I love listening to you all, but Sugrue particularly strikes a chord with me, I've now watched all his lectures available on RU-vid (some of them several times), and hearing that his lectures on Plato were done in 94.. the year I was born, took it to another level of appreciation for me- every generation has their heroes
Going through the lectures, learning so much, laughing, becoming perplex, feeling illuminated and inspired, trying to read ( or listen) to the books discussed was a kind af school I couldn't attend otherwise as a mother of three, but I come now to say a huge thank you to all of you generously involved in this! God bless you all!
Dr. Sugrue, I came across your channel about a week or two ago. I saw your lecture on Machiavelli. I'd like to say those lectures are profound. You did an incredible job and have produced some truly good work(s). You're an impressive man. God bless you, for whatever it is worth.
In short: Thank You. At length: I have started and then deleted this comment about 10 times over the last 2 months, because I didn’t feel like I would be able to articulate how much this series has meant to me over the last few years. A friend of mine stumbled on Mike’s 94 lectures at the beginning of the COVID lockdown- a period of time that felt both terrifying and banal. Those lectures opened up so many long discussions at his kitchen table, and opened me to a world of classic literature. I’ve since read 30+ classics in the last 2 years including the astonishing Magic Mountain, which feels like a montage of so many of these lectures. All in all, you have helped open a portal, and I know I speak for thousands of others when I say: thank you, and sláinte.
Thanks, once again gentlemen. If the humanities get lost, I can’t think of any group of people who have made a greater or more effective effort to leave a trail of crumbs on the Internet to help them to find their way.
Dear Professor Sugrue. I hope that your channel is part of the proof that the humanities are alive and kicking, but universities are dead institutions still stumbling along like hyper-rich zombies. I watch only philosophy, video essays and cultural theory on youtube and I find our world's best teachers here. Thank you for your efforts.
“Piety is doing honor to God by being of service to men.” Great thought. Reminds me of a famous Martin Luther sermon, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor sure does.” A highly religious thought. I am of the opinion no purely secular man could reach this by reason alone.
Obligatory secular humanist riposte: We are all susceptible to suffering and sickness, despair, loss, etc., based solely on the inescapable (human) reality that we are all bound for death. So why shouldn't that motivate (reasonably) enlightened humans to understand our mutually shared fate and attempt to strive for a shared decency among ourselves? Who are all fallible and prone to error by our very nature. I have no issue with people finding peace, comfort or purpose through religious belief; sometimes I'm even envious of those who sincerely believe it and abide by it, and the strength it clearly gives them. Necessary for moral and rational behavior? I think not. It seems much more like a myth, made possible only by those already operating in the service of an even greater myth.
@@floresdta I already have. It's in the family and friends whom I love and who love me. In the sun that shines on my face each day (precious little there is at the moment). And in my abiding love for the humanities. I want for little else, save for a few beers and freshly topped off pipe.
What a great discussion! God bless you! Michael Sugrue, I’ve learned so much from you, you’re a dear friend and professor although I have never met you before! I’ll keep you in my prayers.
Love the statement by Dr Sugrue to the effect that “Piety is doing honor to God by being of service to mankind” essentially piety is practicing the humanities. That should be stamped above the department entrance.
“ Piety is doing honour to God by being of service to man” this is the core right there by professor Sugrue. It reminds me of a old quote by a well known Dutch officer in The Salvation Army, Majoor Bosshardt, which goes like: 'God dienen is mensen dienen’ ('To serve God is to serve people’)
Brilliant again from the learned gents!! I particularly enjoyed the “finale” of Darren and Peter with the game of the century!? I have to quote here the great human being himself.. Bobby Fischer.. “.. it’s not about psychology, it’s about the moves..” BF 1972. A brilliant mind. Michael will pick up on CGJ’s..”thinking and feeling” Cannot wait for the next one!
I’m an anthropology PhD candidate at an R1. Not once in my career as a graduate student has there been good-faith discussions on epistemology that aren’t mired in assertions of white supremacy and colonialism. I thought (naively) that coming from a poor white family I would find a space that could transcend identity politics and I wouldn’t have to justify my existence by some idealized personal mythology. It’s been a lonely journey. There are no jobs for me in academia. It is social fact.
