This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Just on a quick look through the list there's quite a lot of odd choices. Like why does seventh grade have so few items, most of which are short poems - and then they double up on Robert Frost and Langston Hughes? Why?
What was the goal here? It doesn't seem like breadth of cultural understanding. It seems more like a list put together by a committee with a few busybodies each pushing their own favorites and no clear criteria for what to include. Why is Pride and Prejudice, essentially Victorian era chick lit, required reading? Answer: who knows?
Like many such efforts, I can get behind the concept but find the implementation unimpressive at best.
Probably just a bias for short works cuz it takes less time to teach, easier to get kids to read the whole thing, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
I will not suffer such Austen slander!
First, Austen was Regency era. A generation before the Victorians, and there are some pretty significant differences (like the freedom with which Austen's heroines go unaccompanied to parties or go on walks with men without escorts and such, something Victorian ladies basically were not allowed to do).
Second, today Austen's novels are mostly considered "chick lit" and generally filmed as romances, but in her time, they were widely read by both sexes and considered comedies of manners with insightful descriptions of human fallibility, not female wish-fulfillment ("chick lit") despite the fact they generally ended in a good-hearted but poor woman marrying up.
Also, critically, before railways. The minor gentry (the class the Bennets belong to) was much less geographically mobile than they would be in a Victorian setting.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It was set by the Texas state board of education, which is elected in partisan elections with a voter turnout that rounds down to zero.
More options
Context Copy link
That's literally what it is.
More options
Context Copy link
Ask my Irish school curriculum circa 1978 (and then 1980 for Persuasion*) about that one, friend. It wasn't chick-lit in those days, the term was yet to be invented. Instead it was considered a classic novel in English. If Manly Men could be Janeites, I don't see why the non-gender-binary-normative young human animals (as distinct from non-human animals, don't be speciesist!) of our day can't be introduced to her writing! Granted, the highly intelligent youth of our time probably would struggle to read English that is not contemporary but let's be hopeful and make the experiment, yes?
*One of the girls in the class had the surname Durand and it was always deemed hilarious when we had to read (yes, we read it aloud in class, everyone taking their turn as the teacher went through it):
This is Texas. The teachers may not be particularly based, but the elected officials setting curriculum standards do not believe in 'non-binary', and might think this is some kind of new computer technology, and if I had to guess a majority of the state board of ed would vote in favor of sodomy laws if they thought they could get away with it.
Let us be correct and pure in our thinking and expression, even if the Texans are woefully recalcitrant.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Jane Austen's novels primarily concern themselves with moral education. Is it possible to ruin good breeding with poor moral education? This was actually a somewhat scandalous take back then.
The primary application of Pride and Prejudice today is to present young women with caution about their selection of mates. Which is a very worthy task, even if half the class is male and might not see the point (though the truly wise will understand what make's Austin's heroes the hero and not the villain, and maybe learn from that.)
It's arguably a pretty scandalous take here and now.
I think we struggle right now with the opposite question: are there some people whose poor breeding cannot be improved with a good moral education?
It's not "the opposite question" it is the same question.
That question is which has the greater effect, education or breeding?
It's perfectly possible that bad education can ruin good breeding, but bad breeding can't be improved by good education. In short, the relationship may be asymmetrical.
Anyone can make a tall man short by cutting off his legs, but good luck making a short man tall.
Bullshit, either education has a sufficiently large effect size to overcome breeding or it does not.
Why should the world be so convenient? Give Albert Einstein enough alcohol and you can make him a slurring, slumped vagrant. But there is nothing you can drink that will turn you into Albert Einstein.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The boys can learn from Darcy and Bingley and Mr. Bennett and Mr. Collins and Wickham. Darcy nearly ruins his chances by appearing proud (really he's mostly socially awkward and bad at expressing himself) because he unthinkingly sticks to the rigid social hierarchy of the time. He does have a strong moral foundation, though, and is capable of thinking for himself without needing to destroy all the rules (that last is important, I think; you can change and grow but that doesn't mean you have to be radical rebel punk burn it all down).
Bingley is just a sweetheart who deserves to be happy and he gets to be happy.
