Nice OpEd in the Hoya:
Twice per week, 134 undergraduates proceed into class to discuss the sociology on hip-hop, viewed through the lens on rap person Jay-Z. When I initially heard about the course, I thought it perhaps a clever, ironic dig at modern sociological methodology and the dismal state of contemporary musical culture. As such, I was stunned to learn that this is a genuine academic offering in Georgetown College, a school that purports to be intellectually serious and maintain a commitment to real liberal education.
The syllabus, which prudently drops the rather extravagant original subtitle of the course as “Urban Theodicy,” gives a broad outline of the class structure, covering literary analysis, race relations and the “sociology of knowledge” manifest in the rapper’s life and compositions. The prism through which this prospect wide and various is viewed is the work of one Shawn Carter, who goes by the stage name of Jay-Z.
Carter represents an element of modern American society that many find crude and unpleasant, so it is important to understand the viewpoint of this particular party. It is less appropriate, however, to spend an entire course on this material and pretend that it fulfills a serious academic purpose.
Perhaps, though, I protest too much. Perhaps there is some scholarly merit in this class and too much rigidity in my own conception of the liberal arts. After observing a few class sessions, however, I remain convinced that the course cannot stand intellectual muster.
The fundamental reason why we ostensibly study Jay-Z is because of his “important cultural impact,” replete with an ordered hierarchy of discipline, politics and excellence. Now, his conception of excellence may or may not accord with Ciceronian virtus, but even this can be bemusedly contemplated until the claim is uttered that he is in some way an inheritor of the great Homeric tradition.
“Were he alive during the period of ancient Greece,” the course professor charges, Carter “would be regarded as a god in terms of literary and poetic expression.” This is poppycock. The claim is so wildly risible that it almost single-handedly discredits the entire project. The proposition that Jay-Z is in the same galaxy as — much less the heir to — the preeminent epic poet of human history represents a basic misapprehension of either Jay-Z’s importance or the development of Western thought and literature over 2,500 years.
Who honestly thinks that the productions of Carter can compare in any way, shape or form with the Homeric corpus? The great bard inclines toward the divine; he brings to light much of the character of human nature and puts man in communion with higher things. Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.
Charlton Heston once read out the lyrics of a hip-hop song called “Cop Killer” at a record company’s shareholder meeting. Those words have no place on these pages, and likewise no place in serious scholarship. As Allan Bloom, one of the most eminent critics and observers of modern life and education noted, this type of music has “only one appeal, a barbaric appeal to sexual desire,” to inflame the base emotions, which proceeds to do nothing less than “ruin the imagination of young people and make it very difficult for them to have a passionate relationship to the art and thought that are the substance of liberal education.”
The stakes of this type of class, then, are no small matter. It speaks volumes that we engage in the beat of Carter’s pseudo-music while we scrounge to find serious academic offerings on Beethoven and Liszt. We dissect the lyrics of “Big Pimpin‘,” but we don’t read Spenser or Sophocles closely. Our pedagogical commitments are disordered, and I think that in our heart of hearts we know this.
When I asked a peer what class I was sitting in on, with a bit of embarrassment, she sheepishly admitted that it was “sociology … of hip hop.” Her blush confirmed what we all know: At this ancient school, with the accumulated wisdom of the ages, we should not be spending our time in sorry endeavors.
We want to learn what is real and important to the human person, and we understand that Jay-Z is not Homer; he is not a “literary god,” and he is ultimately unworthy of this place and this noble mission. If there is one benefit of this class, though, it is that it brings up the civilizational question of what we will bequeath two millennia hence to students: Presenting the majesty of the “Iliad” or the sad tale of Carter’s sound and fury.
via: Jay-Z: Not a 21st-Century Homer (Hoya)
UPDATE (November 14): We’re not the only ones discussing this : Apparently the “Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z” is a controversial topic
rogueclassicism 
This article hits, with laser like precision, everything that needs to be expressed about the invasive mediocrity prevalent in an education system hijacked by unchecked liberal fantasy.
This post is quite frankly offensive. Whatever the merits of Jay-Z (smugly dismissed here as “Carter”) being the focus of such a course, are we honestly supposed to agree with Bloom’s casually racist claim that rap is a “barbaric appeal to sexual desire”? Furthermore, anyone who invokes CHALTON HESTON as an authority on any matter in this day and age has undermined his or her own position, as far as I’m concerned.
I appreciate the push to identify certain resonances of antiquity in contemporary culture, but garbage like this barely deserves a voice. At the very least, I think it deserves some kind of expressed position on the matter.
…with Bloom’s casually racist claim that …
When did it become unacceptable to have a difference of opinion solely because of personal preferences? Have we as a “civilized society” digressed to the point that if you are of another race and disagrees with another that you are “racist”? I would hope that this type of thought is part of a very small population of individuals and is not mainstream behavior. Personally, I find this type of logic extremely feeble and absurd.
