SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Something that annoyed me greatly.

"Princeton Removes Greek, Latin Requirement for Classics Majors to Combat ‘Systemic Racism’"
Classics majors at Princeton University will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin in a push to create a more inclusive and equitable program, an effort that was given “new urgency” by the “events around race that occurred last summer,” according to faculty.

Last month, faculty members approved changes to the Classics department, including eliminating the “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, according to Princeton Alumni Weekly. The requirement for students to take Greek or Latin was also removed.

Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics, said the shift will give students more opportunities to major in classics. 

Billings said the changes had been floated before university president Christopher Eisgruber called for addressing systemic racism at the university, but the curriculum shift resurfaced as a priority after the president’s call to action and the “events around race that occurred last summer.”

“We think that having new perspectives in the field will make the field better,” he said. “Having people who come in who might not have studied classics in high school and might not have had a previous exposure to Greek and Latin, we think that having those students in the department will make it a more vibrant intellectual community.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pri … ic-racism/
NR comments:
https://i.imgur.com/OkxTtqU.png
I am really annoyed that people are talking about this as part of the decline of western blah blah blah. I think it is much more obvious that the Classics department was dealing with dwindling enrollment and nuked the language requirement in order to appeal to more people.


I actually took a look at the Princeton Classics undergrad page. I know this was doing more research than 95% of the conservatives who will be about this.
https://ua.princeton.edu/academic-units … t-classics

Most of the courses in the major are cross listed with history/humanities/linguistics or just not available. After looking over the courses, is it possible the "Classics" major is redundant? I know this stuff is "OuR hErItAgE" but if no one is signing up for it, and all of the courses are cross listed with other majors maybe it is time to rethink the major?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6655|United States of America
It eliminates "the requirement", but is the content still similar that it is prudent to learn those to a certain level? It does strike me like the whole trans athletes debate of affecting a small subset of an already small body of the population.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690

DesertFox- wrote:

It eliminates "the requirement", but is the content still similar that it is prudent to learn those to a certain level? It does strike me like the whole trans athletes debate of affecting a small subset of an already small body of the population.
I assume anything an undergraduate student would need to read would have an English translation available. If you are going into graduate classics, knowledge of how to read Latin and Greek is probably a must. I know an Azn girl who is a doctor who double majored in premed and history when we were in school together. I suspect the Princeton classics department wants to boost enrollment in their major with people like her rather than maintain a strict requirement that perspective students need to learn a dead language like Latin.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I don't understand why the move is framed in a debate about racism when the relationship is far-fetched at best. 'Slave owners read Cicero!'. The classics used to literally be the cornerstone of any formal education, everyone read Cicero.

It seems to as you say mostly be about dwindling student numbers, yet the representatives steep it into events circling BLM. They're really doing it to themselves here.

Also, you can't study classics thoroughly without mastering the languages. Maybe the entry requirement will be waived, but reading greek and latin is core to understanding the texts. I suppose they'll need to intensify teaching on that front.
uziq
Member
+492|3423

SuperJail Warden wrote:

DesertFox- wrote:

It eliminates "the requirement", but is the content still similar that it is prudent to learn those to a certain level? It does strike me like the whole trans athletes debate of affecting a small subset of an already small body of the population.
I assume anything an undergraduate student would need to read would have an English translation available. If you are going into graduate classics, knowledge of how to read Latin and Greek is probably a must. I know an Azn girl who is a doctor who double majored in premed and history when we were in school together. I suspect the Princeton classics department wants to boost enrollment in their major with people like her rather than maintain a strict requirement that perspective students need to learn a dead language like Latin.
> pre-med/pre-law school
> "latin a dead language"

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Dead language vs. extinct language.

At least latin lives on like a massive bone graft.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
the classical languages are hardly 'dead'. they underpin the grammar of all western languages and there is a benefit to learning them if you want to learn any modern european tongue. likewise, latin is still a technical language in fields as various as medicine, law, and biology as well as the more directly connected disciplines of philosophy and classics. the classical languages are of obvious importance if you want to study theology, enter a seminary, or go to grad school in any of the humanities subjects -- all of which were pretty much the traditional province of america's founding colleges. (classics grads regularly score highest on the LSAT entrance exams, by the by.)

learning a classical language like latin teaches you a very logical and rigorous grammar/syntax. being able to parse latin could very easily translate into skills in logic, coding and computer science; or, naturally enough, and has been the custom for classics throughout the generations, into rhetoric and well-structured argument.

