I saw this today - not sure where - but thought that it was a very fair observation:-
dulce bellum inexpertis
(war is sweet to those who have not experienced it)
Ogged, who is this "we" that's making everyone read Wilfred Owen? I've read him but I never had him assigned in school.
I suspect you're begging the question again and that there is a large number of people in this country who would complain if you did "make them read Dulce et Decorum est"
I think it would be a good thing for everyone to read it but I'm not convined that's the status quo.
We, the People of America! of course. I was under the impression that it was a junior-high/high-school standard. Maybe not. You're right that it would raise hackles today.
Re begging the question: well, I'm not really making an argument in either case, just trying to state one side clearly. That's why LB and I agreed to disagree in the other thread. Somewhere around here not too long ago, I think we discussed the futility of trying to have substantive arguments on a blog.
I was made to read it as a freshman at a Baptist University in North Carolina.
That threat on the futility of trying to have substantive arguments on a blog will be assigned material in the highschool of the future.
Also, ogged, let us spread our Deborah Solomon hatred beyond the stars!
Hatred? I think she deserves a medal. She has a gift.
read it in 8th grade, again in 11th. Maybe at some point in-between. Therefore it is standard doctrine.
Don't think I'd ever read the louse poem, though. Then again, could have.
Didn't get it in HS -- in fact, I can't remember a history (sorry, Social Studies) class that addressed WW I. My sister brought it home from college, her freshman year.
The only louse poem I read in HS was by Burns, and I had confused it with the booty-poem The Flea by Donne.
a pick-up strategy I had never considered.
I heard from some Hollywood-type that it is very hard to make an anti-war movie about a war.
If we show the 'good guys' winning it thrills us. If we show the 'bad guys' winning it inspires retaliation.
Wouldn't an anti-war strategy be pretty much what M.A.S.H. the TV show did? Show 'good guys' dying at the hands of a faceless enemy, without much analysis of the stratigic implications, and make any 'enemy' who actually appears on-screen vulnerable and sympathetic.
I never read Dulce et Decorum est before today. But then again I never read any Dickens in high school either. I did read In Flanders Fields in college, but only after looking it up when I saw it quoted in a novel.
I heard from some Hollywood-type that it is very hard to make an anti-war movie about a war.
Have you seen Paths of Glory?
Yeah, MASH did it right. I assume the guy was thinking of something that shows combat.
or M.A.S.H the movie? Catch 22? (kind of a lousy movie).
It's been done in an awful lot of books, so you would think, it could be done on screen. Platoon is fairly anti-war. Apocalypse Now -- more anti-colonialism then anti-war, but both.
Seems like a bad excuse to make formulaic movies.
full metal jacket, all quiet on the western front (was made into a semi-decent movie), that (admittedly crappy) michael j. fox-sean penn movie from the eighties.
a movie starring audrey tatou came out just this past winter, set in wwi, which was effective in its anti-war sentiment.
the audrey tautou movie is "a very long engagement"
I dunno. I'll always remember this passage from Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of Saving Private Ryan.
I'll never forget escorting the late Samuel Fuller, the much-decorated World War II hero and maverick filmmaker, to a multiplex screening of Full Metal Jacket, along with another critic, Bill Krohn, 11 years ago. Though Fuller courteously stayed with us to the end, he declared afterward that as far as he was concerned, it was another goddamn recruiting film--that teenage boys who went to see Kubrick's picture with their girlfriends would come out thinking that wartime combat was neat. Krohn and I were both somewhat flabbergasted by his response at the time, but in hindsight I think his point was irrefutable. There are still legitimate reasons for defending Full Metal Jacket--as a radical statement about what conditioning does to intelligence and personality, as a meditation about what the denial of femininity does to masculine definitions of civilization, as a deeply disturbing experiment in sprung and unsprung narrative, and perhaps as other things as well. But as a piece of propaganda against warfare, it's specious, providing one more link in an endless chain of generic macho self-deceptions on the subject. The principal achievement of Saving Private Ryan is to extend that sort of self-deception into the 90s--with patriotic and patriarchal slop ladled on top of it, but none of the strengths or virtues of Kubrick's movie.
Insofar as a war movie is thrilling, or shows opportunities for heroism in battle, I think it's pretty hard to make it anti-war, which is why MASH worked: none of the good they ever did had to do with killing.
