What Are We Learning in English Class?

I suspect the taste for self-consciously ironic cliché and the general paucity of intellectual and moral brilliance in the North American media these days has something to do with 20+ years of increasingly bad “language arts” and English classes, among other things. While English inevitably has to be taught as a basic communicative tool at the lower end of the student ability spectrum, the increasing focus at the higher end on “media literacy” and “cultural literacy," i.e. thematically organized “critical thinking” about commercial and political rhetoric, seems to have occurred mostly at the expense of actual literacy, i.e. learning to read and write well by studying the work of a variety of excellent and challenging writers while reading and writing as much as possible. Speaking from my own experience and biases, I'd like to suggest that the latter inculcates a healthy and respectful skepticism; the former, cynicism and paranoia. One helps create an individual who is judicious, imaginative and capable of appreciation as well as critique; the other implicitly associates sincerity with gullibility, and fosters a reflexive (defensive?) attitude of boredom and incredulousness--of having "seen it all" already. One teaches the value of informed opinion and reasoned argument, while the other is incapable of distinguishing between the two, and tends to breed adults who have no time for either insofar as these concern anyone unlike themselves.

Among participants in the North America Media Experience, the only phrase that could possibly be uttered more frequently than "That's offensive!" (which differs from "That hurts my feelings" in subtle but important ways) is "It's funny because it's stupid." Both are hostile to whatever it is that elevates human life above the naked horror of two-thirds of a fairy tale followed by a bloodbath, or, worse, a melodrama in which churlish and self-righteous crybabies live and die in banality, hounded by institutions they are powerless to influence or understand. Whatever the soul is or isn't, a human being isn't much without a brain, a heart and a backbone.

In any event, it's probably a good idea to encourage exceptional students to become exceptional readers and writers, rather than ostensibly average coasters who are exceptionally mad at Dead White Males, Coca Cola and the cosmetics industry. Some of them will probably figure this stuff out on their own, but many of them won't. And if English class must have a political agenda, maybe it ought to be dictated by great books and not the other way around. Shakespeare, Austen, Joyce and Tolkien will be here long after today's "constructivists" and tomorrow's "connectivists" have been buried and forgotten.

(Image from www.urbanarmy.org.)

Milton's Satan

...Thus far these beyond
Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed
Their dread commander: he above the rest
In shape and gesture stood proudly eminent
Stood like a Tow'r; His form had not yet lost
All her Original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruined and th'excess
Of Glory obscur'd: As when the Sun new ris'n
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclipse disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all th'Arch Angel: but his face
Deep scars of Thunder had entrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under Brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate Pride
Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion to behold
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
(Far other once beheld in bliss) condemn'd
For ever now to have their lot in pain,
Millions of Spirits for his fault amerc't
Of Heav'n, and from Eternal Splendors flung
For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood,
Their Glory wither'd. As when Heaven's Fire
Hath scath'd the Forest Oaks, or Mountain Pines,
With singed top their stately growth though bare
Stands on the blasted Heath. He now prepar'd
To speak; whereat their doubl'd ranks they bend
From Wing to Wing, and half enclose him round
With all his Peers: attention held them mute.
Thrice he assay'd, and thrice in spite of scorn,
Tears such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last
Words interwove with sighs found out their way.

"O Myriads of immortal Spirits, O Powers
Matchless, but with th'Almighty, and that strife
Was not inglorious, though th'event was dire,
As this place testifies, and this dire change
Hateful to utter, but what power of mind
Forseeing or presaging, from the Depth
Of knowledge past or present, could have fear'd,
How such united forces of Gods, how such
As stood like these, could ever know repulse?
For who can yet believe, though after loss,
That all these puissant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heav'n, shall fail to re-ascend
Self-rais'd, and repossess their native seat.
For me, be witness all the Host of Heav'n,
If counsels different, or danger shunn'd
By me, have lost our hopes, but he who reigns
Monarch in Heav'n, till then as one secure
Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,
Consent or custom, and his Regal State
Put forth at full, but still his strength conceal'd,
Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.
Hence forth his might we know, and know our own
So as not either to provoke, or dread
New war, provok't, our better part remains
To work in close design, by fraud or guile
What force elected not: that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe.
Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife
There went a fame in Heav'n that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favor equal to the Sons of Heav'n:
Thither, if but to pry, should be perhaps
Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere:
For this Infernal Pit shall never hold
Celestial Spirits in Bondage, nor th'Abyss
Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts
Full counsel must mature: Peace is despair'd,
For who can think Submission? War then, War
Open or understood must be resolv'd."

He spake: and to confirm his words, out-flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim: the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell: High they rag'd
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasp'd arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heav'n.

(Paradise Lost 1:587-669. Image of Gustave Doré's woodcut from www.all-art.org)

No One Wants to Look Dumb

Faze (v.): to disturb, daunt, or unsettle, from the Middle English fesen, meaning to frighten or drive away.

This word is not spelled p-h-a-s-e. If a young child, a supermarket cashier with a grade 6 education or a non-native speaker of English made a mistake like this, I wouldn't bat an eyelash. To find it on MSN News, a site that has recently taken to advertising itself with the arrogant slogan "No one wants to look dumb," is just irritating.

If you don't want to look dumb, MSN, perhaps you should encourage your editorial team to crack a book once in a while.

(For the record, it's not pronounced "fizz," either. Image from thechaly.files.wordpress.com)