classics as a discipline is probably in terminal decline but the practitioners and academics of it know so. there have been many, many books written on the future of classics, as well as a huge push to 'democratize' it and take it away from a perception of elites/private education. i'm all for promoting classics education in public schools and giving people a living connection to the 'classical' world: much of western liberal education depends on this imagined link, 'civilization', 'the greats', 'the canon', and so forth. eliminating the language requirement just seems dumb, though i can't imagine how they'll get away with teaching classics in translation for a whole course. reading the classics in translation is not the same thing. that's like proposing being able to get a 'french degree' by reading french novels in translation. it is a nonsense.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
as an aside, i know from looking at grad school requirements in the US that most leading PhD programmes will nominally require 'knowledge of one classical language and 2 modern languages', but what this boils down to, really, is that you're able to translate some passages with the help of a dictionary in an entrance exam. it's not a requirement of fluency and i highly doubt any undergraduate programme will require someone to be waxing loquacious in perfect ciceronian latin in order to get into school.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
What we need to do is remove the incestuous circle-jerk of 'classicists' promoting each other into power.

I mean, look what its delivered.

https://e3.365dm.com/21/05/2048x1152/skynews-boris-johnson-prime-minister_5379134.jpg

Britain hasn't basically had a decent PM in 50 years at least, maybe 100, thanks to one small group of people believing they have the sole right because they can translate dead pederasts.
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Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

the classical languages are hardly 'dead'. they underpin the grammar of all western languages and there is a benefit to learning them if you want to learn any modern european tongue. likewise, latin is still a technical language in fields as various as medicine, law, and biology as well as the more directly connected disciplines of philosophy and classics. the classical languages are of obvious importance if you want to study theology, enter a seminary, or go to grad school in any of the humanities subjects -- all of which were pretty much the traditional province of america's founding colleges. (classics grads regularly score highest on the LSAT entrance exams, by the by.)

learning a classical language like latin teaches you a very logical and rigorous grammar/syntax. being able to parse latin could very easily translate into skills in logic, coding and computer science; or, naturally enough, and has been the custom for classics throughout the generations, into rhetoric and well-structured argument.

classics as a discipline is probably in terminal decline but the practitioners and academics of it know so. there have been many, many books written on the future of classics, as well as a huge push to 'democratize' it and take it away from a perception of elites/private education. i'm all for promoting classics education in public schools and giving people a living connection to the 'classical' world: much of western liberal education depends on this imagined link, 'civilization', 'the greats', 'the canon', and so forth. eliminating the language requirement just seems dumb, though i can't imagine how they'll get away with teaching classics in translation for a whole course. reading the classics in translation is not the same thing. that's like proposing being able to get a 'french degree' by reading french novels in translation. it is a nonsense.
You're probably better of learning German really, no need to learn latin.

Really you're better of going deep dive into calculus, a whole lot more useful than some dead language which doesn't really help with others.
Maybe people should learn Roman maths first to get a 'deep understanding' - or not.
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uziq
Member
+492|3423
of course nobody is going to advertise for the 'usefulness' of a classical language over a modern one. my point was they are the basis for just about every modern european language, and prepare one equally well for learning coding (or arid legalese) as for learning french/spanish/italian. this is just an incidental perq of the degree(s), not their stated purpose. a modern languages degree or language course obviously has a much more express purpose.

the relation of prime ministers to classics is dubious. you are confusing cause and effect. there's nothing stopping classics from being as democratized and participatory as modern history or, say, geography, and for people from all walks of life in enjoying it. the fact that it has been systematically defunded and now only remains as a relic for the top 0.1% of schools to teach – who subsequently wear it as a badge of pride and class identification – is besides the point. there's nothing 'elitist' about classics per se, and aeschylus and virgil are hardly to blame for boris johnson or old etonians being hapless leaders. your analysis is moronic.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Nah, it was always exclusionary and elitist, being able to spit out latin being as important as which tie you wore or having the right handshake
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
in your paranoid my-family-versus-the-british-establishment mindset, maybe.

there are lots of leading classicists today, as well as a major initiative with outreach into primary and secondary schools, that believes firmly in bringing classics to state schools and the disadvantaged. look up the work of edith hall, for instance.

i doubt you're genuinely interested in the details of this debate because, as with most things, your understanding is facile and borderline parodic. 'korea is a monocultural racist state that has no hedonism and has achieved perfect harmony'. 'classics is solely and forever for eton boys, to ruin the world by quoting latin instead of hiring engineers'.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Yes, classicists believe in promoting classics, only someone with a PhD in history could have extrapolated to that prediction.

