On the bright side, I suppose its reassuring to know that The Great Stupid is even worse “across the pond” than it is here…
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust, which cares for buildings in the immortal playwright’s home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, has announced that it wants to “create a more inclusive museum experience.” Therefore, the center of Great Britain’s essential public appreciation of the fact that it was so fortunate to be the birthplace of the greatest writer the world has ever known (unless the Bard was really a visitor from another planet, which has been my personal theory since I had to study “King Lear” in detail in order to direct a production of it) will seek ways to act on the diagnosis that Shakespeare’s works have been used to advance white supremacy.
Yes, these are morons. The legacy of one of the most vital catalysts of Western civilization is in the hands of morons. Now what?
After all, the Trust “explained,” some parts of the Shakespeare exhibits contain language or depictions that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. Shakespeare’s works have been increasingly slapped with “trigger warnings,” so I’ll use one: reading the next few sentences may do permanent damage to your head when your brain explodes:
This attempted cultural suicide was partially inspired by a Great Stupid research project run by the Trust and Dr. Helen Hopkins in 2022 at the University of Birmingham. The study concluded that the consensus regarding Shakespeare’s genius “benefits the ideology of white European supremacy.” After all, Hopkins determined, the playwright has become a symbol of British superiority and the primacy of European culture. The remedy for the terrible harm caused by the treatment of Shakespeare in history, literary criticism and scholarship, the trust was advised, is to stop asserting that William Shakespeare was the “greatest” writer, but rather a prominent member of a “community” of “equal and different” writers across nations and cultures.
But the metaphorical snipers of The Great Stupid had taken begun deadly aim at Bill before 2022, beginning shortly after the scourge had spread its dark wings across the land in 2020. Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust received funding from the woke Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, which finances projects that advance diversity, equity and inclusion. Thus emboldened, the Trust sponsored events like one celebrating Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, for example. I know his name always comes to mind when I am pondering the mysteries of existence that Shakespeare explored so eloquently.
“As part of our ongoing work,” the Trust announced, “We’ve undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible.” “Accessible” is, as all should understand by now, code for “dumbed down and undermined by scholars about 6% as intelligent as Shakespeare was.”
In 2021, The Globe Theatre said that it would ‘decolonise’ Shakespeare’s famous plays [Translation: “distort and ruin”] and began holding “anti-racist” seminars critical of the Elizabethan poet. If there is a better example of the idiocy embedded in presentism, I can’t think of one. A metastasizing number of academics began refusing to teach Shakespeare in U.S. schools (Maya Angelou is just as just good as Shakespeare, right? Better, in fact, since she is the right skin shade and gender…) because his works supposedly promote racism, white supremacy and intolerance. Amanda MacGregor, a librarian and freelance journalist based in the heart of The Great Stupid, Minnesota, wrote in the School Library Journal, “Shakespeare’s works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogynoir.” Did she make up that last word? Shakespeare added more words to the English language than any other ten writers combined, and all of them are more useful than “misogynoir.”
Over at Instapundit, Stephen Green comments regarding this revolting development, “There’s a reason Shakespeare’s works have survived (and still thrive) for four centuries: they are superior.” Exactly! I ran a theater company devoted to great and neglected American theatrical works. The only native playwright who can be compared to William Shakespeare without being embarrassed is Eugene O’Neill, and as much as I admire his works, O’Neill isn’t even close. Miller, Williams, Albee…more inferior still. That the DEI fad would so warp values and perception that Shakespeare’s astounding contribution to world literature, performance art, philosophy, linguistics and wisdom would be seriously questioned anywhere is all the evidence needed to conclude that it is a social pathogen that must be eradicated as quickly as possible.
Ethics Alarms 
wasn’t this a subplot in the 1977 comedy “The Goodbye Girl?”
Neil Simon was so, so unwoke. His plays have fallen out of fashion with record speed.
I’ve read some Goethe, in translation. Not much, but a smidgeon. I was surprised how down to earth and rough around the edges and unstintingly realistic his characters are. Shakespeare immediately came to mind. I guess Goethe is properly considered the German Shakespeare. A Cuban friend says “Don Quixote” only makes sense to a Spanish speaker who can appreciate Cervantes’ playing around with antique Spanish idioms as he depicted and criticized the ossification of the Spanish empire and culture. So, I don’t think Cervantes being the Spanish Shakespeare amounts to much. Interestingly, I’ve heard Hank Williams referred to by an English critic as being the American Shakespeare. “If you’ve got the money, Honey, I’ve got the time.” Great, but clearly not Shakespearean.
Why is Western culture on a suicide mission? Again, if the West and Europe and the U.S. are so awful, why are all these people from shithole countries clamoring to leave their shithole countries and get into Europe and the U.S?
Re: Cervantes.
Cervantes was, in fact, an incredible writer and, yes, reading the original Spanish is much more fulfilling though translations try to capture the idioms. Gustavo Bécquer, though, is considered by Spaniards to be their greatest writer.
jvb
In the immortal words of Wonko the Sane,
“If I ever am tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away.”
“That one?” said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.
“Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do.”
The sign read:
“Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.”
“It seemed to me,” said Wonko the Sane, “that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”
Douglas Adams, how we need you today.
jvb
Jack,
How do we escape bizzaro world?
