Thursday, July 12, 2007
Reflections upon the passing of Beverly Sills - author thrying to save humanity, once more
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The morning after the announcement of Beverly Sill’s death I was bemoaning the loss to a fellow stationary bicycle user at the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases on 17th Street (yep, this advocate of walking as the universal exercise has not done enough stair climbing, and now needs rehabilitation of his quadriceps), when he interrupted me to ask who the lady was. The chief therapist was nearby, so I asked him the question. He claimed ignorance and asked his assistant, a young woman. Same answer. It went on like that all day.
It reminded me of the time when we at some office get-together were inspired to declaim poetry, preferably daring stuff, and I chose an obscure limerick: “While Titian was mixing rose madder, his model stood on a ladder. Her position to Titian suggested coition, so he climbed the ladder and had her.” My audience mostly knew of limericks, but demanded translation of three words, you know which (rose madder is paint).
When I was at Baruch College five decades ago (before there was a CUNY), earning a BBA degree, we trade schoolers had to take four obligatory years of English (literature and writing), four terms of Rhetoric (speech), one each of Art, Music and Biology. No classmate of mine would have that problem of understanding the limerick, except maybe some confusion with rose madder (there seems to have been an ecdysiast by that name - that’s a striptease artist - and I don’t mean Gypsy Rose Lee).
Then came all those separatist movements – feminism, multiculturalism, emphasis on ethnicity instead of assimilation, identity politics, and disrespect for Western civilization. The acronym of derision, DWEM (Dead White European Men) became a popular academic term for Western culture. Technology became a more and more demanding area of study, and liberal arts sank. Harvard’s acclaimed 1978 invention, the Core Curriculum, contributed to the shift, providing a choice of eight or nine topics within a menu of 11 – foreign cultures, literature, arts, historical studies. moral reasoning, quantitative reasoning (eco), social sciences and social analysis, lite on the valuable 101 level comprehensive courses and big on boutique topics. Thereafter, one could spend four years at Harvard and never hear of Shakespeare.
Such Core Curricula became prevalent throughout the academe, consequently driving out the Required Subjects mode, not unlike bad coinage driving out good (Gresham’s Law, remember?). Schools started offering contrived subjects for one’s major. A New York Times crossword puzzle editor got there by majoring in games, a first and only one then. Subsequently several schools have let students major in computer games (must look ridiculous on your sheepskin), obviously a significant career topic, since Microsoft alone has sold 11 million of its xBox 360 games. At least one Ivy League school became the subject or derision because of the permissiveness of its majors.
The result is evident everywhere. Lack of culture, knowledge and civility prevails. My Rhetoric classes taught us some manners, now a lost topic with Generation post-X, the xBox users. The last remaining refuge for decorum is the US Congress, with its generous modes of address, while the British, Australian and Israeli legislatures have lost it.
We no longer can blame TV alone as the reason for the dulling of interests, trending to pop. Internet has to accept its share of blame in loss of culture, manners and general knowledge. Why remember names and dates when you can look them up on Google! As to manners, why not accept the opportunity to gush out your hatreds and prejudices and jealousies on a web page, on an interactive site, when it can be done anonymously. Besmirching a classmate’s reputation on a school website occurs locally, or internationally, on one of those social networking sites that Murdock and Google seem to be buying up, spending billions. MySpace has 190 million subscribers, exhibiting their accomplishments, knocking competitors and seeking to hook up with friends, and its look-alikes Facebook and Friendster sites are trying to get there. Saying nasty things anonymously is not limited to kids’ websites, adults do it too, as noted as close to home as on a midtown Tenants Association website.
The invasion of privacy and property continues. YouTube gained recognition by offering space for showing embarrassing home movies, or clips pilfered from copyrighted motion pictures, fitting well in context with the petty larceny in the music download culture, once actively supported by the notorious Napster. The pilfering of music continues, with the aid of Apple and its wildly popular iBook, mixing the sales of music while facilitating easy copying. One major music retailer, Tower Records, has already bitten the dust. The music business as a whole is endangered, and the good are going down with the bad.
Why am I rehashing this Untergang des Abendlandes theme? It is simply that once in a while we need to step back, look at the direction we are going, and re-evaluate our personal contributions to that end.
