I’ve read almost everything on this cultural literacy test, but it only goes through the 19th century. I have a feeling my score will slip severely once the second half of the test comes out.
Of the works on this list, how many were actually assigned to me in either high school or college? By my count, six. Or seven, if being assigned Henry V counts as being assigned “Shakespeare’s Plays.”
I have to gripe about some of the “signing statements” attached to the list – such as “Ignore any critic who downplays the Bard’s Christian vision or who tries to make him into a feminist or commentator on colonialism.” Any reading of Shakespeare that misses his deep skepticism concerning traditional theology, authority, imperialism, gender roles, and the like is simply missing Shakespeare. (It’s always worth remembering how deeply Shakespeare was influenced by Montaigne; the plays are filled with references to the Essais.)
Moreover, the claim that Elizabeth Bennet “must jettison Romantic sensibilities to find real love” is a very odd thing to say about Pride and Prejudice (it would be more accurate if said of Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, though even there not perfectly so), given that the man Elizabeth ends up with is a quintessential arrogant brooding proto-Randian romantic hero.
I also have to gripe about some omissions from the list. In particular: No Herodotus or Thucydides?
Anybody think Dr. Hunter S Thompson will be on the second 50? Or Henry Miller? Even Dasheill Hammett?
Sounds an aweful lot like a very conservative, onsided vision of “culture” to me…
Where’s that Montaigne link supposed to go?
This reminds me of that “manhood” test that appeared on LRC some time ago.
I fixed the Montaigne link.
I agree it’s one-sided., but it’s not as bad as the manhood test, since at least everything on the list is genuinely worth reading.
For new readers, BB is referring to a piece by Brad Edmonds; all of Edmonds’ archives were deleted from LRC a while back (he went a bit too white-wing as I recall) but it’s in the Wayback Archive here; see also related pieces here, here, and here. See my critiques here, here, and here.
Frankly your response to Edmonds lost me almost from the first sentence. Men and women are fundamentally different right down to how their brains work.
I need you to clarify something though. Is a slave that wants to be a slave still a slave?
Men and women are fundamentally different right down to how their brains work.
Well, the extent to which that’s true or significant is controversial, as you know. Have you read Anne Fausto-Sterling?
I need you to clarify something though. Is a slave that wants to be a slave still a slave?
By definition, yes. But I suspect you meant to ask a non-tautological question, but I’m not sure what it is.
I have not read Fausto. It would not change what I have carefully and dispassionately observed though.
I can’t see much evidence of any exploitation of women by men. I haven’t observed any use of extra musculature to force women to do anything against their will. But of course to do so would be a crime outside the need for any extra classifications like “gender roles”. I did think the suggestion that it all started at the dawn of man and has been happening ever since was interesting. Perhaps if you can construct a time machine you can prove it.I would note that many animal species, if not all animal species assume gender roles very similar to humans, and do so without any “brainwashing”… I don’t have any problem with anyone assuming whatever role they want, of course. But you didn’t stop there, did you? You stated that the only reason we have “traditional” gender roles is because of some monstrous conspiracy launched at the dawn of man (I guess). Maybe Dr. Faustus answers all of these questions in her book, but I am skeptical.
Have you considered the possibility that women use sex to manipulate men into assuming a hunter/gatherer role on their behalf? Before you consider Faustus’s views again, how about thinking about the lyrics from “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks.
“I can’t see much evidence of any exploitation of women by men.”
That’s because your eyes are closed.
“I haven’t observed any use of extra musculature to force women to do anything against their will.”
Are you out of your mind?
“Have you considered the possibility that women use sex to manipulate men into assuming a hunter/gatherer role on their behalf?”
Um, sure. So what?
Brandon, have you read the libertarian feminism piece I wrote with Charles? or this follow-up piece by Charles?
It would not change what I have carefully and dispassionately observed though.
By carefully and dispassionately observing behaviour you can tell the differences are due to innate brain differences? Do you have x-ray vision?
I’ll read your feminism pieces if you read this:
http://www.livescience.com/health/050120_brain_sex.html
It takes all kinds, and I don’t care if people want to voluntarily switch gender roles or whatever. But there’s a lot more nature than nurture involved.
If there really is a male conspiracy against females then why isn’t human society akin to lions, with the males sitting on their asses all day while the females do all of the work? why have the evil men conspired to give themselves all of the hardest work?
