Hacker News Reader

Comment by ariabuckles | Hacker News Reader

> And FYI nobody is arguing that any real, material history should not be taught.

This is in the context of his literature courses. There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people.

If you only mean non-literary history, the history of black people and LGBTQ people are both very under-taught in United States schools. That's a real thing that some people do want to continue, and argue for. (But this seems a bit outside the topic at hand)

View on HN

> There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people.

No, it does not remotely seem like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. How do you go from "I should be able to decide to only teach works from white men" to "other people shouldn't teach anyone other than white men"? To go from "I should be allowed to _____" to "nobody should do anything except ______" is a massive leap.

A course in classics is going to have overwhelmingly male authors, likely exclusively so. The reality of the ancient Mediterranean was that patriarchy was extensive, and women were not afforded the opportunity to contribute in that space. This is in now way saying that other courses in other fields should feature women or minority authors.

That's fair. I should have said he's arguing for the right to not teach the history of marginalized people, not that he's arguing that others shouldn't (though he does seem to be arguing that others should be allowed to not teach it).

As I read it, he's arguing for the right not to have to choose what literature to teach on the basis of whether it came from marginalized people. He wants to teach the best literature, not black literature or brown literature or white literature.

I mean, if you were teaching physics, you wouldn't teach ideas based on what race or nationality the person was who came up with the idea. I know, literature is different - it's more subjective, it's not empirically verifiable to determine the quality. Still, the desire to pick the best books based on the content of the books rather than the race of the author does not seem to me to be that horrible of an idea.

"I have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." And let books be judged not by the color of their author's skin, but by their content.

Careful, you can’t say that now without people thinking you’re a racist.

> A course in classics is going to have overwhelmingly male authors, likely exclusively so.

Not of necessity; there are plenty of known women writers of the period (it's hard to imagine a broad survey excluding Sappho, but she's far from the only example.)

> The reality of the ancient Mediterranean was that patriarchy was extensive.

Perhaps, but also much less so than in the exclusively male, until very recently, academic society which did so much to shape the lens through which we see the classics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com