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Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

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Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#141

Post by rbanffy »

jbooth wrote: post #120
rbanffy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did I imply there is a nationwide outrage? I only wonder why that mother was so annoyed by the term "savage" and why others are annoyed by "nigger" in fiction books written generations ago. "People like Rbanffy"... I am not sure what you intend to imply by that.

45 short years ago, use of the n-word was typically followed up by turning a firehose or a pack of dogs on people who just wanted to be treated like human beings -- this was happening, in modern America, while your parents were in grade school or high school (presumably). You might not have been aware of that, given that you seem to think that everyone should just get over it and not be offended by things that don't…

The question is not what happened, but what can we do so it never happens again.

By the time the events you mention happened, my family was still coping with having to leave its ancestral home after WWII and having to move to Brazil as refugees.

We can hold grudges for many generations if we want, or we can learn from the past and move on.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#142

Post by xorglorb »

rbanffy wrote: post #90
ascuttlefish wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've nailed it. Bill Maher asked the media '[C]ould you please stop pitting the ignorant vs. the educated and framing it as a "debate."' Acknowledging ignorant views and handling those who hold them with kids gloves is just another of many possible paths to Idiocracy.

Careful. One of the cornerstones of democracy is that the ignorant will chose who also governs the educated if they are numerous enough.

> The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. - Winston Churchill

Sadly true...

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#143

Post by Anechoic »

absconditus wrote: post #134
Anechoic wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who reads "Huck Finn" and actually thinks about it won't find its use of the word "nigger" objectionable. I've read Huck Finn (and Tom Sawyer) as required in high school. I am also black. As a product of it's day, I understand the context in which the language is being used but that didn't make it any less demeaning and frankly the only effect it had on me was to make me not want to read any more Mark Twain…

I find your comment as baffling as the article under discussion and for much the same reason.

That reason being...?

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#144

Post by protomyth »

kenjackson wrote: post #119
kenjackson wrote: post #25

It is a bit more nuanced. As pointed out by the appeal record ( http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/111710... ) there were three required non-fiction books for the 10th grade list: BNW, Othello, and Lord of the Flies. Apparently all three make reference to native or indigenous people as "savages". And then apparently in one lecture they promoted an inaccurate view as to why we have reservations. It'…

Here's a story from a local blog that goes into greater detail. http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2010/11/brave-new-wor...

That blog post (and the comments at the end) sure give a really different impression of the event than the article.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#145

Post by kenjackson »

protomyth wrote: post #144
kenjackson wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a story from a local blog that goes into greater detail. http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2010/11/brave-new-wor...

That blog post (and the comments at the end) sure give a really different impression of the event than the article.

Our news media is a narrative driven media. They find their narrative and build the story around that. Details, subtleties, and complexities get shoved under the rug.

For example, look at the health care debate. Headline news for over a year. Here's a quiz, ask 10 people to name 3 concrete aspects of Health Care reform. I tried an not one person game me 3. A few gave me two. The mode was zero concrete aspects.

The narrative never was the bill itself. What everyone did know was that Obama and the Dems won and the Republicans lost, and it it costs a lot of money. For a year of coverage, this was the only narrative. Win/Lose + costs money.

A lot of people wonder if the decline of newspapers means that things like city council meetings don't get coverage. I've discovered that you often get better coverage from reading a couple of blogs -- and there almost certainly will be better targeted blogs than you get from your major city paper.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#146

Post by philwelch »

electromagnetic wrote: post #52
sukuriant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or keep the book and hire competent teachers. And then pay those competent teachers the salary they deserve for training the next generation.

Yes, but that would require people to actually want to pay taxes for the things they want. It would be like paying for competent non-tazer psycho cops.

Americans pay more for their crappy schools and incompetent teachers than every other rich country in the world pays for their good schools and competent teachers.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#147

Post by dangrossman »

rbanffy wrote: post #101
dangrossman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in wealthier areas, school administrations have to bend over backwards to please parents or they really will sue the school districts over insane things like this.

No. Their job is to educate kids. Unfortunately, they bend over backwards to please kids who complain to their parents about how crappy their school is.

"No. My job is to educate kids." will not stop a parent from suing the school.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#148

Post by kenjackson »

rbanffy wrote: post #141
jbooth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

45 short years ago, use of the n-word was typically followed up by turning a firehose or a pack of dogs on people who just wanted to be treated like human beings -- this was happening, in modern America, while your parents were in grade school or high school (presumably). You might not have been aware of that, given that you seem to think that everyone should just get over it and not be offended by things that don't…

The question is not what happened, but what can we do so it never happens again. By the time the events you mention happened, my family was still coping with having to leave its ancestral home after WWII and having to move to Brazil as refugees. We can hold grudges for many generations if we want, or we can learn from the past and move on.

I think one of the main lesson we learn is that the past influences today.

And asking children to read books from the past, without giving them the tools and context to understand it, is asking for trouble.

US high schools are a playground of intolerance. At least where I went to high school, having the class read a book that made use of "nigger" would have certainly meant that the Black kids in class would be called nigger after class -- of course when the students were confronted they might say something like, "I was just trying to memorize some key lines from the book".

I'm not against reading books from the past, but I think the teachers need to be prepared to teach it. In this case it appears that the teachers weren't.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#149

Post by wmeredith »

swombat wrote: post #65
grellas wrote: post #49

The Enlightenment was premised on the broad idea that people were rational and that, once education became widespread, reason would eventually stamp out superstition and other evils and would cause humanity to want to promote and defend liberty. This thinking broadly underlies the idea that we are continuing to progress as a species and will ultimately learn to solve the problems that historically have beset us. This…

The next thing you know, they will be banning books that use the word "niggardly." Worth pointing out, because when I saw this word while reading Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf recently I did a double-take, that niggardly has absolutely nothing to do with "niggers". Niggardly means "miserly" or "stingy". It is based on "niggard", not "nigger", which means the same - a miser, a stingy person. The roots of this word are:…

A great many I would imagine.

Homonyms are also overtaken by many an overbearing counterpart or outright co-option as slang (i.e. queer, gay, faggot, et al) Language is a fascinating thing to me. It's dynamism is rooted in it's ties to self expression and may only be second to the web itself.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#150

Post by wazoox »

roel_v wrote: post #73
wazoox wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't find it dystopic because the Brave New World so frighteningly resembles ours. The people on the article actually behaves like the idiot mainstream inhabitants of the Brave New World. That you don't even find it dystopic is probably another sign that it's actually the parody of the world we're living it; superficial, commercial, filled with porn and vulgarity, reality TV and shitty music, individualistic and…

You're ascribing all sorts of moral judgments to this world but don't make a case for why any of these things are bad, if they manage to make people feel (truly) content and happy. What's wrong with reality TV, Lady Gaga and advertisements if that's what people like? Do you honestly thing people would be better off if they didn't have those things and only had a Chopin record to put on at night? Maybe I'm reading you…

> You're ascribing all sorts of moral judgments to this world but don't make a case for why any of these things are bad, if they manage to make people feel (truly) content and happy.

Most probably sheep are perfectly happy in their pen. Being perfectly happy because you don't think about why you live and what you may be good for isn't in my opinion a good way to be happy. My opinion is that human being should aim higher than living an happy cattle life. These are personal values, but I think that some values are better than others, and that general relativism isn't good.

And about the intellectual snobbery : I am a proud intellectual snob. Intellectual snobs know better, that's why I chose to be one :)

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