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laurificus at 01:53pm on 26/05/2009 under links and stuff, rants, we are drowning in stupid
laurificus at 01:53pm on 26/05/2009 under links and stuff, rants, we are drowning in stupidYou know, I really don't care at all who the Oxford Chair of Poetry is. Like, at all. Until this week, I don't even think I knew there was an election going on. But I am also pretty sure that allegations of sexual harassment as recently as 1996 are not long-ago misdemeanours, and I'm pretty sure that it's not the most exacting moral standard ever to expect that the person elected to one of the most respected literary posts in Britain--you know, a university affiliated post--not be linked with stories about sexually harassing his students.
This has been pissing me off all weekend, and it's not like I've actually been reading extensively on it, so I'm probably only scratching the surface of the stupidity. I have no idea whether the allegations are true--although I will say that two students making allegations at separate times is certainly interesting, as is the fact that the later one was settled out of court, and that no denial, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been offered--but none of these (mostly male! shocker!) commentators actually gives a fuck whether they're true or not. (Well, to be fair, one of them, while admitting he didn't know the cases, felt it was appropriate to write them them off as a girl with an over-active imagination.) Mostly, it's better just to have outrage because people were tipped off anonymously, and to insist that it doesn't matter if they're true, because great literary figures can stand above little, petty things--like, you know, being a decent human being, and treating women as people.
For the record, I don't really give a fuck how many other great poets of yesteryear (the good old days! When political correctness wasn't ruining everything!) wouldn't be eligible for the post today if we're going to be all unreasonable and not let good poetry excuse every imaginable character trait--if some of them behaved today as they did then, I sincerely hope they wouldn't get it. Hi, heads up: I can admire their poetry without admiring them as people, or endorsing and rewarding their racism/sexism/general dickishness. I know! I'm a woman, and prone to flights of fancy and foolishness, but these two separate emotions: i can has them.
Jesus. Why is this so hard?
In better news, I've just seen that Obama has picked Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. I would like to say: in your face, loser TNR writer whose name I now forget. (One night, while I was pretending not to be freaking out about SPN, I learned all about how anonymous sources had tipped him off that the Hispanic woman was too angry and outspoken and generally not very smart. It was very educational.)
This has been pissing me off all weekend, and it's not like I've actually been reading extensively on it, so I'm probably only scratching the surface of the stupidity. I have no idea whether the allegations are true--although I will say that two students making allegations at separate times is certainly interesting, as is the fact that the later one was settled out of court, and that no denial, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been offered--but none of these (mostly male! shocker!) commentators actually gives a fuck whether they're true or not. (Well, to be fair, one of them, while admitting he didn't know the cases, felt it was appropriate to write them them off as a girl with an over-active imagination.) Mostly, it's better just to have outrage because people were tipped off anonymously, and to insist that it doesn't matter if they're true, because great literary figures can stand above little, petty things--like, you know, being a decent human being, and treating women as people.
For the record, I don't really give a fuck how many other great poets of yesteryear (the good old days! When political correctness wasn't ruining everything!) wouldn't be eligible for the post today if we're going to be all unreasonable and not let good poetry excuse every imaginable character trait--if some of them behaved today as they did then, I sincerely hope they wouldn't get it. Hi, heads up: I can admire their poetry without admiring them as people, or endorsing and rewarding their racism/sexism/general dickishness. I know! I'm a woman, and prone to flights of fancy and foolishness, but these two separate emotions: i can has them.
Jesus. Why is this so hard?
In better news, I've just seen that Obama has picked Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. I would like to say: in your face, loser TNR writer whose name I now forget. (One night, while I was pretending not to be freaking out about SPN, I learned all about how anonymous sources had tipped him off that the Hispanic woman was too angry and outspoken and generally not very smart. It was very educational.)