I would be interested in knowing which non-western playwrights tackled the concepts human frailty embodied in King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Ceaser. Most of the acclaimed Black playwrights, especially the most recent ones, focus on the Black experience as they as a group faced hardships as a minority in a foreign environment. In my estimation, (and I am no Shakesperean scholar) Shakespeare focused on issues that are common within the hominid species whereas other writers focus on more narrowly defined ethnocentric issues. Is one better than another? I suppose it all depends on what the viewer wants or needs to see. The broader the concept the more likely it will appeal to a broader audience. I suppose Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet could easily be done in an African kingdom and convey similar meanings.
The question is why do Black playwrights not create works that capture issues that all humans face. James Baldwin, one of the most famous Black playwrights may have captured the struggles of Blacks in America but thematically he only delved into subjects not ethnocentrically focused in his novels. Readership volume does not lend itself well to visual demonstrations of acceptance. I don’t see BIPOC ideas being any more marginalized by a larger Eurocentric population than I see European ideas being marginalized by an BIPOC audiences. Subjective judgement determines likes and dislikes. No one can argue that I should like X as much as someone else.
When I read this post the Jack’s interpretation of the Globe’s quote prompted me to investigate the entire concept of decolonization.
“In 2021, The Globe Theatre said that it would ‘decolonise’ Shakespeare’s famous plays [Translation: “distort and ruin”] and began holding “anti-racist” seminars critical of the Elizabethan poet.”
In my mind there seems to be a fundamental weakness in the decolonization movement. The decolonizing movement should fail because it attacks one set of values that is established by one majority culture and imposed on a minority culture because the majority culture believes that its values and ideas are superior to another’s and the minority is just stuck with it without ever needing to assert an argument that another set of values or ideas is better. Moreover, if we accept the premise that we should reject our current value set in favor of another simply to promote decolonization all we are doing is simply reversing who makes the rules for the group which is itself the very definition of colonizing ideas and values.
I found the following on a website called humanrightscareers.com. It is very difficult to accept the premise that indigenous persons are worse off in the modern world when it fails to acknowledge early settlers learning from said populations. If we examine some of the contributions of former majority cultures that ultimately became those in the minority, we do find that elements of mathematics, music, literature, food and agrarian techniques developed in those cultures were readily adopted by the “colonizing culture”. Indigenous cultures also benefited from colonizing culture. Had it not been for the Spanish Conquistadors our native Americans would be still walking into the 20th century because horses were non-existent in the new world until they were brought here. In short, cultural exchange is a two-way street.
Decolonization as a country’s independence process
For the original definition of decolonization, we first need to know what colonialism is. Colonialism is when one power takes over a people or area and enforces its culture and values. Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome practiced colonialism, but Europe modernized the process into a centuries-long project. In the late 15th century, Europe found a sea route around southern Africa and to America. Countries like England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic began “discovering” and colonizing places in South and North America, Africa, India, and Australia. Colonialism and the slave trade were closely tied as was the spread of diseases like smallpox. In North America, the mortality rate in some Native communities was almost 100%. (Editorial note: Europe did not need to go around the southern tip of Africa to get to the new world. John Mildenhall (Circa 1560–1614) was one of the first persons to have an overland journey to India. Also, he was the self-titled ambassador of the British East India Company in India.)
Between 1492-1914, European countries conquered more than 80% of the world’s land mass. By the early 20th century, many empires had lost their hold on colonies, and gradually, more and more countries achieved independence. The term “decolonization” was coined in the 1930s.
Decolonization as a social, cultural, and psychological process
Colonialism has social, cultural, and psychological effects. After centuries of colonization, colonized societies are world’s away from what they once were; countries can’t simply “go back.” The colonizer’s dominant values, practices, laws, culture, and more often remain in place. Indigenous people are still marginalized and discriminated against. The legacy of the slave trade, which brought colonized people to places around the world, also cannot be forgotten. In this context, decolonizing is about, as a piece from The Peace Chronicle defines it, “deconstructing or dismantling colonial ideologies and challenging the superiority of western thought and approaches.” Unlike decolonization as a process of formal independence, it digs into thought patterns, biases, policies, values, and more.
(Editorial note: Slaves were routinely sold as a cultural practice in the African nations at the time. To suggest that European colonization brought with it the practice of chattel slavery is incorrect and is one of the cultural norms that should have been rejected at the time but instead was incorporated into western culture because it was deemed to be a superior economic practice. Thus, it can be said simply adopting one cultural practice over your own because it benefits you economically does not make it superior.)
The author of the above definitions is Emmaline Soken-Huberty. According to the website she is “. . . a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.”
The question arises why is it necessary for a dominant culture to discard its ideas and beliefs to accommodate another group. If the other group wants to retain the parts of its culture that do not have any impact on others no one is stopping them. The only significant behavior that was denied to everyone was the use of cannabis which was not derived from Equatorial African culture but derived from practices in the new world; specifically, Jamaica. The only known source of cannabis that might have been used in the culture is in South Africa and tribes in those regions were not part of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Ironically, the cultural appropriation movement seeks to end the use of such cultural embodiments by non-natives which effectively bars inclusion and knowledge/information transfer. As a result, those who seek to bar non-natives from adapting parts of the minority culture to mesh with another culture’s models effectively marginalize themselves when others are proscribed from using something that they find valuable within that culture. There is truth in the saying imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Upon close examination, the concept of decolonization implies that one culture – the dominant culture – is inherently inferior because it does not automatically reject its own values that are riddled with discriminatory biases, policies that are rejected by the minority, Western values for the superior biases values, policies held by the oppressed minority culture.