May 31, 2014 at 6:47 P.M. A single word in this text was enlarged by a hacker since this morning. The use of frustrations and anxiety are tactics that I know well by now. Curiously, it appears that a New Jersey Supreme Court computer may have been used by a hacker attacking these blogs. I will try to make the necessary corrections.
May 30, 2014 at 5:15 P.M. I will be adding a list of sources underlining the realities of the world in which we live as well as several works addressing, specifically, the issues raised in this essay. Google Chrome is occasionally unavailable as is the print-feature at the new laptops at NYPL, Morningside Heights, and it only took about a week to "install" 14 laptops from which printing is impossible.
The Real World:
Charlie Savage, "U.S. Judge Decides 'Anguishing' Case On Force-Feeding," The New York Times, May 24, 2014, p. A1. (Would "force-feeding" or torture be O.K. for the good folks in Scarsdale, Connecticut, your Honor? "Law and Literature.")
Jonathan Gilbert, "A Desperate Mother's Search Leads to a Fight Against Sex Trafficking," The New York Times, May 24, 2014, p. A8. ("I live a permanent battle. From when I awake to when I sleep, I live for this. I'm looking for my daughter alive." I am involved in a similar struggle: "Marilyn Straus Was Right!")
Kate Zernike, "Christie's Budget Woes May Hurt More Than a Scandal," The New York Times, May 24, 2014, p. A17. (N.J. faces a $2.7 BILLION budget hole and has, perhaps, the lowest credit rating and the "least respected state legal system" in the nation.)
"The C.I.A.'s Deadly Ruse in Pakistan," (Editorial) The New York Times, May 27, 2014, p. A22. (Millions who may benefit from immunizations are endangered by a CIA deception designed to kill "militants." Thousands of children have already been hurt -- perhaps they were militant children.)
Charlie Savage, "U.S. Seeks to Censor More of Memo That Approved Drone Strike on American," The New York Times, May 27, 2014, p. A24. (The Constitution prohibits any killing of an American without due process of law even in wartime.)
Elena Schneider & Steven Kearny, "Snowden Defends Actions in [a] Lengthy T.V. Interview," The New York Times, May 27, 2014, p. A24. (It is not Mr. Snowden who needs to defend his actions now, but the U.S. government that should explain the secret violations of human rights under the "surveillance state.")
Sam Roberts, "Arthur Gelb, 1924-2014: A Passionate Editor Who Elevated the Times," The New York Times, May 21, 2014, p. A1. (This newspaper once set the standard for excellence in journalism before intelligence agency "fictitious names" used by various writers became common: "Manohla Dargis," "Anemona Hartocolis," "Carlotta Gall, "Victoria Burnett.")
Jenny Anderson, "Credit Suisse Investors Shrug Off Tax Plea," The New York Times, May 21, 2014, p. B1. (Who cares? It's a cost of doing business. $2.6 billion for a $90-100 billion per-year financial institution is meaningless.)
"Judges and Justice For Sale," (Editorial) The New York Times, May 19, 2014, p. A16. (Corruption in the judicial selection process has reached a crisis stage.)
America's Intellectual Culture:
Anne Enright, "By the Booker: In a Change of Pace, Edward St. Aubyn's Novel Satirizes the Awarding of a British Literary Prize," The New York Times Book Review, May 25, 2014, p. 10.
Michiko Kakutani, "Skewering Britain's High-Tone Scribblers," The New York Times, May 20, 2014, p. C1.
John Banville, "Overbooked," The New York Review of Books, June 5, 2014, p. 41. ("John Banville's 'The Newton Letter'" and "'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?")
Edward St. Aubyn, Lost For Words (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014).
Have we lost appreciation for genuine literary or artistic merit? Do we recognize the importance of the classics today? Can we distinguish art from artist, beauty or meaning from political content? Has political correctness replaced merit in evaluating books?
John Searle, "The Storm Over the University," in Paul Berman, Ed., Debating P.C. (New York: Dell, 1992), p. 85.
Camille Paglia, "The Nursery-School Campus: The Corrupting of the Humanities in the U.S.," in Vamps and Tramps (New York: Vintage, 1994), p. 97.
