Thursday, January 10, 2008

Stop. Do not go to university. Do not pay $50,000

I went. I saw. I dropped out.

Here's as good an explanation of why as any I've yet come across.

English Master's Course Makes You Hate English
Because the real title of the course should be “How Many Left-Wing Ideas Can I Stuff Into a Conservative Literary Time Period and Get Away with It.” The answer would be “as many as you wish, Professor”.

Allow me to illustrate. Each of the aforementioned texts is assigned a leftist article which must be read into that text. So Middlemarch is paired with Edward Said’s Orientalism and an article whose title includes the words “feminist,” “bodies,” “gendered,” and “problematic.”

(Ok, you all get four minutes to go throw up at the mention of Edward Said. Go on, I’ll wait.)

The Golden Bowl is accused of having a hand in “Manichean Aesthetics” and “Colonial Africa.” The Importance of Being Earnest, a play about two men wanting to marry two women, is now an illustration of “effeminized closets” and “the outspoken queer.” The Dubliners are “adulterers of nation” and “racial antagonists.” It goes on.


The quote above is a guest post from the blog Classic Canadian. Jeremy is a real Canadian in an era when young men his age should not even remember what that means. Worth a read.


(Now, we will see if Fr. D is listening.)

Sir,

What was the name of that wicked and amusing little book you lent me last year about the English university in the 1960's? Can't remember.

But it was also an excellent warning to parents and those who think that going to university is a way to make yourself smart.

When you write in with the title, I'll put it up. People need to read that book. Before they spend the dough.

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