In the interests of saving On Line Opinion readers the time and effort of having to compose their objections to this piece, I will lay them out here, in advance:

1. You idiot! Shakespeare's plays aren't just the same as rocks! What kind of a fool could think such a thing? No surprise there; it's a humanities academic.

2. Could somebody translate this for me please? It's full of pretentious jargon and weasel words like "post-structuralist" and "context" and "sonnets" and "rocks". The sooner these pseudo-intellectual poseurs and their egos are made redundant the better.

3. Parents should have the right to choose where they send their kids to school and not be forced to subsidide the public education of other kids while having to pay for the private education of their own.

4. You can play your little games as much as you like. But what about the real world implications of moral relativism and the postmodernist attack on Western ideals? And what about the suppression of women in Afghanistan -- where's your feminist ideals now, you terrorist sympathiser?!

5. How can cultural studies be a science when we all know (from tabloid newspaper reports, rumours, etc.) that it believes there's no such thing as truth? Just one of the many contradications that make up the hogwash that comes out of universities today.

6. I tried to read through this, but gave up halfway through. Why so many words? Couldn't you have made your point in 50 words or less? honestly, if you want to convince us that you're right, you need to give it to us in a 30 second soundbite. I'm not going to waste my time wading through all that rubbish just to understand where you're coming from.

7. Brian Moon? Aren't you on the WA Curriculum Council? Well, of course you'd say all that, wouldn't you? Dont bite the hand that feeds...

8. I've read what you've said and what Luke Slattery has written, and I think Slattery's right -- he writes a much finer prose and he hasn't been brainswashed by all that critical literacy mallarky (as evidenced by the fact that he denounces it), whereas you're defending it. So, obviously you're wrong.

9. This joker here and his different games is all very funny, but what do we do when the kiddies finish school and can't spell? How can our society go on functioning?

Captain Oats would sumarise the responses of Online Opinion readers better if he used the words 'academic' and 'ivory tower' rather more, and included some irrelevant biblical quotes and some tendentious opinions drawn from them.

Dear Capitan where exactly IS this "truth" that you are referring to?

And who is really in a position to define what this "truth" is?

Exactly what are the ideals (as compared to the two faced double speak) of the "west"? The "west" which is responsible for over 50% of the worlds armaments trade. The "culture" of death literally rules! See for instance
1. www.dabase.org/popdisgu.htm

All the old "authorities" (especially of the Middle Eastern semitic religions) are effectively bankrupt and the old "moral order" is well and truly dead.

We have a government lead by someone who is widely acknowledged as a lying rodent and as shifty as tomorrow mornings focus group findings--or an outhouse rat. And full of hypocritical bully boys who have collected destroyed even the possibilty of civil discourse in this country. Aided and abetted by the one dimensional ideological hacks that infest the Murdoch propaganda machine.

And even he is a paragon of virtue compared to the culturally and morally bankrupt psychopaths in power in the USA. See for instance:
2. www.valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com

Plus 2 related references on the nature of Truth
3. www.dabase.org/truthfrl.htm
4. www.aboutadidam.org/nature_of_reality/subjective.html

To save OLO readers the time, I will reply to Captain Oats. I’ll do it in 350 words, so he doesn’t lose focus:

1.Moon didn’t say that. Wilfully misrepresenting somebody's argument demonstrates that you have no effective counter-argument.

2.Make the effort to understand it yourself. What sort of lazy education did you get that led you to believe the meaning should be handed to you on a plate?

3.If you say so. Please send me a refund cheque for my tax dollars that were wasted on your education.

4.Oh, I geddit. Postmodernism is responsible for the suppression of women in Afghanistan. And here I was thinking it was US military support in the 1980s and the patronage of Osama bin Laden in the 1990s that enriched and emboldened the Taliban.

5.What you think is "cultural studies" is what the tabloid newspaper reports have told you it is. Too bad you didn't bother to find out for yourself, but I guess your education system never got around to the part where you have to make an effort to find out facts.

6.A fine attitude that will serve you well if you ever actually do study any Shakespeare.

7.Heaven forbid that somebody who works in curriculum development should express a view about it. Everybody knows that in these relativist times, the opinion of a shock-jock or any kook with a chip on their shoulder is worth as much as a person who actually has expertise in the field.

