I have known young people who believe it sinful to look at images that have the potential to arouse lust. So I am more sympathetic, even though their reasoning never makes sense to me. In my experience, they outgrow this stage when they are as intelligent as this young man.
eta: OTOH- the most devout never let on what they were up to, avoiding the images. It was pretty private. One only discussed it with his spiritual advisor, maybe parents, and me because I was a relative and really confused what was going on when he stayed in my home.
@JHS “He can refuse to read – and it’s 100% clear that he refused and continues to refuse to read – a book that is not about sex but is about homosexuality and repression. I think he’s a liar.”
Perhaps. Or maybe there is something else about it that makes him uncomfortable. It is possible that it just hits too close to home. In the words of Shakespeare “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
I don’t doubt at all that there are people who truly believe that it is sinful to look at images (or to read narratives) that have the potential to arouse lust. (Although, truth be told, for teenage boys that would be pretty much any image whatsoever, and any narrative too, including the backs of cereal boxes. It doesn’t take much. So the devout don’t really mean “images that have the potential to arouse lust.” They mean “specific categories of images that those in authority have determined have the potential to arouse lust.”)
This young man is going quite a bit farther than that. He apparently considers it sinful to look at any portion of a book that, somewhere, may have an image deemed to have potential to arouse lust. It’s like saying he cannot set foot in the Louvre to look at the Mona Lisa, because somewhere else in the building there is a partially nude Venus de Milo. And even that may be a respectable position – although one that fits poorly with the ideals of a liberal arts education – as long as it is applied across the board. All art forms, all media.
“Actually, given the existence of human chimeras and the (to many) surprisingly-high rate of hermaphroditism among humans at birth, even straight-up anatomy finds the claim here (and elsewhere in the post it was lifted from) a bit simplistic, to put it mildly.”
I am all about showing compassion and consideration to a person or a loved one with a rare disease and/or birth defect. If that is part of your experience or someone close to you, I am sorry if I offended you.
That being said, in the context of what I was trying to say, I think the acknowledgement that you are speaking of what is classified as a rare disease is all that is really necessary.
My sister-in-law has spent a career as a full-time labor and delivery nurse. I imagine she will complete her entire career and never have a case where there is an issue with sex assignment at birth.
I guess you have the right to consider me “simplistic” here if you want to. Perhaps I could consider your statement here as somewhat obtuse and not really relevant to what I am trying to say.
“So perhaps next year there should not be just a single book, but two books, or several, purposely intended to gore the ox of both ends of the spectrum. Then kids could choose to argue their own view or play devil’s advocate. Now maybe that would better accomplish what Duke intended.”
2plus- While that may be what you and I would appreciate and expect in the realm of higher education, the consensus in this thread was that this wasn’t what Duke intended at all. Duke, and presumably all other enlightened people in the world, have moved on and are now well beyond our old ideas. They can’t be expected to even to stop and make explanation much less debate anymore. They would prefer us to stay out of the way as they settle any tangential matters on these subjects.
@brantly@OHMomof2 Earlier I said Grasso reported his reading of Fun Home in the WAPO article. I was incorrect. It was in further coverage in the Inside Higher Ed article where he says he intends to read the book, avoiding the relevant pages. @JHS this answers your question about whether he avoids the book completely.
One quote which reveals his motivation: “Grasso said he wasn’t opposed to challenging ideas or uncomfortable conversations, noting that he’d already discussed the book with a gender-fluid friend who disagreed with him. But he said it was unrealistic to expect him to abandon strong beliefs against pornography overnight, or even within four years at Duke. Although he said he believes homosexuality is ‘morally wrong,’ he said he’d be equally against being asked to read a book with graphic depictions of a heterosexual couple – especially without an explicit warning about the content.”
@CollegeDadofTwo Your simple slam of “comic books” has already been hashed out. Have you ever read Spiegelman’s “Maus” and “Maus II” series? We aren’t talking Archie comic books here. Serious art and daresay, literature, has and continues to come out in the graphic novel genre.
After all this discussion I picked up and read Fun Home today and I have to say, I thought it was really good and beautifully written, and I’m a lit. major book snob who’s never particularly enjoyed graphic novels. It surprises me to hear that a student or students objected to the images, because frankly I’ve seen more sex on the cover of the magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store. There’s a picture of a naked man on page 44, but I can’t imagine anyone being aroused by it because it’s a cadaver with a third of his abdomen missing in a gaping wound. On page 80 a couple of naked girls sleep and read in bed, and on 214, 18 pages from the end of the book there’s the one and only depiction of any kind of sex-a woman with her face between another’s legs. The imagery is in the form of black and white line drawings and all in all it’s pretty tame.
The book’s really not about sex. It’s about family disfunction and the cost of keeping secrets. The author came from a family of English teachers so it’s chock full of references to classic works of literature, ironically some of them ones you’ll find on the Hillsdale College reading list Loukydad posted in #119.