The morning after the announcement of Beverly Sill’s death I was bemoaning the loss to a fellow stationary bicycle user at the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases on 17th Street (yep, this advocate of walking as the universal exercise has not done enough stair climbing, and now needs rehabilitation of his quadriceps), when he interrupted me to ask who the lady was. The chief therapist was nearby, so I asked him the question. He claimed ignorance and asked his assistant, a young woman. Same answer. It went on like that all day.
It reminded me of the time when we at some office get-together were inspired to declaim poetry, preferably daring stuff, and I chose an obscure limerick: “While Titian was mixing rose madder, his model stood on a ladder. Her position to Titian suggested coition, so he climbed the ladder and had her.” My audience mostly knew of limericks, but demanded translation of three words, you know which (rose madder is paint).
When I was at Baruch College five decades ago (before there was a CUNY), earning a BBA degree, we trade schoolers had to take four obligatory years of English (literature and writing), four terms of Rhetoric (speech), one each of Art, Music and Biology. No classmate of mine would have that problem of understanding the limerick, except maybe some confusion with rose madder (there seems to have been an ecdysiast by that name - that’s a striptease artist - and I don’t mean Gypsy Rose Lee).
Then came all those separatist movements – feminism, multiculturalism, emphasis on ethnicity instead of assimilation, identity politics, and disrespect for Western civilization. The acronym of derision, DWEM (Dead White European Men) became a popular academic term for Western culture. Technology became a more and more demanding area of study, and liberal arts sank. Harvard’s acclaimed 1978 invention, the Core Curriculum, contributed to the shift, providing a choice of eight or nine topics within a menu of 11 – foreign cultures, literature, arts, historical studies. moral reasoning, quantitative reasoning (eco), social sciences and social analysis, lite on the valuable 101 level comprehensive courses and big on boutique topics. Thereafter, one could spend four years at Harvard and never hear of Shakespeare.
Such Core Curricula became prevalent throughout the academe, consequently driving out the Required Subjects mode, not unlike bad coinage driving out good (Gresham’s Law, remember?). Schools started offering contrived subjects for one’s major. A New York Times crossword puzzle editor got there by majoring in games, a first and only one then. Subsequently several schools have let students major in computer games (must look ridiculous on your sheepskin), obviously a significant career topic, since Microsoft alone has sold 11 million of its xBox 360 games. At least one Ivy League school became the subject or derision because of the permissiveness of its majors.
The result is evident everywhere. Lack of culture, knowledge and civility prevails. My Rhetoric classes taught us some manners, now a lost topic with Generation post-X, the xBox users. The last remaining refuge for decorum is the US Congress, with its generous modes of address, while the British, Australian and Israeli legislatures have lost it.
We no longer can blame TV alone as the reason for the dulling of interests, trending to pop. Internet has to accept its share of blame in loss of culture, manners and general knowledge. Why remember names and dates when you can look them up on Google! As to manners, why not accept the opportunity to gush out your hatreds and prejudices and jealousies on a web page, on an interactive site, when it can be done anonymously. Besmirching a classmate’s reputation on a school website occurs locally, or internationally, on one of those social networking sites that Murdock and Google seem to be buying up, spending billions. MySpace has 190 million subscribers, exhibiting their accomplishments, knocking competitors and seeking to hook up with friends, and its look-alikes Facebook and Friendster sites are trying to get there. Saying nasty things anonymously is not limited to kids’ websites, adults do it too, as noted as close to home as on a midtown Tenants Association website.
The invasion of privacy and property continues. YouTube gained recognition by offering space for showing embarrassing home movies, or clips pilfered from copyrighted motion pictures, fitting well in context with the petty larceny in the music download culture, once actively supported by the notorious Napster. The pilfering of music continues, with the aid of Apple and its wildly popular iBook, mixing the sales of music while facilitating easy copying. One major music retailer, Tower Records, has already bitten the dust. The music business as a whole is endangered, and the good are going down with the bad.
Why am I rehashing this Untergang des Abendlandes theme? It is simply that once in a while we need to step back, look at the direction we are going, and re-evaluate our personal contributions to that end.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:43 AM 
