The long march towards the abolition of the Greek and Latin classics from the great American universities began in the 1980s Reagan: Baptized by the conservative philosopher Alan Blume The “lockdown of the American mind” Saul Bello was inspired by the protagonist in his last masterpiece, Ravelstein. In the last days this long march towards A future liberated by the works of Homer and Cicero, who are classified as dangerous “dead white males” (“Dead White Men”) holders of theories of “white supremacy” over other races, experienced a sudden acceleration: Howard University, a historic college with a majority of African Americans (there, among others, is Vice President Kamala Harris, Nobel Prize winner Tony Morrison graduated, Chief Justice Thurgood Marshall decided it Close the section on classics.
The mysterious, bureaucratic statement leaves no room for doubt: “Howard University decided to close the classics department as part of Priority setting efforts are currently being negotiated with the college And with other college units on the best way to return and reuse our programs and our staff. These discussions took place in a friendly atmosphere, and the College remains confident of that The partition can be kept intact at some levelIts faculty and programs ».
It is one of those decisions made In Europe they are viewed with disappointment American academics, however, tend to comment cautiously so as not to be accused Collaborate with those seen as old white supremacistsThe proponents of slavery and patriarchy, and for this reason they are abolished as soon as possible from the various academic curricula, and replaced by anti-racist, feminist, multi-faceted authors.
Decisions like Howard’s have sparked satirical jokes from right-wing thinkers like England’s Roger Scroton, according to whom universities are now aiming to “Ignorant Insiders”. But Scroton passed away last year. In its place, it impresses him An Antipodes thinker has declared himself against abolishing classics – Cultural, Philosophical, Political – Posted by Scroton: Cornell West, Sandersian “a non-Marxist socialist” and an anti-racist kamikaze that includes in his arrows nearly everyone, including Obama, who described him as a “fraud” and a “peddler”.
The Washington Post Hosted a speech by West and Jeremy Tate that reminds us of how The classics are the basis for the formation of the heroes of the struggle for the civil rights of blacksFrom Frederick Douglass who secretly read Cicero and Homer to Martin Luther King who fell in love with the Greeks when he was a boy in the seminary and in his letter from Birmingham prison, the sacred text of anti-racism, Socrates is cited three times.
West and Tate explain that the classics It is not an intellectual infrastructure of hate, but an analytical oneThe academic drive to ignore or neglect the classics is a sign of this Spiritual decay, moral decline, and deep mental lockdown It is so prevalent today in American culture. Those who commit this terrible act treat Western civilization as irrelevant … Western law is a dialogue between the greatest thinkers expressed by our civilization, On basic issues. They teach us to live more intensely, critically, and more compassionate. They teach us to learn to pay attention to important things, and to divert our attention from what is superficial. ”
April 20, 2021 (Change to April 20, 2021 | 20:51)
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