How political correctness is destroying lit

These are bad times for the study of the book, particularly in the States. College curriculums are stuffed with works by mediocre writers who champion idendity politics (i.e. Alice Walker) and so are loved for being, by our age's standards, morally righteous. The late Victorian aesthetes are gone--swarms of feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial critics assure us all that what matters most in a book is its examination of power structures, and that art for art's sake is a bourgeois lie designed to oppress various groups.

This saddens me, because if I want to read a political pamphlet, I'll seek one out. If I want lit, I want raw aesthetic power, independent of all values or ideas or any other petty concerns that have nothing to do with artistic splendour. You don't have to be a dogmatic Christian (I detest Christianity) to find Dante and John Milton bring a tear to your eye. It seems the only hope is with the readers like us, who read for our own pleasure and not for any sense of virtue. When Maya Angelou's considered a great poet, we're in trouble.

Discuss? All aesthetes should be aware of this.

I totally agree! The political correctness has gotten to the point that my son, an advanced placement student(:thumbsup:Awesome! says a proud father;)) who is put in an "intergrated" class in which they combine the lowest achieving students with the highest achieving students and expect them to tutor their peers when they finish an assignment early because it was below their abilities instead of challenging them and educating them to their fullest potential! WHEW!!! Sorry to vent, but it's been eating me alive! The administration says that they don't want to put the slower students in a seperate class because they would have to hire more teachers and it would "hurt their spirits". AAAWWWW!!! Isn't that sweet?:mad:

Oh, I remember that well--I've had to self-educate for the price of the odd library fee from the time I was sixteen or so and fully realized I wasn't going to learn too much in our compromised institutions.

I think it really comes down to the parents not wanting their spirits hurt, not the kids. They don't like to admit that maybe for all his ritalin Johnny's just an idiot, one of many we're not allowed to acknowledge. I'm sure Johnny himself would be much happier in a class with kids of his own intelligence, not having to strain to keep up with the smarter ones (just like they don't want to be dragged down by his ilk). Personally, I can't see him sobbing his eyes out that he might not rise to new levels of erudite transcendence, only proud Mama furious that anyone dare disobey our cultural dogma that every child is equally special. I remember Sports Day at my elementary school, where there were no prizes so as not to offend the losers. I was a mediocre athlete, but I was indignant on behalf of the really athletic kids who deserved honours but got none, all because of our equality bullshit.

They do just put it out there like. What you have a problem this is the way always been only a fool or psychotic would think otherwise.
School is horrible the problem is not the students themselves. The institution is designed to create dumb kids. An overproduction of brains is the root cuase of the overproduction of everthing else. The intergration class sound like a way to kill to birds with one stone. Right now I'm a book about MPs in vietnam there is no socialy redeeming value in it and i find it quite interesting.
The author did not have to find a reason why it should exist but yet it does.
"Saigon Commandos Jonathan Cain"