I’ll read your feminism pieces if you read this:
Sure, I’ll read it. Though I have to warn you that I regard sociobiology as the equivalent of astrology.
why have the evil men conspired to give themselves all of the hardest work?
Given that women have increasingly comparable workloads to men outside the home, but also do the lion’s share (so to speak) of domestic labour too, I think they have given women most of the work. But in any case, a) power is about more than just avoiding work — and b) power is also about more than conscious “conspiracies” by “evil” people.
I have to add that your breezily dismissive remarks about feminism sound just like statists’ breezily dismissive remarks about libertarianism.
Brandon:
Of course you can’t. Sex-class is so deep as to be invisible.
If you want to find evidence of systemic male oppression of women, there’s a lot of detailed discussion of it in those feminist books that you haven’t read. I can make some suggestions for places to start, if you’d like.
Brandon:
There is as far as I know no serious feminist theorist in the world who believes, or who has ever claimed, that there is any kind of conscious global conspiracy by men against women. Feminist theory, especially radical feminist theory, makes frequent use of concepts like “patriarchy” and “rape culture,” but that’s not the same thing as a deliberate plan to keep women down. You don’t need a conscious global conspiracy in order for there to be large social structures with intense systemic effects that tend to benefit men as a class and hurt women as a class. The second article that Roderick refers you to, Women and the Invisible Fist, specifically discusses this point at some length.
Hope this helps.
I’m not sure even x-ray vision would help him. How would innate brain differences be distinguishable from non-innate ones?
Gotta x-ray the babies.
I think he means to ask whether a person can voluntarily make themselves a slave, in which case the answer is no, since a contractual relationship is by definition a free one.
I know there are a few minor differences in the hypothalamus, associated with body maps. I believe there are also different hormone responses.
I also know there is a lot of pressure on both sexes to conform to patriarchal gender roles.
Was Edmonds writing something along the lines of whites naturally being the most attractive, and that minority women always liked looking at his blue eyes?
There are a few people who’ve been deleted from the columnist list and I can’t remember which one wrote that stuff.
I don’t remember either. I did a brief websearch but couldn’t find any references.
I remember DeCoster wrote something to that effect about blonde Aryans or somesuch, claiming that blonde jokes were some kind of conspiracy by jealous, egalitarian brunettes.
15 or 20 years ago, I read “An Incomplete Education” by Judy Jones and William Wilson, cover to cover (http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Things-Learned-Probably/dp/0345468902/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238697162&sr=8-2 ) plus The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch et al. (http://www.amazon.com/New-Dictionary-Cultural-Literacy-American/dp/0618226478/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238697244&sr=8-2) — though they are not systematic or thorough or a substitute for a real classical education, they were interesting and useful.
trying links again:
http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Education-Things-Learned-Probably/dp/0345468902
http://www.amazon.com/New-Dictionary-Cultural-Literacy-American/dp/0618226478/
Btw, for Amazon links you don’t need anything after the first string of numbers.
Don’t ever backtalk me in public again, mmkay?
I use this website to generate clean Amazon.com links:
http://www.erobillard.com/snippets/amazonlink.aspx
I just cut off everything after the first string of numbers.
I just put the title and URL in HTML code and be done with it.
Yeah, it’s actually true that in most Amazon URLs (as well as YouTube, NYTimes and the like) that a lot of URL gunk is easy to see and just delete … it’s a pet peeve of mine when people post links and don’t do so.
[...] post on cultural literacy has generated a debate on feminism; my post on W’a L’ma R’t has generated two pages of debate on left-libertarianism [...]
Also, TinyURL is your friend.
Maybe not.
Unfortunately, I have read but 19 of the listed works, 7 of which were assigned at Auburn, 1 was assigned in high school. Great high school right?
Hopefully I will do a bit better on part 2.
One of my favorite books is Camille Paglia’s “Sexual Personae”, which looks at the pagan aspects of the Western literary and artistic tradition. It undermines both liberal and conservative PC versions of the canon with her contention is that “the amorality, aggression, sadism, voyeurism, and pornography in great art have been ignored or glossed over.”
Harold Bloom’s “The Western Canon” is also a wonderful book that upholds our literary tradition from a non-conservative perspective. Bloom’s famous “anxiety of influence” theory essentially posits that great imaginative achievements are made by competing with past masters, a surprisingly libertarian, and certainly individualist, perception.