The Jungle EdX Course

I’ve been around too long to discuss American politics in the middle of a course, so I’ll try to subdue myself and stick to the facts of this remarkable man and his remarkable book. 

The book had a remarkable influence on American policy in the first half of the 20th Century. Both Roosevelts created Federal programs that responded to the conditions that Sinclair so vividly described in the book. 

Sinclair’s political campaign and his EPIC program may have had substantial influence on Franklin Roosevelt programs, but I don’t have knowledge of the degree. 

Sinclair’s influence on the American Humanities is clearer. The Jungle influenced a generation of American artists, writers, and film makers - Steinbeck, Sandburg, Don Passos, Capra - who provided the moral background for three generations of progress and social change that ended with the tragic and destructive election of Ronald Reagan. 

The ancient Greeks taught us that a civilization depends on the quality, courage, and the range of influence of its artists and thinkers. Sinclair’s writings had both moral truth and a vast range of influence. Simple truths, simply presented have great power. Other writers explored Sinclair’s ideas with greater depth and skill but his voice still echoes in the conversation.

Food Production

I’ve taken two MOOC’s — Dr. Yuval Harari’s Brief History of HumanKind and Dr.Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics — that deal with the ethics of food production. Both provided graphic examples of animal cruelty that could easily be avoided by changes in the food industry that can only take place if large numbers of consumers demand change.  

I was struck by the line in the PBS program “Now” from nearly a decade ago: “We grown millions of chickens that can’t stand up so that we can eat chicken McNuggets while we drive our car.” McDonald’s recently announced that its nuggets would soon be made from uncaged chickens.

Is there a balance to the universe that causes the amount of selfishness and cruelty and the amount of community and compassion to always stay equal to each other?

Reading this book, I find that this America is the same America I live in 100 years later. I’m rethinking my concept of history.  I think my generation believes that the arch of history blends toward justice. I’m no longer sure that’s true. Perhaps believing that the balance between good and evil must be constantly maintained,would produce a better result for the greater number.

Big Ideas are important

Big Ideas are important. Geoffrey Pullum argues that the rules of grammar can never be absolutely strict or absolutely loose. This is a bigger idea than it may seem at a glance. First, it suggests that in the real world grammar must be flexible to be functional. Secondly, it implies that there is no  Eternal Grammar Truth. Rules, usage, function will change over time according to their situation and century.

I functioned as a Middle School English teacher for thirty-some years. It’s a great age to introduce really big ideas like - The rules are always changing, and doubt what you hear, question everything because Eternal Truths are hard to sort out.

Hopefully, you are asking: How did I try to get those big ideas in their young heads while teaching basic grammar? (Good! someone must have taught you to question everything.) First, I made them diagram hundreds of sentences. Sentence diagrams are intricate and difficult to do. They have lots of rules. When completed they are beautiful visual proofs that English has a structure, a framework under the surface. However, staring at a diagram of a sentence with lots of complex and compound clauses and modifiers — you begin to doubt the rules. See, you can move things around and the meaning changes! Is there something more to language than rules?

Finally, to affirm their doubts, I taught a few weeks of Latin. I used the excellent and engaging Cambridge Latin series.  Here all the rules are sorta different and sorta the same. The words are familiar; the order is not. I rarely found a student who rejected Latin Lessons. It was too much fun, and I cheated by having a closet full of togas and props.

When my students left me, they knew language had a basic structure, but that it was flexible and changed over time. The bright ones also had a lot of questions about the whole thing.