Hi and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast. That's it. That's all we are But it's a podcast.
I mean really that is all about TV show around it. Yeah, I mean it is an app description for talking about like a topics Not a grocery delivery service. Not yet. Are we good?
I mean skies a little boys There's so many avenues where we could open markets. Are you just saying there are lots of businesses? We can take a moderate a insignificant podcast in directions in that wasn't sense. We are 15 in our category insignificant Very much our class in the literature.
Oh really? Wow like consistently one top 15. Thanks algorithm. Yeah Thank you.
Listen. Thank you for thank you for as of right now. We have 99 reviews So I'd like to go and be that hundreds of review that would be wonderful confession don't start I have been I'll all like play our episodes and just set my computer to play them over and over now I'm just all the matters downloading it not listening to it. Oh really?
Just wasting my computer. That's exactly right. Anyway, so we are a podcast about the classical world classical education Which is a education pedagogy sweeping the nation taking the nation by storm not really is that yeah So I like it. Yeah, okay, there's a niche group But we like old things we teach with in the Western canon and we attempt to teach the whole man the head the heart And then with art and beauty and good things also the appetites and trying to raise up our kids to love that Which is good true and beautiful and I see by today's notes of today's podcast that it's on maybe you're doing a podcast about me Your hero.
Yeah, what this is about heroes. Yeah, this is very flattering. Yeah, we're just gonna sing Is it the nickel back song? I'm gonna sing that to you over and over again gracias Is it like Spider-Man 2 like the Tobin the wire spider-man?
I know it's like the right like cultural Or you're doing this podcast on sandwiches. Yeah, it's actually yeah I'm gonna talk about your rose and I'm gonna talk about lamb and what other sandwiches are there. What are the classical sandwiches are there? Mmm, that's a great question.
Okay, it's not I can't think of a classical sandwich was there a moment like a book where you tell me in your In your shoes was a really old but I know but can you think of a moment in a book that was you know There's sandwiches are a really big thing in the importance of being earnest. Yes. There you go. He eats the sandwiches.
The count is classical We get that question over on your ears. That's our cuff. Okay, so today we are talking about heroes We're talking about is what Graham intro'd with that a defining thing of classical education I'm gonna say this and maybe disagree with myself later a defining piece of classical education is that it makes a great podcast is that it the goal of classical education is the conveyance the teaching of both wisdom and virtue so Any school is teaching what generally we would call wisdom the knowledge that comes before so any No matter where you are in biology class. They're teaching you like the wisdom the things learned in biology You're gonna learn that anywhere, but what classical education would also add to that is not only the teaching of the subjects themselves But virtue moral character how to live in the world.
Have you good man or woman? So that would be a difference between classical and modern education. Yeah, I disagree with that Now how you do that great is well, I think modern education probably does give you a moral education But it's perhaps an accidental one or one that is watered down right because you have to appeal to a large group That's a good point you both the sizes. I don't usually think of the sizes being the reason for that.
That's interesting So the yeah, it's a logical principle right the more people in a group the less they have in common So class I suppose we need to be small to well They naturally self-select to a smaller a smaller class right typically they're private Which means that it's a different group there and people that want a certain education for their kids right? It's self-selecting to a smaller group that has more in common We should talk about this is a total tangent and unrelated What is the guy's name the guy who did great books of Western world Mortimer Adler his so first he did great books of the Western world Which is with in slightly different Hanukkah and then his project following up was a thing called the Padayah project if His goal is to take classical education and instill that in public schools So his goal was for a classical education to be a part of public education But not the Christian part of it obviously because it's actual so now listen or Padayah means Padayah is a Greek word that kind of encapsulates this idea of the training up of the whole man not just the wisdom Or not just the understanding of the knowledge of subjects, but also the sort of the moral formation And so that's why you call it the Padayah program So that's where the word comes from there anyway, there's like a scene in the Odyssey where telemicus they talk about like telemicus Black's Padayah or something like that I'm not sure the actual word comes up much or at least I mean It doesn't go up in the translation So but that that is what both men are kind of going through during the hotel and then Paul's Greek One of his letters when he's talking about being it's like being brought up in the Lord But the word is actually Padayah the Padayah of the Lord so being brought up in being trained in the head and the heart sort of the moral wisdom virtue Yeah, okay, so today's episode is just a brief reflection on how that is done or ways in which that can be done So I think that's been said on this podcast before Mostly by Graham I'm sure everyone has said it of the teacher being the curriculum Graham when you say the teacher is the curriculum What do you mean by that? So yeah, so we back up a couple of steps So that the way that the teacher goes about teaching or the way that the teacher goes about understanding a subject is an incredibly important and formative and powerful thing So and then the students ultimately mimic the way that their teachers go about subjects and go about understanding things so if So a teacher needs to show that they So for example, I'm trying to give a really good example If the teacher has everything prepared and they have all the answers to all the questions and then Has a lesson plan and in their mind is never is not going to deviate from that lesson plan because we need to get from point A to point B in this lesson because I need to teach you about Alexander the great and his various and he's like five great victories So today that's what we're doing in class and if I have all the facts set up for Alexander the great in his five great victories or whatever and I am just a dispensing information and knowledge and then presenting to the students and then it's alright kids You need to memorize this just like the way that I memorize this clearly I'm standing up here and I'm spouting all these things and maybe I'm looking at my notes or maybe I'm not and then the student's Expectation is okay. I need to be like that I need to be able to absorb this and be able to speak ad hoc or extemporaneously on all these things about Alexander the great And if some kid asks a question about why the Alexander the great do this instead of that and the teacher says That's an interesting question.
