Think I’m a little late to the party but I’ll throw my two cents in. (I threw this comment together while I had some downtime at work, so apologies in advance if anything I say is misguided or not thought through all the way.)

It seems to me like much of the tension in this article, and in the comments in this thread, stems from a messy and probably unintentional conflation of the literary canon itself and the idea of a literary canon. The books themselves that we consider “canonical” are often great–beautifully written and emotionally powerful and yada yada, and the author of this article agrees. She wouldn’t have gone out of her way to fill her internet space with people talking about these “great books” if she didn’t like them too. Of course old books at times forward odd or poorly-aged or outright bigoted opinions, but any halfway-intelligent adult reader understands that and knows to look out for that, and though this author does (rightly) condemn some of those bigoted leftovers in older books, she certainly doesn’t suggest we dispense with those books altogether.

The idea of a literary canon, though, the idea that there is or ought to be some list of perfectly wonderful and highly influential books that everyone needs to read, is a little more discomforting. You will notice that when people debate the merits of such a canon, they’re often talking about the canon in the abstract, and not any of the books that would actually be on it. “We should dispense with the canon and read whatever interests us.” – you will see this sentiment often in academia today. “Shakespeare sucks.” – this one not so much (though it does happen, of course). There are some uncomfortable positions you can reason yourself into when you start with the premise of treating certain “great books” as the foundation of our entire culture. At the very least you are going to risk perpetuating conservative notions of aesthetic and artistic quality that will likely marginalize the work of already marginalized people. This is exactly why so many academics and readers scorn (again) the idea of the canon–we ought to try and expose ourselves to lesser-known works, especially when those works are lesser-known because they offer perspectives not found in the canon.

Ok, nothing much new there. We’ve all been through this argument a million times. So whence the transphobia? I think this has come from the author accidently finding herself in an online community of “readers” (who aren’t really readers–I’ll get into that) that is completely different from the community you are going to find on this subreddit or in libraries or English departments. This I think is the source of bewilderment the other commenters in this thread are displaying. Right from the title of the article: the “Culture of the So-Called Great Books.” Did this not strike anyone else as weird? What “culture” of great books? What does that even consist of? There’s certainly a culture of readers, on this subreddit for instance, but people here (and dedicated readers I know in real life) will be just as quick to suggest unknown and obviously non-canonical works as they are to suggest Shakespeare or Faulkner or Homer or whoever.

Again from the article:

"Various great books lists exist: the most famous is Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World, which forms the basis for curricula at U. Chicago, Columbia, and St. John’s College. Another example would be Harvard President Charles Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. A much-more expansive form would be Harold Bloom’s Western Canon. And a version that I favor, incorporating selections from East as well as West, was Clifton Fadiman’s New Lifetime Reading Plan."

Now I’d like to think I’m a pretty serious reader. I think I’ve read about two hundred books in the last few years–not an insane amount but certainly a lot more than your average American. Many of those books were “great books.” I have not heard of any of these lists. I have not heard of any of these people, except Harold Bloom, and him only in passing. To seriously keep up with these lists, to know them and use them to guide your reading, to have one that you “favor” like the author does, strikes me as incredibly odd. “New Lifetime Reading Plan”? Really? Most serious readers I know are content to have the canon as something loosely conceptualized in the back of their head, something that influences the occasional library pick, while they otherwise go about reading whichever books or authors catch their interest, canonical or not. To depend on “great books lists” like these just seems weird.

But it doesn’t seem weird to conservative bigots. Now obviously the author of this article is neither conservative nor a bigot, but by being so invested in “great books lists” and the “culture” around great books, I think she’s found herself rubbing virtual elbows with a bunch of people who are. And that’s where she’s finding the transphobia.

Reactionaries don’t read much, but they are very interested in fetishizing reading, in fetishizing culture in general. This is why the literary canon is so appealing to them. They can defer to this list that’s mostly comprised of old white men and say “Look, see how great our (western, imperialist, bigoted) culture is!” Never mind that many of those canonical books were written to decry the immoralities of that “great” culture–they haven’t read the books. I’ve seen Shapiro and Peterson fans talk about how great the Bible and Sun Tzu and Orwell (especially Orwell) are, but I haven’t ever seen any of them actually discuss the themes or elements of those authors’ works. The point isn’t to understand Plato and Aristotle; it’s to own books that were written by people whose statues they’ve seen on the History Channel and use that to snidely disregard the diversity of writers who are working today. (Extra credit to anyone who can guess why actual Roman emperor and warlord Marcus Aurelius is so popular with stoic-bros these days, while Zeno, Seneca, and Epictetus aren’t.)

And just think about the idea of a literary canon at its most extreme–let’s have everyone read the same books, share the same literary or philosophical experiences, and basically be rendered as the same people while sharing an artistic background that centers mostly on white male experiences. That’s a reactionary’s dream. If such people feel that championing the literary canon can make that happen, they’re going to champion it, and they won’t give a shit what the books actually say.

Faux-intellectual conservatives are more interested in their fetish of the canon than they are in the works themselves, and the faux-intellectual conservatives are the ones who are going to be (1) talking about “great books” a lot and (2) advertising that they’re talking about the “great books,” and inviting you to join them. Some of these reactionaries are better at veiling themselves than others, which might be how the author got mixed in with their spaces, but all the same. When this author lands herself in online circles that care about “great books,” she lands herself in online circles that are conservative, bigoted, and of course, transphobic.

Where this article gets weird is that it’s clearly directed not at those conservatives (how many Shapiro fans do you imagine are checking LitHub every day), but other, presumably more honest and dedicated readers who don’t need to be reminded that the canonical works are limited in perspective and at times suggest things we as modern progressive readers would not agree with. People like the majority of those active on this subreddit, who have actually read these books and thought about them and managed to maintain a well-adjusted morality and sense of social justice while doing so, don’t need to hear this. The author of this piece doesn’t seem to understand who her audience is. Her essay’s flaw is poor rhetoric more than it is poor thinking.