# Do Schools Teach Subversive Literature to Subvert Its Message?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 17, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380 "2010-02-17T19:41:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/41 "2011-09-26T22:41:05Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> A former rebel who’s now an advertising exec doesn’t want to admit he’s a sell-out working for “The Man.” So, he sticks Allen Ginsberg references in a toilet paper commercial or uses Velvet Underground songs as jingles, and imagines he’s not a mere corporate flunky.
“I assume the mailbox is a Haldeman reference.”
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### Author:  [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/42 "2011-09-26T23:18:35Z")
> [@Baz744](#):
>
> 1984 was an indictment of Christianity disguised as an anti-communist dystopian screed.
> [@kenetic](#):
>
> cite?
How about just elaborating a bit?
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/43 "2011-09-26T23:38:20Z")
Huh, I hadn’t even noticed the plusunlife of this thread.
Anyway, if _1984_ can be interpreted as anti-Christian as well as anti-Communist, that just means Christianity and Communism have many elements in common. Hardly a newsflash.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/44 "2011-09-26T23:40:54Z")
> [@Baz744](#):
>
> 1984 was an indictment of Christianity disguised as an anti-communist dystopian screed.
Can you give us some evidence? The only mention of religion in the book is when Winston says he’s an atheist (hardly criticism of religion) and a few references about a church or something like that. Orwell himself saw the Anglican Church as a bastion against superstition.
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### Author:  [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/45 "2011-09-26T23:46:41Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Huh, I hadn’t even noticed the plusunlife of this thread.
>
> Anyway, if _1984_ can be interpreted as anti-Christian as well as anti-Communist, that just means Christianity and Communism have many elements in common. Hardly a newsflash.
Yeah, I can see interpreting it as being broadly anti-authoritarian, but “an indictment of Christianity disguised as an anti-communist dystopian screed” seems far fetched.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/46 "2011-09-26T23:50:29Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> Can you give us some evidence? The only mention of religion in the book is when Winston says he’s an atheist (hardly criticism of religion) and a few references about a church or something like that. Orwell himself saw the Anglican Church as a bastion against superstition.
Well, actually, there _was_ a specific on-point religious reference, Part 3, Chapter 2:
> [@](#):
>
> [O’Brien said] 'The first thing for you to understand is that in this place there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition had done. And they imagined that they had learned from the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one must not make martyrs. …"
If anything, Orwell notes that religious power structures behaved in much that same way as 20th-century totalitarians - but the totalitarians approached the “problem” of heresy in a more scientific way. O’Brien goes on to describe _their_ limitations, which have since been corrected by the novel’s “IngSoc” regime.
Overall, it’s not that the inquisition (i.e. “religion”) is better than communism, but that the inquisition didn’t have access to the same knowledge and technology.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/47 "2011-09-26T23:52:31Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Well, actually, there _was_ a specific on-point religious reference, Part 3, Chapter 2:
>
> If anything, Orwell notes that religious power structures behaved in much that same way as 20th-century totalitarians - but the totalitarians approached the “problem” of heresy in a more scientific way. O’Brien goes on to describe _their_ limitations, which have since been corrected by the novel’s “IngSoc” regime.
>
> Overall, it’s not that the inquisition (i.e. “religion”) is better than communism, but that the inquisition didn’t have access to the same knowledge and technology.
Inquisitions are hardly equivalent to the spirit of true religion. Would Christ have approved of burning people at the stake? :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/48 "2011-09-27T00:04:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> Inquisitions are hardly equivalent to the spirit of true religion.
“True” religion? Excuse me while I snigger. Even believers of the _same_ religion will draw distinctions among themselves over what is “true”.
> [@](#):
>
> Would Christ have approved of burning people at the stake? :dubious:
Maybe not, but a lot of his self-described followers have been okay with it, over a span of numerous centuries. I figure “Christians” began executing people as soon as they had the power to do so. Find the earliest state or kingdom or fiefdom or tribe or any organized or quasi-organized government that is officially “Christian” and how long it took them to start stoning people, or burning people, or hanging people… I’m sure it’s not long at all.
We’d have to get well into the Enlightenment before a Christian society formally abolishes the death penalty, and then fits and starts through the industrial and information ages, as the religious influence waned.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/49 "2011-09-27T00:24:58Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> “True” religion? Excuse me while I snigger. Even believers of the _same_ religion will draw distinctions among themselves over what is “true”.
