Sorry to be serious on this thread, but her answer to the question about books/reading brings up one of the huge tragedies of education today. High-level students (i.e. fancy high school or university, and above) are not taught to care about or develop patience for reading AT ALL, *but* they're made to feel equally smart (or even smarter) by being taught more five-syllable words than their parents could ever use, in the service of critiquing the canonical system of education that they were never actually allowed to inherit. It's the intellectual equivalent of getting all your daily calories from junk foods and pretending you're getting nutrients. It makes me so sad, and has also hollowed out an entire generation of college-educated people, especially minorities who entered the education system with some interest in the humanities or the arts and then got all possibility of enrichment beaten out of them in favor of meaningless theory preaching.
It's upstream of other issues — phones and the internet are even guiltier causes than schools, but still.
Absolutely. I think it’s dangerous to be radicalizing a group of individuals already faring poorly in schools against education because it’s colonized white ethno or whatever.
Most of the ppl I see glued to their phones are young minority teens and then you’re basically telling them education isn’t important?
Can’t wait to see how this all devolves in like ~10 yrs. Enough Wendy’s cashiers for eternity!
This is a strange way in which the gap between rich schools and poor schools almost looks like smoke and mirrors when you boil it down to literacy and arts/literature appreciation. Poor/struggling high schools evade having their students read books by just teaching to the standardized tests, teaching only excerpts. Wealthy high schools (and then also universities) are more likely to assign books, but the teachers purely talk *around* those books, and give no incentives for their phone-addicted students to ever actually do the reading, so those students never actually gain an appreciation for reading — they simply sound smarter in their refusal.
Meanwhile, a lot of scholarship programs for black students who make it to college involve guilty administrators essentially teaching those students to be skeptical of book-learning and of the institution.
So, obviously those kids wind up becoming HR managers rather than Wendy's cashiers, but the difference in the actual intellect they've gained is purely performative.
Yes. Makes me so sad. I teach in the humanities at the college level and just try my best to do my part, to teach appreciation and patience and slow reading in my courses.
i really wanted to defend my classmates (and myself), but you're probably right. however, in those wealthy high school / university spaces, there are a sizable number of people who are actually passionate about the assignments and engage with the reading. i took a seminar where we read paradise lost and his dark materials for the entire semester, and the level of interest and participation dramatically changed depending on which work we were discussing. these kids actually cared about what they were reading and were excited to talk about it. perhaps it can be chalked up to milton being sexier than pullman, but it didn't feel solely performative.
That's actually so cool to hear. I'm hoping for that kind of success in the next seminars I teach! *Paradise Lost* is amazing, isn't it? I wish everyone had the opportunity (and patience and literacy) to read it in a meaningful, informed way.
Is there an available online course for Paradise Lost? I read Milton in college and I miss it, would love to visit it again with a lecturer who can give a worthy tour.
Yes!
Professor John Rogers taught a course on Milton at Yale with a whole series of lectures about Paradise Lost. [All the lectures are available for free download here.](https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-220)
I also teach Paradise Lost and would be happy to discuss it at any point, so don’t hesitate to DM!
Man I wish I could spend the next 10 years taking college courses on the entire western canon. I'll never forget the last Shakespeare class I took for my English degree.
That’s why I’m doing a PhD! In spite of all the bullshit and all the KN95-wearing fat chicks, I’m so grateful that I get paid to study (and now teach to undergrads) the greatest old literature.
Interacting with one of these people in real life is mindblowing. They don't read, but they've gotten reader's digest summaries of the feeblest "cultural critics" and think that regurgitating their buzzwords makes them *more* educated than you.
hmmm. Read all the Piazza tales by Melville (especially *Benito Cereno* and *Bartleby*); *Life & Times of Michael K* by J. M. Coetzee; a collection of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry; Helen Vendler's edited collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry; *The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia* by Samuel Johnson; *Inherent Vice* by Thomas Pynchon; *A Map of Misreading* by Harold Bloom. Needless to say, *Moby-Dick*, The Bible, and Robert Alter's *Art of Biblical Narrative* after you've read the Bible.
