To: [18 fellow students]
Cc: "Reina Green"
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2001 9:31 AM
Subject: free speech
Dear classmates,
In our class discussion on Othello, someone suggested that Othello's
murder of Desdemona shows that his love was not genuine. When I
expressed disagreement, Prof. Green misinterpreted what I said and
argued that the murder is "not justified," as if by stating that
Othello's love was real I had excused his murder of Desdemona. Prof.
Green's response also suggested that she imagines I view some modern
wife-killings by jealous husbands in our own society as justified.
It's quite possible most of you didn't even hear or notice either my
comment or Prof. Green's response. Still, though I haven't "lost the
immortal part of myself," I thought it fair enough to ask her to correct
any misconception she might have created. This she has now refused to
do, which I think does "justify" my emailing you directly. I expect some
of you will be outraged at such brazenness, but if you don't like it I'm
afraid there is no alternative but to put you to the trouble of hitting
the delete key.
In her email refusing to acknowledge misrepresenting my view, Prof.
Green claimed that in stating that murder is "not justified" she was
responding not to my point, but to a comment made by someone else to the
effect that jealous husbands still kill their wives today. This claim
makes no sense (who needs to be told that today's murders are "not
justified"?), and I don't believe it.
In the same email, Prof. Green claimed that, as a matter of fact,
auditing students like me are not entitled to participate in class
discussions at all, and that it's only by virtue of her "generosity"
that I've been permitted to till now. This makes me less inclined than
ever to defend Desdemona's smothering, since it makes me feel a bit like
her myself. (If this is really the rule, I have to wonder who would ever
pay good money to audit a class. Certainly no one ever told me about
such a rule before this -- either when I originally called the English
dept. from Toronto to inquire about auditing or anytime since.)
But silencing a student through administrative rules is only a more
extreme form of a tendency that has harmed the educational value of this
course from the beginning, and made it a lot duller than it might be:
Prof. Green does not tolerate dissenting views. She can't even abide
hearing them discussed. Of course, this is an absurdity in a literature
course, especially one on Shakespeare, where so many different views are
possible. I raised this issue in an email to Prof. Green on Aug. 2,
which I've reproduced below. Prof. Green's reply insists, however, that
"students are welcome to disagree" with the views she presents.
The sad lack of debate I've witnessed also reflects the modern culture
that has shaped you. In this course I've often found myself thinking
back to an article I read a few months ago (it's online at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/04/brooks-p1.htm) in which the
author, David Brooks, describes today's undergraduates at Princeton and
elsewhere. Some of my observations here have been strikingly similar to
his.
"When I went to college, in the late 1970s and early 1980s," he writes,
"we often spent two or three hours around the table, shooting the breeze
and arguing about things." (Me too!) But today, as he observes, "there
is little discussion about intellectual matters outside class."
He finds also that "they are not a disputatious group. I often heard at
Princeton a verbal tic to be found in model young people these days: if
someone is about to disagree with someone else in a group, he or she
will apologize beforehand, and will couch the disagreement in the most
civil, nonconfrontational terms available."
Of course, this is a norm I am constantly violating, which may explain
the frosty attitude I get from some of you. Too bad. As Kent says, "I am
too old to learn" -- and anyway it's the last lesson I'd want.
Brooks mentions how the students are "extremely respectful of authority"
and notes, as another indication of the modern passion for social
orderliness, how millions of children in the U.S. today are medicated
with the mind-altering Ritalin. He quotes a comment from a study of the
phenomenon: "Ironically, where young Boomers once turned to drugs to
prompt impulses and think outside the box, today they turn to drugs to
suppress their kids' impulses and keep their behavior inside the box."
One of Brooks' main points is that there is little awareness of evil
among young people today. This is significant and dangerous, since evil
is present among us in our own society, just as it is present in
Shakespeare's stories. "People don't even talk much about evil anymore,"
he writes, "except as something that might happen far away, in Serbia or
in Nazi Germany. Around us we see not evil but sickness that requires
therapy."
Brooks finds that even the religious students' faith "tends to be
unrelievedly upbeat." One of the Princeton professors he interviews
tells him: "It's an optimistic view. You just never hear about sin and
evil and judgment. It's about love and success and being happy."
Another professor comments to Brooks:
We could make them aware of the reality of sin, by which I mean chosen
evil, which cannot be cured by therapy or by science. We don't do enough
to call into question the therapeutic model of evil: "He has a problem
... He's sick."
I don't mean we should have a separate course on character. We don't
need to give them specific answers. We could raise this
awareness--through readings and discussions in history and philosophy
and literature, by reading Plato's Gorgias, Othello, or a study of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates--that the conquest of the self is part of what
it means to lead a successful life. It's not enough to make a
corporation succeed. It's not an external problem. It doesn't lend
itself to a technical solution. Four hours spent studying in the library
is not self-mastery.