8.You think Luke Slattery's right because he writes "finer prose". How relativist can you get? Joseph Goebbels also had a fine way with words – I suppose that makes Goebbels right too?

9.Our society will go on functioning the same way it always has, with about 20-30% of the population as poor spellers. There has always been a large minority of our population that are borderline functional illiterate; including my fine grandmother and members of her generation that lived through the Great Depression and WWII and saw off the Soviet Empire. And the Soviets were good spellers.
----

Where's the next barrel of fish?

"5. How can cultural studies be a science when we all know (from tabloid newspaper reports, rumours, etc.) that it believes there's no such thing as truth?"

I suspect the good Captain might be having a little chuckle to him/herself right now. Tabloid and rumours, indeed.

Indeed - my replies were based on the very slight chance that "Captain Oats" is actually genuine and not a troll...

A day late and a dollar short.

A day late because this should surely have been published yesterday?

A dollar short because it does seem to take itself a little too seriously.

>>The immediate aim of criticism is to decide which works of literature offer the greatest insight into the human condition, and to describe, if possible, how they do it; the broader aim is to improve society by cultivating individual taste and morality, using the "best" works of literature as a kind of moral compass<<

Quite a task that LitCrit has set for itself. Big, bi-i-i-i-g challenge. All those books, all those bus tickets, so little time.

I find myself reasonably comfortable with the first part, about deciding which books are cleverer than others, just so long as the lit critters understand that they are only talking to themselves.

You can tell this is the case by measuring the jargon quotient, which - as with any other science - is designed to to convey meaning only to similarly-equipped peers. Anyone who has inadvertently dropped in upon a discussion on econometrics or quantum theory knows this to be the case.

Understand that these folk do not actually possess the necessary skills to communicate outside their own narrow species. The language they speak has been created specifically so that they can understand each other, but is impossible to translate for the benefit of the rest of us.

Unfortunately this means thay they will inevitably fail in the second of their self-imposed tasks - to "improve society by cultivating individual taste and morality" - simply because no-one understands a word they say.

And hey, you may think you understand, but the rules of postmodern theory actually guarantee that you don't. Because "understanding" is not actually a valid postmodern construct.

But I love these articles anyway.

Over time, I have come to believe that the less of them I actually comprehend, the smarter I must be. It's a good feeling.

The irony in all of this of course is that if English weren't a compulsory subject, few people would do it. There are a lot of people crunching the numbers so to speak and working out just how much interest they have to feign in order to get the marks to get into their med/science/IT/business/marketing course, after which time, they can forget they ever studied any of this.

Of those who do take an interest, some become academics, some become lawyers, and some become teachers. The rest end up doing a BA and then end up getting a boring, low-paid office job where they can take cold comfort in the fact that their idiot boss (who does enjoy his job and earns much more money) doesn't remember any of what he studied in high school English (and certainly didn't study it at university), and is, therefore, an oaf.

Don’t be disheartened, Captain Oats. I got it – probably because I studied English in its pre-post-modernist phase.

Who's buying the bus tickets. If it's the author of the syncretism of classic literature and pomo relativism then each person will have to be hand held from place to place by the author. It wont be a matter of having not read or being able to read the ticket. It will be whether or not one should trust the ticket to get them from point A to point B. Can tickets do that? Then there is the bus driver to consider. Has he/she been educated by the author and are all his or her educational, cultural, religious and life perspectives relative to the ticket holders. And if not will the bus follow the route implied by both the ticket and the buses habitual course. What's your sign? Because if it's Gemini your probably on the wrong bus. Check your star chart. That's not your ticket.... check the sign post ahead...you have entered the realm of "The Scary Door".

Thank you Brian Moon for a stimulating article. I think it would be great if there were time for the study of both Lit Crit and Cultural Studies.

What utter crap.

In three hundred years the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare will still be read and will still define and influence the condition of man.

The Adelaide tram ticket and it's message from an unknown, unnamed bureaucrat will have been long forgotten.

We still read Christ's Sermon on the Mount and Socrates. They are not read in most of our schools yet they still have a hugh influence on and define the direction and values of our Western Culture. No amount of crap emanating from Adelaide's transportation ticketing system is going to have an iota of influence on the direction of Western Culture. To actually study or put serious intent into such is absolutely futile.

A comparison is like a piddling pee's puddle ripple compared to a boxing day tsunami.

'Do unto others...'

