Great Americans!!!!!! Like Plato!

As you all know, I’m against snarkiness and mockery and so on.

So please excuse the following lapse. But after being directed by Scott Eric Kaufman to this short commentary on footnoting distributions in Critical Inquiry, I really couldn’t help myself. I could write a very serious, respectful, careful response, but there comes a time where there’s really not much point to doing that.

So without further ado, I give you a look inside the American history required course that would meet with law student Laura Ventura’s approval. I’d describe it in my best Eddie Izzard voice as “a course about Great Americans, just so full of Greatness that the Greatness is oozing out of their ears and mouths and making a mess on the floor. They’re just that Great.”

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Great Americans 101

Week 1 THOMAS JEFFERSON!!!!!

Professor Jones: Thomas Jefferson was a GREAT AMERICAN. He was a President. And very great. Patriotic as well, because you have to be patriotic to be President. He was so patriotic that he was pro-American before America EVEN EXISTED!!!! He was so patriotic that he is on our money. He purchased Louisiana, well, actually way more than Louisiana, also Alabama and Ohio and lots of other places. He wrote the Declaration of Independence! And signed the Constitution! There is a statue of him in Washington DC!!! Not just a statue but a whole big memorial!!! You cannot be more of a GREAT AMERICAN than him.

Unpatriotic Anti-American Student Brainwashed by Liberal Professors (UAASBLP): Didn’t Jefferson own slaves while also writing about liberty?

Professor Jones: Back then, owning slaves was patriotic. And Great. Then later it wasn’t. But we’ll talk about Lincoln later in the course. He’s also on our money, by the way.

UAASBLP: Wasn’t Jefferson a fierce advocate of the separation of church and state? And a dedicated critic of most organized religion?

Professor Jones: You have him confused with unpatriotic anti-American liberals. Anyway, we know enough about Jefferson’s GREATNESS now. See you next week!

Week 2 MARK TWAIN!!!!!!

Professor Jones: Mark Twain was a GREAT AMERICAN WRITER!!!! He wrote about the Mississippi River and Tom Sawyer and the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and so on. And he was an awesome patriot full of Americanness. He is also an excellent subject for a one-man show on Broadway!!! Americans loved his writing when he was alive and we love it even more now. He was also called Samuel Clemens. Unamerican liberals don’t like to cite Twain’s theorizing in their courses on theory.

UAASBLP: Inspired by this week’s theme, I read a Mark Twain story called “The War Prayer”. Here’s the first paragraph:

“It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.”

Professor Jones: Sounds good to me! Very patriotic!!!

UAASBLP: Well, but then a mysterious stranger shows up and offers a prayer that includes this: “O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

Professor Jones: Very great! I think we should reintroduce this marvelous prayer, it sounds very useful!

UAASBLP: Er, Twain concludes by calling the mysterious stranger a “lunatic”.

Professor Jones: Obviously you don’t understand Twain’s uses of allegory and synecdoche and allusion very well, because if you knew about all those literary things you’d know you’re not supposed to read that last sentence literally. Or at all.

UAASBLP: Twain also wrote about the American involvement in the Phillipines. He said, “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” And also, “I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate-raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her the soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.” And, “Who are the oppressors? The few: the king, the capitalist and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.”

Professor Jones: I guess it’s time for me to remind people of the importance of taking careful notes. You were reading Noam Chomsky, obviously, and weren’t careful enough with your note taking, so you got confused and thought you were reading Mark Twain. Mark Twain is picket fences and Americanness!!! He is GREAT! If you could just remember that, you wouldn’t get confused and know when you’re reading Chomsky and when you’re reading Twain.

Week 3: ARISTOTLE!!!!

Professor Jones: Aristotle was a very GREAT AMERICAN!! You know he was because there are anti-American liberal thinkers like Derrida who just want to make tons of money by trying to discredit him. Aristotle did philosophy, but don’t worry, he did the good kind that helps make America more GREAT!!! Most classes should start with Aristotle because he comes first and is part of our heritage. He isn’t on any money, though.

UAASBLP: Er, wasn’t Aristotle Greek?

Professor Jones: One of the great things about America is that you can come here and become an American. Though it’s also a great thing that we stop people from coming here and becoming Americans. Greeks are ok, though.

UAASBLP: I mean, a Greek from thousands of years ago.

Professor Jones: Your point being?

UAASBLP: Wasn’t the entire scientific revolution of the 16th through 18th Century aimed at discrediting much of Aristotle, or at least the dogmatic systematizaton of Aristotle in medieval Christian theology? Does that make Copernicus a self-promoting liberal?

Professor Jones: I’m afraid that creation science is taught in another department.