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Death to Moby Dick!

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@HumbleFlow A lot of very smart and accomplished people would say that studying Homer in school, and liberal arts in general, is a worthless waste of time.

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@FiliusEuropae @HumbleFlow "Our Constitution is superior to Europe." Even Third World anti-colonial texts like 'The Wretched Of The Earth' were part of that code: "Europe effed up the world so America must take over."

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@FiliusEuropae @HumbleFlow The Unspoken Ivy League Exceptionalist Code: "The only thing Europeans are good at is art. Let them write the poetry while America runs the world that Europe totally effed up."

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@dbpartybus @JamesSurowiecki There are works of literature from all over the world. How many are you incurious about? The very idea of a 'canon' is sophomoric.

Winning an Oscar in a foreign country doesn't strike me as incurious.

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@tbits666 @JamesSurowiecki @dbpartybus I was assigned Moby Dick in college. Sat in my professor's study one-on-one and b.s.'ed my way to an A on my oral exam.

When I re-read it decades later on my own desire, I realized I had never actually read this book before.

School is childhood.

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@tbits666 @JamesSurowiecki @dbpartybus They should teach you to teach yourself. In this vast world, no particular book is needed for that. A 'mandatory' reading list is the intellectual version of a child wearing a bib.

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@opinali @visible_les @JamesSurowiecki I don't have years enough left to read all the books I want to, play all the music (32 Beethoven piano sonatas for starters), all the math, science, history. 'Mandatory' reading lists are for children.

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@ilwanderer6 @JamesSurowiecki That's just plain stupid. As an Oscar-winning actress, she's more than qualifed to teach at Yale Drama school.

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@MuinteoirChris I'd think that Greek culture is represented by the Greek author of the work, Homer.

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@ToddVercoe @BlackPenTakes @literaryeric The process of canonization is an interesting topic. I've never encountered a canonized work I thought didn't deserve it.

Ultimately, it is accumulated subjectivity with a side of propaganda. But it's a rigged metric. Beethoven couldn't pass the longevity test in 1824.

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@derwahlheimer @whollyfists @literaryeric I don't think there is any legitimate reason for contriving an 'objective' aesthetic metric.

E.g., a more complex program is inferior to a simpler one that serves the same purpose.

Any good art can speak for itself without the crutch of a 'canon.'

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@whollyfists @literaryeric Many people like Taylor Swift more than Bach.

I've never heard one song by her so I can't personally say, and I'd rather not desecrate Bach by reducing him to a 'received idea.' Yechh!

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@literaryeric FACT: Wilt Chamberlain was taller than Bill Russell, Russell won more championships. Who was better is an interesting topic.

Why didn't you say "...that I like better than the Odyssey?"

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@spencer_askew "Good music is music that sounds good." -- Duke Ellington.

By that metric, a book is better if I like it more.

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@EricLDaugh Are you posting this to make fun of Trump? It sounds like an SNL skit.

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@SiavoshDehdash1 @mdubowitz Let's blow Qatar up too!

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@dem2rep2021 @amanpour @brhodes Did FDR and Churchill appease Stalin at Yalta?

Anything is possible in your fantasy world of perfect deals and 'unconditional surrender.'

But in the real world, reality always wins.

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@Axiom_VI @marklevinshow 'Down the road' is the end of the U.S.-Israeli alliance if this keeps up. Netanyahu is the short-sighted one.

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@Ali4Iran2 @marklevinshow @SBBM66 @POTUS After the 1979 Revolution, President Carter warned the USSR don't FA with the oil (The Carter Doctrine). The Soviets didn't try, partly because they were stuck in the gluetrap Carter set for them in Afghanistan.

To this day, Carter is known as 'Voldemort' inside the Kremlin.