8/11/22

BRITISH UNIVERSITIES WITHDRAWING BOOKS - WARNING LABELS ON CLASSIC LITERATURE ? MOLLYCODDLED STUDENTS! EXPOSE!

DAILY MAIL : REMOVED BOOKS READING LIST  by Laurence Dollimore

"Universities are accused of 'mollycoddling' and 'patronizing' students as books are removed from reading lists over 'challenging' content and trigger warnings are slapped on 1,000 texts including works by Dickens, Shakespeare, and Chaucer."

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I know I swore off reading Daily Mail UK but sometimes Daily Mail UK is the publication that breaks the news, and has articles like this one that make me come back for more. 

Excerpt: The University of Sussex has 'permanently withdrawn' Miss Julie from an undergraduate literature module due to its discussion of suicide - a decision made after students complained about the potential 'psychological' and 'emotional effects' of the material.

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I was in the fifth grade when forced to read Anne Frank.  My focus was on Anne's crush on Peter. I start realizing humans could be more horrible than I could, in my innocence, imagine.  I preferred reading two Nancy Drew Mystery Stories a night. Nancy was independent, fast-thinking, adventurous and clever; she always solved the mystery.  (She was also a motherless only child with a father who was supportive of her and she had a mention-worthy boyfriend who could be called in if she really needed help as well as having some nice girlfriends.)

I think fifth grade was too soon for The Holocaust. That year, because I was a very advanced reader, I was also forced to read British classics including Dickens and recall hating the world he depicted - the real world he lived in by the way - so much I swore I would never be an English major or an English Literature major. By the time I did go to college one could, if they found the right college and program and qualify for it, study literature in the English language without having to focus on the whole English historical and cultural dominance, 

If a student is intelligent enough to qualify for college, subjects such as suicide should not be too hard to handle. 

I'm beginning to think there is a genetic problem in younger generations, that the average one of them could never have survived daily life in the past when it was so much more harsh.  What no hot shower? 

So many on prescription psychotropics!  Self-spared the full range of human emotions through these prescriptions or self treatment with pot or booze or substances.