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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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So what? Why does anyone need to know where phrases came from or who popularized a particular trope or whatever?

I don't know, why do we need to know what air is or how it works? I'm assuming you know how air works here, but I think it's a safe assumption. Hell, I'd bet on it.

Also you appear to be contradicting yourself. If you totally understand and agree with this -

Culture is what unites us. Our literature and plays and films and songs allow us to communicate with each other through metaphor and allegory, and when people can communicate prosodically they think more alike and don't have to spend all their time explaining in jokes and slang, or adding throat clearing in deference to the people who refuse to participate in the culture.

Then you shouldn't need me to explain why it is necessary to maintain a connection to the artifacts a culture is based on.

We do teach nonfiction, even if it's not focused on as much as I'd like, and yet I don't have the impression there is an epidemic of kids bullying other kids for sharing a name with a bad person they read about. Since I don't expect there to be a way to resolve this difference in intuition, I'm quite comfortable letting the other readers decide for themselves which of us is most likely correct about this.

For starters I was, as I said, talking explicitly about when crafting metaphors and allegory, which we don't do with non fiction. Even when we do, like the Chernobyl miniseries, or Oppenheimer, we fictionalise elements which can potentially hurt others. But also I would note that almost everyone related to Hitler and Stalin changed their surname.

No, I'm not worried they're going to get bored. I removed the boring fiction books, remember?

That's funny, but still a poor argument. You said we shouldn't teach stuffy old Shakespeare because kids won't understand it or be interested in it. Setting aside the fact that Shakespeare is performed to this day (indicating both understanding and interest), interest and understanding didn't matter to you prior to that part of the argument.

Who said that a demonstration of the magnificence of our civilization needs to come in the form of fiction?

You did. You still are it seems. I just asked you to name three works from the last five years better than King Lear or A midsummer night's dream, I didn't say they had to be fiction.