Unfortunately. We just don't have any time to talk about this We just really need to do this thing and finish out why Alexander the great divided his kingdoms to his sons or whatever Like that you've communicated a couple things. You've taught the kid about Alexander the great We've also communicated that like you know, we can't stop for progress We got to keep moving forward in these sorts of questions are not are not important or are not going to be Yeah, we're not gonna sit and debate these things and if the student never sees the teacher work out from first principles like a conclusion From something if the teacher honestly doesn't know something and then the student never really learns that I mean what I say when I say what I mean when I say the teacher is a curriculum is that the students are observing and absorbing the way the Teacher interacts with the big things of human existence and that's true in a math class That's true in history class is true in an English class We're talking about these concepts and if the teacher at never at any point says like oh my goodness I find the super convicting or Or has any sort of like moment where the teacher lets in the fact that they two are humans who feel things so the student is always Is never going to sort of know how to deal with these sorts of things So I'm trying to think of a real of a good example Anyway, so maybe this might work in getting an example the idea you're talking about has been talked about before by a guy We've talked about on the podcast Josh Gibbs has this wonderful article called the cruciform lectern and his argument is what Graham is saying that if you're in An English class and you're reading a book and it is insufficient for you to say yeah When I first read this book ten years ago It really impacted me what we need as what we need to be able to do is get in front of the students and say this is how I'm impacted now All this teach a leadership class which has pieces of worldview and theology tied in with that It is not sufficient for us to say well Yeah, like I got all the stuff right years ago and now I'm good It's wow when I'm reading this now, I'm convicted of things that I'm doing wrongly and here's what I've had to turn around in my life We have to model that for the students. We're all gonna learn it Yeah, for example, this year in our 12th grade English class We have three sections about you know 12 to 12 kids and everyone so while we get together into a big where we put all the sections together And so we do big group activities and one of them was I gave a small mini lecture on crime punishment We just finished reading crime punishment and it was on things that had struck me or that had convicted me in reading crime Punishment this year that was sort of the the hook that was the exordium of the lecture was and And one of them, you know, that needs to get into details one of them was just about the character of Luzon Who's the big like jerk bag who is rich and wants to marry the like poor girl So he like savor and everyone's like, oh what a great guy and he's just like on the surface He talks about you know like seems to be interested in things but below the surface He's just like pride and prideful and arrogant and one of my points to this kid's I was reading It was just like how easy it is to slip into that into that mentality and how easy it is to be that kind of person And to because he he really looks at the main character Raskolnikov and sees a no good Loser who who is like all wound up in his own floss Which is true But dismisses him and like sees him as irredeemable garbage and An annoyance that he's that and thinks that his opinion on his sister's future happiness has no bearing because of his status in life Is like you know the sort of dropout stoner murder he's not stoner, but you know what I mean that kind of that kind of mentality and And I just sort of this year found that convicting that it was like it's so easy to write people off that you think are are I don't know before whatever he's like less intellectually developed or write people off who seem to be you know I don't have their life together and you think well they must not be very virtuous people meanwhile Raskolnikov by the end of the book is like on his way to St.
Hood very very early steps But dossy has to make it clear that he is on the path to being a good man And so I just I just personally again this year found that convicting and communicated that to the students and my guess is that That's gonna be something that a teacher sort of standing up and saying like I'm even being who feels this way is gonna be more Memorable or more impactful than then like their quiz on chapter 16 or whatever Yeah, so so just this the first one that we're looking at okay So some pieces of that my quiz is on chapter 16 or even because if you don't they never read I thought that was unspoken That's not really obvious. That's the most important of the chapters so actually no Thomas not just chapter 16 So this wasn't a point of planning on making but you're drawing this out which is important Okay, so you can't only do more litigation you do also need to teach things That's what like that's the joke we're making about you also need to do the reading You can't just get the moral lesson that you've treated the process if you don't have so that but some people they don't know how to do it themselves Yes, like me coming up to the front and just sort of talking about how I feel about something I can't just do that every year because then students by the end of the year all they're gonna say is like Wow, Mr. Dawson feels so much, but if they don't talk how to do that themselves then then they won't be able to be to grow after they leave Yeah, at some point they'll do this for themselves, correct So in so that so you must teach things and morals and that's a point not planning Whatever that's the thing but the main point we're making here is that some piece of moral education is through seeing someone else do it You see that someone actually believes the things that they are saying and follows them and that makes a person want to be like that That's only point I'm making so teachers can do that but it's not only teachers who do that So if it's called classical education then much of what we do or point to are the classics So like the history the history of written work primarily just because that lasts that comes before us is another source of Examples another source of I mean heroes the word that I'm going for but yeah, another source of examples. So Let's take that line of thought because this might we'll see if this gets fun.
