英语美文欣赏:10件学校不会教你的事情

Curse Words in Shakespeare
The works of William Shakespeare are often held up as the epitome of good English. However what most people aren't aware of is that they are full of sexual innuendo and that they even contain the odd curse word. In fact there are even references to the C-word, with it being alluded to three times in Shakespeare's plays. Once in Hamlet, once in Henry V and most blatantly of all in Twelfth Night, where the character Malvolio actually spells the word out.
CIA/MI6 Overthrowing Democratic Governments
In the west we're taught at school that we are the good guys and that the rest of the world are the bad guys, and that it's our job to spread our “democratic values” around the globe. However what we're not taught is that our governments (namely the British and American) have actually at times masterminded the overthrow of democratic governments in order to pursue their own nefarious ambitions. There are numerous examples of this, particularly in South America and the Middle East, one of the most notable being the ousting of Iran's democratically elected government in the early 1950's.
College Drop Outs
Another thing not often spoken about at school is that many of the worlds most successful and intelligent people didn't actually like education and in some cases left it altogether. In fact, Albert Einstein, the very poster boy of intellectualism, intensely disliked school. He compared being at school to like being in the army and resented the way it tried to put boundaries and constraints on people. Other famous people who were critical of organised education include Victor Hugo, Leonardo da Vinci and the writer Alexandre Dumas.
Historic Pornography
In history class, when we learnt about ancient Greece and Rome, we were taught about the wars, literature, art and invention of those classical civilisations. However what was never mentioned was the obsession the ancient world had with sex. It permeated almost every aspect of society and was graphically represented in much of their artwork. In fact when places such as Pompeii and Herculaneum were excavated they were found to be covered in erotic frescoes and sexual inscriptions. So much so that the discoveries were kept from public view and sometimes even vandalised so as to obscure their explicit nature.
Fascist Coup Planned for America
Another piece of history that you probably weren't taught about at school concerns a little known plot to implement a fascist takeover in the United States. The plot, recently investigated by BBC Radio 4, was led by wealthy industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush (grandfather of George W. Bush), who were displeased with Franklin D. Roosevelt's progressive political policies in the early 1930's. The plan may have succeeded were it not for a Marine Corps Major General named Smedley Butler, who blew the whistle on the plot after being approached by the influential power brokers who wanted him to lead the uprising.
Columbus Didn't Discover America
The truth is that Columbus wasn't even close to being the first to discover the New World. The Vikings visited the Americas some 500 years before Columbus did and there are also people who believe that the Chinese beat him to it as well. On top of this there is the simple fact that there were people in the Americas before Columbus arrived. It's only a vestige of Eurocentric imperialism that leads us to think of America as having been “discovered” in the traditional sense and it's left many people who are native to the continent with the feeling that their pre-Columbus history has been ignored and devalued.
Playing Video Games is Good For You
Children are often chastised for wasting their time playing computer games. However research shows that video games can help improve reflexes, eyesight and intelligence. Shoot-em-up games in particular were shown to aid visual skills. There is even a doctor from New York's Beth Israel Medical Center, named James C. Rosser, who co-authored a study suggesting that surgeons that played video games were faster and less prone to making mistakes than their non-game playing counterparts.
TV is Educational
TV, like video games, is another thing that is often seen as being a bad influence on people. The criticism it gets however couldn't be more misguided, as television is in fact one of the most educational things ever invented. It allows people to learn about the entire world from the comfort of their own living room and has been responsible for the collective education of a large chunk of humanity for the last fifty years. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Moon Landings, the plight of Africa and global warming are just a few of the things we've been informed and updated about by television. May it continue to entertain and illuminate us long into the future.
Fractional Reserve Banking
Fractional Reserve Banking is a system of banking that essentially allows banks to lend out money that they don't actually possess. It's legal and operates to varying degrees across the planet. It's the root cause of inflation and is something that few people know about and even fewer people understand. If people were educated about it, they wouldn't allow it to continue. However as our education systems are more concerned with the superficial than the essential, we'll probably all continue in ignorance of it until the world economy collapses under the weight of our collective debt.
The Drug Use of Poets and Writers
One of the greatest ironies of education is the way children are constantly told of the dangers of drugs and alcohol while at the same time being encouraged, and sometimes forced, to learn about poets and writers, most of which were notorious drug users, alcoholics and womanisers. Famous figures in literature who are associated with drugs include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey and Jack Kerouac. One popular drug of choice amongst writers was laudanum, a solution of opium in alcohol, and was commonly used for both medicinal and recreational purposes, particularly during the Romantic period. Author Aldous Huxley was also open about his drug use, writing about his experiences with LSD. In fact I'm sure that in a hundred years time teachers will be forcing children to learn about Marilyn Manson and Pete Doherty in much the same way that they try to teach them about writers of poetry and fiction today.
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