"An Infinite Deal of Nothing"

1 million pound study finds Shakespeare too white, male, and cisgender

Yesterday, in my conversation with British author and educator, Mike Fairclough, we discussed how the stupidity and tyranny of the COVID-19 pandemic response was global in nature. In every country in the West—as well as Australia and New Zealand—an eerily similar cast of characters inflicted the same nonsense on their respective citizenries.

A similar contagion now blights the groves of Academe, with professors and students alike robotically parroting philistine slogans that demolish all delight in discovery and intellectual intrigue in education, leaving only “a heap of broken images.”

This morning I was reminded of this when I saw a report that the UK government spent 1 million pounds on a study of the plays of William Shakespeare. Predictably, the study’s authors found the plays “too white, male, and cisgender.” The primary mark of ideological programming is that the answers are always the same, even when the questions differ.

The nullity of this expensive study’s conclusion reminded me of Bassiano’s description of Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.