'How you O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers...'

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, thou art more lovely and more temperate...'

'Friends Romans Countrymen, Lend me your ears, for I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him...'

'Romeo, Romeo where for art thou...'

Go on, off the top of your head think of a line from Christ or Sheakespeare, and for those dedicated westerners from Plato...

Then, then... tell me what were the first two words of that homily on that ticket?

Got the point?

Utter crap.

Captain Oates: - quod erat demonstrandum ?

A 'piddling pee's puddle ripple' now thats' good.

I'm still giggling. Shakespeare would have been proud to have composed that.

Yep I do love it when I write someting deep and original. Will it last three hundred years... much as I like to think so...naaaaaaah it won't.

Ah Mercurius

Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est

Here's a few for you Keith:

Good on ya Mum, Tip Top's the one.

Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.

D'oh.

I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight.

We're happy little Vegemites as bright as bright can be.

They built it to keep the rabbits out.

Classic and memorable English informing our holy Western moral values.

Isn't it funny how people who don't get what others are on about think its funny? I think Shakespeare would actually agree measure for measure with Chris Moon and see right through Moon's critics - such was his ability to deconstruct things.

"Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder.

Nothing but thunder, Merciful heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulfurous bolt
Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
Dressed in little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep: who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

...

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself...", said Will.

Sorry Brian is mistakenly called you Chris.

Thanks to Brian Moon for improving my understanding of the differences between Cultural Studies and Lit Crit. I now have a better empirical basis for my long held concerns about CS.

The point of LitCrit (at least as it was taught to me at Sydney Uni thirty years ago) is to help the reader to engage with literature on both an intellectual and emotional level. Contrary to Moon’s implication (ie “Criticism uses its belief in moral absolutes…”), one can do this without importing any particular political or moral agenda; all that is required is emotional and intellectual engagement with a text.

If I understand Moon correctly, this is distinct from CS, which is framed as a “science”, or something a little bit like a science. Moon presumably means by this that CS aims to interpose a degree of objectivity, of detachment, of emotional distance between the reader and the text, studying it as a cultural artefact which can give us information about the value systems prevalent in that culture. At that level, Shakespeare and bus tickets are indeed on a par.

Some questions. One: why would anyone want high school students to study great literature (as distinct from bus tickets) in such a way? Surely the whole point of reading great literature is because it engages both the mind and the heart? Isn’t it a bit like the difference between studying art vs studying paint chemistry?

Second question: why does Moon not mention the reputation CS has of importing a highly politicised left agenda into academic curricula? I am not making this up: read the recommended CS texts at Universities that teach it. If you don’t have the time or interest for that (and frankly, I wouldn’t blame you), check out the references mentioned at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies

Third question: in framing CS as a “science” or something like it, why does Moon not mention the fact that CS is widely regarded by real scientists as a bad joke? References:anything on the Sokal hoax, or “Intellectual Impostures” by Sokal and Bricmont.

Simon Templar - er, goodness, that is a lot of corn(?)

I think all you Latin enthusiasts should provide a decoder link for the rest of us, like this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A218882

What can I say in reply? Non sum pisces? Saxa reducto?

:-D

"Captain Oates: - quod erat demonstrandum ?"
Posted by Romany, Monday, 2 April 2007 8:16:30 PM

I do believe so, Romany.

BTW, it's "Oats", not "Oates" (I've never been to Antarctica).

Chainsmoker

The point is it is not the masses that define our culture and it's direction it is the odd few brilliant minds.

What are those jingles...TV adds?

I haven't watched commercial tv in years. Too busy reading the classics. Sort of proves my point though doesn't it? Thanks.

Certainly proves you're out-of-touch with contemporary Australian culture, and possibly one of those latte-sipping elites we keep hearing about who look down their noses at everybody and don't watch TV and are terrorist-loving threats to Western civilisation ;-)

It's pretty clear Captain Oats that you're not Captain Oates. Unless of course you've been outside for a very long time (which might explain why I haven't seen a post by you before).

Keith, "A 'piddling pee's puddle ripple' now thats' good. I'm still giggling. Shakespeare would have been proud to have composed that." It's fortunate Shakespeare's dead Keith, else he might have died of apoplexy. Either that or strangled you with your small intestine.

And for all you smarty-pants with your Latin quotes, I can only say "Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure."

