Reviving the Great Conversation in the Digital Age. We talk about the Great Books, ideas that built that West, and ask the big questions. Hosted by Christian and Adam of Thinkingwest.com.
Gold dress monk that cover dos not mash flower in my hand o figger salmon ring swich coler u no clipso salmon ring but one thay look for masony that the ring salmon and.. .. rest off it
Personally, I think it's civilization collapse today. We would turn into some sort of libertarian anarchy capitalists society. At least in the United States where there's a lot of guns. Alternatively, we would devolve into a mess of warlords and Petty dictators over minor regions.
The thing is that unfortunately the Middle East basically banned the printing press, citing some of the issues you raised and various other problems that were observed or theorized. However, history has shown that to be a massive mistake because, even though the printing press did lead to some chaos and an overthrow of the old European society, it also allowed you guys to get waaaaaay ahead of us in science and technology (and empire) while we (as a result) went from being top of the world to massively falling behind in just a few hundred years.
This is the bloke who praised the cannibals who ate their dead grandmothers. Apparently, this made them superior to French Christians! What a mental case.
The Clergy using clubs probably had more to do with ease of use than anything else, since it takes a lot of time to learn the skill of wielding a sword, with varying levels of training for other weapons, while a club is pretty straight forward and relatively easy to use, especially for someone that wouldn't have had the time needed to dedicate to weapons training, but needed to pick up and fight with a weapon occasionally.
The west has already cut away the faith. It is run by the students of the enlightenment. The Revolutionaries won, and remain in power. But their ideology is destroying itself, even for those who truly believe in it. Between the fall of their hubris, and the chastisement - this modernity won't last much longer, but the cost is going to be staggering.
Thank you. Reflecting on one's values is a virtue. Most of us should do that more. Studying Montaigne is very worthwhile and helps to be a grown up in this world.
I don't see an issue with that because the result was a much higher standard in the public discourse. Having public debates between guys who were steeped in the Classics and read Latin and Ancient Greek like newspapers of course results in a much higher level of public thought than a bunch of ignorant feral children screeching on Twitter. And it wasn't only the rich because poor kids like Ben Franklin or the son of a farmer like John Adams were able to get their opinions out there via the printing press, but obviously there was a certain standard that was expected to be met.
This is very timely! I am just beginning my collection of classic literature (living books) with the intent of providing a home education to my grandchildren in the next few years. I have Montaigne's works contained within the "Great Books of the Western World" series I recently acquired so I will move his books towards the top of my list of "TO BE READ." Thank you!
The question for our society is what do you mean by virtue? While Montaigne had the stress of living in a very quarrelsome theological environment, in spite of the Reformation these was a basic agreement on what constituted virtue in the Judeo Christian sense.This in the multicultural West is dead. As a former teacher I saw the free exchange of ideas disappear because of ideology. Ask for critical thinking on any of the "hot"button issues and you were bound to offend and be called to the office to explain. It was so much safer for conservative teachers to stick to a dry recitation of the facts. Liberal teachers were much freer in this regard because the woke brigade had their backs and everyone know if you offended the woke brigade they made a lot of noise. I live in the very fundamentalist blue book thumping liberal north. I imagine the same could be said of the conditions in the Bible belt. Neither geographical area or either extreme is conducive to education in this sense.
The constant need for independent thinking and proof might be the reason why technical education and technical sciences have got so much ahead of humanities today, which in their turn tend to become a tool of indoctrination in many places around the world.
The catholic faith in a vain faith its not from the bible that why God allowed it destruction. Put the bible in practice not religion and this will never happen to you.
While I completely appreciate someone taking the time to bring the works of Montaigne to the modern light, this video really gives a feel that is at odds with Montaigne. The stuffy harpsichord, the slow pacing, the analytical dragging along...this is not what reading Montaigne is like at all! It feels more like you are talking about Locke or Montesque. Montaigne was downright hilarious. In one portion of his writing on education he says that if you cant get a student to move away from silly story books and into more substantaive real world things by a certain age, the only cure is to choke him to death when no one is looking. He constantly (and knowingly) contradicts himself and questions his own view on everything. He is often crass, not shy about talking about anything that may be considered taboo, and is self depricating like no one else. The greatest value in his works, to me, is the vast references and quotes laced within his works. Playwrights, poets, historians, philosophers, generals, kings, mythical figures, all that I had never heard of gave me a jumping off point to learn about so much just so I could catch his references and know whom he was quoting. Again, I appreciate his work being talked about, but I would much rather his works be read than merely discussed. And I feel you missed the opportunity to show people why they should read his Essays.
