“Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors.

“‘We need to stop endlessly repeating “You’re special” and having children repeat that back…Kids are self-centered enough already.”‘”

Which is why I flatly refuse to have any of the crappy public school health textbooks in my homeschool.

May I say, “I told you so”?

There’s a reason why all most of my friends are older than me!

There’s also this. Think it might, just might, be related?

Or how about WHISPERS, VEIL, or MUSIC?

Drop me a line at reyesuelanewatyahoodotcom (you know what to replace!), and include your address and name, and I’ll enter you in the drawing as part of my promo for VOICES.

So refreshing.

What happened to the little boy who cried that the emperor had no clothes? He was silenced, of course, swiftly and permenently before anyone else heard. Because there’s a LOT of money to be made in imaginary clothes. So much more than in real clothes–it takes no talent, no skill, no material–supplies are endless as long as no one figures out what you’re up to.

And you might even begin to fool yourself.

…who loved Neitzsche, Hume, and Derrida.

I thought then–and still think now–that they were fans because

A) it gave them feelings of superiority to Read Philosophy,

B) it excused them acting like assholes to everyone else (particularly females–THANK YOU, Neitzsche!–and more particularly *me*, since I was the only female with the effrontry to bevery noticably better than every single one of them in English, social studies, athletics, and foreign language and all but one in math and science, and so offended their sense of the Order of the World, which should have all those with ovaries properly at the bottom),

C) the philosophers all denied a Christian God and an orthodox Jesus, and since the town was relatively Christian and conservative (it WAS a major university town, but in Texas), they felt like Big, Bad Rebels without the health effects associated with, say, smoking pot or the rejection associated with trying to chase after girls, and

D) they couldn’t understand what any of the above philosophers were actually saying because if they did, any rational person would realize that the philosophers were full of bullshit. By which I mean not that they were entirely nonsensical–though they could be that, too, at times–but that they were so flagrantly wrong, with such poorly constructed arguments that, for example, about 30 years after Hume’s Essay On Miracles was published, his standards of proof were mocked by applying them to Napoleon’s life and concluding using them that Napoleon could not, in fact, have existed.

When it comes to Derrida, I rest my case. The man reads like a mockery of himself. If you say stupid things with big words, they’re still stupid. The question is, did the man believe in what he said, or was it a joke? I hope it’s the latter. Anyow, he’s dead now, so he took that secret to the grave. I shudder at the though that he might *not* be forgotten in another century…

Anyhow, I read this anecdote with great amusement:

“[There was] a parlor game that a colleague of mine claims to have played, back in the day when it was easier to find academics who took Derrida seriously.

“My colleague would open one of Derrida’s works to a random page, pick a random sentence, write it down, and then (above or below it) write a variant in which positive and negative were interchanged, or a word or phrase was replaced with one of opposite meaning. He would then challenge the assembled Derrida partisans to guess which was the original and which was the variant. The point was that Derrida’s admirers are generally unable to distinguish his pronouncements from their opposites at better than chance level, suggesting that the content is a sophisticated form of white noise. On this view, as Wolfgang Pauli once said of someone else, Derrida is “not even wrong.”. ”

Of course, even when this doesn’t work, Derrida’s still nonsense. I really don’t believe that anyone who can comprehend what he’s actually saying under that mellifluous–and oh-so-copious and, wherever possible, obscure–stream can take him seriously for an instant.

I will leave you with this:

The core of Derrida’s thinking is that every text contains multiple meanings. To read is neither to know nor to understand, but to begin a process of exploration that is essential to comprehend oneself and society. This is, however, the sort of pretentious bullshit language a minister for Europe can only use when speaking French.

–Denis MacShane, UK Minister for Europe

…or Just Another Pattern of Ethnocentric Bigotry!

At the Language Log, they’ve posted pretty often about people who make declarations in the media or in written words that “language X is best for Y, while language A is best for B.” Or even, “X people are like Y because their language makes them Z.”

Now, there ARE differences between languages. For example, if you want to back a WHOLE lot of information into a single word, German will suit your purposes better than Spanish. Italian and French operas must have very different treatments of the libretto to achieve comprehensible, melodious results. English is more likely to be able to swipe a useful word from another language largely unchanged than, say, Mandarin. Many nonwritten languages are completely insufficient, in their present form, to express philosophical ideas without huge amounts of circumlocution, and in some, mathematics as we know it is simply impossible (as the number system might only go up to three, for example).

But when you start saying that “this is a language of EMOTION,” or “that is a language of THOUGHT,” you’re not actually saying anything about a language but about your own stereotyping. Here are a few gems:

From the Académie Française, quite a hothouse of linguistic and culture bigotry:

“Italian is the language for songs, German is good for philosophy and English for poetry. French is a language that is more precise and rigorous.”

Turkish novelist Elif Shafrak said that:

“Writing in English forces her to rediscover her literary voice, she said. English is inherently mathematical, she noted, arming a writer with the perfectly precise word to match the meaning, while Turkish is an emotional, sentimental tongue, she said, better suited for writing about sorrow and the past.”