It may be hard to make an anti-war movie about most wars, but it seems hard to make pro-war movies (or even other kinds of art) about WW1 - unless, possibly, your goal is to instigate another war in order to make up for the disappointments of World War 1.
What are "sprung" and "unsprung" narrative?
Just to add, Paths of Glory shows troops accidentally killing their own on a night patrol, shell-shocked men, trench combat, troops falling back into the trenches on each other, generals pursuing futile strategies, etc.
Most probably would disagree with me, but I think it's the best Kubrick movie I've seen.
two things:
I don't think full metal jacket is particularly thrilling in that sense. There aren't any memorable battle scenes. The battle scenes are absurd, pointedly so. I concede your point, if you would rephrase it to be that high school kids will take the movie the wrong way. I knew guys in high school who did that very thing -- using the abusive lines in the movie in an approving way. But those kids were all dumbasses -- there is no better word -- and I don't think their sensibilities should govern how we view a movie.
Second, and relatedly, I don't think thrilling combat scenes cut one way or another. They can be used for propagandist effects. If they are so used, then of course, the movie will come off like propoganda. But they aren't necessary or sufficient to create that effect. As in literature, exciting scenes in movies, even violent ones, don't have to equate propoganda. You can root for the protagonist in the battle while at the same time thinking it is ridiculous that he is there at all. This takes mature storytelling.
more to the point -- how is full metal jacket, viewed by a reasonably intelligent person, specious in its anti-war message? I can't think of a single scene that glorifies warfare. Unless you actually think it's cool to shoot innocent people as they run away from you.
Via Kausfiles (scroll down):
Update: An April 5 WaPo piece by Tom Ricks actually quotes a soldier citing Battle of Algiers:
The soldier said that rough handling of detainees was common in his unit but that he thought it was often warranted. "It's a little like the French colonel in 'The Battle of Algiers,' " he said, referring to the 1965 film about the Algerian uprising against French colonial rule. That is, he explained, the French officer said, " 'You're all complaining about the tactics I am using to win the war, but that is what I am doing -- winning the war.'
Anti-war movies are easy to make. Just show people getting killed/hurt for no reason. That sucks.
Hell, even in a kung fu movie, there's usually a reason. If Bruce Lee just went around kicking the ass of random people, we would not root for him.
Just show people getting killed/hurt for no reason.
I'm not so sure. It depends a lot on how the person doing the killing is portrayed. I'm not sure we wouldn't root for Bruce Lee if he just kicked random ass. If he strutted about and played it for laughs, I bet we would.
re: 28 -- that's disappointing, to say the least, since The Battle of Algiers is about how those tactics lost the war. To oversimplify a bit. Did they show the movie, then turn it off before the French have to evacuate?
But the movie does imply that torture was an effective way of ending the insurgency in the city of Algiers. How Algeria ends up kicking out the French is not really explained; all the movie shows are the massive public demonstrations.
fair enough, e.b. I guess a person could argue that, since we don't care about sticking around after the insurgency goes, keeping the Iraqi public happy with occupation is unnecessary. But I'm not sure about the truth of the above premise, and thinking about this at all leads me down a long drain of cynicism.
I think deep down humans like to see somebody kicking somebody's ass, but at least some of us feel guilty about that. So we have movies where the "bad guy" does some really terrible things, maybe kicking the "good guy's" ass first. All that is just the setup for the money shot - we get to see the "good guy" kicking somebody's ass without feeling any guilt.
Look at professional football - safe controlled guilt-free violence at its best.
Old time video games slaked this bloodlust with no guilt by making the "bad guys" machines or aliens.
New time video games don't bother with that.
Yeah, but that's why people think the new games are widely perceived as qualitatively more messed-up. No one has made a movie version of "Postal." No Bruce Willis/Arnold vehicle or Bay/Bruckheimer movie resembles "Postal." Either the enemies just are de facto evil (aliens, nazis), or commit some atrocity first. Name me the movie where the protagonist just starts killing blameless people, and we are end up rooting for him. No one roots for Mr. Blonde.
The Russian film Brat 2, in which Russians involved in organized crime travel to Chicago, involves a protagonist who crosses the line towards the end (after being a much more sympathetic figure for the whole of the first movie about the same two main characters, Brat). Some of the final scenes of Brat 2 actually look like computer game scenes (rushing down corridors, people appearing behind doors, almost a first-person perspective).
There's also a memorable scene where an Illinois police officer starts speaking Ukrainian to one of the Russians.
about my original comment (now lost upthread), ogged, I apologize for being overly sarcastic.
