How the Great Books fell out of favor

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Deanna talks about the Great Books of Western Civilization and why they fell out of favor. She also remarks on how important they remain in today's society.
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21 июн 2020

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Комментарии : 158

@JohnVKaravitis 7 месяцев назад

I have read all 60 volumes. It took me 5 years.

@bdwon 4 месяца назад

The translations in that series of books are awkward and not up to date with 20th century discoveries about which texts are the least corrupted by inaccurate copyists in the days before the printing press. While you still can, read more recent translations!

@69erthx1138 2 месяца назад

Dedicated scholarship that inspires genuine creativity. The struggle to gain a sense of meaning...deep introspection, the writing. Bukowski nailed this one, "Any one that could ever write worth the damn, couldn't write in peace."

@levimatthew8911 2 месяца назад

@@bdwonI'm sure there are few out there who have. What an undertaking, especially considering how many if the volumes are of an extremely specialized interest that few would find appealing for hundreds of pages.

@ryanparker4996 Месяц назад

@@bdwon I hope everybody ignores your advice and does the entire opposite. Get the OLDEST editions you can get your hands on.

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

I bought the older set which only had 54 volumes and intend to use it as part of my home schooling program. If we manage to make it through those, I will consider buying the last 6 as part of an annex. I got really excited to discover it is part of a collection, which also includes a sort of color-coded prequel called "Gateway to the Great Books," and a curriculum, of sorts, called "The Great Ideas Program," by Mortimer Adler.

@marlonsviolinprogress 2 года назад

Well put. What a society if everyone engaged with the works of great thinkers

@bradchristy5002 5 месяцев назад

Very powerful assessment. I am over 70 years old an wish so much I had been exposed to and successful in learning as well as applying the classics. Your presentation is an excellent way to encourage the refocus of education to thinking & problem solving. I am on my own personal journey to catch up and immersing myself in classical thought and writing. Your comments on your website is most helpful. Thank you so very much for your gallent, timely and most useful work!

@madhusudan 6 месяцев назад

Great presentation - subbed. Critique: near the end you promote the great books as imparting skills that people in the workforce lack, whereas perhaps a better "sell" is that reading the Great Books enriches one's life and provides a window into our own condition.

@CloseLook29 6 месяцев назад

Thank you for making this video series. From a Tibetan immigrant.

@Kaloo1968 8 месяцев назад

The YT algorithm pointed me to your video. I've recently started reading some classic literature, and I couldn't agree more that they should be something young minds should seek to learn. Thanks for the video. I know it's been 3 years since you've posted anything, but I hope that you'll have more helpful videos in the future.

@skeller61 9 месяцев назад

We had a set of the Great Books and an Encyclopedia Brittanica growing up. There was one major problem with them: the fonts they used were tiny and the line-spacing almost nonexistent! I agree it’s important to read from the sources. Why study about what Freud thought, when he explains it very well by himself? Thanks for your thoughts.

@ThaUnseenTruth 6 месяцев назад

This comment captured my exact thoughts. We no longer read the likes of Plato, but about Plato - someone else's opinion of Plato; rather than reading, and forming our own opinion about Plato...

@brunop3845 4 месяца назад

As an Italian, I’ve been educated in a system that - in the sixties/ early seventies- was still much based on the study of the “classics”. Not everyone liked, but everybody was exposed to it and more or less been influenced by that. Nowadays, most students don’t even know what you’re talking about…and one could notice that by the way they speak or write …if writing is still a communication method. In my early sixties, I’m constantly returning to those books as a main reference for a deep understanding of the human behavior, of history or fundamental values. Forty years of management experience on technology and economics has by no means replaced those fundamental learnings.

@69erthx1138 2 месяца назад

The classics got removed when education devolved into an industrialized obedience school for the masses. If your folks could shell out $50k annually for top private/boarding schools, the student would get good tutiliage. Two of my clients are retired from the Groton school. They are both in their 80's, but they still work to promote these studies in the general population. Warren, Michelina, and myself thank you sincerely for your efforts!

@JamesAdams-ev6fc 6 месяцев назад

I shall check out your website. Great video!