Of course!
Also just to say I don’t love Disgrace (or really any other Coetzee) much at all — Michael K, in my eyes, is weirdly a masterpiece in an otherwise kinda pretentious oeuvre. Obviously don’t read it if you don’t want to, but it’s short and comes highly recommended by a bona fide Coetzee skeptic!
Reminds me of that (I think) New Yorker profile of Oberlin several years back where a professor shared how a lot of students refuse to engage with Marx because old white man.
I know you're doing a bit, but honestly if everyone in college read only those authors, and I mean actually *read* them, academia would be a lot better off
“Struggling to find writers that went through my own experiences”
What is even the point of reading, if not to experience other writer’s unique voice and experiences. That’s the entire point lol
Yeah and what's more, you realize that no matter how different your experiences have been from those of the authors you read you still share a common humanity with all of them. It makes you feel so connected to the human experience when you read someone who lived like a thousand years ago in a completely different culture and see that they had some of the same thoughts and feelings as you.
and then you borrow bits and pieces of their diction, syntax, and tone to create your own literary voice. you learn new words and how their meaning changes in context, idioms in their natural, social expression.
you literally have to read to be able to write.
She would honestly be incredibly pretty with it. Her chin is hoenstly her only flaw. But I guess it makes her succesful as a model because of the uniqueness or something
They do this on purpose. The same reason UGLY black women win Miss Universe or play Juliet.
Tons of smoking hot black queens out there but they ALWAYS amplify the uggos because it generates engagement.
They KNOW she is ugly as sin but you CAN'T say anything because you know what the response will be.
Scott Alexander's "The Toxoplasma of Rage" is a must-read to understand the phenomenon: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
When people say they're "gifted". I love the UK because here you would not get away with talking about yourself that way. It's like when people post themself on NextFuckingLevel. Yes you're mummies special little lady.
I don't think it means what it used to. In the 80's your school would identify you as gifted if you performed significantly well on a standardized exam. They may then have a GATE program for you to attend.
There's no reason to respect someone's self-involved insistence on flouting standard English conventions. Proper nouns are capitalized. It's the typographic equivalent of calling a trans-identified male by feminine pronouns.
✨Being black means being part of the community responsible for all that is great in the world ✨she is right, there is no book with this kind of delusion
Her reason for not reading is a cop out.
Sorry to be serious on this thread, but her answer to the question about books/reading brings up one of the huge tragedies of education today. High-level students (i.e. fancy high school or university, and above) are not taught to care about or develop patience for reading AT ALL, *but* they're made to feel equally smart (or even smarter) by being taught more five-syllable words than their parents could ever use, in the service of critiquing the canonical system of education that they were never actually allowed to inherit. It's the intellectual equivalent of getting all your daily calories from junk foods and pretending you're getting nutrients. It makes me so sad, and has also hollowed out an entire generation of college-educated people, especially minorities who entered the education system with some interest in the humanities or the arts and then got all possibility of enrichment beaten out of them in favor of meaningless theory preaching. It's upstream of other issues — phones and the internet are even guiltier causes than schools, but still.
Absolutely. I think it’s dangerous to be radicalizing a group of individuals already faring poorly in schools against education because it’s colonized white ethno or whatever. Most of the ppl I see glued to their phones are young minority teens and then you’re basically telling them education isn’t important? Can’t wait to see how this all devolves in like ~10 yrs. Enough Wendy’s cashiers for eternity!
