Yes, so much the case. When I was at the U of Saskatchewan in the early 2000s (where, despite what I've said above, there were many fine people), one of my beloved colleagues talked about this problem. He tried to see the humorous side, talking about how there was a whole generation supposed literary scholars who had lost touch with the canon of great literature (which had already then been dismantled). He was noticing some young scholars trying to figure out who these writers were: hey, there's this interesting poet, John Dryden, or this interesting novelist, Samuel Richardson. So much would have to be started over from scratch. What a waste; how much has been stolen from us in the name of liberation.

I was at a conference once, and a graduate student about 10 years my junior expressed her dissatisfaction with the destruction of the canon, and one of my Marxist colleagues sneered at her and suggested that her attitude was responsible for untold suffering. This was a man who had received a classical education in Scotland and then came to Canada and wrecked it all in the name of "decolonization" and "Indigenization." The fact is that if one isn't taught it, it's very difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to teach oneself.