Editing Western canon (section)

===Debate<!--'Dead white male', 'Dead white males', 'Dead white man', and 'Dead white men' redirect here-->===
{{anchor|Dead white men}}
Some intellectuals have championed a "high conservative modernism" that insists that universal truths exist, and have opposed approaches that deny the existence of universal truths.<ref>Gerald J. Russello, ''The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk'' (2007) p. 14</ref> [[Yale University]] Professor of Humanities and famous literary critic [[Harold Bloom]] also argued strongly in favor of the canon, in his 1994 book ''[[The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages]]'',  and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions.<ref name="Searle"/> [[Allan Bloom]] (no relation), in his highly influential ''[[The Closing of the American Mind|The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students]]'' (1987), argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great [[classics]] that shaped Western culture. Bloom further comments: "But one thing is certain: wherever the Great Books make up a central part of the curriculum, the students are excited and satisfied."<ref>Allan Bloom (2008), p. 344.</ref> His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by [[cultural relativism|cultural relativists]].<ref>{{cite book|last=M. Keith Booker|title=Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: A–G|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcFC4oiDmpgC&pg=PA180|year=2005|publisher=Greenwood|pages=180–181|isbn=9780313329395}}</ref><ref>Jeffrey Williams, ed. ''PC wars: Politics and theory in the academy'' (Routledge, 2013)</ref>

[[Classicist]] [[Bernard Knox]] made direct reference to this topic when he delivered his 1992 [[Jefferson Lecture]] (the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the [[humanities]]).<ref name="jefflect">[http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/jefflect.html Jefferson Lecturers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020121101/http://www.neh.gov///whoweare/jefflect.html |date=2011-10-20 }} at NEH Website (retrieved May 25, 2009).</ref>  Knox used the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males"<ref>Nadine Drozan, [https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/06/style/chronicle-879492.html  "Chronicle"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 6, 1992.</ref> as the title of his lecture and his subsequent book of the same name, in both of which Knox defended the continuing relevance of [[Classics|classical]] culture to modern society.<ref>Bernard Knox, ''The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics'' (1993) (reprint, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994), {{ISBN|978-0-393-31233-1}}.</ref><ref name="Lehmann">[[Christopher Lehmann-Haupt]], [https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/29/books/books-of-the-times-putting-in-a-word-for-homer-herodotus-plato-etc.html "Books of The Times; Putting In a Word for Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Etc."], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 29, 1993.</ref>

Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As [[John Searle]], Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, has written:
{{Blockquote|There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from [[Socrates]] through the [[The Federalist Papers|''Federalist Papers'']], through the writings of [[John Stuart Mill|Mill]] and [[Karl Marx|Marx]], down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked.<ref name="Searle">Searle, John. (1990) "[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/12/06/the-storm-over-the-university/ The Storm Over the University]", ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990.</ref>}}

One of the main objections to a canon of literature is the question of authority; who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading?

[[Charles Altieri]], of the [[University of California, Berkeley]], states that canons are "an institutional form for exposing people to a range of idealized attitudes." It is according to this notion that work may be removed from the canon over time to reflect the contextual relevance and thoughts of society.<ref>{{cite web|author=Pryor|first=Devon|date=2007|title=What is a Literary Canon? (with pictures)|url=http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-literary-canon.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071226223217/http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-literary-canon.htm|archive-date=2007-12-26|website=wisegeek.org}}</ref> American historian [[Todd M. Compton]] argues that canons are always communal in nature; that there are limited canons for, say a literature survey class, or an English department reading list, but there is no such thing as one absolute canon of literature. Instead, there are many conflicting canons. He regards Bloom's "Western Canon" as a personal canon only.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Compton|first=Todd M.|date=2015-04-19|title=INFINITE CANONS: A FEW AXIOMS AND QUESTIONS, AND IN ADDITION, A PROPOSED DEFINITION|url=http://toddmcompton.com/infinitecanonsprint.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427142930/http://toddmcompton.com/infinitecanonsprint.htm|archive-date=2015-04-27|website=toddmcompton.com}}</ref>

The process of defining the boundaries of the canon is endless. The philosopher [[John Searle]] has said, "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised."<ref name="Searle"/> One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon for literature in the English-speaking world was the ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]'' program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of the curriculum at the [[University of Chicago]]. University president [[Robert Maynard Hutchins]] and his collaborator [[Mortimer Adler]] developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public.<ref>Adler, Mortimer Jerome (1988). ''Reforming Education'', Geraldine Van Doren, ed. (New York: MacMillan), p. xx.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Great Books of Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105020932 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=June 13, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=History of the Great Books Foundation |url=https://www.greatbooks.org/nonprofit-organization/history/ |website=Great Books |access-date=June 13, 2024}}</ref> An earlier attempt had been made in 1909 by [[Harvard University]] president [[Charles W. Eliot]], with the [[Harvard Classics]], a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature. Eliot's view was the same as that of Scottish philosopher and historian [[Thomas Carlyle]]: "The true University of these days is a Collection of Books". ("The Hero as Man of Letters", 1840)