Posted on 04/20/2021 12:10:26 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
“Upon learning to read while enslaved, Frederick Douglass began his great journey of emancipation, as such journeys always begin, in the mind. Defying unjust laws, he read in secret, empowered by the wisdom of contemporaries and classics alike to think as a free man. Douglass risked mockery, abuse, beating and even death to study the likes of Socrates, Cato and Cicero.
Long after Douglass’s encounters with these ancient thinkers, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be similarly galvanized by his reading in the classics as a young seminarian — he mentions Socrates three times in his 1963 “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”
Yet today, one of America’s greatest Black institutions, Howard University, is diminishing the light of wisdom and truth that inspired Douglass, King and countless other freedom fighters. Amid a move for educational “prioritization,” Howard University is dissolving its classics department...
Howard is not removing its classics department in isolation. This is the result of a massive failure across the nation in “schooling."
Academia’s continual campaign to disregard or neglect the classics is a sign of spiritual decay, moral decline and a deep intellectual narrowness running amok in American culture. Those who commit this terrible act treat Western civilization as irrelevant and not worthy of prioritization or as harmful and worthy only of condemnation.
Sadly, in our culture’s conception, the crimes of the West have become so central that it’s hard to keep track of the best of the West...The Western canon is an extended dialogue among the crème de la crème of our civilization about the most fundamental questions. It is about asking “What kind of creatures are we?” no matter what context we find ourselves in. It is about living more intensely, more critically, more compassionately. It is about learning to attend to the things that matter...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is intentional, like per a plan...................
“Baby Got Back” is a classic. That’s good enough, right? Especially in the original Latin.
Amo, oh deus meus, Becky, vultus eo petat!
Cornel West wrote this? The Cornel West from Harvard? I am speechless1
Amo Puella pulchra cum biggus Glutei Maximi.
Oh Oh Oh!
Ego quasi magnum canebat, et ego non mentitur!
Est difficile ibi per lenoni.
It’s all in the teaching.
The teacher has to make the classics understandable and relevant to the student.
Too, often, the student is handed a book and told to read.
They don’t understand what is written and a small voice inside of them tells them that they must be ignorant.
This causes the student to begin to hate learning.
There is a whole delicious feast of learning and too many are robbed of this feast by poor teaching and a focus on training instead of education.
Grab good quality textbook editions now while they are available and relatively cheap. I know they are free on the internet but what the internet giveth the internet can take away one day.
It’s all in the teaching.
........
Indeed!
I had a friend of ourfamily who tutored in classics, gave me books as child. She re-read some every year in English, French Latin ,Greek. She was amazing.
Years later my 4 children had opportunity in high school to take humanities from a teacher like mine. 3 of them lapped it up. The 4th preferred math and became a lawyer. You can guess how they have all turned out.
Idiots teaching idiots.
hey, hey, ho ho, Western Civilization’s got to go. That is their belief. And to live in a world of barbarism is their goal.
You know it’s bad when even lefty loon Cornel West says it’s bad.
I like the SpongeBob version.
How is it possible that I find myself in agreement with Cornel West? Inconceivable!
Today, MLK and Frederick Douglass are unpersons. No mention during Black History month of their remarkable writings and accomplishments.
Flexibility is an under-appreciated aspect of Leftist totalitarians.
My first principles begin with the Bible and trace down to our Framers.
There are no first principles to the Left other than seizing power by any means necessary.
So, in it’s place are they starting a Cancellation Department?
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