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Since that article about whether “classics” in literature are a necessary part of literacy has been stuck in my craw, I want to discuss something:
What standard should be applied to discussing whether a work already commonly taught should be taught?
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What standard should be applied to discussing whether a work already commonly taught should be taught?
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Because the answer to that question really does define whether you can *ever* arrive at “yeah, maybe let’s junk the ‘white guys jerking off’ part of the syllabus”.
If the standard is “does this have *some* value”, the answer can almost always be “sure, I guess”.
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If the standard is “does this have *some* value”, the answer can almost always be “sure, I guess”.
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Unless you’re discussing a film studies class watching Salo, you’re probably talking about something with some redeeming value. But what’s key is that if it’s “keep the current curricula unless what’s on it has no value” is a huge advantage to whatever is already there.
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In games it’s called a “first move advantage”. A prominent example is komidashi in Go, points given to the second player to offset the inherent advantage of going first.
Many competitive chess players believe white has a similar advantage.
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Many competitive chess players believe white has a similar advantage.
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If we clear the playing field and say “a book can only stop being taught if it has no value” whatever work we pick first will always win. Already being there would be a huge advantage.
Representing a bit of a problem when the “first move”, as in chess, was always white.
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Representing a bit of a problem when the “first move”, as in chess, was always white.
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What we, particularly in the US, consider literature worth inflicting on students was not decided meritocratically in the last 10 years. It was decided by white men in an era where US culture was even more myopic than it is now.
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Place any book in that position and I can argue it has some value and by the standard of “if you’re saying not to teach it you must be saying it has no value” must continue to be taught. Any random YA novel can beat any “classic” if we give it first-move advantage like that.
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The better question is whether the “white guys jerking off” literature has so much value that it could not be replaced by something else.
Any other standard simply enshrines the historical preference for white guys as part of the question itself.
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Any other standard simply enshrines the historical preference for white guys as part of the question itself.
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It’s not that one can’t learn western music theory from the universally white “great” composers, it’s that if your standard is “this does have value, so we should keep teaching it” we perpetually ignore that white men weren’t the only composers whose work has value.
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Does anyone seriously think it’s mere coincidence that the books, music, and art lionized as “classics” by a racist and sexist society are almost monolithically white and male?
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