First of all, I did not say that Bloom himself was a racist. I said that he made a casually racist claim. They do not amount to the same thing, and that is not a matter of petty semantics.
Second of all, I now retract my own claim. Foolishly, I believed that the author of the op-ed piece would have quoted Bloom correctly. I was wrong. Here is Bloom’s quote from “The Closing of the American Mind” (1987):
“But rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire—not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored.”
So after all Bloom was talking about rock, not rap. At worst, he just sounds like an old crankypants.
However, I would agree with the commenter below that the op-ed columnist construed Bloom’s words with his own that – accidental or otherwise – are possessed of racial overtones.
“Nice OpEd…”
I suppose depends on your definition of “nice”.
“‘Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.'”
Really?
Or is the whole OpEd supposed to be ironic?
I heard about that course. I wonder if they break down Reasonable Doubt track by track
Classics can do without people like the author of this garbage who promote the idea that we’re all elitists and cultural snobs. The vaguely racial implications don’t help either.
“Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.”
If he thinks this is generally true, he obviously doesn’t know anything about hip-hop beyond moral-panic stereotypes from the mid-90s, and thus isn’t qualified to make the argument he’s making.
Cheap shots calling the author a racist, how do you know he is not by origin African or Indian for example?
He is also talking about a genre which spans ethnicity.
Here is Homer:
‘Nothing feebler than a man does the earth raise up, of all the things which breathe and move on the earth, for he believes that he will never suffer evil in the future, as long as the gods give him success and he flourishes in his strength; but when the blessed gods bring sorrows too to pass, even these he bears, against his will, with steadfast spirit, for the thoughts of earthly men are like the day which the father of gods and men brings upon them.’
Here is Jay-Z:
‘I-I know this girl we call her Sweet Cooch Brown.
Hands down mami had the bombest pussy in town.
One dip in the girl pool, thatz all it took.
One sample of the snappa and ya ass was whooped.
Have you buyin Gucci sandals matchin pocketbooks.
Blowin up her beeper, ringin her phone off the hook.
Ball playaz they spent money, rappers they spent time.
All the while both claimin that they never spent a dime.
Buisness guys you were victimised.
Have ’em payin rent on condos in a Miami High Rise.
They ask her, “Who pussy’s this?”
Look her right in her eyes.
She say, “This pussy’s yours, Daddy”
Tell ’em nothin but lies.
Ha! They didn’t believe it, but they wanted to.
Needed to. She had the type of body that you didn’t want leavin you.
So they ignored all her flirtin ways and put a ring on her finger.
I’m like, “Earth to Dave!” ‘
Maybe people who support the idea of this nonsense being given focussed academic weight could also tell me that Carl Andre’s bricks is a work of art as valuable and important to our cultural heritage as the Michelangelo’s Sistene Chapel.
Wait, so Africans and Indians can’t be racist? I see. That makes a lot of sense.
Also, I think you’re completely missing the point of what this class is supposed to be about. No one is claiming that Jaz-Z is “better” than Homer. In fact, the only reference to Homer is from the cheeky (apparently dropped) subtitle. So I honestly don’t understand why everyone is in such a tizzy here. This is a sociology class that uses Jay-Z as a prism for understanding certain features of race, gender, economic disparity, etc., in modern hip-hop culture.
Do I personally value Carl Andre’s sculptures more than Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel? No. But the comparison is irrelevant, since the question of “which one is better” isn’t even at stake in the allusive connection between Jay-Z and Homer. If you don’t like Carl Andre’s sculpture, fine. But your suggestion that they do not/should obtain significance for our cultural heritage would surely be contested by a professor of modern art who, by the way, would not be so small-minded as to suggest that the Sistine Chapel was of little or middling worth.
The implication being the author is racist because he is talking about hip-hop, which in the mind of the commentator is an attack on African-Americans?
I have no doubt that a professor of modern art would contest what I have said but to me they are generally as guilty of lowering educational standards as is teaching a sociology class through the prism of Jay-Z’s lyrics. It is narrow bandwidth through which to view these subjects and a terrible frame with which to place them in context. It does a disservice to the students and makes a mockery of higher educational ideals.
The benefit of hundreds and thousands of years allows the wheat to separate from the chaff, thus what is actually culturally valuable will survive whereas pop culture trivia and nonsense, like Jay-Z would, I wager, will be long forgotten in 5800AD.
Also, to keep bringing racism into this is a cheap trick to avoid the real meat of the discussion.
It is thanks to your kind of philistinism, and not the popular one you imagine, that no one will care about Homer in AD 5800, either.
And if you can’t see how the erroneous application of Bloom’s “barbaric appeal to sexual desire” an the author’s own comments don’t participate, explicitly or otherwise, in the perceived hypersexuality of African-Americans in modern culture, then you are either wilfully or blissfully ignorant.
I think you are missing the overriding point, Patrick. This isn’t about race, it is about education.
I disagree. I think the whole point is that the course is largely about race, and that it’s exploring this topic in an educational setting. To denigrate a cultural form of expression that is inextricably bound up in issues of race, and then to deny that race has anything to do with the problem, is patently absurd.
