That’s interesting. I don’t think I could teach literature on that basis, though. Primarily, the aspect of the article I baulk at would be encapsulated in the term, “upward mobility”. No, no, I couldn’t teach anybody anything on the basis of promoting their upward mobility. I think I don’t know what this is myself, sufficiently, to be inclined or motivated to promote it to others.
Actually, I think the role of being an educator is all too fraught. Here’s Marechera:
“To be able to read and write is … only the first downward step towards the first circle where black fires rage inconsumably. Candide’s experience of the world is the nearest we can get to the series of cerebral shocks which await the savage who is earnestly in search of culture. ‘There is nothing here but illusion, and one calamity after another.’ The experience is not unlike that of one organism living on and at the expense of another. (p 33 The Black Insider).
I can see how certain kinds of education could be a calamity. But I am not very impressed with the mental abilities of poorly educated people. They bore me with their endless chatter about the mundane and their constant sentimentalizing.
Luckily for me, I know a lot of well educated people who have read widely and who make great conversation.
Yeah, that endless chatter and sentimentalising — I got a certain sense of what was lurking in a poor environment from watching Million Dollar Baby. (Not so much the movie itself, but something lurking in the background of it — not limited to the lead character’s urge to give her crude hillbilly mother a house she didn’t want, because she didn’t like her being on welfare.) Yeah, but, you know, the mother didn’t want your generosity, and you should have known that making a clean break from family trouble is a holy, holy thing.
“They bore me with their endless chatter about the mundane and their constant sentimentalizing.”
But you know the supposedly educated elites do this, too!
What I’d add as a comment to that post, if I had the energy, is that actually the “uneducated” can be pretty observant readers of literature. And appreciate it more than the ones who already know they are “supposed” to like it…
coldhearted scientist وداد 
That’s interesting. I don’t think I could teach literature on that basis, though. Primarily, the aspect of the article I baulk at would be encapsulated in the term, “upward mobility”. No, no, I couldn’t teach anybody anything on the basis of promoting their upward mobility. I think I don’t know what this is myself, sufficiently, to be inclined or motivated to promote it to others.
Actually, I think the role of being an educator is all too fraught. Here’s Marechera:
“To be able to read and write is … only the first downward step towards the first circle where black fires rage inconsumably. Candide’s experience of the world is the nearest we can get to the series of cerebral shocks which await the savage who is earnestly in search of culture. ‘There is nothing here but illusion, and one calamity after another.’ The experience is not unlike that of one organism living on and at the expense of another. (p 33 The Black Insider).
Upward mobility is only one of her points though and it is one thing people get out of the university unless they already had it from home.
All too fraught, I agree utterly.
Marechera on Candide … yes.
as usual – thanks!
I can see how certain kinds of education could be a calamity. But I am not very impressed with the mental abilities of poorly educated people. They bore me with their endless chatter about the mundane and their constant sentimentalizing.
Luckily for me, I know a lot of well educated people who have read widely and who make great conversation.
Yeah, that endless chatter and sentimentalising — I got a certain sense of what was lurking in a poor environment from watching Million Dollar Baby. (Not so much the movie itself, but something lurking in the background of it — not limited to the lead character’s urge to give her crude hillbilly mother a house she didn’t want, because she didn’t like her being on welfare.) Yeah, but, you know, the mother didn’t want your generosity, and you should have known that making a clean break from family trouble is a holy, holy thing.
“They bore me with their endless chatter about the mundane and their constant sentimentalizing.”
But you know the supposedly educated elites do this, too!
What I’d add as a comment to that post, if I had the energy, is that actually the “uneducated” can be pretty observant readers of literature. And appreciate it more than the ones who already know they are “supposed” to like it…
I think chatter and sentimentalising are features of stasis. Once things (mind, body) start to move along, there is less of this.