In my quest to give you top-of-the-line GB-related content, I just read The Liberating Arts: Why We Need Liberal Arts Education. It was a’ight. But it does fall into the trap of not defining what, exactly, it is talking about. This anthology, by Christian publishing house
Such smart commentary. Too much to dig into in a comment, but I did riff a little over on Notes on your thesis about the liberal arts not necessarily serving the average person. What I didn't say there is that this argument looks so different when you take the high risk financial investments out of higher education. If liberal arts education (often synonymous with the humanities or "pure" academic disciplines) isn't synonymous with a lifetime of debt, if it is instead a conversation that one can dip in and out of with minimal financial risk, I think it can still represent a public good. But there is no clear ROI on the liberal arts, and moral arguments for it really can't be made when financial oppression is part of the bargain. Embrace self-realization only to live a life of indentured servitude to your student loans? Not so much.
I agree! I was on a podcast lately, and I was saying that I think a lot of professors and administrators realize, on some level, that the education they're offering isn't worth the cost to the student--and that's why they're so quick to knuckle under to student demands for censorship. If they truly believed that their education was worthwhile, they would fight to defend it. That's why it's the higher-prestige schools (Cornell is a good example) that've fought censoriousness most effectively.
I don't think the liberal arts don't serve the average person--I think they very much do. I just wonder about what _level_ of liberal arts the average person really needs? All high school kids still read Shakespeare--they all take English classes--all colleges have English requirements--etc. That's rather a lot of liberal arts already. I think everyone should be exposed to the liberal arts, but I think ultimately you can't be force-fed them. At some point you need to launch yourself into them. And that the impetus to launch yourself into them is something that'll only come from the ambition to be exceptional. And that's an ambition that A LOT of people (most people?) have, at least when they're young. So by pitching the Liberal Arts to the average person, people really misunderstand the appeal of these books, which is precisely that, by reading and engaging with them, you are no longer average.
If you'll allow me to digress, while reading this newsletter, I thought about something that came through on my Notes feed yesterday. It was by a writer I try to avoid, who documents internet subculture, but I fell for the clickbait, which hinged on this paragraph:
"For the bimbo, she leans into broadly acceptable expressions of contemporary womahood, while distancing herself from the responsibilities (and cultural baggage) endemic to them. As I noted above, Chlapecka isn’t just hyperfeminine. And if we take her at her word that this is who she really is, then perhaps she is a female-to-female transsexual."
I find this logic simultaneously tortured, head-scratching, and unworkable. But if it's absurd to look at gender this way, the outlines of this argument applies to the author of the piece: she (and her fellow class of writers, from various publications and political or cultural movements) want the intellectual authority of being a writer without the responsibility and work required to be a writer. They are "writers" posing as writers.
And I feel this decay is taking place all over our culture, that ambitious people no longer feel the need to truly study the great books any longer. And this is a big loss, and I'm not sure how we can fix it
Thank you for feeling offended! I actually subscribe to Dee's newsletter and was like...what is this nonsense. I forwarded it to a friend as an example of the weird, random drive-by mentions to trans-ness that I routinely see.
Yes, yours is a smart comment. I think it's the question of essences. Is there a natural essence to womanhood? Is there a natural essence to being a writer? The stakes of the latter question are, it seems to me, much higher than the stakes of the former. I like to think that there is a natural essence to being a writer--that if you're a writer then you ought to embody, or at least aim for, what is best in the activity--the highest standards of thought and beauty.
And if we study the Great Books we already know what it looks like when someone _doesn't_ aim for those things: they're practicing mere sophistry. To make arguments just to make them, without aiming for the truth, is sophistry. That's a distinction that a lot of people don't seem to understand--but, then again, I suppose the sophists didn't understand it in Ancient Greece too. Or, well, I suppose that's actually the question about sophists: do they know what they are doing is wrong? Like Dee, the sophists evince a level of wisdom and understanding that makes it impossible to think they _don't_ understand the essence of being a writer, and yet they don't seem to be animated by that knowledge. It is deeply perplexing.