Okay, so AJ you start Well, you start with the alien. What's the very first thing you read? Go mesh man. Okay, so let's talk you because I know it better than Gilder mesh, but I'm not slightly who is the hero of the Killie yeah, the real hero of the Iliad is probably Hector later in Rome They would they would be more excited to claim descendency from the Trojans and from Hector specifically rather than a killy So it's sort of an angry deathmonger and Hector is like a good family man who wants to protect his his home Yeah, so what cup being able to be able to come to that conclusion is is part of the point Okay, right like you go into it Story is about Achilles and his rage and Achilles is just awesome at everything, but he's so such a jerk I like when he gets mad at a river No, I killed the river gets mad at him He kills so many people it clogs up the river and the river is like what is your program and then they fight together and Not again, but then to be able to come to the end of that and realize like oh Dead disgrace Hector is is the way to live or is the hero and to sort of parse out that Sort of tragedy of it, but also Achilles is gonna die to of it is like the important part of of Developing virtue in that so but let's follow with Hector.
So Hector so what about him makes him the hero What what is his personality? What are what are the things that Hector does that makes you in the story and say he's the good guy? So many he With my Helen and then turns her down and not very many men actually turn Helen down and he has a wife that is Insanely in love with him and wants him to stay and he's tender to his child It's called child's his his armor and starts crying takes it off One of the best ways is that he's he's contrasted with his brother Paris who is good at fighting But incredibly vain and has zero courage and so Hector will yell at him for all the things that he should be doing and isn't doing And yeah, it's probably not a good way to get the character of a person through how they yell at another person But Hector does live all this out and when he makes a mistake he owns up to it And at the end of the book he won't run back into the castle or into the city because he doesn't want to be ashamed in front of his friends And that's all there are a few I don't know kind of spots where you say well Hector maybe that wasn't the best choice But he is humble. He works hard.
He fights when he needs to fight he protects his family. He is he doing this for self-gory He's fighting for at least more honorable reasons protecting family even though families even though his family members are doofuses But he still shows loyalty to them and and does it honorably and which is why it's such a it's so painful when it Killies like drags him around the castle or drags him around Troy 11 times or whatever it is. Yeah, which is like it's intentionally supposed to be like Mm-hmm. Okay, so then so everyone who reads the Elliot should then strive to be like Hector or Ajax or Dymedys geez, so I'm eating for sure, but so if Hector's the main guy shouldn't everyone be like him Like why why do we the other so their other characters in the story?
What do they matter if we have Hector? Well the reason the reason is because no character in the Elliot is perfect The person probably comes closest to diabetes in all honesty because Hector has a few missteps right? He does he does push push too far and risk his troops and it ends up messing them up Mm-hmm and then at the very end he stays outside the city for his own because he's afraid of his own shame Mm-hmm, and he could have stayed and just let Achilles, you know Just run around the city and be mad at the walls and that'll be fine And then they could find another day but he doesn't because he's afraid he'll get made fun of and while that maybe a good thing It may also have been the thing that doomed Troy to death and for Ajax he's great. He works hard He's a hard worker, but he's just not that bright is kind of how you walk away with Ajax and Diabetes maybe borders are on in pious, but for the most part diabetes it has a clear head and council He works really hard.
He's incredibly glorious. We just don't see that much of that's a thing You don't see much of them So you don't get enough of a full picture to to know if he's if he's virtuous in every circumstance from what I know He returns home to a wife that has abandoned him So I don't know that he was maybe the greatest husband So you don't really know that much about diabetes So then is the right way to read the Elliot to get to the end and say okay So I should take the best of all of these different characters and like that's the thing I'm aiming at the the goal is To have the story know the story see all the characters know their motivations know the Context know their histories and then judge their decisions with the was this a good idea was this a bad idea because And by judging your your separate judgment is sort of is pulling two things apart or is is Doesn't mean to cut it means to cut so when you're judging someone's actions You are judging their actions based on some kind of perceived standard that you have of the better outcome The way students are just as an aside students are bad at this because I have to be a human These are bad at this because we also don't naturally take into account like probability So students will say things like well the best outcome would be of just like someone threw a rock and hit a kill He's dead and worse done like okay fine that but like probability like what is the probability of this thing happening in the facts on the ground? So that's usually not a very good question as students is like what is the best outcome that could happen because they'll just give you the most improbable Best outcome we like well you're falls on the Greek army Yeah, but I can't think that we just you can't just look for a hero I think while there is a positive lesson there I think there are admirable traits in the characters part of the reason we read it is for the negative traits that we want to avoid Mm-hmm, okay, so these characters give us examples of things to avoid Well, this kind of goes back to a long ago podcast where we talked about the ideal type that there's a side idea or at least the theory of the ideal type goes that human beings have the sense of what happiness and goodness is and And happiness and goodness in human life is achieved by conforming to the ideal type by being By being this the hero. Yeah, and so when you have a character like Hector and you say okay He lived a good life He was a good man and then you start to assess it and look at his What he did and you're holding him up to a standard of what you think would be sort of happy and good By sort of wrestling with that and having a relationship with Hector that goes on and on and on many times that you read the story When you're young you're probably like I just don't because he's dead I mean Achilles is alive, so I won't be like Achilles, you know, that's often what you know Well, if he's so smart, I was you talking to me dead in the book.