It occurs to me that the financialization of the academy created this perpetual straw man that works effectively at radicalizing faculty towards the extreme end of the antithesis of the institution’s class structure.
44:42 I second that, Dr Field, as someone who is only a high school grad and living the sheltered, comfortable life. That can only or will only build character and build strength of character. Excellent podcast, Darren, Michael and Field; the power sagacious trio. I was never beaten or scolded as a child at least not intensely or as bad as other kids (now grown adults or teachers) have had it. Nor was I bullied in school because I got lucky and kept a calm low profile and was alienated and isolated though parts of that was almost largely self-imposed. I had no desire to speak to anyone much less peers or old friends. You can only imagine or conclude how much that played into and built arrested development, learned helplessness and 'victimizing' myself and being defiant against my guardians, my parents. Against and in the face of authority. Everyone now looks for the eternal ghastly evil boogeymen to scapegoat and never learn or build strength and character. That includes the post-modern left and progressives and identity politics. They really just want to ban and abolish all forms and manners of jobs and that includes banking and commercial and consumer activity. It's absurd. If anything, instead of parental and school workshops, we need Book clubs and elegant and studied/studious teachers and readers and authors that have also done back breaking labor.
@@dr.michaelsugrue wish you well professor. Ive seen Peterson have debates/talks through the internet. It'd be interesting to hear what you both could debate about.
@@dr.michaelsugrue would you be interested on going on a mutual friend's podcast? Please check out the Pangburn channel where we interviewed people like Jordan Peterson, Noam Chomsky, Sam Harris and Lawrence Krauss, and Michio Kaku! I have recommended them your podcast and everyone was extremely excited at the prospect of having your company. please let me know if a time suits you so Travis Pangburn can personally accommodate you thank you in advance for your time and for the videos that inspired me to get into philosophy.
*Hope For The Humanities in Education* 2:12 The Charge: The West Is Sinful. True. However: This is _not unique and not constrained only to The West. 3:51 Lets add/subtract/adjust approach vs Lets RESET, Lets Completely Reform, etc. 6:00 We study The West since we live in The West. We study The West because the major modern-era achievements are lead by The West. 7:25 Everybody studies where they live. 7:55 Alan Bloom on "The School of Resentment." *Addressing Failure* 9:15 Self-Loathing. 9:47 "The West has not lived up to our higher ideals." 10:25 "There are no bad dogs and bad children, only bad owners and bad adults." 11:23 Kids are always a little crazy, trying to figure out the world they are coming to learn. *Renaissance Era 1500s-Doctrinal Idealism 1700s-Craziness of 1800s and 1900s* 15:00 Patronage to study at university, The Printing Press spreading knowledge further than before. 17:10 Wycliffe and Hus. 17:53 Machiavelli. 18:25 Commercial Revolution. Power Drives People Crazy. 19:02 Pluralist Toleration. 20:17 21:00 French Revolution distorted politics and the ruling elite. 22:46 The US is going through Anti-Westernism 24:16 "Why should the Czech Republic feel sorry for Colonialism?" 24:31 "The Attempt to abolish The Past is futile. And, tearing down the remnants of the past will not change the future. What will change the future is facing up to the facts of the past, and then recognizing that we can do better, provided we tame our arrogance and try to improve the world gradually in a piecemeal way, in an ongoing fashion, imperfectly, Rather than abolishing the past and starting again from year 0." 27:21 Is it an educator's job to heal the world? It is not to redress historical grievances. 28:52 Why do people who sign up for the job not only hate the job but want to abolish the job? 29:30 Whiting-Nations. White Oppression. 34:46 Universities taught Classics. 35:20 Ideological Infiltration began in the 1960s. Think Tanks. 36:12 Internet University. 37:12 Administrators are the highest paid people on Campus. Adults Enable/Discipline Children. *The New SJWPostmodernist Left* 1960s - It began 1980s - It is growing 2020s - It is a problem 39:00 The Moving definition of what is Left Wing and what is Right Wing. They don't know what they lost, what they are missing. 41:03 Moses was denied entrance to the Promised Land. 41:28 Frustrated Identity Politics People. - Presumption of Guilt "There is something wrong with you, and I am so great." 42:25 42:48 Late 80s/early 90s The word "Workshop" enters the language. 43:37 Parenting Workshop. 44:36 Farming. Living with Tragedy and Death. *The Often Repeated (Blame-Game)* 45:38 Scapegoating/Sacrificial Lamb. University of Texas at Austin Texas. 47:05 Ask Unpopular Questions "How is The Past Synonymous with Evil?" Universal Humanity, Individuality, Struggle/Pain, Love. Living through history and problems. 49:20 We are unclean. 51:45 Euthyphro, Piety, God Love Virtue. Piety - Doing honor to God by being of service to man. 53:40 God is Man's Helper. 54:24 "You gotta live through life." (hehe well of course) 55:35 (One Good Crumb of Truth is fulfilling :) ) 56:45 Chess' Game of The Century.
