Classics majors at Princeton University will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin in a push to create a more inclusive and equitable program, an effort that was given “new urgency” by the “events around race that occurred last summer.”Last month, faculty members approved changes to the Classics department, including eliminating the “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, according to Princeton Alumni Weekly. The requirement for students to take Greek or Latin was also removed.
On the one hand, I'm delighted to learn that there is pressure from a diverse group of people to be included in the study of Homer or Cicero. Also, reading these things in the original may be less important now that we have 2,000+ years of translations available. I myself have never studied Latin or Greek formally, but rather am self-taught in the limited amount of each language I have. I still have managed to learn a fair amount about ancient philosophy.
On the other hand, we are still going to require a certain number of experts to check our work on these matters of fundamental texts. English drifts too, so that an older translation of Aristotle may now read differently to an English-language scholar than it was intended to read by the translator. Someone who can read the original can pull us back when we drift away from what was really meant by the text.
In addition, it sounds from the article like the discipline of studying difficult ancient languages is being replaced by racial-theory claptrap. This will only damage the thinking of students, whatever their backgrounds. It is replacing ancient things of proven value with fashionable nonsense driven by political aims.
3 comments:
Unrelated topic - or maybe not. You made a careful analysis and response over at my site and have had a continuing exchange with Zachriel. You see where it got you. I think he is useful as a fixed point of what liberals believed 1975-2000, which retains an enormous cachet for folks older than thirty in our world. Though they are ceding ground to the even more intense crazies of the woke every year, the are still the most dominant cultural group at present. He is reflexive, believing all that is approved about the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Civil Rights Era. He cannot escape. Sad for him, but useful for us. A fixed star.
But you see why I advise not engaging with him, and unless you are doing so in a humorous manner, I do not want your sleep to be interrupted by such things. If you treat him as an academic exercise, such as what a college instructor might assign for his students to wrestle against, I will not say you nay. But...
Goodness knows, I think your site and mine are examples of people who disagree with each other on a dozen things and yet go on. It is why you remain on my short list now that I am not following the news, and I suspect that my site serves the same purpose for you and others - and I will bet you could give the names of the others who set me back on my heels often.
Be at peace. You are being heard by others.
Oh, I learned about Z the last time I talked with him. He is good at restating his own position over and over; he appears incapable of learning, or even considering an alternative position. I only engaged him this time because he's a perfect embodiment of what I was trying to show; he can't see it, but others can see what I'm talking about better for seeing just where his blind spot is.
I feel a bit sad for people who believe as he does, though they were annoying when they were powerful. As you say, they're already watching their world washing away. Everything they hold dear -- that whole 'moral arc of history' -- is likely to be swept away in their lifetimes. It's already happening, e.g., the way that the new wokeness is destroying the legacy of Dr. King and the idea of judging people by the content of their characters instead of the color of their skin. That was the moral arc in King's own telling: but it's already dying, and from the Left.
As for disagreement, I think I disagree sharply with all my favorite people. I am not sure if there is anyone in the world who actually agrees with me across the board. I have close friends who are hard core patriots, others who are outright Marxists. Yet you can find common ground with many people who are comfortable with disagreements, and willing to let you each be your own self. That's kind of what I aim for here; I only run off the ones who try to tell you how you have to be.
Heck, it might even be amusing to do a post sometime soon where all the regulars are invited to express their major points of disagreement with the host.
I am not sure you want to invite that last. It is excellent in theory, but we all try to trim our sails a bit in order to be heard and with at least a minor nod to social graces. We hyperventilate a bit and remind ourselves that it is good for us to do so.
The legend always was that the ancient Persians debated everything twice: once drunk and once sober, and only after that made their decision. I doubt it was true, but it captured a point, and seems eminently wise in an era when only 1% of what the elites said was recorded. These days it would be impossible, because the merest slip would destroy even Solomon.
Yet it is stunningly wise in the abstract. You and I and our older regular readers will remember that such things once existed, but it is as archaic as shoeing horses now. There are farriers, but they are now a niche, not an essential.
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