I know, my point is that by Biblical, Christ-based Christianity there is no place for brutal massacres and forced conversions.
> [@](#):
>
> Maybe not, but a lot of his self-described followers have been okay with it, over a span of numerous centuries. I figure “Christians” began executing people as soon as they had the power to do so. Find the earliest state or kingdom or fiefdom or tribe or any organized or quasi-organized government that is officially “Christian” and how long it took them to start stoning people, or burning people, or hanging people… I’m sure it’s not long at all.
>
> We’d have to get well into the Enlightenment before a Christian society formally abolishes the death penalty, and then fits and starts through the industrial and information ages, as the religious influence waned.
Well that was largely because Emperor Theodosius saw Christianity as a political tool to use to ruthlessly crush his opponents.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/50 "2011-09-27T00:31:07Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> I know, my point is that by Biblical, Christ-based Christianity there is no place for brutal massacres and forced conversions.
And that’s why Biblical, Christ-based Christianity never got anywhere.
> [@](#):
>
> Well that was largely because Emperor Theodosius saw Christianity as a political tool to use to ruthlessly crush his opponents.
And this is but one example among thousands of nominally “Christian” leaders who found that killing enemies (real and perceived) worked better than turning other cheeks and whatnot.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/51 "2011-09-27T06:41:34Z")
Since this never got answered in the thread, _Farenheit 451_ was subversive in the sense that it was published during the McCarthy era. I doubt it is even close to controversial these days.
As for Orwell’s politics, some people today might forget there was this little non-aggression pact between the Spanish Civil War and 1948. **Darkness at Noon** is another example of this type of book.
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### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/52 "2011-09-27T09:02:30Z")
Two different teachers in middle school assigned us Shirley Jackson stories, “The Lottery” and **We Have Always Lived in the Castle.** While they might not stand up as literary gems, I’d say they were more subversive than anything Bradbury or Salinger ever wrote.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/53 "2011-09-27T15:07:47Z")
> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> Two different teachers in middle school assigned us Shirley Jackson stories, “The Lottery” and **We Have Always Lived in the Castle.** While they might not stand up as literary gems, I’d say they were more subversive than anything Bradbury or Salinger ever wrote.
Really? I think Shirley Jackson’s work is definitely considered literary.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/54 "2011-09-28T00:35:30Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> Inquisitions are hardly equivalent to the spirit of true religion. Would Christ have approved of burning people at the stake? :dubious:
Only if he considers it [justice](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=625157).
:dubious:
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/55 "2011-09-28T01:14:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Since this never got answered in the thread, _Farenheit 451_ was subversive in the sense that it was published during the McCarthy era. I doubt it is even close to controversial these days.
Actually fairly recently some people challenged the book due to some cussing in it.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/56 "2011-09-28T01:32:43Z")
I never took marxist literary criticism too seriously. Asserting that texts were taught so as to subvert those very same texts is yet another example of why I never took marxist literary critcism too seriously.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/57 "2011-09-28T01:39:54Z")
> [@Muffin](#):
>
> I never took marxist literary criticism too seriously. Asserting that texts were taught so as to subvert those very same texts is yet another example of why I never took marxist literary critcism too seriously.
Indeed, nothing “Marxist” should be taken seriously.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-schools-teach-subversive-literature-to-subvert-its-message/529380/58 "2011-09-28T02:06:44Z")
I’m confused.
I went to high school in the 1960s – not the liberal, hippie, anti-war 60s, but the uptight, status quo, Midwestrern, leftover from Eisenhower '60s. I was assigned Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Animal Farm, Silas Marner and all the rest of those subversive texts in high school (or even before.)
Did I mention I went to Catholic school, where the teachers didn’t have unions or tenure and could be fired anytime for anything? Did my conservative Catholic school expose us to 1984 as an anti-Christian diatribe, or as an anti-totalitarian warning? Did they force me to read The Merchant of Venice because Shylock was a literary tool to justify anti-Semitism? Was Huck Finn a hero or a villain? Did they make us read Catcher in the Rye (with “fuck” and everything) because it was an archetype of 1950-1960 adolescence, or to mock Holden Caulfield’s lack of religious belief?
Were my English teachers from grades 6-12 trying to subtly undermine the Roman Catholic Chuirch or reinforce it? Jeez, it’s bad enough I had to read all that stuff, now I have to figure out why I had to read it?
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