Mr. Bennett is a neglectful parent. He may be unhappy in his marriage (which was for love, or at least lustful attraction between him and his wife, so it was not well-established from the start) but retreating into his library, indulging his favourite daughter, and neglecting his other daughters and responsibilities to them is not the way to do it. The estate is entailed so when he dies, his daughters will be turned out and have nothing to live on. That's why Mrs. Bennett is so anxious to get them all married off and settled as fast as she can. His neglect bears fruit in Lydia's caprice and what happens to her, and too late he decides to be more strict with Kitty so she won't turn out the same way.
Wickham is the superficially charming 'cool' guy who presents himself as a victim but who has not taken useful advantage of the help he received, instead he permitted envy and entitlement to shape his actions, and now he's basically a con man living off his wife and her in-laws, being bribed to shut up and go away quietly.
Making a good marriage is also an important message for the boys as demonstrated in this novel; Mr and Mrs Bennett's marriage was imprudent, Wickham's father was drowned in debt by his wife's extravagance, Mr. Collins is trying to marry based not on his own choice and judgement but 'what will please my patroness?', and Darcy almost runs off the rails by how he treats Elizabeth ("your family is terrible, I am lowering myself by being associated with them, but in spite of all the bad things this union will bring, I condescend to propose to you" is not a good way to propose marriage!) and Wickham runs himself into a shotgun marriage where his tricks of trying to compromise a rich girl in order to force such a marriage get turned on him (he runs off with Lydia but never intended to marry her). He's been fortune-hunting, the male equivalent of a gold-digger (there's another heiress he tries to nab but is foiled) and ends up caught in his own trap.
Bingley probably has the smoothest, most trouble-free, romance and marriage of them all, and that's because both he and Jane are good people. He's not foolishly proud, he's not marrying simply because of lust, she's not wealthy herself but she's a good match due to her character and upbringing, and they genuinely fell in love. Walk the middle path between greed (marriage based only on personal advantage and pecuniary gain) and lust (marriage based only on romantic and sexual attraction), be sensible, and you have the best chance of being happy.
Excellent post!
As an aside we need more adaptations with a hot MILF Mrs. Bennett, she's only in her 40s and supposedly a complete smoke-show. Her character becomes so much more layered if you imagine her as coming into the room with "hot chick at the club" type energy only to get brushed off.
That would be funny, adaptations tend to make the Bennetts older side of middle age. They both probably assumed they'd have a son to inherit the estate, I wonder if the five daughters were the results of efforts to get that son.
Once the New Relationship Energy wore off, they found they had nothing in common. Mr. Bennett couldn't share his intellectual interests with her and she couldn't get him to be interested in her social ambitions and (later) worries about marrying the girls off.
Still hot MILF Mrs. Bennett would be a great role in any new adaptation!
More options
Context Copy link
Isn’t that part of the point? Mr. Bennett is a weak man who married the uncouth but gorgeous party girl. He made a bad choice but never had the spine to guide her to a better path.
I think it's not that he didn't have the spine, as that he couldn't be bothered to make the effort. That's his weakness, as contrasted to Darcy who does change his mind and put in the work to win Elizabeth and meet her halfway. Mr. Bennett instead retreated to his library, let his wife handle running the house, and made a pet of Elizabeth because she was smart and he influenced her in how she viewed the world (part of Elizabeth's character growth is growing beyond her father's simplistic scorn for society around him and their neighbours).
More options
Context Copy link
In the the Book? Yes. I think a lot of the film adaptations end up missing out by casting Mrs. Bennett as a silver-haired matron and Mr. Bennett as a dottering old man, rather than as they were originally described.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Pride and Prejudice really is the classic popular novel. Most of what people read today are novels written for the masses, and before ~Austen's time no one was really doing that. (I'm not saying she was the groundbreaker, but she's certainly the one that had staying power.)
[SPOILERS BELOW I GUESS]
Also Mr. Darcy is quite an admirable character; he's on my personal list of exemplars of male virtue. The novel really does a great job of taking you with the viewpoint character in really hating him for half the book. I remember reading it and feeling mad at the thought that he was going to turn out to be the love interest, namely how dumb it would be that she "changes" him for the better. But it turns out he was actually a stand-up guy the whole time, and it was Elizabeth who had fallen into trapped priors! She's the one who changes, and Darcy is ultimately rewarded for his steadfast honesty and integrity.
It's both of them. The title says it all. Both of them are proud, both of them are prejudiced, and both of them have to learn to change their minds about snap judgements, about compromise, and seeing below the surface.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
My understanding (see for example this old article) is that Texas has a public comment process that allows random unhinged people to have a disproportionate input into curriculum design.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link