Gayest video I’ve ever watched. Schools need to teach science, mathematics, logic. Parents need to teach values. Problem with schools today is that they are prioritising teaching nonsense values over facts.
A child can begin the literacy journey before school. The simplest way is to read those well-thumbed bedtime texts with a finger tracking the words to develop an organic understanding of what the individual symbols (letters) represent AND to pass on the reliability of the method. Then introduce the alphabet and numbers in an equally playful way until the questions come. They will come. Any child knows at some point they are a trainee adult and needs to have those skills. Moderate the praise, they get a shot of dopamine, serotonin just by trying and succeeding. Dad jokes introduces them to self-restraint, logic and morality as tools worth having. Common sense is developed by unassisted free play, age-ready materials and tools to follow. Love them.
According to my parents, I could read before I was 2, just from following along. I still recognise words more by pattern recognition than sounding them out, which possibly isn't a great way of learning English spelling anyway. I don't recall a time that I didn't love books. Children learn so much from their parents. One of my friend's daughters literally took her first steps to get her Mom's cell phone. She knew, even as a baby, what adults value.
@@gray_mara My two boys at 3-4 y.o. (must be slow learners - joke) had learned the stories by rote I suspect. They weren't 'reading' as much as remembering. But it's a start. The true value was developing the enjoyment of humans sharing stories and information through the printed word. The very best of luck with your brood.
Beware of propaganda - define your terms - what is Virtue - what do you mean by Virtue - what is the teachers meaning of Virtue - an open dialogue is so needed in the educational system today!
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm is excellent for these reasons. It focuses on both the development of personal, virtuous character and comprehensive, critical intellect.
Montaigne rightly warns that knowledge without virtue is dangerous. Today too many subscribe to Scientism believing technology to be the height of knowledge and a substitute for wisdom. Since we have the greatest technological knowledge of all time, they wrongly believe we are the most advanced and enlightened age. Technology focuses on the material, not the transcendent: the good, the true, and the beautiful. Thus, our scientific age has wrought not only the greatest material benefits but also the worst moral outrages from genocides and weapons of mass destruction to the massacre of countless unborn innocents and the growth of totalitarianism through the power of technology.
I love that book as well, I have passages of much of his work committed to memory: "What more realistically is this 'mutation', this 'new' man? He is the rootless man, discontinuous with a path that nihilism destroyed, the raw material of every demagogue's dream, the 'free thinker' and skeptic, closed only to the truth but open to each new intellectual fashion because he himself has no intellectual foundation, the 'seeker' after some 'new revelation', ready to believe anything new because true faith has been annihilated in him, the planner and experimenter, worshiping 'fact' because he has abandoned truth, seeing the world as a vast laboratory where he is free to determine what is 'possible'. The nihilist is the 'autonomous' man, pretending to modestly ask for 'rights', yet full of the vanity that expects everything to be given to him in a world where nothing is authoritatively forbidden. The nihilist is the man of the moment, without conscience or values and therefore at the mercy of the strongest stimulus, the 'rebel' hating all constraint and authority because he himself is his one and only 'god', the 'mass man', this new barbarian, thoroughly 'reduced' and 'simplified', capable of only the most elementary of knowledge and predictable of ideas, yet scornful of anyone who presumes to point out the higher things." Root of the Revolution is one of his most accessible books. He has among the best perspectives on Guenon.
There is so much to be said about the quality of education in society as it stands today. It’s always been a give and take over what should be emphasized and what should be left to the wayside, but I find what Montaigne wrote to be enlightening. Partially because I’ve heard similar before, but I agree that It’s more about the quality of education than the “quantity”. We have a significant problem today with giving “more” education, without much of an explanation of “why”, and I find what Montaigne has said to be succinct in getting to the root of the problem. Very well done, ThinkingWest 👍
It's egalitarian to believe you can teach virtue. A cultural shift towards an imposition of virtue, would help impose.upon the formulations which run the lives of the mechanical learners , the rote learners, some values we would like them to uphold, I suppose. Because they think in flow charts. But for better or for worse, the mean morality of a culture can influence behaviour and ultimately without a moral genstock, teaching virtue will only render lip service from the servants of vice. Pretty words from the purveyors of sin. The genstock forms that means of behaviour. Thus the difference between Mumbai and Athens or Athens and Hamburg.
This stated, you correct for society's detritus influencing the moral growth of your own children and accelerate their learning, by home schooling. 100% behind closing down these State sanctioned retardation and arrested development camps.
I’ve read 2 from this list. Plutarch’s Lives and Don Quixote by Cervantes. This list is impecable. I would add the works of Seneca and Marco Aurelius and the Bible of course, and my favorite: Shakerpeare’s tragedies.
