The Virginia Tech creative writing faculty is promoting book burnings and witch trials
The world is full of stupid fucks, with the moral intelligence of dingo dung - and the people serving on the Virginia Tech creative writing faculty are proud examples of this kind:
The creative writing faculty of America’s Virginia Tech university has new guidelines for teachers to use when assessing students’ work. “Is the work expressly violent?” they are asked. “Do characters respond to everyday events with a level of violence one does not expect, or may find even frightening? Is violence at the centre of everything the student has written?” Similarly, in colleges all across the US, teachers are now asked to inspect creative writing for violent tendencies and to guide authors of such work towards counselling and even medication.
How mindbuggery stupid can anyone be? Where to start, denouncing this latest nonsense? Well, first let me congratulate these imbeciles: I had not thought anyone from the PC mind control loving tribe could come up with anything that would surprise me. I was wrong.
These folks are truly beyond belief, beyond the pale, beyond saving. I would wish all of them dead if someone could prove to me beyond any doubt that there was no afterlife which they could fuck up before I make my way there.
Anyway, what’s with these people? “Inspect creative writing”? “Guide authors towards counselling”?
And if that fails to turn them into politcally correct drones, what then? Gulags maybe? Concentration camps? Or just an old-fashioned Chinese type bullet, for which the family of the convicted is duly charged?
Are they insane? Are they evil? The world’s literature is filled with tales of violence. Each and every fairytale that’s not completely butchered by Disney is riddled with it. The first cave paintings depicted the violence of the hunt, the celebration of the kill. One might deplore this - if one was as stupid as Virginia Tech shit - but this is simply a part of human nature.
Telling stories is part of human nature - and a good part of human nature is quite violent. Hence, violent stories - or violence in stories.
What’s more, trying to linking potential future violent acts to the kind of stories that pupils write is absolutely moronic. It’s the same kind of thinking that links children playing ‘cowboys & Indians’ to them growing up to become mass murderers. It is, in other words, the type of delusional thinking that brought us the Salem witch trials.
Of course, it is no good arguing with the likes of the Virginia Tech crowd. The PC witch hunters and vigilantes will not rest before they have changed the whole world into a Stepford theme park, where everything is sanitised and safe - and nothing of human interest can or will ever happen again.
They are the love child of George Orwell and Barbie, dressed up in cute little Hitler uniforms - and they are legion.
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April 28th, 2008 at 19:45
I think you should chill out a bit. These people are still horrified by the shooting and are scared of missing clues that it might happen again. The rest of us have the luxury of witnessing this at a distance. We aren’t still living with reminders of that tragedy in our faces every day. Yes, this is stupid over reaction. But it isn’t the end of civilization or even of free speech. Give them some time. The pendulum will swing back.
April 28th, 2008 at 19:46
You seem to be commenting on this policy without providing some perspective:
Nikki Giovanni, one of the creative writing profs at VT, noticed a recurring violent and gory tone in Cho’s writings, and she expressed her concerns regarding this to the department head. Because the state cannot legally share mental health records with the institution, this was the only warning sign that anyone was able to notice before Cho took 32 innocent lives. Ms. Giovanni’s concerns were not addressed by the department head until after this tragedy had taken place.
I’ll readily admit that not all violence in writing is indicative of a mental health issue. Most of the time, it’s perfectly healthy self-expression, and on this point, I can agree with the Guardian article you cite. I wrote a violent piece in my creative writing class at VT. The teacher only had to talk to me in order to realize that I was of sound mind, and that my artistic expression wasn’t indicative of a violent nature. But when violent writings are coupled with other signs of mental imbalance, it becomes the duty of a professor of higher education to assist students to find and recieve help, in order to ensure that student’s safety, as well as the safety of others. It’s important to note that this policy is not tantamount to censure; it is simply a written reinforcement of all college professors’ duty to be mindful of their students’ mental health.
If we follow your train of thought, and a student’s creative writing assignments are consistently dark and depressing before a suicide attempt, it would be wrong for the professor to take notice and attempt to help the student take advantage of counseling services? That doesn’t seem to help the student one bit.