Yep, okay But then having that relationship we're all they're all dead now and that's the point and that's the thing It's like they're all dead now So how would you have rather lived? And as you sort of read this over and over and then as you read it when you're older and you have a family and you think about like You know, would you sacrifice yourself for your your stupid brother who makes dumb mistakes? Would you like risk your kid growing up without a fault? You know like all these sorts of things and you look back and you think back on these things and by holding these up as these as these models And archetypes and asking was this wise was this foolish is this fair is this unfair?
You're kind of chiseling away at at yeah Yeah, and if you actually let it work itself on you and be honest about yourself on this then you that's how virtue is formed At least through literature and stories. Yeah, let me try a different angle because you're getting closer to the idea I'm playing around with here. Okay, so what is the what is the role of diabetes and Ajax? What do they do in the army?
The what is their Ajax? So we can't think of that army like a regular army there they are under their heroes and they're under their own sort of Vows that they gave to be there right they vowed to protect a certain marriage and marriage has been Sundered and so they are there to fulfill their own vows It's not like we have one general and then underlings imagine if we had wars over like the sanctity of a marriage Mmm. So they're what do we call that the moral cause yeah, so they may be kings their own right Odysseus was a king in his own right? I forget if Ajax was but they all they all came partially because of those vows and partially because it was an opportunity for Glory and for loot yeah, and or maybe most of them did not want to be there Yes, that very much that maybe more the way of taking it is so from the story we see we get to see more of Hector like with his city We do Ajax or diabetes in their cities.
Yes, that's a fair way of putting it. Okay, would yeah, maybe because we see Hector in his regular life and then a a grand tragedy befalling the peaceful illiam peaceful Troy Maybe that's also why Hector well is the easy is easier go to because here is a man who has what he wants and is not looking for trouble And is not looking for war And then he his home and way of life is under attack from a cause that is righteous, but is also Right just and then also opportunistic because you sure the thanks of the marriage is all well and good But eggamend on wants to take a man. What's gold right and glory so? How does the man deal with this kind of tragedy that befalls him?
I think is a lot easier a lot easier to wrap your head around then Or is a lot easier to put yourself in that place than an Ajax or a diabetes if you look in you read Ajax where Ajax at the end of the war Is all like PTSD doubt and he starts slaughtering sheep and wants the armor what set play where Ajax wants There's a lot of Achilles where they're arguing for it. We're arguing for the armor of Achilles There's a whole play of the judgment of arms and it's in open. It's not play. Oh, so So there's you know, then you then maybe that one you can put yourself in Ajax shoes And I'm saying let's let's say we swapped Hector and Ajax in the story so Ajax is Overtroy and we see more of his life and Hector's job is to smack is to destroy things like Ajax's job is in the Iliad What Hector still be as good What do we still say he's the hero?
Nah, and part of it is we don't see his life part of it is that he loses in combat in the Iliad like Ajax is good at war And he destroys lots of things therefore like Ajax is cool in Hector Hector's moral character, but then ultimately loses his combat with Achilles That's the point that you also loses his combat with Ajax before the rest good So just all to say like so there are things Hector is good at and their things Hector is bad at but the position He's in plays to the strings that he has to the point that we would set that we would say there's an argument a strong argument For him being the hero of the Iliad What am I saying? Why am I belaboring this point? I think it is help you all not falling for the traps that I want you to fall for so I think there's a way of reading Because you are I wasn't So so I think an oversimplistic way would be to read the Iliad and say okay Hector's the hero therefore everyone should want to be like Hector I think there's an I think it matters the the function that Hector is in that we see him in there are moral attributes We can take from him, but not everyone is going to be like Hector Not everyone is going to lead the Trojan forces not everyone is going to be he's not king because prime is king What is his I guess he's the prince I mean he's yeah his father is the king of Troy So I guess that makes him the prince of Troy with it with Paris Yes, and not all of us will be in positions of being princes So there are moral characteristics We should take from him, but there are certain personality or temperament characteristics that I think aren't suited to everyone some of us are just going to be in metaphor of the Iliad the The people in the army like we're just going to be the the large like not all of us are in the positions of like leadership to them Be like yeah, that's true But I mean I think everything can be can be scaled up or scaled down to an individual life Like is in every man in some way a king of his own castle like a king of his own. Yes, I read So yes, there maybe you're complicating it in the helpful way of saying that's what I'm gonna have teachers We ought to be Hector's in certain places, but we ought to be Ajax's another But in that our examples won't necessarily be we won't necessarily only get one example from the stories we read Yes, I think it's incredibly kind of like shallow or naive to say this person is my idol and my hero And then I'm gonna try to craft everything about my life Around this person so at 24 this he went off and he went on like a trip of Europe to discover himself So I'm gonna go do that or whatever it is That's like ends with those people who spend like thousands and thousands of dollars to get plastic surgery like look like their Hollywood hero that's just creepy But then also this but this ties back with our first part about with teachers then you're not whoever your hero is your life is not going to look Exactly like theirs does and also they probably aren't your hero in like every aspect like it's okay to have this is my hero in work life This is my hero at my church.
