TPTB don’t want a literate, intelligent people. They want an indoctrinated one that will do as they’re told. The word that comes to mind is ‘serfs‘.
Comment O’ The Day: Sarah Hoyt-
Up to the first World War, books that were considered high literature and won awards were the ones that had allusions to Greek and Roman myth, or dropped other historical allusions, casually, into the prose. It was a way of saying “I had an excellent education.” These days excellent education in terms of expensive colleges means Marxism Leninism, so of course awards and admiration goes to the “woke” stories that push “social justice.” It’s a way of screaming “I have an excellent education.”
BUT at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century taught people to write so they could be understood. Now? Well, I’m old enough to have taught some people who are teachers now and I can tell you, it only goes down from here.
As critical race theory burgeons within higher education, writing centers have taken the cue, with a growing number trading in traditional grammar, spelling and punctuation corrections for a focus on antiracism.
Examples range from subjectively disavowing writing that “denigrates” others to mission statements that prioritize social justice over teaching students how to write well.
“We … must teach black students about anti-black linguistic racism and white linguistic supremacy,” argues one group of scholars calling for “Black linguistic justice.”
Myriad examples of such efforts can be found on websites from university writing centers and English Departments.
University of Michigan Sweetland’s Center for Writing states in its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement that they “reject rhetoric that denigrates others based on any identity category, such as race, religion, gender expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, national origin, language, ethnicity, sex, ability status, socioeconomic status, age, body type, or political party.”
The University of Michigan English Language and Literature Department confirms that their department is still not “free of [systematic racism’s] damaging habits.” However, their statement of solidarity assures readers they are “approaching a new academic year, to the thoughtful scrutiny and revision of our own entrenched practices, priorities, and assumptions.”
Similar to the Sweetland Center, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Writing Center says in its mission statement they “advocate for writers from historically marginalized or oppressed groups and for writing that counters traditional accounts of ‘standard’ academic English by extending conceptions of audience, purpose, and meaning.”
UNL’s Department of English lists their top core values. The first two on the list are “pursuing social justice” and “affirming diversity.”