I do think that there's somthing ironic about seeing an argument on this blog based on the assumption of shared cannonical cultural knowledge. I've always assumed that when it comes to academic politics you're in the camp that is skeptical of nostalgia for the cannon.
I also think there's a difference between arguments that are intended for the unfogged crowd (which is a fun bunch in large part because of the assumption of broad cultural knowledge) and arguments made about the country as a whole.
Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps it is widely read but I still suspect that if you mentioned the title to a random person on the street more than 2 in 3 would have no idea what you were talking about.
Finally I think, as the subsequent conversation has revealed that the question of how to honor military service (and sacrifice) without glorifying it is both important and difficult.
I still suspect that if you mentioned the title to a random person on the street more than 2 in 3 would have no idea what you were talking about
Well, that's for damn sure, and it would be far worse than 2 in 3. So yeah, "everyone" is not really every one. It's a good point actually; it was pretty stupid of me to think that even most or many people would have read it (though I did expect most of the readers here to know it).
I've always assumed that when it comes to academic politics you're in the camp that is skeptical of nostalgia for the cannon.
Interesting. I'm brimming with nostalgia for the cannon. I'd be perfectly happy if we didn't read anything more recent than Shakespeare.
BTW, the statement that it's impossible to make a true anti-war film because filming war will always make it look exciting is attributed to Francois Truffaut but if you google for the quote you will see a dozen articles that cite it as a springboard to say -- *this* film works as an anti-war film.
I'd be inclined to side with Truffaut on that one.
Interesting. I'm brimming with nostalgia for the cannon. I'd be perfectly happy if we didn't read anything more recent than Shakespeare.
Interesting.
But are you happy with academics that don't want to hire anyone who's reading anything more recent than Shakespeare? I always assumed that if you had to chose between Allan Bloom on one side and the marxists and feminists on the other side that it would be an easy choice. Perhaps I've mistaken you for someone else :)
I'm brimming with nostalgia for the cannon.
So, for non-artillery-focused literature, not so much?
I'm brimming with nostalgia for the cannon.
If only today's works were of such high caliber.
feh! I knew I was going to make that typo. I hate making mistakes when I knew better.
And I just copied his spelling. Fucking marxists and feminists, no wonder I can't spell.
That's who you've been fucking? And it's affected your spelling?
Have any of you ever seen Victor Davis Hanson's list of books (scroll down past the politics to the middle of the page) he thinks everyone should read before leaving high school?
I don't agree with Hanson on most things, but I can't say that it's entirely a bad list (I do wonder about some of it, though). Just as long as people don't end up thinking these are the only things they should read.
You're straining LB: we all know that I haven't been fucking: it's the damn fucking marxists and feminists, and their strident hyper-hyphenated/ing offspring, who have affected my spelling.
>I always assumed that if you had to chose between Allan Bloom on one side and the marxists and feminists on the other side that it would be an easy choice.
Have you read "Closing of the American Mind," NickS? If not, you might find the reality somewhat surprising to you.
yes, I have read "Closing of the American Mind." I read it in High School and I was torn between agreeing with a lot of it and finding parts of it disturbing. As I was starting to write in response to eb's comment appeals to the canon are rhetorically powerful because of course reading "great books" is a good thing. Anyone who hasn't read the books in question feels sheepish and thinks, "gosh, I really should have read that, and I would be a better person if I had." Anyone who has read them thinks, "they're great books, everyone should read them."
The problem is that there's just so many worthwhile things to read out there. I remember realizing two years into college that to learn all the things that I thought a person with a good, basic, general education should know would take at least 10 years.
More on why I would line up with the marxists and feminists in a minute, but I should mention that I was thinking about these issues partially because of this post by timothy burke and the discussion in comments. So let me add that to the coversation.
baa,
BTW, when you commented that I might find Bloom "surprising" were you saying that I would much to agree with in it (which I do) or that it isn't actually in conflict with what I called the marxists and feminists in the academy?
Rather, because I thought you perhaps viewed Bloom merely as a "voice of reaction" -- as per the contrast between Bloom and feminists and marxists. For Bloom, I think, it isn't about right vs. left, but right vs. wrong -- where wrong means a politicization of the humanities that diminishes aesthetic and intellectual imagination. In this, I believe he's absolutely right.