This is my I think so. I don't know Beyonce seems to have a lot going on over here So this yep, so we actually found the perfect model of the idea. Oh, can I also complicate you all may not appreciate this? I don't know if we're using the story of the Iliad we've so far brought up male heroes because we three of us are male We have not brought up female heroes of which is Queen Arate is she big enough to deal?
No, probably not who would we wouldn't say Helen is Helen certain now people she's not in the Iliad Yeah, so we don't we don't really get any in the Iliad at least no good ones We have heckuba and we have andromiki but both of them play such small roles in there. No Who's the one that like no believes Cassandra? Yeah, she's in future place. She's in the or style and um the the sacrifice and then she actually survives I thought she if again, yeah, yeah, cuz she may survive there.
There's an opera. There's like yeah There's all these stories that she's there are other Ancient Greek women who are supposed to be paragons you have the story of Camilla is the one that specifically comes to mind Who's really impressive for our listeners? Camilla was the daughter of a tyrant and as the timer was running away from the town because the town was chasing him out because he was a Tyrant which makes sense He came to a river while carrying his young young daughter and she was maybe at this point And he so he prayed the Diana Diana Please let her live because he had to cross the river else they both die So he strapped her to a spear and then hucked her over the river with the prayer that if she lived she'd be dedicated to Diana It worked so she became a huntress and then lived as an Amazon warrior princess And eventually came to fight in favor of the Latins against the Trojans were trying to take over the Latin area and eventually found Rome This is in the end yet and she was such a great fighter that everyone was terrified of her and there's one guy that challenges her to a One-on-one duel she's chasing one horse He's like wait wait stop Let's do this right and they both get off the horse and they start putting on armor for a one-on-one fight And he's like I just getting hops on his horse and it takes off He's hoping to just slow her down get her armor on and then get her off the horse and she doesn't get back on the horse What she does do is chase him down on foot as the horse runs away pull him off and then stab him Eventually she does die, but the gods like her so much that they kill the archer for it Wow, so so there's a good one for you and oh, there's another one Pena So there's Camilla, so there's Camilla And then there's Penta Salaya Penta Salaya was a warrior princess that Achilles fought near the end of the war and after even after slaying her She was so beautiful that he fell in love with her and so we have some pretty awesome warrior women They're just you and far between yes, I'm all this is a this is a petty point I'm only saying that so we start with if we start with the Elliot we would say there aren't like a ton of examples in there And of course there are stories other than the Elliot but just to say I Just want to acknowledge that like that's what we've talked about for most of this time so far And so there are insubitiencies. I'm just looking to like one single hero Again Beyonce I'm not so this one.
I'm gonna think about this more broke the Super Bowl. Yeah, I mean, okay, this seems legitimate Okay, so let me was a try it so Where are we right now so? More education must be modeled in some way and then is it's just like seeing it is absorbed by people It's not necessarily taught explicitly. We don't only have the examples of people who are like with us physically which would be a teacher Which is the first part we also have stories that come before us so we can look to the stories to find other heroes but I'm just trying to expand it and say there may be more heroes than just one per story or even the one Hector Like there's still things to learn from Achilles.
I'd say in a good story They're not well, they're either a lot or there are very few right a well written story is going to show I talk about my ninth graders about this if it just has one hero that has no flaws and it's good all the time It is probably some sort of commercial fiction because that's not what we find real life most often right people have flaws And so your main character is gonna have some flaws in crime punishment He has many there are very few characters in that book that have no flaws resume Can is a little bit love hungry. We have Dunia who is maybe a little bit prideful and cross Or free makes questionable police decisions. Yeah, he makes questionable police decisions and everyone has their own issue But they're more honest characters and so good fiction. You're gonna have you're gonna have a better representation of real human life Which means there are four and the mechanism is true also when you're studying history So this is why and also this is just a little side This is why most classical pedagogy of history is very much people based on the criticism of classical history is that we take a great Man approach to history and we ignore Social movements that we ignore like the lives of ordinary people or these kinds of things There's probably a little bit of fairness to that criticism But the reality why we take history and and say that it is the why we do it as a study of of people so usually specific individuals So instead of studying 50 years in history You study the reign of Henry the third or whatever it is and by then you can In order to understand Henry the third context and you go down then you understand all the social things and all the people and that kind of stuff But then you can ask yourselves those same questions like did he make the right call did he not make the right call?
What was virtuous about his life? What was repugnant? You know did was this given all of the the context in the situation that he found himself in he's just sort of plopped into this position He's born into this context of life. Does he make the right go of it?
Does he not make the right go of it because it's the same with us like Thomas you weren't you had no say and being born in? I don't want to go to southern places in Georgia. I know saying being born in Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada Hennenberg and no saying being born and spoken like the cards were dealt We don't get any say in right do we play them virtuously do we do do do we make the right calls? We make the wrong calls like this is what we're doing We're studying history and so then you can apply that to your life So that's that's why history for the class of education ends up being more of this Analysis of people versus like let's learn about the you know the five stages of republicanism in England I mean you do need to know that but that only comes alive when you know that and then you can apply it to All the Cromwell or whatever so this actually leads us into our kind of next Level on this discussion.
