Dick Ford wrote:

We read Huckleberry Finn because it is Quality. We require our children
to read it for the same reason we expose them to Beethoven and Leonardo
da Vinci. We want to communicate to them that there is a world of fine
arts, that there is a great conversation that continues through history
among the best minds, that all of us can be a part of that conversation
when we read works of literature.  [skipping here]

I have heard it argued that literature should not be forced down the
throats of unwilling students because they won't understand it and will
probably hate it forever after, that access to literature should be
allowed only when we are mature enough to understand it. But there are
some students who will recognize Quality.

Why, shame on you, Dick Ford!   What a moss-covered relic you are!  Do you
actually DARE to suggest that Huckleberry Finn is a "finer" piece of
literature than a Batman comic book?   Or that some boring old picture by
Leonardo What's-his-name is "greater" than a 5-year-old's  crayon doodle,
proudly stuck with a magnet to his mommy's refrigerator?    Dick Ford, you
cannot PROVE that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has some so-called "Quality"
that the latest album by Skunk Vomit or Crotch Rot lacks.

You're a stuffy old ELITIST, Dick Ford.  Why don't you climb back in your
cave? "Quality" judgments! Don't you know it's only in your
entirely  culturally biased opinion that Hamlet somehow "outranks" Porky
Pig Learns the Alphabet?

Putting sarcasm aside, anyone with a little historical background realizes
that standards of artistic quality cannot be set in stone:  Longfellow and
Whittier are no longer the towering figures they once were;  neither
Huckleberry Finn nor Moby-Dick was widely considered a masterpiece for many
years.  Bach was unappreciated during the century after his death . . . and
on and on.

But although quality judgments can't be absolute, I'm appalled that we've
reached a stage of silliness where it takes courage for someone like Dick
Ford to speak out.  In many circles it's no longer easy for someone to say,
"This is Quality; that is  trash."  There are college departments where it
would be bad form  to hint that Antigone might  surpass last night's t.v.
drama-drivel.

What makes me laugh (when not snarling) is that the same academic
fad-follower who thinks it SO unfashionable  to rate King Lear above
Peanuts would never dream of shunning  "Quality judgments" in his own life.
--Try telling him that he can't prove his favorite merlot is better than
cherry Kool-Aid.
--Remind him that "cultural bias" leads him to "privilege" his
New-Yorker-advertised cologne over the aroma  of horse droppings.
--Whisper to him that he dare not declare  his Princeton doctorate
"superior" to one from Moe's Mail Order University.

Good for you, Dick Ford, for standing up on your hind legs and speaking out
eloquently for artistic merit.
Your fellow antique,
Mark Coburn