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> I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in Edit: Lots of hate here. The question was why people didn't suggest Twain to be "America's Homer", and

> I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in Edit: Lots of hate here. The question was why people didn't suggest Twain to be "America's Homer", and I answered the question: Twain is controversial, at least for some schools, and for someone such as CK, which should tell you something. Let's try not to shoot the messenger. If you didn't balk when you reached this line the first time you read the book, there might actually be something wrong with you. "He [Mark Twain] also said 'There once was a man named [N-word] Jim,' so not everything he said was perfectly amazing" - Louis CK

assimpleaspossi 3mo ago
And you're going to quote a guy accused of sexual misconduct? CK will never be a Homer. But bringing that quote up from a piece of literature, not just something he said, is being ridiculous.
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- somenameforme 3mo ago
  It's also amazingly ignorant. The entire point of Jim in Huck Finn is the extreme irony between superficiality and reality. Everybody in Huck Finn is horrible, including Huck himself, yet they mostly all paint themselves as the most honorable and just of people - and in most cases probably believe it. The one exception is Jim who everybody just casually dismisses, yet he's the one truly good hearted and upstanding character in the entire book. It's a lesson about the difference between what people pretend to be like, and what they are really like. Which makes the critiques of the book, often focusing on pejoratives towards Jim, just so unbelievably ironic. It's the deterioration of thinking in society.
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  - cgyvbunji 3mo ago
    > The one exception is Jim who everybody just casually dismisses, yet he's the one truly good hearted and upstanding character in the entire book Sure but you have to read the book first to know that, whereas the reader gets slapped in the face right away with the racial slur while reading the book for the first time, which is why some schools don't read Twain. This thread is about why people might not pick him to be the "America's Homer", I'm not trying to say anything more than that.
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- graemep 3mo ago
  If you are not going to quote people accused of (or even known to be guilty of) sexual misconduct that covers a lot of authors and creative people in general.
  - assimpleaspossi 3mo ago
    The point was that the quote being used to falsely denigrate Twain is from an accused predator himself made worse by the fact that it's not anything Twain said which is why someone here also said it showed ignorance.
    - cgyvbunji 3mo ago
      > is from an accused predator himself Genetic fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy > it's not anything Twain said Right, Twain wrote it, so: Distinction without a difference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_difference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...
bryanrasmussen 3mo ago
https://medium.com/luminasticity/huck-finn-one-of-the-greatest-anti-racist-books-ever-written-db3f922dea44 https://medium.com/luminasticity/huck-finn-one-of-the-greate... "In the world of the book Huck Finn is not respected, although he comes close at times to it, contravening all the values of a society that should be considered corrupt by ours. And in our world Huck Finn is not respectable and must be continually defended to keep from being totally thrown out of the literary society, because contravening the deep values of his corrupt society, he does have some of the surface mannerisms."

assimpleaspossi 3mo ago

And you're going to quote a guy accused of sexual misconduct? CK will never be a Homer. But bringing that quote up from a piece of literature, not just something he said, is being ridiculous.

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somenameforme 3mo ago
It's also amazingly ignorant. The entire point of Jim in Huck Finn is the extreme irony between superficiality and reality. Everybody in Huck Finn is horrible, including Huck himself, yet they mostly all paint themselves as the most honorable and just of people - and in most cases probably believe it. The one exception is Jim who everybody just casually dismisses, yet he's the one truly good hearted and upstanding character in the entire book. It's a lesson about the difference between what people pretend to be like, and what they are really like. Which makes the critiques of the book, often focusing on pejoratives towards Jim, just so unbelievably ironic. It's the deterioration of thinking in society.
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- cgyvbunji 3mo ago
  > The one exception is Jim who everybody just casually dismisses, yet he's the one truly good hearted and upstanding character in the entire book Sure but you have to read the book first to know that, whereas the reader gets slapped in the face right away with the racial slur while reading the book for the first time, which is why some schools don't read Twain. This thread is about why people might not pick him to be the "America's Homer", I'm not trying to say anything more than that.
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graemep 3mo ago
If you are not going to quote people accused of (or even known to be guilty of) sexual misconduct that covers a lot of authors and creative people in general.
- assimpleaspossi 3mo ago
  The point was that the quote being used to falsely denigrate Twain is from an accused predator himself made worse by the fact that it's not anything Twain said which is why someone here also said it showed ignorance.
  - cgyvbunji 3mo ago
    > is from an accused predator himself Genetic fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy > it's not anything Twain said Right, Twain wrote it, so: Distinction without a difference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_difference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...

bryanrasmussen 3mo ago

https://medium.com/luminasticity/huck-finn-one-of-the-greatest-anti-racist-books-ever-written-db3f922dea44 https://medium.com/luminasticity/huck-finn-one-of-the-greate... "In the world of the book Huck Finn is not respected, although he comes close at times to it, contravening all the values of a society that should be considered corrupt by ours. And in our world Huck Finn is not respectable and must be continually defended to keep from being totally thrown out of the literary society, because contravening the deep values of his corrupt society, he does have some of the surface mannerisms."