Okay, so let's say I took any of those People that we just mentioned anyone that we just listed so Hector or diabetes or Ajax or that super cool hunter who was dedicated to Diana Miller we take any of those take any of those traits or characteristics and we just straight up copy paste them to today We say here's here's everything Hector didn't the only copy paste and I do that in 2019 Austin Is that person going to be a successful human being? I feel like in Austin come on I've been a great so you know I would live in the forest and would assist and like would be okay Okay, well if one of our ninth graders 10th graders students came to us I was like you know what you know I want to be I'm gonna go live in the 97 acres of Veritas Academy and hunt and that by I Have literally had students tell me this is what they want and if they disappear connect I would be like how good for you know, but it's again You need to contextualize it right this is you need to contextualize it to your time as well So this is the only great so that's the next point to make of that there are Examples that we can look to we don't want to quote this as long as we quit almost every time about blind spots Oh, just about that every every age has its own mistakes And the reason we read old books is because we now are not related to those mistakes But we aren't inoculated to our own and they were so getting perspectives outside your own time may help you see the Own flaws and yours probably but then also where we just just straight up copy and paste here the traits from 2000 years ago, we're gonna do those today. There would be blind spots and their culture that would not work in our culture today That's the only point I'm making here we can have to write shopping things Yeah, so there must be contextualization to where we are today So this reminds me of a Something that I think about a lot when I think about taking old things and then applying it to your own life See us Lewis in his I guess his autobiography I said surprised by joy he mentions his time in World War one and he mentions a world war one You know terrible war trenches dehumanizing, you know with the machines and and the artillery going barrage and people going mad and Living in mock and living in filth and just sort of sleeping in dirt and rats and all that kind of stuff the terribleness of world Where one there's this one point where Lewis is talking about his time in world war one and he says Something like it was just a line we said something like this is this is war. This is what the iliad talked about This is what yeah, this is what what Paris and Hector talked about or this is what iliad was all about and When I remember reading that for the first time as a young man in my mind I was like oh man There's nothing like world war one versus the iliad is completely different There's nothing like this is a war of machines and gas and artillery and and men calling it in a hole And that's a war of glory and swords and and you know romantic charges, but maybe not I mean it's also still a war with fighting and scared men and like sleeping on the beach and Lice and lice and arrows and and screams and blood and so it just you know for Lewis a class educated person after experiencing war himself probably read the iliad differently But also the iliad helped him frame the war experience that he had when he was there One one area that yeah, so I just find that interesting another area that I find interesting with that is that Tolkien and Lewis both fought in world were one but they never experienced the same level of like despair and lost generation and PTSD and all of those sorts of things that a lot of their contemporaries did and so maybe that was Just the type of action that they saw or maybe there was something about either their faith or Christianity that helped them through that or or The fact that they were able to contextualize war with all of the wars maybe I don't know I haven't really worked through that answer of why of why we're some able to Come through these things and have a perspective on it that they could live with and others came through these things and did not have I had a perspective on it that they could not live with I don't know what that answer is but There was an interesting I haven't listened too much But there was an interesting podcast put on by I think it was St.
John's which is a classical classical college in Annapolis, Maryland But they in Annapolis are also at the naval academy or by the naval academy and they had a podcast where they were talking about War with soldier with people who had fought who were with current soldiers So there was really interesting podcasts where they were talking about the armor of Achilles with a combat veteran and thinking about ancient Greek war and modern war and Ajax not really having a place in this world after the war and soldiers also experiencing that that after the war How can they live just a regular barbeque backyard life? And and just sort of using the ancient text to sort of help contextualize it. I was very fascinating. I can't remember what it was called but it was a You know our competitive podcast.
I guess or all podcasts are competitive I guess it's also kind of classical so maybe as a competitor anyway. Hope you're listening. Hi. Okay, so this is good So one way of applying those old models of action personality Whatever is what you're saying of this direct connection of this is what the elia says This is what I'm experiencing right now and connecting the dots as possible, right?
Yeah, yeah, and letting those Greek texts speak to our current moment. Yes, and another way so that's only taking it Won't work all the time as long as I'm trying to say with that of like a thriving life in Austin in 2019 will not look the same as a thriving life in the Trojan War 2000 years ago or whatever it is There are significant differences between the two of them And so another way of using ancient Greek text is that they they kicked off or were a part of a grander conversation that then leads us to our current moment today So take all and this is the direction of great books that you are looking at the conversation over time that great authors are reading great Authors before them and they're in some type of conversation from then until now So that's the other way to take it to look at the development from the elia to now How is the view of war changed from that many thousand years ago to today? So that's what then gets us to cover our final area unless someone has it, but I was going to I'm skipping over a section So I made the brief point of like if you look at one particular historical moment You'll miss out on certain heroes that might speak to other type of people other than like war-making dudes So I was going to talk about it and even paradise lost because I know you've brought that up before but I'm skipping over that So even if we were to say here's a male example here's a female example that still might not be sufficient people So make the argument that like that's only a particular cultural moment. Yeah, this may It may be worth putting in here.