Marxism is a political ideology and a reductive theory of human behavior. Feminism can be either a social reform movement or a political ideology. As it happens, I support the latter and dislike the former. But this does not make either of them an appropriate mode of aesthetic interpretation. If someone proposed "capitalist" literary theory, I'd think he was a moron.
Agreed. Unfogged, the libertarian literary theory blog!
Be very careful about saying things like that -- you could end up attracting Objectivists.
I'm trying to remember COTAM, and while I read it ages ago, my main memory of it was that it was silly. I'm fond of the canon, poorly defined though it is (medieval studies major, wrote my undergrad thesis on Gawain and the Green Knight), and while my politics are pretty lefty, Theory generally is something that I don't understand and suspect of being fraudulent. So I should be sympathetic to Bloom.
The actual book, though -- the bits I remember were idiotic. Feminism is killing romantic love because why would a man feel protective toward a woman who's a karate champion? The popularity of non-classical music says something about the overall educational level of students? Mick Jagger is an iconic figure for college stdents in the 80s? He sounded more like Grampa Simpson than someone making a real argument.
baa,
Thank you for a thoughtful response to what was, in part, an off-the-cuff remark on my part. My intent with the "marxists and feminists" comment was to say that, whatever significance nostalgia for the canon has outside of academia, within academia there are real fights going on about dollars and positions. I realize that, in saying that, I am wandering close to the debates about "why aren't there more conservatives in academia?" which I would like to avoid.
I'm still thinking about how to summarize my general feelings so let me take a tangent from one part of your comment.
"where wrong means a politicization of the humanities that diminishes aesthetic and intellectual imagination. In this, I believe he's absolutely right."
Anyone would be against anything that was defined as diminishing aesthetic and intellectual imagination. I assume that you are saying (for yourself) that a politicization of the humanities is bad not only when it happens to coincide with diminished imagination but because it causes, on average, aesthetic and intellectual imagination.
I'm not sure that I agree. My snarky response is that it's ironic for Bloom to defend the humanities against the dangers of politicization while politicizing rock music. Thinking it over I'm not sure that comparison is as silly and glib as it sounds.
I think we can all agree that some pop musicians see what their work as having an explicit political dimension while others do not and that, collectively they are an expression of a culture that has a political dimension.
Why should academics be any different?
People will draw their creative energy from different sources. What is most compelling about Bloom is that he clearly does care about the texts and draws energy from a certain sort of literary analysis. Having read the book years ago I still remember his comments about Emile and Romeo and Juliet. But I think that drawing energy fron political engagement is just as valid.
I don't want to mandate that every academic see or present their argument in political terms. I think that trying to force everyone into a single mold does diminish the creative imagination. But I also believe that some people will draw creative energy from the political dimension of their work and that can enhance rather than diminish creativity. I think that trying to establish the opposite standard -- that no one should present their work in explicitly political terms, also tries to fit everyone into a single mold and will diminish creativity. Furthermore I think that the argument, "we must protect the humanities from politicization" is, itself, a political argument.
Ideally, I would like to see everyone allowed to do their work on their own terms. I don't want to claim that the academy as it exists lives up to that ideal but I reject the premise that politicization necessarily diminishes the creative imagination.
I remember realizing two years into college that to learn all the things that I thought a person with a good, basic, general education should know would take at least 10 years.
I've had the same realization, but it didn't really take hold until after college (though I did put a great deal of effort into finding freshman/sophomore lit course with readings I really wanted to do). I've decided, however, to take those years and read on my own, fully realizing that I can't really call it a "basic, general education."
Actually, I'm trying to put together a plan for reading about the Enlightenment (you can scroll down past the long quotations if social history isn't your thing), so if any of you have suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it.
eb, I was just reading Isaiah Berlin's Crooked Timber of Humanity, which is exactly on that theme--Vico & pluralism & the rise of social history. So much so I imagine you must have read it already.
There are two issues there, NickS: there's a difference between doing a particular kind of reading (feminist, marxist, whatever) and claiming that the ideology that underwrites that reading can explain in some comprehensive or even "best" sense, the very production of the text being read. I'm all for the former, and the more methods the better, but the latter is silliness, and a very easy trap to fall into.
ac: No, not yet; my background in intellectual history is actually pretty thin and I haven't gone very far with this even though I've been thinking about it for months. I'm hoping to get started just as soon as my summer finally begins late next week.
