

Anne Trubek on Why We Shouldn’t Still Be Learning Catcher in the Rye - robg
http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Stimuli/anne_trubek_on_why_we_shouldnt_still_be_learning_catcher_in_the_rye

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aston
Arguing that Catcher in the Rye is obsolete because it no longer holds the
shock value it once did is like arguing we should stop reading Shakespeare
because nobody talks that way anymore. Good literature is good literature.

Plus Holden is hilarious. Everybody else is a phony.

~~~
ovi256
Plus, no one ever talked that way. Shakespeare was always peculiar. He
invented hundred of neologisms.

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cbetz
The message/theme of this book is timeless. I hope my children (not yet
conceived) will read it, and their children too.

There will _never_ be a shortage of youth that are lost/confused and at the
same time coming of age.

Some argue that we should forgo teaching children the classics because newer,
somehow more relevant literature with the same message is now available. The
point of reading the classics is that these things are _timeless_ , and so
reading the work of the first person to write about a certain topic in depth
is like reading a primary source. In other words, it should be encouraged in
academia.

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asdflkj
Things are deemed "timeless" when people keep reading them over the
generations. And your argument for why they should read them in the first
place is that they're "timeless". That's circular.

As for "primary source", that's if you treat ideas as historical artifacts. If
you're actually interested in the ideas themselves, a more apt metaphor would
be learning obsolete technology. This is sometimes good, but not often. For
example, I recently learned how Intel 8080 works, because I wanted to know
more about how CPUs work, and modern ones were too complicated for me.

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cbetz
The themes/messages are timeless, not the works themselves. Here is my point:
Would you rather read Plato, Aristotle, and the like, or the writings of a
more "modern" philosopher who had conceivably based his opinions on all three?

And yes, using word timeless twice in my original post does make the argument
appear circular. Works are not timeless because they are timeless (circular
indeed!) but because their themes are timeless AND they were the first to
thoroughly explore those themes.

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asdflkj
OK, define "timeless" that way. It still doesn't follow that these things are
worth reading. Being first doesn't make you best. Figuring out what's best is
a very hard problem, of course, but it's a problem worth trying to solve,
rather than giving up and going for the next best thing, which is prestige.
Plato and Aristotle are good examples, because reading them is a waste of time
(but very prestigious). See <http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html>.

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robg
PG doesn't say that, not in my reading at least. If you're interested in the
current state of philosophy, I think that's a great essay. But in it, I think
the claim is that you need to read the classics to learn from their mistakes.
That is, if you want to "do philosophy".

And while PG may be unsure of his influences, the more I read his essays the
more I see serious traning in philosophy. He's meticulous in defining concepts
and using them consistently. That's exactly the problem and goal of post-
Wittgenstein philosophy. Sure, the ultimate utility of the field of philosophy
is in question. But, to me, the endeavor has a firm role to play in the
education of the mind. Math is more precise, but most of us communicate
everyday by using concepts. In conversation, though, how do we make sure we're
using the same (or similar) concepts with each other? How do we know we're
consistent with ourselves in our own concepts?

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asdflkj
"What philosophy books would you recommend?

I can't think of any I'd recommend. What I learned from trying to study
philosophy is that the place to look is in other fields."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html>

~~~
robg
The essay, you referenced, is "How to do philosophy". If you're going to do
philosophy, the approach he proposes includes learning from past mistakes.

That said, I agree with his answer to the raq - you'll be better served by
doing philosophy in other fields. Still, I think that's a big difference from
saying those classics are a waste of time. In learning to abstract concepts,
learning from previous struggles isn't a bad way to go. I am agnostic,
however, on the best ways to learn how to abstract concepts.

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hugh
Am I the only one who couldn't stand Catcher In The Rye? Who found himself
completely unable to empathize with the character of Holden Caulfield -- a
whiny teenage loser who thinks (despite all evidence to the contrary) that
he's special?

I only read it once (I was probably 15 or so) but I couldn't relate to him
then, and I don't think there's been any other stage in the intervening 13
years at which I could have related to him, either.

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felixc
"Learning" Catcher in the Rye? What about just reading it because it is a damn
fine piece of literature? Maybe this person didn't get the book because she
"learned" it, rather than appreciated it for what it is. How do you learn a
piece of fiction, anyway?

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gigawatt
Perhaps adolescents these days are smart enough to read BOTH The Catcher in
the Rye and a contemporary equivalent, and compare how the specifics have
changed, but the feelings and emotional driving forces are still very similar.
It's not the What or the How, it's the Why that makes TCitR such an amazing
book. Just because typewriters are obsolete now doesn't mean books that were
written on them are...

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vitaminj
I read Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird years
after I finished school. I'm by no means a literary snob and read all sorts of
fiction (except I haven't gotten around to Harry Potter yet), but there's a
reason why these books are taught in school over say Dan Brown... they're damn
good. Especially without the burden of school assessment.

I think back to the books that I did read at school, like Conrad's Heart of
Darkness and Fitzgerald's Gatsby, and I can instantly see the quality in those
works. Same goes for "classics" I've read in recent years, like Marquez,
Camus, Frank Herbert, Huxley, etc.

That said, there have been some classics I've found tiresome. I've never been
able to finish a Dostoyevsky book, and Kafka was hard going without being very
fulfilling. But in general, the classics are really fucking good.

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radley
I don't think it's really an argument for removing CitR, but rather a
dramatically-titled article that basically states that the book has retired.
It's not getting frayed edges - it's dusty. The young individuals it was
initially meant to influence have grown up and are part of the AARP.

I have no doubt that Trubek feels CitR can (and should) be taught as a classic
like David Copperfield. But it's ironic to expect teachers to ignore the new
literature of the next 50 years. Trubek has engaged in a common exercise by
offering new options, with an edge, that demonstrate that classics are being
written today - just like CitR was for the 60s.

I vote for Battle Royale, but Trubek's list isn't bad... =)

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gunderson
The article doesn't suggest any books to replace Catcher in the Rye. I would
probably suggest "Drown" by Junot Diaz:

<http://www.amazon.com/Drown-Junot-D%C3%ADaz/dp/1573226068>

But Catcher in the Rye is a great and captivating story in its own right and
doesn't really need to be replaced... though it would be great if schools
taught edgier fiction these days.

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DougBTX

        The article doesn't suggest any books to replace Catcher in the Rye
    

Scroll down, that's the third one on the list - but yes, I missed them at
first glance too, looked like an ad block. I suppose in a way it _is_ and ad
block...

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gunderson
hah I must have missed that. Thanks for pointing it out!

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pmsaue0
I've always been very surprised that Catcher is assigned so regularly and
Salinger's other WONDERFUL book 'Franny and Zoey' is on hardly any book lists.

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pius
Nice to see a writer who actually knows how to spell "cachet."