I wonder if what you know when you get to the point you underscore in your final paragraph is not even that the truth is good in and of itself but that past a certain point of knowledge about the world through these books and ideas, seeking more truth is inevitable. The apple has been eaten; the gates of the garden of ignorance are shut. Past that point, to refuse further investigation is the equivalent of cutting your own limbs off, it's self-maiming. Because the one thing I've really come to feel is that if truth is a good in and of itself past that point, it is also a good that can be painful; I cannot promise anyone that seeking truth will make them happy, free or powerful.
I agree! I think that's perfectly correct. You don't need to make instrumental promises for the truth. You just need to reassure people that there really IS something there at the bottom of all this. It's almost an incredible thing to believe, but it's not all relative, some metaphysical truths really do exist. What could be more exciting?
Yes those were pretty cheap shots! I felt kinda bad about them, even if I am feeling a little irate at Christianity these days. But they're also in there for a reason: 99 percent of people who use rhetoric about knowable metaphysical truth are theists, and most of those theists are Christians. If you don't explicitly note that you are not Christian, any talk about metaphysical truth will be read as Christian. And to be an atheist who believes in metaphysical truth poses some questions that naturally come up (how will you ever know whether you've gleaned that truth, for instance, if there is no after-life in which to sum it all up).
I don't think the liberal arts are harmful for anyone. I think everyone should learn them. But, to a certain extent, everyone does, no? I mean what else is high school English class? What else is that one core class your college makes you take? The question is HOW MUCH liberal arts does everyone need? And the answer is...probably not that much. They won't harm you, but they won't help you that much either unless you aim to be exemplary. Even when you talk about being improved as a citizen--if you don't engage in politics of some sort, in some kind of organized polis, whether it's a school or community or church or whatnot, then what does it profit you to be a good citizen? To the extent someone has or seeks power, it's important for them to know the truth--to the extent they don't, it's less important. That's why I loved that profile of Mitt Romney that made the rounds recently. He is a person who has access to metaphysical truths that other Senators simply don't, and it's those truths that have given him the perspective that, you know, being a Senator isn't the end-all and be-all of life. And that in turn has allowed him to exercise power wisely, in the specific instance allotted to him. How do I square that with the fact that I'd never in a million years vote for him for President? Well, I don't. We disagree on policy, but I accept that he and I do know some of the same things.
Such smart commentary. Too much to dig into in a comment, but I did riff a little over on Notes on your thesis about the liberal arts not necessarily serving the average person. What I didn't say there is that this argument looks so different when you take the high risk financial investments out of higher education. If liberal arts education (often synonymous with the humanities or "pure" academic disciplines) isn't synonymous with a lifetime of debt, if it is instead a conversation that one can dip in and out of with minimal financial risk, I think it can still represent a public good. But there is no clear ROI on the liberal arts, and moral arguments for it really can't be made when financial oppression is part of the bargain. Embrace self-realization only to live a life of indentured servitude to your student loans? Not so much.
https://substack.com/@joshuadolezal/note/c-40076552?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=16vgt
I agree! I was on a podcast lately, and I was saying that I think a lot of professors and administrators realize, on some level, that the education they're offering isn't worth the cost to the student--and that's why they're so quick to knuckle under to student demands for censorship. If they truly believed that their education was worthwhile, they would fight to defend it. That's why it's the higher-prestige schools (Cornell is a good example) that've fought censoriousness most effectively.
I don't think the liberal arts don't serve the average person--I think they very much do. I just wonder about what _level_ of liberal arts the average person really needs? All high school kids still read Shakespeare--they all take English classes--all colleges have English requirements--etc. That's rather a lot of liberal arts already. I think everyone should be exposed to the liberal arts, but I think ultimately you can't be force-fed them. At some point you need to launch yourself into them. And that the impetus to launch yourself into them is something that'll only come from the ambition to be exceptional. And that's an ambition that A LOT of people (most people?) have, at least when they're young. So by pitching the Liberal Arts to the average person, people really misunderstand the appeal of these books, which is precisely that, by reading and engaging with them, you are no longer average.
Beautiful writing!
If you'll allow me to digress, while reading this newsletter, I thought about something that came through on my Notes feed yesterday. It was by a writer I try to avoid, who documents internet subculture, but I fell for the clickbait, which hinged on this paragraph:
"For the bimbo, she leans into broadly acceptable expressions of contemporary womahood, while distancing herself from the responsibilities (and cultural baggage) endemic to them. As I noted above, Chlapecka isn’t just hyperfeminine. And if we take her at her word that this is who she really is, then perhaps she is a female-to-female transsexual."