Annie Karni, "Zing Crimson: Mike in Harvard Rant at Ivy Liberals," The Daily News, May 30, 2014, p. 6. (Mike Bloomberg lashed out at intolerance by liberals on college campuses, presumably including mandatory "political correctness." As a political Leftist, I agree with the former mayor about this nonsense, and about the absurdity of Brown's insult of former New York police commissioner, Ray Kelly. The turning of police officers' backs on ANY mayor on the occasion of an officer's funeral is disgraceful politicizing and using of an occasion that should transcend politics for partisan purposes. Mr. De Blasio is doing exactly what he should be doing in recognizing both protesters' rights and police needs for safety in the struggle to meet the city's security needs. Ignoring the information I have brought to the attention of Mr. Vance endangers all of us -- especially the magnificent men and women of the NYPD. "An Open Letter to Cyrus Vance, Jr., Esq.")
Jennifer Medina, "Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm," The New York Times, May 18, 2014, p. A1.
"Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as 'trigger warnings,' explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans."
As I read this article in the Times detailing further evidence of what many intellectuals throughout the world regard as the sad decline in America's universities and high-brow culture, I could not avoid being struck by the confusions in the text resulting from failures to define key concepts being used and the values appealed to by all participants in the debate over this issue, or in the growing journalistic discussions of the controversy. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "Arthur Schopenhauer and the Metaphysics of Art.")
The author of this article -- who seems to approve of "trigger warnings" for art -- and a number of persons quoted who, evidently, share "her" values or opinions, is not very clear on whether it is believed that great literature, or materials deemed important or "relevant" in the university curriculum, are or should be "nice" or not the sort of things that should "upset" people, as distinct from accepting that some of what we read in (and out of) school is bound to be troubling for excellent reasons.
If so -- if either this journalist or some of the "experts" consulted genuinely believe that great works of art ought to be "nice," or that they are the opposite of upsetting or disturbing -- then these persons simply have no idea what is meant by a classic or magnificent work of art of any kind. ("Is Humanism Still Possible?")
Nothing is as disturbing or upsetting an intellectual-aesthetic experience as one's first encounter with the arguably bleak vision of life in Greek tragedy or, say, King Lear; there is no work of literature as concerned with justice as the allegedly "anti-semitic" Merchant of Venice (which has been read as an argument against anti-semitism); Goya's graphic depiction of firing squads in Spain is likely to upset persons who have lost family members to firing squads, as I have, which is probably Goya's intention; depictions of the "Rape of the Sabine Women" in classical art could dampen the mood of someone, like me, who has been "affected" by rapes and abuse of various kinds. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Representations in art of suffering and loss at the absence of a loved-one, as in Massenet's "Werther" based on Goethe's The Sorrow's of Young Werther chronicling a romance of the 1770s between a married woman and a young man, could be a tad vexing for a person, like me, who has experienced similar emotions.
Who hasn't experienced painful emotions at the loss of love or separation from a lover or the death of a loved-one?
It may be that the PURPOSE of real art is to upset people in order to expiate or allow for transcendence of the evils that artistic masterpieces reflect and express through what Aristotle calls "catharsis." ("But wasn't Aristotle insensitive to women's issues?")
Good art should disturb you, as the recipient of art, boys and girls, in order to perform a powerful liberating function. All authentic art and, indeed, life itself comes with a "trigger warning." Literal "trigger warnings" attached to art objects --
" -- suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace." ("David Hume's Philosophical Romance" and "Shakespeare's Black Prince.")
Included in this "trigger warning" nonsense is everything from Shakespeare's tragedies to a very interesting sculpture at Wellesley College of a man who "appeared" to be wandering around the campus in his underwear in a kind of "lost state" perceived by young women and others as a "stalker." ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")
Such is the power of our psychobabble, middle-brow culture that has invaded academia that the professors at this liberal arts college were unable to explain (if they were even aware of it) to students that free speech and expression issues are more important in this context than aesthetics.
Democratic principles of pluralism are to be examined by (and taught to) women -- not children -- entering a democracy with a Constitutional commitment to freedom of expression for all.
The lessons being taught to students at this shady and beautiful campus about censorship in this incident are not very comforting for their future civic responsibilities.
