming, but the problem goes far deeper than that. As usual, the culprit behind it all is collectivism, this time in the guise of necessary dependence. We are taught from an early age that we cannot discover everything ourselves and that we have books to spoon-feed information and answers to us. Certainly books of information are valuable, but the true literary gems provide no easy answers. Instead, great authors invite us to grapple with issues that will perhaps never be fully understood but about which we can never understand too much. Their gift to us is not information, but something truly invaluable. The great books are those that teach us to think, and I suspect that we will see very little great literature until the individual mind is returned to its proper place of sovereignty in the values of the country and the world.
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"It's one of those
"It's one of those existential stories with no meaning, isn't it?"
Yes.
PC
Well, I'm content to shut
Well, I'm content to shut up, sit back and listen...
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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound
Bartleby
"It's one of those existential stories with no meaning, isn't it?"
No.
JR
couldn't resist...
a perfect setup. Seriously, though, not touching that one with a ten foot pole, cause there is no (real) answer. It's one of those existential stories with no meaning, isn't it?
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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound
nice answer, wiseass.
nice answer, wiseass.
explanation.
I prefer not.
"Ah, Bartleby. Ah, humanity!"
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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound
Heeeelp!!!
Please, somebody explain "Bartleby the Scrivener" to me!!
Bartleby Shrugs?? and Inactivates Himself to Death?? Hmmmm.
Daniel, thanks for explaining about Moby Dick--that is helpful and intriguing. I may give it another try.
Bartleby the head case on the other hand?
Jeff said: "Bartleby" is not pointless. Nor is it contradictory. It can be perplexing, certainly, especially on a first reading. I suggest you read it again and think it through."
Jeff, maybe I'm dense. I've read it three times. And I read some commentary on it. I'm almost to the emperor has no clothes point with this "one of the world's great short stories".
But I, and a couple others..many others who've strugled with it, are certainly at the point of asking for a clear explanation. Why does he do what he does and "lose it"?-->what is his actual psychology and is it clear in the story..or just a freakin chinese puzzle box? Why is it of interest? Why does the narrator/employer act the way he does? [The narrator is a bit more clear.] Did Melville actually have a point about people, about situations, or some reason to write this story?
[I hope it something more than the Oist point about volition - just the fact that a man can choose life vs. slow death, can choose to turn his back on the needs of existence, a man can be an obstinate obsessive-compulsive. Because if that is the case, 'causelessness' is not enough of an explanation - bafflement is a postmodern cop out. We'd need some more depth, context, flashbacks, explanation for "bartleby shrugs"...my alternative title for this story.]
Or did he simply want to annoy and baffle generations of students? (Melville shrugs.)
I have about seven short story anthologies in which "Bartleby the Scrivener" appears, so this is viewed as a very important step in the development of the short story.
Somehow.
Good to see you on again
Good to see you on again Jeff.
I remember 'Bartleby' - and having to read it in high school and getting poor marks on my essay on it for where I explained how I would have fired Bartleby, citing 'preferring not' to have someone so insubordinate and unproductive working for me. I can't say I'm a fan.
You Need to Read the Assignment Again, Phil . . .
"I read the famous short story by Melville, 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' and got very little out of it. Have you read it?"
I have. Daniel will, of course, have to speak for himself.
"It made me have some contempt for Melville based on just the one pointless, contradictory, baffling short story. And without enough beauty of language . . . as if his popularity was because he was some precursor of postmodernist anti-rationalism."
"Bartleby" is not pointless. Nor is it contradictory. It can be perplexing, certainly, especially on a first reading. I suggest you read it again and think it through. Generally, I agree with Daniel as to the strengths of Moby Dick. At his best, Melville was a great prose craftsman, and though he is no systematic philosopher, he offers a certain genuine profundity in what might be called his poetic grasp of the human condition. He is one of the few genuine masters in 19th Century American literature.
All that said, Moby Dick can be a difficult book to get into and stay with. It is exactly the sort of book that can benefit from a truly gifted teacher of the sort Daniel describes.
JR
The worth of Moby-Dick
Firstly, I find the prose to be exquisite. Secondly, the book advocates judging individuals as individuals rather than as members of any group: "Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."
Melville is also harshly critical of every form of organized religion: "In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans."
But mostly, Moby-Dick advocates living life to the fullest extent possible. Life is hard; the novel leaves us with no illusions in that regard. We are shown the land and those that live on it, and they are those who are content with what they have and do not desire to have, see or know more. We are shown the sea, with all its dangers, where every day one might drown, but also where one might truly know oneself and find glory. And, in a wonderful metaphor, Melville shows us the fate of those who wish to have it both ways. The ship that leaves the dock but remains ever close to shore is doomed to strike the rocks, and every man aboard doomed to sleep beneath the waves.
Captain Ahab is a remarkable character. His ambition is admirable and intoxicating, but he is tragic because he is lying to himself. He acts as if he were a god, but over time, we see that deep down he knows himself to be merely human. His pursuit of the white whale is a warning to not reach beyond what we know to be our utmost limits. Ambition is a great thing, but boundless ambition is foolish and leads only to death.
Are Melville and Moby Dick worthwhile?
Daniel,
Thank you for this quite informative and valuable report on what you experienced in your literature classes - I can sympathize, although my literature classes were a bit better. I do have one question: I had a problem getting started with "Moby Dick" and put it aside. Then, more recently, I read the famous short story by Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener", and got very little out of it. Have you read it?
It made me have some contempt for Melville based on just the one pointless, contradictory, baffling short story. And without enough beauty of language . . . as if his popularity was because he was some precursor of postmodernist anti-rationalism.
So, would you mind elaborating a bit on what the values are you found in "Moby Dick"? And why you personally benefited from it or would recommend it.
You said this, but didn't give any reasons: "We spent the entire term going through the mammoth Moby-Dick, which is now probably my favorite book."
Literature
"The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations." ---Iris Murdoch The Sovereinty of Good, p. 34.
Quoted by Ronald de Sousa in The Rationality of Emotion. He adds the following note:
"For an eloquent defense of the idea that a novel can itself be a moral achievement, see Nussbaum 1985. There are difficult and fascinating questions about the extent to which literature can invent scenarios that when applied to one's own life result in 'authentic' emotions" (343n3).
Nussbaum, Martha. 1985. "'Finely Aware and Richly Responsible': Moral Attention and the Moral Task of Literature." The Journal of Philosophy 82:516-29.
Bravo!
Thank you for being you, Daniel.
From memory:
"Thus have I seen passion and vanity pounding the magnanimous earth, but she has not changed her tides nor her seasons for all of that."
"And the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled 5000 years ago."
Some other American works I enjoyed very much:
East of Eden - Steinbeck
Another Country - Baldwin