I find this logic simultaneously tortured, head-scratching, and unworkable. But if it's absurd to look at gender this way, the outlines of this argument applies to the author of the piece: she (and her fellow class of writers, from various publications and political or cultural movements) want the intellectual authority of being a writer without the responsibility and work required to be a writer. They are "writers" posing as writers.
And I feel this decay is taking place all over our culture, that ambitious people no longer feel the need to truly study the great books any longer. And this is a big loss, and I'm not sure how we can fix it
Thank you for feeling offended! I actually subscribe to Dee's newsletter and was like...what is this nonsense. I forwarded it to a friend as an example of the weird, random drive-by mentions to trans-ness that I routinely see.
Yes, yours is a smart comment. I think it's the question of essences. Is there a natural essence to womanhood? Is there a natural essence to being a writer? The stakes of the latter question are, it seems to me, much higher than the stakes of the former. I like to think that there is a natural essence to being a writer--that if you're a writer then you ought to embody, or at least aim for, what is best in the activity--the highest standards of thought and beauty.
And if we study the Great Books we already know what it looks like when someone _doesn't_ aim for those things: they're practicing mere sophistry. To make arguments just to make them, without aiming for the truth, is sophistry. That's a distinction that a lot of people don't seem to understand--but, then again, I suppose the sophists didn't understand it in Ancient Greece too. Or, well, I suppose that's actually the question about sophists: do they know what they are doing is wrong? Like Dee, the sophists evince a level of wisdom and understanding that makes it impossible to think they _don't_ understand the essence of being a writer, and yet they don't seem to be animated by that knowledge. It is deeply perplexing.
Great piece.
I wonder if what you know when you get to the point you underscore in your final paragraph is not even that the truth is good in and of itself but that past a certain point of knowledge about the world through these books and ideas, seeking more truth is inevitable. The apple has been eaten; the gates of the garden of ignorance are shut. Past that point, to refuse further investigation is the equivalent of cutting your own limbs off, it's self-maiming. Because the one thing I've really come to feel is that if truth is a good in and of itself past that point, it is also a good that can be painful; I cannot promise anyone that seeking truth will make them happy, free or powerful.
I agree! I think that's perfectly correct. You don't need to make instrumental promises for the truth. You just need to reassure people that there really IS something there at the bottom of all this. It's almost an incredible thing to believe, but it's not all relative, some metaphysical truths really do exist. What could be more exciting?
Yes those were pretty cheap shots! I felt kinda bad about them, even if I am feeling a little irate at Christianity these days. But they're also in there for a reason: 99 percent of people who use rhetoric about knowable metaphysical truth are theists, and most of those theists are Christians. If you don't explicitly note that you are not Christian, any talk about metaphysical truth will be read as Christian. And to be an atheist who believes in metaphysical truth poses some questions that naturally come up (how will you ever know whether you've gleaned that truth, for instance, if there is no after-life in which to sum it all up).
I don't think the liberal arts are harmful for anyone. I think everyone should learn them. But, to a certain extent, everyone does, no? I mean what else is high school English class? What else is that one core class your college makes you take? The question is HOW MUCH liberal arts does everyone need? And the answer is...probably not that much. They won't harm you, but they won't help you that much either unless you aim to be exemplary. Even when you talk about being improved as a citizen--if you don't engage in politics of some sort, in some kind of organized polis, whether it's a school or community or church or whatnot, then what does it profit you to be a good citizen? To the extent someone has or seeks power, it's important for them to know the truth--to the extent they don't, it's less important. That's why I loved that profile of Mitt Romney that made the rounds recently. He is a person who has access to metaphysical truths that other Senators simply don't, and it's those truths that have given him the perspective that, you know, being a Senator isn't the end-all and be-all of life. And that in turn has allowed him to exercise power wisely, in the specific instance allotted to him. How do I square that with the fact that I'd never in a million years vote for him for President? Well, I don't. We disagree on policy, but I accept that he and I do know some of the same things.