It's so fucking stupid they teach literature chronologically.

They make us hate it from the first page, with Beowulf incomprehensible in a foreign language. They want to show that language evolves, but who fucking cares? Where the irony is that when new generations do evolve the language, for example nowadays with chatspeak — LOL! — or emojis, the very individuals who'd been so keen to start with Beowulf throw twenty fits of outrage. How dare they change the language! Or more patronizingly, These youth of today...

Fuck you and the dictionary you rode in on.

I think it would have been better to start with simple forms of deconstruction. We could read Madame Bovary and ask, "Who's telling us this story? How does the storyteller know what's inside people's heads?" Making the armature naked: This is how writers make us believe things. That would not only help kids understand literature, it would prepare them to examine the manipulative political narratives they'll encounter in adulthood.

They're actually trying to do an appropriate thing: teach the history. Teach that literature like language has a history. The problem is they have not the remotest ability to put themselves in the shoes of their audience.

Because why would they? They don't actually respect these kids. These kids are cannon fodder. They'll fix engines and style hair and trim hedges and serve meals. They'll fight wars and vote for morons. Why bother?

So that the inept chronological approach to literature is just another face of the bureaucracy. Books by the clueless taught by people who don't care, whose primary response to the kids is fear, and whose principal purpose is repression.