‹ The day after Thanksgiving •
Classics professor Victor Davis Hanson presents a snapshot of what ails society. Particularly compelling are his thoughts about California (#5 on the list), male timbre—no, it isn’t misspelled and it doesn’t mean what you’re thinking—(# 6 on the list), and public education (#12 on the list). In fact, add to that his views on teaching Latin, a really Old School notion (#1 on the list).
On teaching Latin: “After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies–indeed, anything “studies”– were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.”
On California: “Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries–and squandered that gift within a generation.”
On male timbre: “But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female.”
On public schools: “No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy.”
To sum it up, we have entered an age of whining victimology, self-indulgent materialism, androgynous conformity, and rampant idiotarianism. True, but is it news?
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