I've definitely had conversations with people who say why read all these old texts when you have the Bible Like when you have Christ and Christ is the model of of one's life Why not just read that over and over and over again? Why even bother going back and reading about fallen Achilles and broken Hector and all these sorts of things? Why why bother doing that when you have when you have the gospel? Can I attempt an answer at that?
Okay, this will this doesn't beautifully with because I don't I think I like squirted out on health or Unsatisfying answer is that last time I had that conversation? Okay, so this is from Alistair McIntyre's after virtue We had just great everyone to read it. Okay, so this is chapter two the nature of moral disagreement today in the claims of a motorism Okay, gentlemen, I can read you a section on war or on justice another one is fine Which one do you want to hear? You get the war one include swords sure?
Yeah, we kind of a war. I'm using war one. Okay, so he I'll just this will be lots of reading I apologize, but I don't because his words are I'll just I'll stir McIntyre. I mean and I want to apologize for reading Sorry, okay, there seems to be no rational way of securing moral argument in our culture consider So he has three examples We're only gonna read one of them because they all do kind of the same thing consider three examples of just such contemporary moral debate framed in terms of characteristic and well-known rival moral arguments one a Adjust war is one in which the good to be achieved outweighs the evils involved in waging the war in which a clear distinction can be made between combatants whose lives are at stake and innocent non combatants but in a modern war calculation of future escalation is never reliable in no practically applicable distinction between combatants and non combatants can be made therefore no modern war can be adjusted war and we all now ought to be Passives that's one thing if you wish for peace prepare for war the only way to achieve peace is to deter potential aggressors Therefore you must build up your armaments and make it clear that you are going to war on any that going to war on any particular scale Is not necessarily ruled out by your policies an inescapable part of making this clear is being prepared both to fight limited wars and to go Not only to but beyond the nuclear brink of certain types of occasions Otherwise you will not avoid war otherwise.
Yeah, otherwise if you don't if you're not willing to go to the nuclear brink You will not avoid war and you will be defeated one see wars between the great powers are purely destructive But wars wage deliberate oppressed groups especially in the third world are necessary and therefore justified means for destroying the exploitative domination Which stands between mankind and happiness, okay? So there's three different perspectives on war if we got those three people in a room together and they and they talked at each other Would there be agreement would they come to some form of consensus? Depends on how long they're there and how humble they are I say okay, right? Just having an opinion doesn't mean that you're firmly entrenched in it.
Okay, I think that's fair that so if any of those three perspectives are open to Change their mind they could change the mind like that's a totally other to and provide the other two can articulate themselves clearly in a way That is offensive and I mean there's there's a lot of prerequisites there But we three experience in the rhetoric discussion room discussions where we have opinions and then they get changed I'm gonna change you guys get changed. Let me let me go for McIntire's answer His is a little more negative if by a little I mean he says no It is easy to see the different conceptually incommensurable premises of the rival arguments deployed in these debates have a wide variety of historical origins the concept of justice in the first argument so the Be a pacifist has his roots and aerosols accounts of the virtue the second arguments genealogy runs through bismark and class What's Tamaki Valley the concept of liberation in the third argument has shallow roots and marks and then he goes through the different ones what what McIntire is attempting to do and what will be the topic of future episodes is that there are Historical lines that lead to certain arguments today and that those trains of argument have a really hard time talking to each other because the vocabulary of each Lane is totally different so like the concept of just the question is what is a just war those three lines of argument would disagree on what the Word just itself means and that's why I say they got me in the room for a long time to have it You're talking to attend a discussion where you convince someone to wage wars when they've been a pacifist other lives Right? No, this is great So but I think this is then this is the problems that we argue the modern Outpouring of these views and we don't argue like the history of the views like we only look and say wars either good or bad Ignoring all of the conversation that comes before from our like philosophical Grandfathers that's why when I mean I talked to my leadership boys all the time about some of their opinions on all sorts of political things And I'm and they want to argue at in the trees I mean it's right in the leaves like way up at the top and I'm like There's gonna be no moving the other tree when you're not down near the roots, right? So instead of talking to them about you know taxes Like you should be talking about you know what what what rights are given to people Inherently and if there are rights given to people inherently does that mean that we are different from the animals or the animals the same Right, so stuff like that Yeah, but if we take that way how do we make those arguments we one way of doing that is we find the people who have made the most Condensing forms of those arguments and we say they're probably smarter than I am on this point They agree with me I'm gonna use their line of thinking in this if if you hold strongly to the third perspective marks as your better defender than You yourself if you hold to the second Machiavelli will do it better than you will but I would also apply then the word hero here of We there are disagreements between our intellectual forefathers or whatever our intellectual ancestors And so we need to pick the ones that we say I agree with them and then like follow those ideas and understand them more than just the modern Outflow but understand the ideas that leads to those perspectives at the end.
