Curmie did his MA “by thesis” at an English university. That is, there was no coursework involved, just a research project considerably longer than the thesis capstone to an American MA. Curmie ended up writing about 47,000 words on the subject of “John Lyly and His Audience.”
I hear you, Gentle Reader: “Who the hell is John Lyly?” If you’re one of Curmie’s former theatre history students, he’s
a little disappointed you didn’t at least recognize the name, but it’s
perfectly forgivable if you don’t remember the context. Lyly was the leading playwright who wrote
primarily for the “boy companies” of late sixteenth-century England. His career was ending as Shakespeare’s was
beginning.
This MA project took place fortysomething years ago, and
Curmie has returned to the topic only sparingly since then: I can’t be certain,
but I strongly suspect that it’s been over four decades since I read any of his
plays or any critical commentary on them.
I did watch a zoomed production of Gallathea and
Phillida during the COVID times.
Lyly takes the bit even a step further than Shakespeare
would, however, as Gallathea and Phillida meet and, both believing the other to
be a man, fall mutually in love. Of
course, any kind of homosexual behavior could not be tolerated, so what to
do? Have Venus appear on the scene, of course. The goddess of erotic love leads the two title
characters off stage, promising to change one of them into a man so their
marriage can proceed. It’s a right-winger’s
nightmare scenario: avoiding a lesbian relationship by the divine intervention
of making one of the lovers trans!
That same play, however, also points in the opposite
direction in terms of today’s politics in the characters of Rafe the page and
his brothers. They try, and fail, repeatedly,
to learn the skills required of various professions: mariner, alchemist,
astronomer, etc. The underlying message
here is that people should know their place and not try to move above their
station—upward mobility is not a thing to be countenanced in Elizabethan
England.
The idea of staying in your own class works in the other
direction, as well, in one of Lyly’s other plays, Alexander and
Campaspe. Here, Alexander the
Great and the painter Apelles are both in love with the fair Campaspe. Alexander could, of course, simply claim her
as his own, but he has worlds to conquer, so he munificently gives her to
Apelles (talk about a women’s studies article waiting to be written!). The moment both reinforces the idea that
class is important in both directions and, of course, parallels the Virgin
Queen’s “marriage to England.”
There are two issues here: was President Biden’s plan just,
and was it lawful? Certainly those two
terms are not interchangeable. Curmie
isn’t going to argue the latter consideration; he suspects that SCOTUS actually
got it right in constitutional terms.
Nor is he going to suggest that Biden’s solution to the problem was the
best option; he thinks it’s an over-reach.
But the impulse, the desire to at least reduce the financial
and indeed emotional strain on literally millions of Americans, does not seem
out of place, especially since the government cheerfully forgave close to a
trillion dollars in PPP loans, mostly to people who didn’t need it. Insert something about geese and ganders here.
Few of us have avoided misfortune or even injustice and
betrayal in our lives. There are two
responses: “I went through it and came out okay [a dubious presumption to Curmie’s
mind], so you can (and should), too,” or “That was awful, and I’ll do what I
can to keep it from happening to you.” Curmie
need hardly mention which of these stances is adopted by the contemporary right. This former perspective, of course, falls in the tradition
of Paul Ryan, Clarence Thomas, and Rick Perry (to name but a few), as a variation on “I’ve got mine; you’re on your own.”
There are, to be sure, two variations on the theme: “I paid my way through college working summer jobs and waiting tables during the school year” and “I paid back my loans, so why shouldn’t these deadbeats?”. Both tacks, of course, blithely ignore the reality that the world has changed.
Some
nine years ago, Curmie addressed this issue in a post entitled “Yes, A University Education Used to Be Affordable.
At the university from which Curmie recently retired, the
average student loan debt at the end of four years would have been more than
covered in 2011-12 if only two things had happened since ’78-’79: the minimum
wage had kept pace with inflation, and state funding as a percentage of the
university budget had remained the same. But neither of those things came close
to transpiring.
Curmie promises (well, OK, maybe “hopes”) to update this
piece in the near future, but suspects the situation has grown even more
dire.
The response from the right: “Well, lower your expectations,
you not-rich student. Forget about
following your dreams and accept your lot.”
Curmie can’t speak for you, Gentle Reader, but Curmie heard all the way
through elementary school and beyond about how one of the promises of the
American Dream was upward mobility. Now,
the very people who were using that as an example of American Exceptionalism in
Curmie’s youth are exposing it as a myth and actively seeking to quash the very
idea that someone whose family has modest means might enter the workplace on
firm financial footing (well, unless they’re 6’8” and have a good jump-shot).
If you, Gentle Reader, think this attitude sounds strikingly
like “know your place, Betas,” you’re not wrong… but actually Huxley’s dystopian
vision pales in comparison to 21st-century right-wing rhetoric. At least the world inhabited by Bernard Marx
delineated between the classes on the basis of their own skills and capabilities:
the Alphas really were “better” than the Betas, who were “better” than the
Gammas, etc.
What today’s right-wing pols and their adherents seek in this instance is not
remotely merit-based, but founded solely on a student’s parents’ wealth. Thus, the very people rejoicing at SCOTUS’s
elimination of Affirmative Action, proclaiming that this will ensure that the
best-qualified applicants will be accepted, are making damned sure that isn’t
true: that spots, even at the most modest of four-year institutions, are reserved for
those who can afford it. There are, no
doubt, tens of thousands of promising scholars—potential doctors, scientists,
teachers, you name it—who, perhaps wisely, have decided not to take on the
long-term debt associated with a college education.
It's also worth mentioning that these folks tend to think of
business (of course) and the STEM disciplines as the only real courses of
study. Presumably this lessens the
damage caused by the status quo because these graduates will
be entering a lucrative field, so the repayments won’t be as crippling. Curmie, who has not received a paycheck in
the last half-century as other than an educator or theatre artist (oh… wait…
there was that $75 honorarium from the county arts council fortysomething years
ago), dares to suggest that there are professions requiring a college degree that
are just as essential as marketing managers or plastic surgeons, but don’t pay
as well.
Finding a way to encourage (or at least stop discouraging)
the best candidates to move forward in their chosen profession helps us
all. If I, or someone I love, needs a
doctor, I’d very much prefer that the physician in question is the one with the best aptitude for the job,
not simply the best who had a rich Daddy.
Moreover, the money saved by loan recipients will actually stimulate the
economy by being spent on goods and services, unlike tax breaks for
billionaires, who just throw another few million bucks into their tax haven in
the Caymans.
As you might guess, Gentle Reader, although Curmie is no fan
of the Biden plan or of end runs around Congress, he’s more than a little
pissed off at those who, having gotten their piece of the pie, show contempt
for those who might also want a small morsel.
Curmie comes by his name honest.
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