That hope thing, it's tempered.

[pecunium]

I don't think I can add anything to this. It's probably the most depressing thing I read in ages.

I bothers me more than Bertie "Go ahead and break their fingers" Gonzalez being nominated.

Really.

Students say 1st Amendment, "goes too far."

Comments

Sad but not surprising

[soggyoptimist.livejournal.com]

My Inner Devil's Advocate says this is what follows from creating classifications like "hate speech"; when people are fired for using the word "niggardly" in a memo; when Huckleberry Finn isn't taught in classes out of concern for students who might be offended. When we assert that some speech is not protected because it is insulting and creates disharmony, then the issue becomes choosing criteria for which speech is protected and which is exempted from protection. These students just have different criteria than I do.

Re: Sad but not surprising

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Huck Finn has been not taught since it was written.

I recall it being forbidden in some schools in my neck of the woods because it, "poorly depicted black people," and made Jim look dependent and infantile, in need if a white boy to look after him.

At the same time, in parts of the south, it was being banned because it showed Huck thinking Jim was morally superior to him, and had a black in the position of care-giver, and role-model for a white boy.

No, I think the real problem is the students are sipping from the trough of Fox News, and the ancillary effect 30 years of the media being whipped with charges of bias, and caving in to those who want to neuter it.

TK