I'm sure you'd have something to say if it had been a closed cabal of UCL geographers who had decided government and the civil service were their sole preserve and not for plebs like you and other non-geographers who went to lesser colleges.

I mean, how could anyone hope to run a country if they had no understanding of how the tectonic plates had formed the country over the millennia?
Ridiculous.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-06-01 04:50:41)

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SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
It is kind of tone deaf pushing for DiSaDvAnTaGeD yOuTh to get introduced to The Classics . It is peak Ivory Tower to think that getting kids to read old works that they won't understand will turn around their lives. Time would be better spent getting the kids to read more modern English text.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423
who said it will 'improve their lives'? university education improves everyone's lives, dipshits. it's still one of the surest ways to ensure social mobility and a middle-class income (even if the scaffolding is considerably more shaky than it was in the 1950s).

nobody is arguing that classics 'improves' a person morally or ethically, or that it can be used to rescue the working-class from oblivion. the point i was making it that there is much reform and discussion within the discipline to make it 'accessible' to people from a wider catchment. many subjects have traditionally been the study of elites: theology, philosophy, history, literature, as well as most of the pure sciences.

this is like someone observing 'scientific institutions are working hard to redress the gender imbalance between male and female scientists' and you replying 'LOL as if you think encouraging women to do science will fix the causes of gender inequality!' obviously that is not the point. learn to follow an argument maybe?

reading modern english texts isn't necessarily any more 'useful' than reading the classics. university is about transferrable skills. not many people with an english literature degree get a job directly related to chaucer, donne, shakespeare, dickens, or even zadie smith, you know. use your fucking head ffs.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

@zeek I meant dead in the colloquial, "technically yes (but also not the full story)" sense that there aren't really any everyday native-speaking Latin communities talking about everyday things in the language. I don't think kids in the Vatican grow up speaking Latin as a first language? I've read it ceased to have native-speaking communities over a thousand years ago. I don't mean dead in the sense that it has no speakers or purpose. I'm not making Dilbert's argument, whatever that is. Latin is in no imminent danger of becoming extinct. Philosophy, law, science, medicine, etc. etc.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
modern-day romanian is incredibly close to latin but i digress.

not much chance of there being kids in the vatican considering the rules placed on catholic prelates. an officially celibate city won't have many maternity wards or kindergartens.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

It's probably for the best that some of those clergymen not be surrounded by a ton of children to pick from.

Anyway, since Latin also became ton of other languages, in a sense I guess its children are spoken natively.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

university education improves everyone's lives, dipshits.
Seems to have left you an offensive twat.
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Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Latin is in no imminent danger of becoming extinct. Philosophy, law, science, medicine, etc. etc.
None of these are really improved by latin or need it, its a quirk of history and we might as well knock it on the head now.
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unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

OK I'll wait on you to go through each of these fields, STEM included, and invent more "English-sounding" words for each Latin, Greek-derived, or whatever term.

Better get to it.
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

university education improves everyone's lives, dipshits.
Seems to have left you an offensive twat.
and imperial left you a scientifically illiterate eugenicist. who knew?
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Dilbert_X wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Latin is in no imminent danger of becoming extinct. Philosophy, law, science, medicine, etc. etc.
None of these are really improved by latin or need it, its a quirk of history and we might as well knock it on the head now.
yes, right, the linnaean system of classification is a 'quirk'. let's start over by renaming every plant or bacterium.

'the one that looks like a frogspawn with a flagella'.
'ah, yes, what's it related to?'
'that one that looks a bit like a comma in a jar with a squiggly bit'.
'ah, yes, that species ... i mean phylum ... oh wait we can't use latin terms can we?'

to think you actually graduated with a science degree and consider yourself intelligent.

dilbert: boohoo the british establishment bullied my family so i'm going to argue that latin in the sciences is wholly useless.

Last edited by uziq (2021-06-01 06:46:40)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Let's say hypothetically that we were to replace all Latin/Greek/whatever sounding stuff in law, sciences, etc. with words that sound more English? English, the evolving language that changes over time.

Dilberts in the year 2800: "we need to throw out all these established terms again and replace them with something more modern!"

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