I should also mention that Nikki Giovanni’s poetry in the late 60’s and early 70’s did more to contribute to the civil rights movement than a blogger who fails to provide full background information and decent research ever will, to any cause. So it doesn’t reflect very well on you to cast doubt on her intelligence in the first sentence of your post.
April 28th, 2008 at 20:20
Thanks for both comments.
Firstly, about that pendulum: that would be nice but I’m not so sure that will happen. I do understand the background of all of this but that is still not good enough. People have compared the trauma of the Virginia Tech survivors to that of the country as a whole after 9/11. I’m not sure that is wholly appropriate but if we follow that example for a moment, things didn’t ’swing back’ at all after that - as the people of Iraq know all too well. I’m not sure you can safely expect reason to prevail anymore (if we ever could, of course.)
In regards to the second comment, with all respect, I don’t agree. It’s not the task of a literary teacher to read anything of this nature in these writing assignments.
Yes, there may be mental issues (and these might also express themselves in writing assignments and might even be, in a small percentage, some cry for help.) This, however, should never be an excuse to police the writing of the student body as a whole. All kinds of mistakes were reported to be made in this particular case - and whenever things of this nature happen, there is a tendency to overreact, in an effort to avoid any more mistakes. And even if no mistakes were made there is still a cry for better regulations, oversights and what have you. Understandable, yes; wise, or even practical, no.
By the way, it is indeed not the task of literary teachers to actively work as mental heath officers. If a teacher thinks a student shows suicidal tendencies in his or her writing, I would certainly not want to stop him or her for reaching out to that student but I would not make a suicide watch (or homicide watch) part of his or her work profile or a general policy. It is a fine line and I will readily admit that there are grey areas but literary teachers are not trained psychologists and should not be asked to play that role.
Back to the central point though: it is absolutely wrong to police the creative writings of the student body as a whole. Firstly, violent themes are not causally linked to violent actions in this way - same kind of fallacy that has it that smoking one joint leads to becoming a heroin addict. It’s the ‘ all ducks are birds, so all birds are ducks’ school of thought.
Secondly, one cannot and should not over police or oversanitize societies. Bad things can and will happen and no enforced laws and/or thought policing can change that. The only thing you manage to do if you try this is to create a society and a state of mind where fear rules as a matter of principle and where, ultimately, individual freedom will automatically be butchered for some perceived ‘good of the herd’ cause. That is no sane way to live.
Finally, to be very blunt, I don’t think it’s relevant how many good or influentual poems Nikki Giovanni wrote before becoming a professor at Virginia Tech. You might be right she was that important within the Civil Rights movement and if so, my true respect for that.
This, on the other hand, is now and she now supports a policy - and a way of thinking - that in my view is totally, morally & practically wrong, and dangerous.
And just as I would not never disrespect any of her former work because of this nonsense, I will not give her a pass on this policy because of former contributions to the Civil Rights movement.
J.
April 29th, 2008 at 05:38
I don’t think the VT shooting can be fairly compared to 9/11, but if you want to do that, I can too. You are wrong, the pendulum is swinging the other way with regards to 9/11 and has been for a long time. It’s just so large that the swing has to be longer to make the changes that need to be made. The overall public opinion is way different now than it was initially after the attacks.
The thing is, I agree with you. This absolutely should be argued against. But you don’t have to be an asshat about it. These people are highly intelligent and can probably be reached with intelligent arguments. Calling them “stupid fucks” is unlikely to help your cause in any way. It just makes you sound like an ignorant dickhead that has to resort to ad hominem attacks to make a point.
April 29th, 2008 at 05:59
Todd - and Coocha too, for that matter! Both of you are right and I should not let loose with the verbial ad hominem attacks as I do. I do tend to go overboard. I know that but it’s hard not to when I’m upset - and I am upset quite a lot.
I still think I am right about the overall issue in this case but I do agree I can be my own worst enemy in the court of reason.
Anyway, truly, to both of you: thank you,
J.