Re: Same Old New Criterion ...

By chance, this was re-posted today where I could see it: Kwame Anthony Appiah on Western Civilization -- a few questionable facts on Herodotus and maybe suppression of the Dar al-Harb "House of War" version of the Islamic division of the world, and too full-throated a praise of the multiculturalism of the Cordoba Caliphate; but it's a rousing tribute to E. B. Tylor's notion of culture vs. Matthew Arnold's, and it's a nice riposte to the persistent Roger Kimball. https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Fnov%2F09%2Fwestern-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture%3FCMP%3Dshare_btn_tw%26fbclid%3DIwAR1UmaXIvUN4-aildLcl2aRVZrXxa4hU-JjsUFAKMtRKlGKSRFdJ8rSiq-8&data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ca649008671354b18ec6208d6a0b2a304%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C636873086468028059&sdata=36KUXYsX7s0aaGRo9L3LtEnpIrCmn7X8whqAsWGVIFA%3D&reserved=0. 
OC
-----Original Message-----
From: Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group <[email protected]> On Behalf Of DANIEL P. Tompkins
Sent: Monday, March 4, 2019 5:04 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Same Old New Criterion ...

This email originated outside Colorado College. Do not click links or attachments unless you know the content is safe.


... Its current issue
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newcriterion.com%2Fissues%2F2019%2F3%2Fdecline-fall-classics-edition&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ca649008671354b18ec6208d6a0b2a304%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636873086468028059&amp;sdata=uJ4tyeeQxPdOyVUEg3PF8ZUZD4d2lx2yAJB4fgws8tU%3D&amp;reserved=0>
assails black studies and women's studies as "pseudo-disciplines."  Which rang a bell: they've been saying the same thing for decades, e.g. this from
1998:


Black studies and other programs of racial and ethnic redress certainly compete with women's studies for utter intellectual nullity.


Folks can save the price of a subscription by just reading issues from 2 decades ago and changing a few names: the content -- the laments for a supposedly lost "excellence," the resentment against new fields, the condescension toward social science in general, are endlessly repeated, without change.

Some in our field will recall the easy* derogation of women's studies by colleagues,  from the early 1970s: what better way to mark the, er, semicentennial of obloquy than by recycling ancient insults.  *New Criterion *was a leading lagging indicator of culture from the get - go, an old criterion that showed a sense of humor only by choosing the adjective in its title.

I was surprised to realize that Roger Kimball, the editor, is younger than I.  Since its founding in 1982 (I think), he has sounded like a resentful ancient.

This was spurred by a good essay at
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsententiaeantiquae.com%2F2019%2F03%2F03%2Frising-and-evolving-classical-studies-in-the-news%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ca649008671354b18ec6208d6a0b2a304%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636873086468028059&amp;sdata=BHeVotHJLV4y4DVU1Ng%2FhwGTVqaLGsNZf4ARoVRnHfM%3D&amp;reserved=0>*Sententiae
Antiquae
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsententiaeantiquae.com%2F2019%2F03%2F03%2Frising-and-evolving-classical-studies-in-the-news%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ca649008671354b18ec6208d6a0b2a304%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636873086468038068&amp;sdata=Gu4wirhXkR02yVJIQHcylXklzEchME5FaSWAfMHNtfo%3D&amp;reserved=0>,
*by "Joel." Glad to see it.

Dan


*"Easy" because the derogators generally had put in none of the effort to incorporate findings from anthropology, psychology and other fields into their work that distinguished the fine work by feminists.