Can I interject..Can you imagine a Bully? Bullies? I am sure my first response..from which I got a response from Prof. Sugrue was … “Well I hope Michael Stipe is coming on” and yeah… Michael said to me who is Michael Stipe? So… to Genevieve(whom became their director) with love came Strange Currencies. This is my appeal…..A wonderful song!!!!!!!!. Tell Stallof to do the job!!
Last thing from my perspective. It has become common in the last two years in my department for incoming graduate students taking the pro seminar sequence to refuse learning the canon because “racism”. It’s such a cop out. They learn nothing but garner all kinds of cultural capital.
It’s crazy that Augustinian thought is still with us to this very day - and perhaps more prevalent than ever before. While society and education tries to reject the inherent flawed nature of mankind, we also more than ever adhere to the idea of Original Sin.
As a 19 year old premedical student with serious interest in western literature and philosophy, what’s the best way to go about self studying this material? The Western Canon is so daunting that it’s hard to imagine how to get started, especially when a good undergraduate education in this field is hard to come by these days.
Focus on your premed to medical. Graduate. Make money. Afford the time and luxury to collect books (you can find a great introduction by just researching the books on this channel) and read them.
'Hard people make hard times. I've seen the meanness of humans till I don't know why God ain't put out the sun and gone away.' Outer Dark Cormac McCarthy
See what happened? Nature,ie the cat,walks into the conversation… picture freezes… cat is gone when picture comes back online… Nature edited out? Too much control? 😉 A much necessary dialogue. Thanks! Really enjoying these! 🙏🏼
It’s funny, during the part where they talk about alternatives to the current state of Humanities education, none of them mentions the Great Courses! Which is how I learned the classics, reading the books on my own and then listening to professors like Peter and Darren! Although with that said, I know the GCs aren’t as great as they once were, back when the lectures weren’t homogenized into 30 minute clips and there was more of an emphasis on letting the great lecturers do their thing, but the best of them are still among the greatest learning experiences of my life and these guys were a big part of it.
We can say the prevalent thoughts in Western high culture speaks on the behalf of “all” men, that it speaks to the joys and struggles of everyone, but we know that’s not true at all. The rejection of the humanities seems to be the rejection of aristocracy.
Mike's comment at 42:24 on the Augustinian sense of human limitation and the Rousseauean notion of "I'm so great" instantly reminded me of Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions, which lays out two opposing "visions" - the "constrained" and the "unconstrained" - which he sees as the fundamental presuppositions on human nature that underlie all surface level, political divisions. The constrained vision is defined in a very similar way to Augustinian notion, as the belief that human beings are fundamentally flawed and require some level of institutional intervention to temper those flaws, hence "constrained," and the unconstrained vision is defined as the belief that human beings are essentially good, and institutions only serve to distort and oppress this good nature. Sowell even cites Rousseau's idea that "man is born free but everywhere in chains" as the primary example of this belief. He expands upon the latter vision in his work The Vision of the Anointed, and what he describes in that work is not too dissimilar from what Darren talked about with academics who seek to go out and "heal the world" (27:44). I just thought that might have been interesting to point out.
