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Studying Shakespeare is not "finding out, oh, its themes are X, Y, and Z (because duhhh) making up some completely nonsensical psychoanalysis." That's like say
by Retra 11y ago
Studying Shakespeare is not "finding out, oh, its themes are X, Y, and Z (because duhhh) making up some completely nonsensical psychoanalysis."
That's like saying studying math is "finding out, oh, number can be manipulated, and making up some completely nonsensical rules for manipulating them."
It largely constitutes a controlled dataset. Like shooting at bull's eye's rather than random shit.
> Is it better to study Shakespeare, or to watch reality TV?
You have to do both to know that, don't you?
- SamReidHughes 11y agoBut I'm not arguing that learning how to do math is useful for making decisions later in life (aside, obviously, from e.g. financial decisions that involve making calculations). I would argue that classes that study literature actually harm peoples' abilities to make decisions later in life. Letting people make pretend arguments without a testable standard of truth is a terrible idea. You can see people act in public today that do not care one bit about whether what they believe, or what they say, is true or not, and you can see them claim that there are "multiple perspectives" on matters that are, in fact, questions of fact. Some people are quite good at writing stuff in a way that gives them 2^n directions in which they might equivocate, should somebody argue with them. They are a product of this system.
- selimthegrim 11y agoIn your penultimate sentence you have in fact, hit the nail on the head. If you want to know how the politics of a society operates, the classes and praxis you are deriding are actually a pretty good way to find out.