From the BBC, restated in Seed Magazine, which grossly misquoted the researcher, ho made no such claims:

“Germans can be grumpy, unpleasant people—and it’s not because of post-Nazi guilt or a diet filled with bratwurst, says one American researcher. It’s because of their vowels. Hope College psychology professor David Myers says saying a vowel with an umlaut forces a speaker to turn down his mouth in a frown, and may induce the sadness associated with the facial expression. Myers added that the English sounds of “e” and “ah” naturally create smile-like expressions and may induce happiness. Clearly the solution for the Germans, much like the solution for every other people in the world, is to become more like Americans. The German Embassy would not comment on the findings, saying they were “too scientific.”"

A prof from the University of Paris III said:

“In its present configuration, current English is characterized first by an extreme concern for coherence and for explicitness approaching redundancy. The core constituents of the phrase — subject, verb, complement — cannot be as easily separated as in French, and the order in which they occur in the phrase is less susceptible of modification.”

The Guardian printed:

The German language provides fully functional clarity. English humour thrives on confusion.

The NYT:

The Chinese language is itself poetically vague compared with English and more open to interpretation.

A 18th-c. French philosopher:

What distinguishes our language from other ancient and modern languages is the order and the structure of the phrase. This order must always be direct and necessarily clear. French names the subject of the discourse first, then the verb which is the action, and finally the object of that action: there is the logic that is natural to all men; there is what constitutes common sense. … French syntax is incorruptible. This is the source of that admirable clarity that is the eternal foundation of our language. What is not clear is not French; what is not clear is still English, Italian, Greek or Latin.

Vancouver Sun:

English is the most idiosyncratic and wordiest of all languages. It has none of the rigidity of form that is the hallmark of German. And in all of its creative exuberance, unlike French, there’s been no need for official word police.

These stats are more than a year old (haven’t found newer ones–behaps it was a short trend, after all).

Bachelor’s degrees worth less–only master’s and above worth more.

Is it time to worry yet? If the trend continues for another 5 or 6 years, yes. If it’s just a normal fluctuation in a general upward trend, no.

I can think of three reasons for this right off the bat:

1) More and more mower-income jobs are requiring BA/BSs for no particular reason. Is a store manager who has a BA better than one who doesn’t? If he got the management position because he has a BA, I’d say quite the reverse! This is qualification inflation to the extreme.

2) More people are going to college, so many more that colleges haven’t been able to keep up the same level of educational quality as when they only educated a more select population. It’s not a drastic difference, whatever the end-of-the-world prophets would have you believe, but there’s a difference, and there’s not a system to really deal with it. There should be much more of an organizational division between different segments of the college population. Right now, there is a de facto tiering depending upon the school, but except for that, a BS is a BS is a BS. National exams might be in order, sort of like Oxford’s in-university system, but broader.

3) As the need for greater and greater expertise rises, those without premium levels of education are being left behind to a greater and greater extent–first those without a HS diploma to those with, then those without a BA/BS to those with, and now those without an MS/MA to those with. (THere’s been a lot of talk recently about the master’s being the new bachelor’s.) What will be interesting to me is if this will extend all the way to the doctorate level, and if so how and why, exactly?

I’m not at all impressed with the average “liberal arts” education. One commenter made the statement, “The purpose of a 4-year college should be focused on a broad education with the exception of the highly technical fields” after beginning “It seems that so many people here are missing the entire point of a broad, liberal-arts college education…EXPOSURE to new ideas, meeting different people, witnessing and learning about different cultures and eras, and listening to intelligent specialists (Professors) who have spent decades amassing knowledge and understanding in their heads and on paper … I mean how many straight-up high-school grads have read at least a few of the great works of literature, learned the basics of astronomy, or film, or learned German/French/Spanish fairly well, or learned the basics of philosophy, or studied the major world religions?”

To which I give a sound snort.

Your average “liberal arts” student at a GOOD school takes the most superficial of “science” classes–no real math or chem required!–and comes out from his Astronomy for Liberal Arts majors not grasping the causes of the seasons. Then he takes 1-2 years of a foreign language (the same as he had in high school), during which time he learns to mumble out a few phrases but is still incapable of actually, say, COMMUNICATING with anyone in the language. How many people take Spanish in college? And how many can do more than exchange pleasantries with a real Spanish-speaker?

Read a few of the great works of literature? Sure, the liberal arts student takes a few survey courses or one or two in narrower subjects, but I can guarantee that I was better read by 16 than most are at graduation. Basics of philosophy or religion? I watched students struggle with it, diligently memorizing everything the prof said and trying to spit it back out without comprehending a tenth of what he said. After they finished with the course, they thought they’d learned something. They were wrong. I watched them fight to try to remember dates and places and facts from a history survey course, when all it took was understanding the material–what it MEANT, not just what it was–to do fabulously in the class. And no, it’s not just my university. I’ve talked to a lot of people who had a “classic liberal arts education” from a number of schools, and overall, I wonder why they wasted their time. Most students don’t really learn to think. They’re hand-held through a puddle and then come to the conclusion that they’ve swum an ocean. Then they wonder why things don’t work out. It’s because they are NOT actually educated. They do NOT know how to think. They don’t have the sheer knowledge base, much less the thought processes, required for what I’d consider a minimal true “liberal arts” education. If they had spent triple the time in college, at the rate they learn, then yes, they might have a decent “liberal arts” education and might *begin* to be able to honestly say that they are truly educated. Four years, for the average high school honors student, is no where near enough, however.