I feel like Mike and Peter are talking about two different things while Darren mediates. The prompt is “why the humanities are in decline,” but the two of them understand that prompt differently, while Darren, funny enough, sees the different approaches and has the impossible task of herding these two.
Peter and Darren need to let Michael do 90% of the talking, and stop interrupting. "Piety is doing honor to God by being of service to men." Agreed! Because God IS the good, and being of service to his creation does indeed do Him, perfect goodness, honor.
I’m having a bit of difficulty understanding what is the premise, claim, or topic in this conversation! However, for what I understand Humanities studies the nature of societies and culture. Therefore, Humanities will depend on many factors, and definitely religion has a stake on the type of society and culture we grow in. Certainly, since the Age of Enlightenment and reason with Science as the main tenet, western thinking has shifted towards achieving an advanced society based on logical reasoning, free of superstition and ignorance!
I definitely think the humanities in the West needs to become less Eurocentric for the simple fact that we no longer live in the unipolar moment. The less we know more about humans in the rest of the world, the less useful the humanities become to it and the society that sustains it. @Peter We can’t let anything fail immediately; we can only let it all fail eventually 😄
Do you guys have any practical steps to right the situation? I feel that modern students have 0 stamina for serious work and the expectation from administration is to make every lesson interactive, light on content, or the equivalent of academic junk food. Kids will never be able to digest serious topics or discourse if all they have been trained to do is consume prepackaged garbage. I have kids unironically saying why do they need history when they have TikTok🤯. With AI around the corner laziness will only get worse.
I know my age demographic is much younger than what you guys are generally discussing but I feel these are the very kids who will enter college and need remediation (which is a growing segment).
Hoping there is further discussion on whether God likes things that are good are they are good because God likes them; a highest level confirmation bias. And for me, am not speaking of the God of the likes of Sean Carroll and others who rejoice in an ultimate straw-man worship, even if for understandable reasons.
To a certain point ye! Once a society collapses, humanities will collapse alone. This is what happened after the fall of the Roman Empire and Europe entered into what’s called the dark ages! Same thing happened to the Maya world of Central America, their societies suddenly collapsed leaving a world of madness and human sacrifices.
Begin your search with self-interest (on the part of universities, administrators, professors), and you will wend your way to the answer you so disingenuously seem to seek.
Peter I agree, and therefore I think all philosophy ought to start with ontology, the concept of mind and the concept of I. What is your concept of " I"? And then it should be about encouraging people to establish their own values and defining their own morality, not imposing yours or a dogmatic curriculum upon them. Indoctrination basically.
If I understand Hegelian dialectics correctly , negation of the negation means we take the positive from every negative and create new higher concepts. So Nature is a series of recurring patterns and the principles stay the same but the concepts spiral up or down. Now if we make the unconscious conscious we can possibly continue to spiral up. Nietzsche's last man is spiraling down. Never in the last two millennia has Reason been lower.
I finally worked out the relationship between absolute idealism and dialectical materialism, absolute idealism uses dialectical materialism for negation of the negation. I was looking last night at a series that included content about the Spanish inquisition, so bearing absolute idealism in mind I asked "why" and then it clicked. How much greed and fear is it going to take for these fuckers to start thinking for themselves? How much suffering do they have to endure before they question their fear and the greed of will to power of the established hierarchy? So along come Marx and Engels, not by chance (absolute idealism) but if there is no God, God is dead, surely they will begin to think for themselves. But not yet, negation of the negation, we just have a higher concept, academic hierarchies still operating on the instinctual drives, climate change being an example, the creators of truth and how dare any heretics question their dogma. How dare anybody threaten their position at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. We create ourselves, no matter what model you use to conceptualize the world this is true, but the next stage in spiralling up is a decentralisation of power. I'll listen to the rest of the podcast later with a beer. I'm looking forward to it.