Anyway. I offer these thoughts freely, for no definite purpose. I've
hardly been able to connect with any of you; at least there will have
been this much communication.
My views are not flattering, but I am not blaming you. It's more a case
of despairing of our culture (and our society's political future). I
would have thought some of these modern tendencies are opposed within
the university, at least in English departments -- but one can't take
anything for granted.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Uriel Wittenberg"
To: "Reina Green"
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 4:06 PM
Subject: Something essential lacking
Despite what you said in our discussion just a few days ago about
welcoming debate, I'm finding you more rigid than ever in suppressing
any and all divergent ideas in class. You welcome student
participation -- but only so long as it conforms to the ideas you've
signalled you favor.
Your idea yesterday, for example, was that in King Lear there is a deep
stigma attached to being a bastard. A succession of students gave you
the corroboration you sought. But is it not worth mentioning that every
single character we see encountering Edmund (until his villainy is
finally exposed) is quite favorably disposed towards him; that his
father's affection is obviously genuine; and that even Kent, obsessed as
he is with rank and social position, shows him the utmost respect?
But these considerations strayed from your script. You dismissed them,
saying that Edmund's own speech demonstrates he is a victim of social
prejudice (expressed off-stage -- and outside the text).
Similarly, on Tuesday you asked the class about Cordelia's response to
Lear in the early scene in which he divides his kingdom. Your script
called for the view that Cordelia is true and that her love is at a
perfectly appropriate level. In the Reina Green Shakespeare this is
unquestionable, and the other students cooperated.
But is there no ambiguity whatever in Cordelia's angelic perfection?
("those happy smilets, / That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
/ What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence, / As pearls from
diamonds dropp'd. In brief, / Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, /
If all could so become it.") What should we make of her unswerving
loyalty to her selfish, tyrannical and contemptible father? Is virtue
consistent with support for such a king? Is her love indeed so
unequivocal, given her aggressively principled refusal to express the
love he plainly wants to hear, and given her unwillingness to soften the
"nothing" (which as you noted in class he misinterprets)?
What about Kent's support for Lear, offered with what could be
considered overzealous violence? Can this be unconnected with his
complacency with his own position in the old social order, expressed
almost every time he opens his mouth? (At one point he says "I am too
old to learn".)
We somehow went through five class hours on Lear without addressing
these seemingly central questions, although we spent plenty of time
discussing the relative significance of various words in the subplot and
the main plot. I attempted to raise the question of Cordelia's attitude
towards her father, but in customary fashion you summarily squelched it.
If debate were really welcome, this would have been a natural point for
you to ask other students for their responses.
The other students, sadly, go along with this. They seem not to want one
whit more insight into Shakespeare than is needed to please you. They
have no patience for divergences from "the right answer". And yet, just
yesterday, I was able to observe your response to an unwelcome idea from
someone other than myself, when a student unwittingly made a point you
didn't want to hear. You had asked at what point Lear comes to see his
error. The student pointed out a passage you'd apparently forgotten, in
which Lear is said to be to ashamed to face Cordelia. But this response
was outside your playbook, so it was intolerable. You jettisoned it by
saying, "Yes, but that's when he's mad", and moved the discussion along.
But the text shows your response was incorrect: "the poor distressed
Lear's i' the town; / Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers /
What we are come about, and by no means / Will yield to see his
daughter."
The student let it go. Who cares about truth? Let the prof have her way.
For yet another example, you announced yesterday that Kent generally
speaks the truth. This seems questionable in terms of his explanation
for why he's been put in the stocks. The Gentleman is more skeptical
than the gullible Lear, asking: "Made you no more offence but what you
speak of?" Kent says "None", which is not true (he omitted to mention
the significant fact that he insulted the Duke), then immediately
changes the subject -- much as you did yourself.
Your suppression of contrary ideas seems almost militant, exceeding the
bounds of fair and open discussion. Yesterday after one of your
peremptory retorts to a point I offered, you cut me off as I began to
respond and gestured to another student to speak (on a separate point).
Of course I do not claim any expertise on Shakespeare, and I am
perfectly open to my ideas being shown wrong. But it should be obvious
that the proper way to get "the right answer" across to students is via
a reasoning process. If "the right answer" is indeed right, it won't be
threatened by rival ideas.
I find, in short, that this is a regrettable way to teach English,
particularly Shakespeare, a subject that clearly invites contrary
interpretations. It is remarkable that I can say I haven't once
witnessed an exchange of opposing views in this class. The fact that
most students seem oblivious to what they are missing (and are quite
possibly indifferent) is hardly a justification.
Considering all the abuse of power, manipulation, deceit and evil
portrayed by Shakespeare, it is ironic that one of the main effects on
students of a university course on his works should be to have their
uncritical deference to authority reinforced. One might expect such
students to be putty in the hands of a modern Richard III.
Sincerely,
Uriel
--
http://urielw.com