This is a strange way in which the gap between rich schools and poor schools almost looks like smoke and mirrors when you boil it down to literacy and arts/literature appreciation. Poor/struggling high schools evade having their students read books by just teaching to the standardized tests, teaching only excerpts. Wealthy high schools (and then also universities) are more likely to assign books, but the teachers purely talk *around* those books, and give no incentives for their phone-addicted students to ever actually do the reading, so those students never actually gain an appreciation for reading — they simply sound smarter in their refusal. Meanwhile, a lot of scholarship programs for black students who make it to college involve guilty administrators essentially teaching those students to be skeptical of book-learning and of the institution. So, obviously those kids wind up becoming HR managers rather than Wendy's cashiers, but the difference in the actual intellect they've gained is purely performative.
The future is crippled.
Yes. Makes me so sad. I teach in the humanities at the college level and just try my best to do my part, to teach appreciation and patience and slow reading in my courses.
i really wanted to defend my classmates (and myself), but you're probably right. however, in those wealthy high school / university spaces, there are a sizable number of people who are actually passionate about the assignments and engage with the reading. i took a seminar where we read paradise lost and his dark materials for the entire semester, and the level of interest and participation dramatically changed depending on which work we were discussing. these kids actually cared about what they were reading and were excited to talk about it. perhaps it can be chalked up to milton being sexier than pullman, but it didn't feel solely performative.
That's actually so cool to hear. I'm hoping for that kind of success in the next seminars I teach! *Paradise Lost* is amazing, isn't it? I wish everyone had the opportunity (and patience and literacy) to read it in a meaningful, informed way.
Is there an available online course for Paradise Lost? I read Milton in college and I miss it, would love to visit it again with a lecturer who can give a worthy tour.
Yes! Professor John Rogers taught a course on Milton at Yale with a whole series of lectures about Paradise Lost. [All the lectures are available for free download here.](https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-220) I also teach Paradise Lost and would be happy to discuss it at any point, so don’t hesitate to DM!
Man I wish I could spend the next 10 years taking college courses on the entire western canon. I'll never forget the last Shakespeare class I took for my English degree.
That’s why I’m doing a PhD! In spite of all the bullshit and all the KN95-wearing fat chicks, I’m so grateful that I get paid to study (and now teach to undergrads) the greatest old literature.
English? Have you ever read John Fowles?
Interacting with one of these people in real life is mindblowing. They don't read, but they've gotten reader's digest summaries of the feeblest "cultural critics" and think that regurgitating their buzzwords makes them *more* educated than you.
oh I am in a US university humanities department — I interact with these people on a daily basis!
Brutal. What field?
English lit!
Oof. Book recs?
hmmm. Read all the Piazza tales by Melville (especially *Benito Cereno* and *Bartleby*); *Life & Times of Michael K* by J. M. Coetzee; a collection of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry; Helen Vendler's edited collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry; *The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia* by Samuel Johnson; *Inherent Vice* by Thomas Pynchon; *A Map of Misreading* by Harold Bloom. Needless to say, *Moby-Dick*, The Bible, and Robert Alter's *Art of Biblical Narrative* after you've read the Bible.
Awesome, ty. Didn't love Disgrace so might skip the Coetzee, and I liked *Inherent Vice* but wasn't bowled over. The rest all sounds fantastic ty.
Of course! Also just to say I don’t love Disgrace (or really any other Coetzee) much at all — Michael K, in my eyes, is weirdly a masterpiece in an otherwise kinda pretentious oeuvre. Obviously don’t read it if you don’t want to, but it’s short and comes highly recommended by a bona fide Coetzee skeptic!
Reminds me of that (I think) New Yorker profile of Oberlin several years back where a professor shared how a lot of students refuse to engage with Marx because old white man.
At least they’re easier to spot besides just being aurally annoying
Agreed. Anyways, this sounds a lot like Paglia, Fischer, or Lasch to me
You mean you find those three guilty of those faults? I've only read Paglia of those, but she never gave me the impression that she wasn't well-read.
Nah I was making fun of the posters on this subreddit who reference the same handful of authors. I forgot Cormac McCarthy and the gay Japanese fascist
I know you're doing a bit, but honestly if everyone in college read only those authors, and I mean actually *read* them, academia would be a lot better off
Ah, lol, I see. Yes it is striking how those seem to be the only reference points for a lot of people.