It's just an after thought, but " if there is no God, then everything is permitted" You see if we don't take responsibility for our actions or strive to have agency then we can't have it. But there are so many variables to be considered, like every action has a consequence and Kant's categorical imperative, but I refute that because it encourages inaction due to fear. I said earlier " don't borrow money" but then on reflection I thought to myself, actually, you could borrow the money and do King Philip of France on it, that will work too" this is dialectics and in accordance with Nature. But then you must mitigate the consequences. And this is what drives the evolutionary process. You see it depends on your values, if you stay as poor as shit every cunt will prey on you, freedom is my highest value and authenticity is second. Then factor in that I have a duty to Nature. I'm not a marionette, I suspect that Peterson is, I'm driving and my soul is navigating. I'm free to stick us in the ditch any time I want. I first had to learn how to drive and then how to listen. Like Darren was talking about doing your job, who does he think defines that? The Dean? No sir, what Socrates was talking about was doing what you are created to do but your desires and aversions will derail you, that's why Maslow said only two percent of people achieve self actualisation. The deficiency needs that he deemed necessary are what inhibited them. They get stuck in the ditch.
I like the dynamic and interaction of this trio meeting Micheal seems to be calm , cool , collected and not rushing things up . He let's others talk and he sits back which I like about his attitude & manner then he chimes in The bound between Micheal and Darren is stronger than new fella though It is absolutely delightfull to see these guys making comments about new world problems . 🫡
was interesting to hear an admin, but no more. he's too dumb and self-conscious. more mike and darren, less (or no) admins. thanks though, this is currently my favorite youtube series
A parallel I see is that the great disruption of the printing press is even less than the great disruption of the internet. Then everyone had access to read books affordably, now everyone has access, not only to read, but _publish_ affordably (in essence). This power, the masses thinking their opinions triumph over time-tested thoughts over centuries because they have a million followers and 100K likes, and the human psychology is affected by such instant feedback, it can easily push a person further and further into utter nonsense.
I think the three amigos should have someone like Dr Lee T. Pearcy on one of their unplugged sessions. Pearcy is a life long scholar and classicist who (fairly) recently provided a concise yet compendious history of classical education and the humanities in America in “The Grammar of Our Civility”.
Addresing Professor Field's point on "the ambition to learn everything is gone" around 31:00... i did read some days ago that technology has been another (kind of Freudian) hit on the Ego.. maybe since Gary Kasparov's chess match against computer "Deep Blue"...since then, computers has seem to us like they eventually will solve all the issues for us... i see a general posture of "why try to reach for the limits (as the romantics did)?... the machines will do it better eventually"..in short, our mind is not the highest anymore, machines are... on one side we try to imitate machines and achieve "machine-like milestones" also having machine-like ideals (wich does not suit us by the way), and on the other side it just make us depressed in a deep way.
As a twenty something philosophy major, hearing you all talk makes me hopeful. I think sometimes I must be the only person in school who actually reads any literary books, full stop, never mind reading outside the curriculum. Most of my peers don't know how to read seriously, they skim the required passages and crank out deeply unoriginal papers. Our faculty rubberstamps these students if they mention feminism, cultural appropriation, racism, sexism, etc. Seriously, my professor stood up and said on the first day of one of my classes that he and some grad students had discredited Nietzsche, and proven him wrong, and so from here on out he would no longer be taught. After all, said my prof, Nietzsche was a racist, and so shouldn't be taught. So of course I went out and bought all his books and have now read most of them. The hubris to declare that Nietzsche was "finished" ... astonishing! It's a factory that makes a fortune on privileged international families. I don't know what to make of the humanities except to say that from my perspective it appears to be increasingly like extended summer camp for rich kids to learn aristocratic etiquette, which at this point amounts to "marin county hippies sitting in a hot tub", typically discussing how racist and unjust those Southerners are. North American blindfolds anyone? Try coming from a working class background like me and explaining a philosophy major. Also I just read The Dawn Of Everything and got a kick out of that take.
This new generation is out of control. You have 20-30 yr olds with minds that of 14 year olds. The damage is done (bad parenting plus social media, technology). From here on is a rapid regression.