It’s not an artifact of the students’ inherent mental capacity–or lack thereof–but an extension of the rigor-less primary and secondary liberal arts education combined with their typically limited grasp or like of math and science (which is why, in these days and times, most people choose less lucrative career paths than that of the scientist/researcher, engineer, or technologist/medico–even in law, one’s chances of admittance and success are raised by a science or engineering degree). Secondarily, it’s an artifact of the mentality of sheep-ism that’s been successfully inculcated into most “high achieving” institutional school students–don’t as questions, don’t challenge the system, and for God’s sake don’t THINK; if you just spit out what you teacher wants, you get your A. And, even more importantly, it’s an artifact of the enormity of the thing that is attempted in making someone “well-educated.” You don’t have a real grasp of the beginnings of philosophy unless you’ve digested the material of half a dozen courses. Ditto for literature, of foreign language, or each area of science, or history. Having students take a low-level, unco-ordinated hodgepodge of courses results in students who think they know a lot but in reality know very little about many things.

Which I why I think most core requirements should be scrapped, forgetting the vain desire to make everyone “well-rounded” and “generally well-educated.” Instead, those hours should be spent making students greater experts in their fields. Leave some electives free for exploration–and from there, any student who so desires can choose to educate themselves. Of those who have the mindset to become generally well-educated, almost none need a university classroom to do so. Of those who don’t, almost none would be helped by any classroom in the world.

Right now, I’m finishing up Rosetta Stone Latin (to which I say: meh). I’m moving on to Wheelock’s, but I’m thinking of adding Ecce Romani! so it’s more bedtime reading-ish. Haven’t gotten into Wheelock’s (actually, it’s still on order from Amazon), but I read Latina pro Populo last night (no, I didn’t even try to memorize everything!) because I could get it from the library, and I’m going through Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar, a classic updated from the 1888 edition–also from the library!

I dreamt of vir petasum caeruleam gerit last night… It is very strange to have Latin chasing you through your dreams.

Anyhow, to get access to the Wheelock’s textbook answer key, I have to convince someone at Random House that I’m not really a student trying to cheat. So here I go: I haven’t been in college in 5 years (sheesh, has it been THAT long?), and I’m certainly not taking a course now. In fact, formal education can go hang itself at this point for all I care.

I’m learning partly for myself (since more than half my characters know Latin, it seems silly that *I* don’t–notice the shameful lack of Roman allusions in my books and the comparative abunance of English lit and Greek mythology) and partly to teach the Bear. Since I homeschool and all. First on the list is Spanish, of course, next either Cantonese or Mandarin (if *I* have to teach all the foreign languages, you better believe it will be Mandarin, since Cantonese gives me headaches and there are more Chinese weekend schools for Mandarin…), then Latin/Koine Greek/Hebrew in an uncertain order.

I hope this is convincing!

I caught a cold and am pretty miserable, and (most of all) my brain’s on strike. I’m not capable of writing anything coherent right now, but I’ll see you when I am!

I’ve been a bit unhappy with my neighbors with the septic system problem for a while now. I’m not ANGRY…just…unhappy. They dumped about 500 gallows of raw sewage on my lawn and driveway, and while I completely understand that it’s accidental and actually felt rather sorry for them, the fact that they did nothing at all to clean up either the water or ice–not even when I asked if I could have a couple of hours (considering I spent more than 10…) chopping the ice out of the driveway–really bothers me.

And, YES, I could complain to the county health dept. and get them in huge trouble and make them pay a fortune for haz mat clean up, but that’s not what I want. I just want a little, well, consideration. A little help.

Maybe I’m completely unreasonable, but another neighbor whose daughter crunched one of our garden lights with her car (long story, rather funny) came over with a plate of baked goods, snow blew (snow blowed?) my driveway, and paid for a new light. And that was an $8 light. Her response was overkill, considering how minor the incident was, but she’s just a really nice person. I’d have thought that I’d get at least an apology and maybe a few cubic yards of gravel or a couple hours’ work from people who dumped their poop on my yard.

But maybe I’m just weird.

So I’m trying to learn to read Latin now. I know very little, but did know one phrase from quite young because of my parents’ deep interest in inculcating a love of the Classics in their children:

Claudite magna ora.

Which means, “Shut your big mouth.”

And people WONDER why I’m warped now. :-))))

(Wouldn’t “Magna ora claudite” be more normal, anyhow? Or even “Ora magna claudite?”)