@theruggedscholar1544 4 месяца назад

Thank you for creating this video.

@petersammarco4612 Год назад

You explained everything very well. Thank you again

@Barnabas94 4 месяца назад

I’m building my library and reading these one at a time and intend to instill in my daughter an appreciation of these books as a supplemental education.

@PoetlaureateNFDL 5 месяцев назад

Thanks for being an advocate for great literature! More people should be focused on the classics.

@FozzyBBear 5 месяцев назад

I prefer the World Books series due to the inclusion of the Syntopicon. The Syntopicon allows me to interrogate the Great Books at will, without having to read them all. On any given topic it provides a summary of the books, a reading guide, and an index. Within an hour or two I can have a good grasp on what all these great authors had to say on a particular subject, or within a few minutes I'll have the gist. There is nothing I love more in a reference book than a good index, and the Syntopicon is the best I've ever seen.

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

The GBWW series also has a syntopicon; the series is actually part of 3 interconnected sets: 1) Gateway to the Great Books (10-book series), 2) The Great Ideas Program (10-book series) and 3) Great Books of the Western World. The GGB series contains the syntopicon and is a sort of "prequel" to the GBWW in that the authors and topics are easier for readers to understand (Hutchins specifically states that the average 16-year old should be able to comprehend it). The GIP is a companion series by Mortimer Adler that acts as sort of a syllabus and curriculum to help the reader get the most out of the series (I use it as a homeschooler).

@rickysimms51 Год назад

These books are very very powerful! They represent being very infulencial

@jamessheffield4173 2 месяца назад

They are what kept me sane.

@t0dd000 Год назад

Education has been devalued. And this has gone on long enough that the ignorance is generational. And the attack on the quality of the education is only getting more forceful. (Note what is going on in Florida for an extreme example.) And that degraded education is forcing our universities to dumb down as well. In the future your only route for a full formal education will be private schooling and then attendance at an ivy league university. It's truly disconcerting.

@magicaltour1 Год назад

“Ivy League” isn’t worth anything, given that Harvard gave us such half-wits as DeSantis and Cruz. Really, these Ivy League schools are just boys clubs for wealthy elites to send their out-of-touch spawn so they can have something else to brag about.

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

Considering how badly the academic rigor has collapsed in the ivy league schools (not to mention the lowering of entrance standards), I would buy these books in lieu of an ivy league education and know that I'm getting a better education.

@toddbelanger1923 2 года назад

Well said...amazing video..your awesome... You hit it perfectly

@ClearOutSamskaras 2 года назад

* _you're_

@OrdenJust 7 месяцев назад

How the Great Books fell out of favor? When the Russians launch Sputnik, there was a mass hysteria in education in this country that here our best and brightest were learning Pilgrim's Progress or whatever, and the Rooskis were learning how to bomb us from outer space. There was a sudden change in emphasis as to what was to be favored in school curricula. The idea of a liberal education never regained the ground it lost.

@sacredmetaphics 11 месяцев назад

Hope you are well well said and will be sharing often

@wayne02058 Год назад

I saw a set of great books on sale on eBay today and I was just wondering what it actually was, after watching your video I think I might actually try and look for these books, do you know if there are any on the internet for download?

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

I hope you were able to procure a hard copy of this set. It is worth the investment if you are interested in improving yourself as an individual, and as a critical thinker. It is especially good if you have children you are homeschooling.

@anthonys5568 9 месяцев назад

Thank you for the video. I'm actually on a plan to read all 60 volumes and the 50 volumes of the Harvard Classics over the next three years.

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

That is an incredibly ambitious goal. Good luck to you.

@DavidVonR 10 месяцев назад

Great video.

@sophiahace9920 2 года назад

Lovely description about the Great Books. Job well done and thank you.

@sophiahace9920 2 года назад

Oh, no! I tried the link to your website and it was down.

@sherlock1895 5 месяцев назад

Well said indeed! Cheers!