Not to labor the point but, I have never heard a non-racist make a “racist claim.
I wonder if that could be classified as an oxymoron? Or is it just the racist that’s a moron? 😉
“After observing a few class sessions, however, I remain convinced that the course cannot stand intellectual muster.”
“Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.”
“Those words have no place on these pages, and likewise no place in serious scholarship.”
-from Mr. Wu’s article
“Pale skins I like, but honey-coloured more,
And blond and brunette boys I both adore.
I never blackball brown eyes, but above
All, eyes of scintillating black I love.”
-Strato Epigram V
“That ass is the metrical equivalent
of cash I discovered once by accident.”
-Strato Ep. VI
“Loose girls lose their grip. They wear cheap scent.
Their kisses aren’t sincere or innocent.
Sweet smut is one thing they’re no good at talking.
Their looks are sly. The worst is a bluestocking.
Moreover, fundamentally they’re cold;
They’ve nothing for a groping hand to hold.”
-Strato Ep. VII
“Diodorus, boys’ things come in three
Shapes and sizes; learn them handily:
When unstripped it’s a dick
But when stiff it’s a prick:
Wanked, you know what its nickname must be.”
-Strato Ep. III
“A twelve-year-old looks fetching in his prime,
Thirteen’s an even more beguiling time.
That lusty bloom blows sweeter at fourteen:
Sexier yet a boy just turned fifteen.
The sixteenth year seems perfectly divine,
And seventeen is Jove’s tidbit, not mine.
But if you fall for older fellows, that
Suggests child’s play no more but tit-for-tat.”
-Strato Ep. IV
All from Puerilities by Daryl Hine
There are two points, among many others, which I will address: Mr. Wu’s highlighting of a course on Jay-Z and his tone.
Mr. Wu should be careful in his singling out of Rap music as “lacking intellectual muster,” “frolicking in the gutter,” or any other judgment without fully considering the varied spectrum of the human experience. When we begin to discriminate based on values and do not apply them equally, we make the mistake of (sometimes accidental) racism and harmful discrimination. Mr. Wu does not consider the pedophilia of the ancient Greek poems above worth mention, only what he saw in a few classes on Jay-Z. A. Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard in the 1920s, tried to exclude Jews because “Jews cheat.” When others objected saying Christians can cheat as well, Lowell replied, “You’re changing the subject, I’m talking about Jews.”
Mr. Wu, intent aside, has committed a similar crime of ignorant discrimination here. He does not attack courses on Harry Potter or Star Trek, prominent in “White” culture, Mr. Wu only attacks those on the contributions of a Black artist using a predominately Black medium. Mr. Wu levels claims of vulgarity without applying his undefined definition of “vulgarity” to ancient Greek or even modern literature.
Mr. Wu wrote in another article: “True pluralism doesn’t comes (sic) from merely acknowledging differences, but trying to order those differences in accordance with some conception of the good society, a concept basically unknown to those who would engineer an omni-tolerant utopia.”
Putting aside Mr. Wu’s claim that he knows what is known or unknown to others, it is important, as Mr. Wu states, to order the world with a conception of “the good society.” However what is Mr. Wu’s good society? Is it one in which an over-confident college student applies his undefined definitions to make value judgments unevenly against different art forms? Is it a society in which someone who hasn’t even graduated from college determines what “stands intellectual muster?”
Socrates schools us in the Euthyphro to trust only those who are experts in their art. I think Jay-Z would reply to Mr. Wu, “Au contraire n***a, I am here ’cause I earned the s**t / by ridin’ out, when n****z had learner’s permit.” (from “Some People Hate”)
Mr. Wu, you still have your learner’s permit.
I think the impetus of the whole article was the comparison of Jay-Z to Homer, so it doesn’t really help to contradict the criticism by comparing the rapper to another ancient author, especially one who lived almost a thousand years after Homer and whose works have only come down to us as part of a much later anthology (Strato is not exactly one of the canon). But even comparing apples to apples, you can still get a sense of relative levels of artistic ability: Strato at least could stick with one meter through a whole song.
The plain fact is that, artistically, Jay-Z does not approach any great author from any age in any language by pretty much any standard you could imagine. If, on the other hand, he is to be a spokesman for a generation (or, perhaps, one sub-set of that generation), one could compare him in that way to other authors; certainly one can feel his passion. But I still doubt his name or works will be remembered and recited 100 years from now, let alone 2,800 years, and it does seem remarkable that college students would waste time (and money!) studying something so ephemeral when there is so much else to learn, so much that has already proved its worth by having survived not only in later times, but in other cultures.
It’s natural for the young to be distracted by more tangible and immediate pleasures than dry scholarship; it used to be the function of a college to try to curb their passions and redirect them toward something that would improve themselves and, by extension, their society. Courses like this are indication that they have abdicated that responsibility in favor of catching as much tuition money as they can.