[todeen]

Originally Posted by Huysmans

Not everyone shares the changing of the canon as something positive, Allan Bloom, in his highly influential The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (1987) argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great classics that shaped Western culture. His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by cultural relativists.

Additionally, defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, has written:

"There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from Socrates through the Federalist Papers, through the writings of Mill and Marx, down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked." (this was taken from online)

Wonderful response! I in no way disrespect the canon of classics. I have grown more in awe of Shakespeare the longer I am out of college, as well as for the Elizabethan artists. I have read and enjoy some of the classics - Allegory of the Cave by Plato stands out. More modern poets like Longfellow and Robert Frost. I appreciate what they have added, and I respect them for it.

But I also find real value in the new canon of politicized opinions (the world of post modern thought). The women added to the canon - such as Virginia Woolf, and the post colonial authors - like Chinua Achebe, they have all added such thoughtful and thought provoking work that they should arguably have a place at the table. At my liberal arts college....College of Idaho....the canon was moved to a class called Literary Theory I and II.

It makes me think of one of my poetry instructors at college who said - "If you can tell me the rules of poetry and exercise them, then I will let you break the rules. But if you don't know the rules, then you need to practice them and learn them until you understand them." I think the same is true when arguing the canon. If you understand the value of these works, and you can see why they were highly respected, then you have a right to question the individuals choosing who is and isn't in (editors of Norton Anthology, in particular) and ask why other artists (based on gender and ethnicity) are not included.

When I teach Shakespeare to my high school students, I talk to them about what makes Shakespeare so timeless. And I highlight that he knew the rules of poetry so well, that when he broke the rules of the sonnet, he was doing it on purpose and he knew what his purpose was.

Turning this back to collecting baseball - I am particularly fond of some of the SABR and mathematicians who are trying to influence hall of fame voting by showing that player XYZ who is not in the hall of fame is just as good as player ABC, who is in the hall of fame and revered. Today, mlb.com ran an article title "Best players on every team not in the HOF." One of the players they highlighted was Lou Whitaker, and they highlighted his statistics as very similar to Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan. So, why isn't Lou Whitaker in the Hall of Fame?