@tjsurname119 6 месяцев назад

They have fallen out of favour because these books were meant to be read before the age of 20, and their contents well known and studied along with the wisdom of the Bible! The people who had this education already had a lot of skills. The shift was towards "industrial applied labour" which was a way of ensuring that many lost the actual skills that were passed down from Father to Son and sometimes Daughters ! It was a way from people to be brought under "masters" of industry. It had little to do with skills. It had everything to turning people into cheap labour, and those who worked in industry did not develop skills, merely they undertook dangerous work inside dangerous factories so other men could profit from their hard labour for a very few shillings in making bricks or rope making. They lost the freedom of their farms and working in the fresh air to be forced into the dreadfully toxic cities of the day such as London which were filthy, miserable and sad places.

@elevicpernis9033 2 года назад

Elitism my arse. Adler intended the masses to read them. He believed that, rightly or wrongly, a citizenry who are versed with these books would protect themselves from propaganda and probably help elect leaders who are guided by the wisdom of these books. (see 'The Great Conversation') If these critics of these great books simply dismiss these gems altogether, they probably have a low standard of what elitism is, namely reading these works in the original languages. (see 'Climbing Parnassus' as well as videos by Alexander Arguelles) Me personally, even reading a small fraction of these works have been valuable to me in expanding my mind and my perspective. I would probably mine much gems the more I read these. These are valuable by themselves in translation, but would probably be more in the original for those who are willing.

@bdwon 4 месяца назад

You are so right! Adler wrote "Aristotle for Everybody."

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

WELL SAID!

@gargleblasta 6 месяцев назад

2:14 it moved from HOW to think to WHAT you had to think

@pa1attention Год назад

As a homeschooler, when would you first introduce these books to your student? What age or grade? What order? Thanks!

@JohnVKaravitis 7 месяцев назад

Let the kids pick up a volume at random and see if they can handle it.

@lephinor2458 6 месяцев назад

Speaking as a kid that has been reading old classics. I found that books like the Illiad, Dune, and The Histories were way above my level of reading. After rereading parts that I didn't understand I started to learn how to break down the words to understand it. So I would say you start immediately and have your kid get used to reading the complex material.

@pa1attention 6 месяцев назад

@@lephinor2458 Thank you for your input! Do you remember which one your read first?

@dennisfarris4729 5 месяцев назад

Ben Franklin is a friendly guy to begin with. He brings science, history, family and business into the discussion.

@lephinor2458 5 месяцев назад

@@pa1attention the Illiad, but I would say find a subject your child likes because at first the complexity might make the child bored or confused. So if your child likes sci-fi then you can make them read foundation or Dune.

@phaedrussmith1949 9 месяцев назад

"Compulsory education systems are designed to inculcate into the masses the values of the King because one doesn't revolt against one with whom he or she shares values." -Amos Wilson

@petersammarco4612 Год назад

Great Books 📚 Transforms. As does the encyclopedia of knowledge which I read from cover to cover truly amazing box indeed.

@creativesource3514 Год назад

Here in the UK we still study this, including US authors.

@czgibson3086 Год назад

Can't disagree that reading the great books is immensely valuable, but if you say something like "the Romans read the Greeks", that's true, but keep in mind that we're talking about a tiny minority of Romans. Most people, for most of history, were illiterate. There are more people alive today reading the ancient Greeks than there were at any time during the history of Greek antiquity, not only because of the massive increase in global population but also because of the spread of literacy.

@davidyoussef8974 6 месяцев назад

I think a good way to follow this line of thinking and also update is to include great works from non western cultures. The poems of the Middle Eastern mathematician, the bava gita of india, the romance of the three kingdoms, an the book of the five rings. on of the more legit arguments against the classical education was its western focus but i think that is easily remidied and more importantly the idea that we learn the classics first is something i 100% agree with

@ivanmarti8363 3 года назад

Great

@Dan__S 2 года назад

Thank you for this video, it's another piece of the puzzle. I didn't know that Dewey pressed for skills based education why that matters is because Dewey was a socialist. Controlling the education of the people is important to both them and the big business interests back then who wanted people to be useful components in their industries. Independent thinking really doesn't have a place in socialism outside of the small cadre of socialists doing the thinking for everyone else- and having workers question that goes against their revolution.

