dumbfoundry

There are pressures on unknowns, people just starting out, to like, “Publish, publish, publish, get it out there, you gotta make a mark.” And I am saying that that is terrible for our culture and we need examples of people holding work back, working with it for quality. [...]

I’m still fighting [deconstructionalist philosopher Jacques] Derrida at this point. And also the embattled teachers who are always writing to me saying how they are silenced in their departments when they just want to do literature and art. There has been a tremendous flight from the grad schools of people who wanted to devote their lives to teaching literature and were driven out when they were forced to read post-structuralism. [...]

There is a kind of humanitarian do-gooder mentality abroad in the public schools these days, which is like, “We all get along. Here’s our quota. We are going to read the poem by the African American, the poem by the Native American. The poem by the Chicano.” Like that. There is no more quality. So we are not giving the kids anything to sustain them. Heaven forbid there should be anything about religion or sex. The far right keeps the sexual out—nudes from the history of painting. And the left keeps anything from religion out. The things that are the most substantive are not there. [...]

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Friday, August 19, 2005 at 3:44 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.