Oh my God, someone might ask you to accept that transgender people exist! Horrors. Well, whether you “surrender” on that or any other issue doesn’t really matter. Trans people exist everywhere, just as they always have. In fact, there’s an excellent chance you’ve met some, knowingly or otherwise. And no, they’re not a threat to your maleness, just as same-sex marriage has never been and will never be a threat to heterosexual marriage. (Remarkably, I haven’t heard of a single person yet who’s been found weeping in the street that their straight marriage has been ruined by all those same-sex married couples out there. Despite all the dire predictions of such ruination.)
“When I wrote I wanted my children to read works that challenge Great Books, that is because I want all our children to overthrow the patriarchy…basically I do want to tear down and destroy. And I am incredibly hopeful that may come to pass.”
alh - I admit that I can’t begin to understand where you are coming from. It would be fascinating to me to try and unpack that. Another time and another thread maybe.
DonnaL - I want to be considerate in answering you, so I am asking first. Do you consider the term “gender identity disorder” to be offensive terminology, or is it ok if I use it?
Actually: that term is no longer in the DSM, for the very reason that it’s inaccurate and has long been considered offensive. The current term, as used in DSM-5, is “gender dysphoria.”
Let me first apologize to Donna for what I’m about to say.
Loukydad. Suppose indeed for the sake of argument that gender dysphoria is a disorder. That people who feel this way aren’t right in the head somehow.
And? What’s it to you? How does it affect you personally if someone-not-you changes gender? The only way I can see it being material if it’s one of your loved ones. But what difference does it make to you if there are transgender people? Or for that matter if there are gay people engaging in mutually agreeable sexual behavior? How does it affect you any more than hetero people doing the same?
loukydad: you are looking at the world though white, male, hetereonormative eyes and judging those who aren’t the same. You see yourself as compassionate. From my perspective, you are the one needing compassion, even though your judgements are offensive and without merit. Many of our children, regardless of their gender or orientation, have moved beyond the idea that your perspective is the norm. That makes the world a better place for all.
And it doesn’t mean you can’t be happily white, male and straight. It just means everyone else gets an equal seat at the table and you aren’t sitting at the head telling us what to do any longer. jmho.
Re the graphic novel. Art changes, mutates over time. When we all started listening to music, we listened through our ears - there were no music videos. Maybe we might see a favorite band performing on TV, but that was it. Now music videos are often a part of the music experience. Suppose Duke had assigned, instead … oh, something like R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” - which could be fairly described as a cross between a book with many chapters, and a music experience. While it’s not my personal cup of tea, I could see how someone could analyze that for what it means to experience a song or series of songs through video versus just listening to them.
I’ve not read Fun Home and because I’ve never been a liker of cartoons, comics, or animated movies, my first reaction is - oh, a graphic novel, that’s not something I’m interested in. But based on this conversation, I might give it a try.
209 "I been telling people all of my life that I am male. What does it mean to be a male? Is there any such thing at all, or does being male or female really only exist on some sort of continuum?"
211 - "Now who's making absurd analogies?"
Hey Hunt, how absurd does my question seem to you now?
Taken a little out of context, but of all the reasons in this thread to read, or not read a book, this sums it up the best. No high horse moral ground required. If the kid had taken this attitude, he could have gone to school this fall, expressed that opinion to his peers, they could have had a conversation and his response might very well have been “I’ll give it a try” Too much toothpaste to put back in the tube now.
Not to be flip, but how would a blind or visually-impaired student face this assignment? Is there an audiobook equivalent?
If there’s any criticism of Duke to be made here, it might be that it chose a work with limited accessibility to those who, for WHATEVER reason (physical impairment, religious tenets, etc.), cannot VIEW works of art. I do wonder about that as I can’t imagine Duke’s freshman class doesn’t include a handful of students with visual impairments, and we know they accept a wide range of students of various religious backgrounds.
As to this “comic book” criticism, seriously, have your kids never been assigned to read Persepolis or Maus? Saying a graphic novel cannot be literature is absurd. It’s not the format the story is communicated in that determines its quality, it’s the content. Although different mediums do affect us differently, which is why an artist might choose to tell her story in a graphic novel and not a traditional one. “Different” is not a qualitative statement.
274 - There are several good responses to that. Here is my quick attempt at one of them. Simple maxims are good. That one in particular (mind your own business/live and let live) is one I think we all should try to live by as much as possible. Unfortunately we grow up though and it just isn't that simple in everyday life. We have to share this rock together and we want to live a civil society, where the innocent are protected, so on and so forth. Definitions become pretty important to us as we try to do that. For example, we have to determine who can adopt children, who should be able to buy a firearm, etc. We often limit the ability of those with a mental disorder in terms of their freedom to do such things. I am sure you don't object to that, on some level at least? Don't you think it is important too then that we get our definitions right, because they have to matter to us, at least in a grown up world?