@dennisfarris4729 5 месяцев назад

A universal foundation makes for economy in sharing and synergy.

@DrAlexVasquezICHNFM 7 месяцев назад

At 1:10 I’m already in agreement. Too many “educated people” and homeschoolers just do what they want and within their comfort zone. Your video was perfect

@ant7936 Год назад

Very good, succinct discussion! Thanks.

@happymaskedguy1943 2 года назад

Don't forget science - arguably the most impactful of all these subjects.

@charlesspringer4709 9 месяцев назад

Nice. I wold add that Dewey was a Socialist/Communist eugenics enthusiast and elitist who wanted to create an army of workers for industry. He never taught school but was full of theories about how to run a classroom. Basically a complete fool with a profound influence on American education methods and the teacher colleges. The Great Books effort was well intended but rather rushed and the translations chosen are random in quality, ranging from horrible to OK. Nearly every high school library had a set when I was a kid, and a lot of people who subscribed through Britannica salesmen. But the decline since the 1960's is from a much different cause. Look up the Cloward and Piven Strategy.

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

Do you know of a good discussion on which works included in the GBWW were poor translations? I have just gotten the series and would like to supplement it with better translations for those sections that are problematic, but I do not know where to start.

@charlesspringer4709 Месяц назад

@@asdisskagen6487 That is a good one. I recall discussions decades ago on CSPAN. Maybe look for reviews of them a little after they came out. I know they had to settle for what was available or affordable at the time in some cases. These things change as more is discovered about languages and cultural history. I would look for some modern critiques on each translation on a book by book basis.

@jaybrodell1959 Месяц назад

Although the Great Books series is a valuable resource, society has moved forward with remarkable advances in science and even history. Ahead of the Great Books I would place learning another language to at least read in it moderately well. Perhaps one would even consider learning Latin and Koine Greek. In dong so, one would confront a host of great authors in their own languages.

@fyvaoldg7937 9 месяцев назад

Привет из России! Я всегда считала, что американцы только смотрят кино про инопланетян, а оказывается, вы тоже читаете книги. Это очень хорошо! Как вам русская литература? Читали? Понравилось?

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

It is difficult to get a lot of Russian literature with good translations. I have read some Russian literature; it is very ... grim. Well, written but my word is it depressing.

@lanbaode 4 месяца назад

Now there are “textbooks” only, no longer the “Great Books.”

@jondrive8801 10 месяцев назад

Awesome

@aerialdude 2 года назад

Another aspect, in modern times at least, is the criticism that most of the great books programs are too heavily comprised of white male authors. Many schools now prefer to select from a more diverse corpus than the traditional western canon. I think this perspective is a healthy one, in principle, but in practice I think the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. In my opinion, the best solution is to continue to read the great books while additionally incorporating a more diverse set of authors as well. The great books are too important to skip, but at the same time we should recognize the importance of a multicultural and more gender-equal education.

@qwemiami 2 года назад

Exactly. Supplement; not replacement

@seraphim3TN 2 года назад

brown people and women are to be ignored

@ant7936 Год назад

And how many books do we have from Africa, 2000 years ago? Just asking.

@vanessamay3689 Год назад

We already have and are already using diverse writings and writers. They have been around for years. I love Tolstoy and other Russian authors Cervantes Hardy from all parts of the globe 🌎

@t0dd000 Год назад

This didn't happen. No great books of diversity are taught either.

@petersammarco4612 Год назад

Thanks 🙏🏾 all great books. Truly amazing books.

@levimatthew8911 Год назад

The "liberal-minded" elites have always enjoyed the idea of a controllable serf-type population, so the shift away from the great ideas and higher level thought(especially surrounding politics) has been really successful toward that end.

@69erthx1138 2 месяца назад

Im confident that Milton and his beloved Lycidas are digging your thesis👍

@StephanieMT Год назад

So weird how one person can come up woth an idea and people jump on bandwagon and they become the thing. Like what you mentioned in the video. Same thing with Femenism in the 60s and Christianity in school. not starting political arguements just pointing something out

@donovanmedieval Год назад

Because people stopped eating three meals a day, because they found out it was racist, so they didn't have the energy it takes to read Great Books anymore.