That we shall die, we know;
'tis but the time and drawing days out,
that men stand upon.

ave atque vale

Mercurius,

Quite the opposite.
I drink XXXX bitter from a can or stubbie, drink Australian Verdello's from long stemmed glasses, go to movies, play Poker with my mates, share my daughter's music and my son's maths and engineering, work hard with lots of contact with hardworking others, eat homecooked meals including pasta, stirfry, roast, steak and veges, rice and olives, read widely - classics as well as a little contempory, walk and swim regularly, love watching all football and international sports events, don't believe in God, am on the public record as verment in my opposition to fundamentist Islamists, as protesting loudly against terrorism, the death penality and Israel's suppression of the Palestinians. I support George Bush and John Howard. I despise the self-seeking shallowness of Kevin Rudd and laugh at his inability to think on his feet. I involve myself in the political process.
My heroes include Louisa Lawson, Ronnie Reagan, Lachlan Macquarie, Henry Lawson, Francis Chichester, Jules Francios Archibald, John Stuart Mill, Caroline Chisholm, Weary Dunlop, Arthur Roden Cutler, Colin Meads, Edmund Hillary, Scott of the Antartic, both Marie Bashir and her husband ...

Oh the only thing I do you would no doubt view as a vice is: I sail a 35 foot yacht.

Yep I'm sadly out of touch with contemperory Australia.

Johnj

Really is Shakespeare dead? Not in my house he isn't.

It's the comparison it invokes, with other more common similes. Much better than saying as contempory Australians might; 'P...... into the wind'. Have you ever learned his sonnets? Or read A lovers Complaint? They are full of such uncommon comparisons.
Hmmm I shouldn't have to explain such ideas.

Strangling me with my small intestine is a job best being left to my colorectal surgeon.

Keith,

It's ads, not "adds".

Most are from ads, "D'oh" is from The Simpsons, a quite popular cartoon which resonantes with most Australians. A bit like Shakespeare appealed to commoners in his day.

I have no objections to classical literature but I do object to the notion that people who engage with it are somehow superior to people who don't.

In my apparently very humble opinion, your argument is elitist. As you very well know, Shakespeare was keenly aware of the tastes and values of the lumpenproletariat masses of his time. They were his audience. You could at least do him the honour of respecting that in your own historical setting.

Thank you for treating us all to the detailed description of your lifestyle. Much appreciated. Perhaps you'd care to read Veblen?

Keith, heh. Shakespeare is alive and well at my house, and has pride of place on my bookshelf, next to the DVDs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she's also one of my heroes, along with John Stuart Mill.)

However, like Buffy, Shakespeare is much more compelling in performance than reading the script. I will never understand why we make schoolchildren read the bloody scripts. If we gave them a red-blooded Bell production, they might stay awake until the end of it.

But to paraphrase cultural studies maven Prof. Alan Mckee, if Shakespeare has such a character-building improving influence on young minds, then why are many Shakespeare scholars so maladroit, boorish, slovenly and irascible?

As for the sonnets - obsessive and creepy, much? As much as you may not wish to taint yourself with anything so base, you really should read the lyrics of the average r'n'b singer mooning over the latest object of his "love", with all the extravagent and anatomically implausible protestations they contain. Take a Pepsi challenge and compare the mental images of the average Shakespearean (or Petrarchan) sonnet, and then watch the film clips for Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River" or "What Goes Around" - there's nothing between them.

PS - enjoy the sailing. Conditions over the Easter break look reasonable.

PPS - In honour of this thread, I shall place my bus tickets next to William's collected works, and Buffy. Like Prospero's books, they are not tranferable or redeemable for cash.

Ah Merurius,

We indeed are brothers.

Though Buffy sits like a lifeless empty Yorrick's skull and like 'rosy lips and checks' will within Will's 'bending sickle's compass come', but those bus tickets will admit only 'an impediment to the marriage of true minds,' for I feel sure a tempest might rage over our preference.

I for one would gladly swap fair weather for an admission to Will's original and final lament. Me thinks you'd gladly swap the entry to Justin's latest crude crooning for the same.

Then we as cousins could both sit and ponder the absence of a homily on the reverse of Will's admission ticket?