Bear in mind that there are "state contacts" with this college because the school receives federal money. Accordingly, any censorship would be deemed a kind of state censorship that is profoundly offensive to the First Amendment.
In fact, this life-size and highly realistic figure of a middle-aged guy in his underwear was one of a set of two figures, male and female, similarly clad and equally "representative" of the bafflement and forlorn nature of Americans wandering in the wasteland of postmodernist culture that have reminded critics of Edvard [Edward] Munch's "The Scream."
Massacio's "Expulsion From Paradise" has also been mentioned as a predecessor work to this statue.
Many of the sculptures at the MET Museum in New York -- as I noticed on a recent visit -- are unclothed, to say nothing of many paintings by great masters depicting nudes, all of which should be removed from the sight of fragile young women, evidently, according to some P.C. professors.
Perhaps the young ladies at Wellesley should be discouraged from contemplating these art objects that may "disturb" their peaceful delight in television sit-coms or on-line "twittering."
The sculpture at Wellesley is a serious and important piece of art that this college is lucky to have.
Have they traded the controversial figure of the middle-aged American man for a plastic and non-threatening Mickey Mouse statue to stand at the entrance to the college? ("Why Jane can't read.")
One of the charming young ladies at this distinguished college explained that, had the naked man been Brad Pitt, she would not have minded. ("Whatever" and "What is Education For?")
There are an infinite number of interpretations of this particular work of art that was so troubling to the young ladies at Wellsley College, establishing the work's value, because it generates a strong response of some kind from viewers -- viewers who have often lapsed into entertainment-induced lobotomies thanks to "The Simpsons" and "Diet Coke" commercials to say nothing of something called: "The Hunger Games." ("Nihilism Against Memory.")
Art is indeed often confused by the Internet generation with entertainment. Great art is sometimes entertaining, even if this quality is irrelevant to its merits.
Art and Hollywood "fun-stuff" are assumed to be always "soothing" to the mind after a long day at the coffee shop, or "texting," like Alka-Seltzer for the intellect, or binge-viewing of an entire season of "Gray's Anatomy." ("God is Texting Me!")
Who or what is "McDreamy"? How about "McSteamy"? Are these two names attached to the same "person" or "character"?
Think outside the box, kids. All of this typical absurdity seems especially "demeaning to women." Women are assumed to need protection from "disturbing" things -- like wars and men without (or wearing) their underwear -- as young ladies were once warned in the nineteenth century about the dangers of the "passions found in Romantic poetry and the obscene music of Ludwig Beethoven." ("Master and Commander" and "Serendipity, III.")
Representations of horrors and paradoxical emotions in art are meant to assist persons in grappling with such things in life. Grim realities must be faced and dealt with in the world. There will be pain, loss, and suffering in every human life. Even the most privileged and fortunate lives will contain moments of abject misery. Art is about coming to terms with the human condition that involves so much agony and heroism as well as love and compassion. ("Magician's Choice" and "The Soldier and the Ballerina" then "Oh, to be in India!")
Education is designed to help you do that "facing-up" to terrible things, not to spare your feelings by providing you with a taste for the soothing lies found in bad art and bogus philosophies.
At this same college, in 2014, a "swing" has been installed. Perhaps the administration will consider installing a water ride? ("Who killed the liberal arts?")
Do we need to be told by a tenured fool that we should beware of racism? ("Whatever.")
" ... classism, sexism, heterosexism, [homosexism,] cessixism, ableism, [ism-ism?,] and other issues of privilege and oppression."
To quote Professor Camille Paglia, who is not a Republican or any kind of white male person, but a feminist as well as a serious literary critic:
" ... coddling has led, in my view, to the outrageous speech codes which are designed to shield students from the realities of life. The campus is now not an arena of ideas but a nursery school where adulthood can be indefinitely postponed."
The greatest postponing of adulthood takes place among many professors and not their students:
"Faculty who are committed to the great principle of free speech are therefore at war with paternalistic administrators in league with misguided parents."
Finally,
"In the summer-camp mentality of American universities, the ferocity of genuine intellectual debate would first seem like spoiling everyone's fun."