@Roland96351 Год назад

Well said.

@FreedomSpirit108 9 месяцев назад

Well done

@t0dd000 Год назад

I think the great books have fallen out of favor because Americans clearly started putting far too much cream in our coffee. ;)

@rentslave 11 месяцев назад

It's because of the Shakespearechuckers.

@petersammarco4612 Год назад

Love 💗 your fantastic conclusions

@noam65 5 месяцев назад

Well said! The ancient Greek sages got their education by attending wisdom schools in Egypt. The wisdom did not originate in Greece, but the set, which I also own, is a great value. There are also the set of The Sacred Books Of The East. Yes, it's sad these ideas were pushed out of favor.

@TheBlindamerica 7 месяцев назад

Have the set myself and Harvard Classics. Read all these with the Bible and you will have a strong education in western Culture and potentially gain strong insight into purpose. At a minimum, you should come away with a fondness for your neighbor since our diverse thoughts make us so interesting.

@DanLyndon 9 месяцев назад

Good video but very repetitive with a lot of broad generalisations that paint an inaccurate picture of history.

@williamgass9242 8 месяцев назад

What's inaccurate about it?

@dehn6581 6 месяцев назад

@@williamgass9242 The idea that everyone read these texts for centuries is clearly inaccurate. Just think about it - we're talking centuries where most people were just busy surviving, where many were illiterate and oral education was still the main route as just making books was a laborious task, where oral history was still significant, and just ideals around education and varied widely. Also, the formation of this book collection started in late 1800s with the Ancient Classics Reader and had significant uptick in the early 1900s with several collections including Harvard Classics and Everyman's Library. The Great Book Collection in the 1950s being pretty late on this trend, and after reading collections tended to move towards broader range of works. There are benefits to reading widely across time and place - the latter being something the Great Books is fairly limited on, it doesn't really need to be sold as an eternal education and misrepresent the history of it this way - like some of the books in the Great Books Collection like Plutarch's histories do.

@williamgass9242 6 месяцев назад

@@dehn6581 what are you talking about? People who dont read don't read. People who do do.

@williamgass9242 8 месяцев назад

People used to read because they wanted to learn, not because they wanted to appear better than others. Egos weren't so messed up back then, which great books help with.

@donb5401 2 месяца назад

Fallen out of favour with who?

@asdisskagen6487 Месяц назад

The American Education system, and likely the public education systems of most Western Countries.

@michaelmcgee335 Год назад

Read whatever you want whenever you want for as long as you want, there’d be lay people very happy with this collection. Literature snobbery is such a vacuous attitude

@adnanbadshah3425 6 месяцев назад

People who read great books were, are, and always will be a minority. That's just the way it always has been

@WelshRabbit 2 месяца назад

Why the Great Books fell out of favor in education? Easy and obvious: corrosive effects of cultural relativism and cultural (race) marxism.

@hanskung3278 2 года назад

You need to give a concrete examples of how reading Kant or Hegel will help me interact with others.

@BobBob-cy9cu 2 года назад

Bro Kant’s categorical imperative is exactly that! Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals is where to start, otherwise, if Kant gets boring I’d recommend Spinoza’s Ethics

@hanskung3278 2 года назад

@@BobBob-cy9cu I don't think that answered my question.

@BobBob-cy9cu 2 года назад

@@hanskung3278 your comment wasn't a question?

@hanskung3278 2 года назад

@@BobBob-cy9cu Ok, so give me concrete examples of how reading Kant and Hegel will help my interactions with others.

@shannonhenson609 Год назад

@@hanskung3278 It won't. It's just a philosophical carousel for people with a lot of free time on their hands to indulge.

@shannonhenson609 Год назад

It's just not realistic in this day and age to expect the typical working class layman to read these books. A person's reading and comprehension skills would already have to be top notch just to absorb them. Our education system does not train our kids on this level anymore, if they ever did. You would have to have an enormous amount of free time to even begin to tackle these books. Most people simply don't have the time or inclination to read these books, most of which are not as relevant in the modern age as they once were. Also....it is not elitist to say that many people simply don't have the mental firepower it takes to read books like these.....so they MUST concentrate on a more practical education. They are certainly very relevant in the development and evolution of Western Civilization and they should be touched upon in history classes.....but there are only so many books you can read in a lifetime.