Your humour and your wit is inspirational. Will would love you ... like a brother.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – what a fantastic show! I was lucky enough to develop and teach an English elective to year 10 based on it. I’ll give Shakespeare the edge over Buffy - and the bus ticket – but the point is that modern works can have depth and insight in them. We do not have to go back to a past era for everything we teach. We can find not immediate relevance, which is a superficial aspect in education, but a deeper relevance to humanity in works of all eras. Some would be aghast that students studied Buffy, but it is one of the best productions of the TV era, and it can be profitably “read” and “re-read” for its take on teenage angst, loyalty, justice, the notion of us and them and friendship. Of course, Giles, the librarian in a library, not a curriculum resource centre, with books not texts, was my second favourite character.

Keith, "Really is Shakespeare dead? Not in my house he isn't." I nearly choked on my tofu, reading that. Of course Shakespeare is dead. How do I know? Because, as Roland Barthes told me THE AUTHOR IS DEAD!

I'm a bit cross at you Keith for flaunting your lifestyle. I've just come in from my 20km bicycle commute, from my job as a stress counsellor. I've only just had time to change my hairshirt and now I have to pedal the generator to power the laptop while writing this post. At least I've got some holidays coming up, so don't be surprised if you see me chained to the gate of the local power station. After all, someone's got to save the world, AND IT OBVIOUSLY ISN"T YOU KEITH.

Choke you bastard, choke!

It is a source of constant astonishment to me that people need to be counselled to gain stress.

Real men don't have occassional holidays...they have them all the time.

There are no power stations at sea, so us crossing paths is, though unfortunate, extremely unlikely. Though if we did I'd give your back a good wallop with my paddles and save you from choking. I'd also give you some decent food ... you poor wretch ... torfu ... what sort of mom did you have

I’m mystified Keith, I didn’t know you needed paddles to move a yacht. Use your sails man. That’s what I was shown to do in the Whitsundays during a most memorable holiday, recovering from the stresses of humdrum life, with my family on a Rent-a-Yacht. Otherwise we used the engine to moor. The tender (that’s the dinghy for you non yachties) also had a little outboard motor.

We’re ‘Cat’ people I’ve discovered. I like the extra space. What are you? Probably a monohull person. They’d read Sheakespeare to relax. I know some nice people who prefer monohulls, so I’m not prejudiced.

Did I read Sheakespeare or bus tickets to relax? No, I was going through an African Authors phase. Isn’t language and the use of it the most wonderful reason for being a human animal?

Johnj, you pay no mind to Keith’s remark. Tofu is great if you know what to do with it. A bit like language really.

YVOMME

Ha ha paddling my yacht off into the wide blue yonder. I can just see it.
I'm not wealthy and dislike any sort of 'stink' boat anyway and my pathetic little tender, which appears older than me, has only paddles.

I bet you didn't get a homily on the back of your contract when you rented that yacht. But if you did then it wouldn't have been written by a lawyer but by a yachtie, and then would have made a huge impact on your life.

There is tons of space for one or two hermit types and a little privacy with my forward and aft cabins.

My bookshelves contain a sizeable chunk of 'foreign' authors, American and Russian mostly, but I've a preference to the classic Westerners ... hmmmm maybe I've had a discrimitory approach to reading?

Reading is the best ... after sailing. Combining the two ...well what could be better in a gentle breeze in the tropics.

You'd not feed your kids tofu? Would you? You're surely not like Johnj's mum?

Keith, sorry to hear about your motorless tender. It's so handy to zoom off for necessities (a bottle of Shiraz).

If you like reading, try some South American authors. Especially Gabriel Garcia Marquez. For a taste, try a collection of short stories: “Collected Stories” I generally dislike short stories, but this one, each is like an entire book. Beautiful writing, he could teach many on editing. Even his explanation how the book came into being is interesting.

Mario Vargas Llosa is also interesting. But only what he wrote before he had aspirations to become a president of Peru.

If you can read Shakespeare and ‘get’ the meaning, you just might like authors from South America and West Africa.

Re: tofu. Yes, I cook tofu. I have a 13 year old daughter who decided age 7 after reading the biography on the Buddha she wasn’t going to be part in the killing of living things. After 5 years I’m still waiting for her to grow out of this phase. The rest of the family likes and eats steak. Sending a prayer of gratitude to an animal a la American Indians isn’t good enough for her!

My husband reckons she reads too many books. As if that is possible. Not the fault of her school I might add. Even the bus tickets here are boring.