First, I don't believe that "cancel culture" exists. There is no systemic problem of people being fired because their ideas are too radical. People generally get fired because they say something bigoted or do something that's fire-able anyway. This is a separate problem:
Wolfe, who was fired from the NYT for a tweet where she said she had "chills" after Biden landed in DC ahead of the inauguration, is the latest victim of a playbook perfected by the likes of GamerGate and similar harassment campaigns. https://t.co/cVP3psguiG
— Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) January 24, 2021
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As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
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