@Ahab_786 11 месяцев назад

Right. I guess that's it, case closed. Pack it up...nope..wha..sorry no, you didn't hear the lady?... No she said it's too hard... They don't have enough time....got marvel movies to see..got RU-vid to browse.....they aren't able to get it

@shannonhenson609 11 месяцев назад

@@Ahab_786 You may not like what I said....but it's the reality we live in, so yes ....case closed.

@williamgass9242 8 месяцев назад

This is bullshit. Read if you want. If you hate reading, then leave it for others who do love it.

@danielsnyder2288 6 месяцев назад

Reading in general has fallen out of favor as the religious and political right continue to denigrate education and develop a society that spurns intelligence and education

@gusloader123 5 месяцев назад

That is a bogus rotten lie from an agent of Marx and the devil himself. The only thing that kept the U.S.A. ahead of and better than other nations (until 1963) was the basic Christian education many people had in America when the only book most Pioneers and settlers could afford to buy was a copy of the Holy Bible. The U.S. churches were far better than churches in Europe and the U.K., partly because people were encouraged to read the Bible at home 6 days a week instead of sitting on a pew and doing rituals for an hour once a week. Europe, starting in France with Voltaire, Rousseau and the scum of the French revolution in the late 1700's to Marx & Engels in Germany in the later 1840's started the ruination of good thinking based upon the God-breathed scripture. almost all European and British Isles churches and colleges went down the drain due to liberal theologians and writers who did not believe the Holy Bible was true. The words of the Holy Bible are 100 % better than the gunk and garbage of the Greek philosophers and godless Germans/Austrians and French writers and revolutionaries.

@unperson5713 Год назад

Are they really that great? Primarily, these works are historically significant. As literature, their style, prose and pacing are antiquated and stultified. They are boring books. You can teach critical thinking without relying on outdated texts. Don't rely on public schools to guide you child's journey to ethical adulthood. Don't force your students to slog through crusty, dusty tomes so they can sew on their "literature" badge.

@shannonhenson609 Год назад

Agree.

@PotterPossum1989 Год назад

Disagree.

@dalecoughlin5124 Год назад

Reading boring books takes discipline and the ability to persist at something you really do not want to do, but these great books can definitely improve your understanding of thinking and living. In fact reading these books today when they are out of favor seems to be the "diverse"thing to fo.

@unperson5713 Год назад

@@dalecoughlin5124 Karate teaches discipline, old books are just boring, doubly so for students. People need to develop their critical thinking skills and stop believing falsities. Diversity? People who preoccupy themselves with delusions are beyond the help a mere novel will provide.

@williamgass9242 8 месяцев назад

A lot of people don't not do something just because you think it's boring. Some people have values you wouldn’t understand. Reading would help with that, broaden your mind. It seems like pc culture nowadays would be all about discovery.

@bdwon 4 месяца назад

This lady is so wrong and superficial! Dewey was nowhere near as influential as she argues. One reason the Great Books fell out of favor is that the people who taught about them during most of the 20th Century were, in fact, elitist! And now the people who teach them tend to neglect most of the 20th century scholarship that provides a useful understanding of the cultural context which created the possibility for the authors to write the great books! Also she neglects to mention how late 20th century science is excluded from most programs that teach great books.

@hanskung3278 2 года назад

Cause they are no longer relevant?

@hanskung3278 2 года назад

@BVale Point made.

@Tolstoy111 2 года назад

Shakespeare is still the most popular writer in the world

@DiogenesNephew 2 года назад

The level of ignorance necessary to make such a comment is absolutely wild.

@PotterPossum1989 Год назад

If anything, comments from random strangers on RU-vid are irrelevant

@hanskung3278 Год назад

@@PotterPossum1989 Got me with a good one....but I was being sincere, ALOT of it seems far removed from daily life, or perhaps I'm a prisoner in Plato's cave and it's all an illusion.