America’s Marxist University WAR against “BEAUTY”

WHAT IS MEMORABLE FROM YOUR 9TH GRADE CLASS?

Modern American Marxism insists that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No beauty can be more beautiful than another. All art is equally beautiful……..which logically means ‘that which is equally beautiful is equally ugly’…..Equality is the goal of Marxist achievement.

I disagree with these academic Marxist goals in any of the social sciences. It is because I am old and have been taught otherwise when Marxism was an anethema to our American way of life..

Is it possible that the utterings of a well heeled, but cold blooded murderer faced with his own imminent demise can be written with magnificent unsurpassed beauty, beauty of words and message you cannot forget as long as you live? Could such utterings rise above the Marxist command of forced equality of today’s lessons of mediocrity? Read the following assemblage of words from the 17th century:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

It is easy enough English to understand. I found it breath-takingly beautiful when I heard it for the first time, read to me by my 9th grade English teacher, 68 years old, 90 pound withered but commanding, Mabel Wicker, at my local urban public high school. There were 35 other kids in that class, mostly of us boys who were disruptive during eighth grade classes in elementary school. This is the same Miss Wicker from whom I earned an F for my first eight week period in her class. I was mesmerized by the Shakespeare she read as part of her daily lectures. I recognized its beauty. I was not disruptive. No one in that class was disruptive. We were not allowed to be.

She used red ink in designing the large F handwritten on my report card to increase the chances for public humiliation.

I enjoyed her readings so much. I had never cared about grades. They never meant anything in elementary school. You were either okay or you weren’t. I never even thought about grades…….until the marking period after the first eight weeks with Miss Mabel Wicker’s flashy red ‘F’ shining for all to see for the rest of the school year.

She expected homework from me. She showed me her grading book. There was nothing listed under my name. It was a perfectly clean slate sans any indication of handed-in homework. She pointed out to me that I had earned my keep. What could I say?

Later in the year I did memorize the above lines from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth as part of the 400 lines of poetry required to get a passing grade.

WHAT IS MEMORABLE FROM YOUR 9TH GRADE CLASS?