Your recent Enlightenment posts reminded me that I really do want to do this, rather than just think it's something I should do.
ogged,
I think we're in agreement. As I've tried to say a couple of time, my original comment about "marxists and feminists" was to indicate that I have no complaint with nostalgia for the canon as such, only for people that want to use it as an argument for de-funding people that don't agree.
I realize that the "marxists and feminists" (and "post-moderns") are relatively secure in their place in the academy.
The question I was attempting to ask you was whether you were merely saying that you would be happy to only read Shakespeare or older authors, or if you would also say to everyone else that, in your opinion, there was no reason for them to read anything written after Shakespeare?
Not that it really matters.
I was just a little surprised because I assumed that everyone thinks of the idea of a definable list of required readings as an appealing fantasy.
I mean, of course, I would hope that everyone would read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" but I also know that desire is, in some ways, silly.
While I'm agreeing with ogged that "the more methods the better" I liked this Isaac Asimov quote (via PorJ in comments at bitchphd).
"I was asked a few days ago...really was, I'm not making this up...whether I didn't think an intellectual elite ought to run the world. And I said, by an intellectual elite, you mean people like me? Because I didn't know what he meant by an intellectual elite. I thought maybe it might mean people like him, in which case no!
[group laughs]
And he said: "Yes, people like you". And I said no, that would be no good because I'm only smart in certain ways, and very stupid in other ways. And if everybody was like me, and we were running the world, we'd all be smart in the same way, and all be stupid in the same way, and it's the stupidness that's going to kill us. I said, what we need are people of all kinds running the world! Some of whom are smart in one way, and some of whom are smart in the other way, and with everyone's smartness in different directions, so that they can sort of cancel out; so that everybody's stupidity can be caught by someone else's smartness in the same direction."
eb, I was wondering if that was a coincidence--happily not. Two of my aunts (or, that is, my aunt and her partner) do 18th C intellectual history, so that's where I began myself.
Will your motto for your summer reading be "no time for Heidegger"?
I'm actually on terrible terms with both of them, but I still read their stuff. LH's book on the family romance & the Revolution is really very good.
I'm mixed on Heidegger; I do want to read him and I'm not sure that I will if I don't have some outside pressure to do so. At the same time, I'd rather wait. So I'm waiting and seeing right now. Any summer reading I do is contingent on my finding the self-discipline and motivation that grad school seems to have drained out of me (at least that's how the last few months have gone).
Also, assuming I know who your aunt and her partner are, it turns out that I haven't read their work, but have read some of the work of their Americanist co-author from that methodology book they did. The family romance book has been recommended to me; very interesting illustrations, I hear.
ac, would it be prying to much to ask what you do?
I was wondering too, but thought it would be prying to say to.
I was doing accounting, just got a new job so I'm back in fundraising.
Am also, as I've said, working very very slowly and not terribly diligently on a novel, which has a bit of a historical theme.
...waiting to see how w-lfs-n justifies that...
...Speaking of Isaiah Berlin (56), I was really surprised to see the "Fox and the Hedgehog," in my local Borders the other day. I picked it up and started to read it, and was almost immediately the opposite of enthralled. Was I too hasty, is it a mistake to read it when one has a "War & Peace" sized hole in one's Tolstoy reading, or does it just suck?
Haven't read Fox & Hedgehog. At times Berlin seems like he's taking a long time to say very little, at other times he's riveting. I guess it depends.
And eb, my sister did her graduate work at UCLA and for a time had JA as an advisor. It was a little incestuous. Although would have been much more so if she were doing European history.
Fox & Hedgehog is the only Berlin I've read I think. That was years ago and I responded the same way w/d did. But since then I've actually subjected myself to War & Peace so maybe I should re-read.
ac, until now I had no idea how closely related some of the UCLA program is; since they have the largest (in terms of grad students) department in the country I've always thought of them as quite dispersed.
Isaiah Berlin is, in my estimation, highly overrated. His writing is almost impossibly erudite and learned, yet – oddly – not all that good. And, conceptually, his stuff doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
What he is very good at doing is coming up with distinctions – e.g., positive versus negative liberty, hedgehogs vs. foxes – which are fairly useful for midlevel political analysis (e.g., the kind that might show up in a very good E. J. Dionne column). But he's not much of a philosopher or an intellectual historian.
Much of reputation seems derived from the fact that he was very charming personally and that he managed to sketch out a position that came to be synonymous with cold war liberalism – namely, a commitment to "free societies" combined with the belief that defending that commitment in too theoretically deep a way would put us on the slippery slope to Stalinism.