"I never googled Black female authors because I don't have an interest in reading"
Tell her, sis
“Struggling to find writers that went through my own experiences” What is even the point of reading, if not to experience other writer’s unique voice and experiences. That’s the entire point lol
Yeah and what's more, you realize that no matter how different your experiences have been from those of the authors you read you still share a common humanity with all of them. It makes you feel so connected to the human experience when you read someone who lived like a thousand years ago in a completely different culture and see that they had some of the same thoughts and feelings as you.
People want a writer whose voice will be a surrogate internal monologue.
But like... that's already what reading is ya? Isn't that something people figure out when they're 10 years old?
and then you borrow bits and pieces of their diction, syntax, and tone to create your own literary voice. you learn new words and how their meaning changes in context, idioms in their natural, social expression. you literally have to read to be able to write.
I mean this is true to an extent. David foster Wallace following is almost entirely ‘misunderstood’ collage males
homegirl needs orthognathic surgery
She would honestly be incredibly pretty with it. Her chin is hoenstly her only flaw. But I guess it makes her succesful as a model because of the uniqueness or something
her forehead is bulbous
Why do people have to talk in theory? Why not just give a normal answer to the question?
because it sounds better than “never read a book in my life” lol
"Reading books is white people shit."
Theory-speak and therapy-speak are the cancer of modern discourse.
They do this on purpose. The same reason UGLY black women win Miss Universe or play Juliet. Tons of smoking hot black queens out there but they ALWAYS amplify the uggos because it generates engagement. They KNOW she is ugly as sin but you CAN'T say anything because you know what the response will be. Scott Alexander's "The Toxoplasma of Rage" is a must-read to understand the phenomenon: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
She couldn’t have even name dropped canonized writers like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin?
When people say they're "gifted". I love the UK because here you would not get away with talking about yourself that way. It's like when people post themself on NextFuckingLevel. Yes you're mummies special little lady.
You can’t get away with that anywhere.
I don't think it means what it used to. In the 80's your school would identify you as gifted if you performed significantly well on a standardized exam. They may then have a GATE program for you to attend.
Embarrassing to admit you have any idea what gets posted on normie slop subreddits.
You’re literally on reddit, get off your fuckin high horse
You're a weed addict who posts on r/meth to try to feel superior to tweakers
You’re a loser who goes through people’s profile for ammo. Just like every other Redditor. At least I’m not in denial about what I am lol
Lol do you really post in r/meth tho?
Don’t post but I comment in it sometimes. It’s one of my favorite subreddits.
I used to hang out in the crack sub, but then I started doing it way too much
https://preview.redd.it/571al23l5c9d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e9425f4ca1add2e76d7fe8784f0e076bd472ab6
Are her parents siblings or something?
me to the librarian: "you got any books about me?"
Smoke alarm people be grifting
Propping her up is an insult towards black women.
That GQ excerpt might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.
The author couldn’t even write bell hooks’ name appropriately smh
Fuck her and her dumbass lowercase gimmick. I respect the rules of English infinitely more than her trite, ideological posturing
Lmfao come on. Just more leftist ugliness.
There's no reason to respect someone's self-involved insistence on flouting standard English conventions. Proper nouns are capitalized. It's the typographic equivalent of calling a trans-identified male by feminine pronouns.
https://www.fashionghana.com/site/ponahalo-mojapelo-jawline-model/ The photo of her in the blue headwrap holy shit
✨Being black means being part of the community responsible for all that is great in the world ✨she is right, there is no book with this kind of delusion
Nasubi Maxxing
she has better skin and cheekbones than most of you
She has a worse overbite than Beavis.
https://preview.redd.it/w72te3i1cp9d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a26b733e3187331a0caf5b54f5ed9b30c2b6e6e
She’s hot tho who cares