On Tolstoy- I like the Peace bits about ten times better than the War bits. I think I started cheated at some point and just started reading them. So really I've just read a novel called "Peace."
The first half of War and Peace was three of the best books I've ever read; the second half was five of the worst. I think I read the last few hundred pages all in the same day because I knew that if I put it down I might never have come back to finish it.
War and Peace r0x0rz. It is much better than Anna Karenina. The second epilogue does suck.
Again, I'm really sorry I missed this. Damn time zones.
WWI poets formed a good and fascinating portion of the set books required for our High School English Lit exams. From Rupert Brooke, to Wilfrid Owen (We had an English teacher for whom teaching was a true vocation and he coupled his teaching talents with a genuine love of the canon AND an incredible thespian talent. I can still hear him spitting out those lines( "..you would not tell to ardent children..." ) The rage of betrayal perfactly modulatated to the drum beat of the alliteration) Siegfried Sasson and Edmund Blunden, we were lead through a whole range of issues surrounding the war, its cynical execution and the social issues raised and created by it. Rich material for a 14 year old.
FWIW - Remembrance day in England is exactly that: a day of remembering THAT the soldiers died and were asked to pay a price no one should ever have to demand. The rights and wrongs of the wars, the politics or the nature of the men and women who fell is not an issue. Nor should it be.
I was intrigued that, in this thread, "The Red Badge of Courage" was not mentioned once, we read it also at school. Neither was Remarque. Does anyone read "All Quiet on the Western Front" anymore?
Anti war films? "Das Boot?", "Apocalypse Now?" "The Bridge over the river Kwai?", "Gallipoli?" Yes difficult to make, but their importance as a genre will grow, soon I fear.
I don't see "The Bridge over the river Kwai" as an anti-war movie.
The plucky "good guys" survive terrible times to eke out a meager victory (even if they have mixed feelings) by the end of the film. Patriotism triumphs over individual pride, with a catchy song to boot.
I actually just watched this -- the British soldiers mostly make it, but Colonel Nicholson and all but one member of the commando team, including the American played by William Holden, die. It's a victory for the Allies in that the bridge gets blown up, but tragic in terms of any character that the audience cares about.
LB, agree. It is a tragedy. There is little subtle about it but you know, Tripp, it seems to me, at any rate, that the "Pluck" and "courage in the face of enemy adversity" that is so well portrayed (Alec Guiness really could act) is also questioned in terms of the futility of it all. The film holds up the individidual and collective fates of the characters as symbolic of pointless cruelty being met with stoic sacrifice and achieving, what?
I ll agree though that it is the weakest example of the lot.
Briefly following up on Allen Bloom. Yes, some aspects of COTAM are over the top, and he writes in a constantly polemical, hyperbolic tone.
That said, the correct observations are so correct that they would justify many more sins. He is spot on about the bemused contempt in which scientists hold the humanities, and the results that has on university politics. And it's not like he was a completely clueless observer of contemporary mores:
When I see a young couple who have lived together throughout their college years leave each other with a handshake and move out into life, I am struck dumb. Hey, that really happens!
As for defunding marixst and feminist critics: count me in! I agree with ogged that "let a hundred flowers bloom" is a fine rule for intellectual life. If Terry Eagleton's retarded kid brother (which, let's confess, is an adequate description of many marixist critics) wants to publish a book, or start a magazine, or participate in public debate, mazel tov.
Determining university curricula and appointments, unfortuntely, requires choices: it's a zero sum game for student's time and insitution $. Why we should grant some bozo (and, a bozo does not cease to be a bozo for inventing a new field in cultural bozo analysis) a life-time sinecure and allow him to damage the literary education of college students, I have no idea. Let me stress, this is not about putting conservatives on the faculty, or the latest Horowitz wheeze. Rather it's that some views humane education deserve to be marginalized. A person who thinks that reading about "the deployment of essentialism" belongs in the same tier of an undergraduate's literary education as reading Pride and Prejudice should not be teaching undergraduates.
You know, I don't disagree with you abstractly, but lots of things that Bloom seems to regard as self-evidently the domain of bozos are things that I would disagree with him about. I don't think there's a simple, obvious way to clean all of the silly people out of humanities teaching.
No simple way to purge -- alas likely true. But one can always defund.
I'm with LB. Baa is clearly hidebound and reactionary as regards novel interpretive tools. Baa is the New Jeeves.