I got you but maybe heroes not the right word Right. I don't have to laud someone to enjoy one idea They've had I think I think he'll comes with connotations of admiration and there's certain men who's idea like single idea on a specific point I think he's better put than I would sure but that I don't admire sure I would call it intellectual admiration But I hear what you're saying. Oh, okay, I got you're right. It's not you don't have to take the well It's like if it's a scoundrel who makes your argument you might that should go into it not necessarily that's that's a fallacy Right, so so saying a moral argument unless they're making a moral argument So saying that this argument because it came from a certain person is genetic the genetic fallacy So it means that just because okay, so for example, I like vanilla ice cream Huh Hitler also likes vanilla ice crop someone's like oh you think vanilla is the best you know who else like that Yeah, Hitler you should probably switch to chocolate So just because he likes something doesn't mean that or the or the vegetarian right Hitler was a vegetarian therefore all Vegetarians are not so they should eat me so like probably where that yeah I'm saying more if something if Aristotle says be a pacifist and then he like kills all of his opponents I'd be like I don't believe that yeah, Alsters And then like that's I think they're like I think there's a hypocritical fact fallacy right to quote Quates it's pointing out the hypocrisy of someone that espouses a certain idea to discredit the idea Yeah, the idea still won't be good Yeah, McIntyre's point where he says that there are there are like philosophical underpinnings to To the sort of practical conclusions that somebody makes about an issue and if you don't and if you're sort of ignorant of those philosophical underpinnings You're not gonna be able to make headway on talking about the issue Yes, and he's also lamenting the fact that if you have an entire culture where the philosophical underpinnings are so diverse And so and so individualized that you're gonna be a culture that's never gonna be able to make decisions that you all agree on Or that you're offered a comfortable with which so he's in one point is fine Because that's kind of like the basis of a modern republic is that's why you get representatives to not make terrible decisions But in other sense it can be it can be fairly fragmented fragmenting because if you feel like you're strongly Hell belief needs to be the one that wins then you set up a system where winner takes all well Then you're gonna have you're gonna have fracture so and that's kind of his point is that If we have people that have different different sort of mental models or different paradigms through which they're talking about virtue They're talking about justice or war you're not gonna be able to come to these sorts of conclusions I remember it's a long time since I read after virtue, but I remember I think his conclusion is basically like things would be easier if everybody was Yeah So it's Nietzsche and then everyone would just be a press all the time he's not a Anyway, he's trying to thread a needle there are parts of Nietzsche that he respects I just want to stay right now for the record that at the end of the last paragraph that's gotten so famous I'm sure we're talking about the new kind of the new Benedict I'm just gonna put this out there internet.
That's us classical stuff You should know the new Benedict on the scene like your style. I thought my one of my quotes comes from that last day So maybe we'll hit a sub-rarear Benedict. It's more specific same Benedict. Yeah, okay.
So I'm Just a Benedict you didn't specify Sorry, he means the new he means like what happened in Rome was they all died They all got their heads turned around no one was believing different philosophical sort of starting points and they couldn't They couldn't rectify any any points and I'll spun off into anarchy and then Benedict took what was left and Crayed monasteries and planted little seeds of virtue. That's right later That's the result of our like Greek like it's way better so because the monastery is like preserved Okay, so I'll Summarize read and then we'll probably go around anyway. We're like basically there. Okay, so what am I trying to say?
Okay, so moral education there is a type of moral education where you just tell people do this do that Which is not necessarily great more education can be very effective when it is caught when by a student being around a teacher They see the way the teacher acts. They want to be like that teacher they mimic So point one point two we can look to history to find other heroes We don't only need to have the people around us like it is okay to look to ancient Greece and find heroes But there are gaps and things missing in those heroes This is just it's probably a very simple third point We should have modern-day heroes too that we should have people who are alive today who can actually talk with or are like alive in 2019 Pick your context by their cities state whatever this is like then should Vertical where he was talking maybe jokingly about like college and he was saying instead of sending your kids off to and I kind Like the idea to send your kids off to a four-year college where they're gonna sort of live this hedonistic Lifestyle or or at least in that environment with professors who don't really care about the integrals They just want their tenure and the integrals don't really care They just want to be credentialized so they can go off into you know jobs He sends up doing that if you're really concerned with like developing moral character send your kid to live like fine Think of the like the five best people that you know who live life right and then when you and then have your child go and live with them for a year for for you know like one person for the next four years and then Live and then help and work and try to figure out some sort of way that they can Install themselves into your life for a year and then that is the moral education. I mean I think that's a great idea. So I mean that's that's a good thought to well Thomas.
We are starting a farm. Yeah, so In terms of that Do we want to finish the episode? This working on it we're building it some of you are going to like rage quit the podcast as I read this So I do kids from podcasts like this a central thesis so So Project is to say okay. There are these different streams of thought how can we get them to talk to each other?
So the first thing I read you is from page 10 this is on page 216 He still doesn't answer the question. So anyway, it's a great book, but there was a reason he had to write a few more after this Okay, a central thesis then begins to emerge man is in his actions in practice as well as in his fiction's essentially a storytelling animal He is not essentially but becomes through his history a teller of stories that aspire to truth But the key question for men is not about their own authorship I can only answer the question what am I to do if I can answer the prior question of what story or story do I find myself apart? We enter human society that is with one or more imputed characters Well, that was a weird way to say that with one or more imputed characters roles into which we have been drafted And we have to learn what they are in order to be able to understand how others respond to us and how our responses to them are apt to be construed It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers lost children good But misguided kings wolves that suckle twin boys youngest sons who receive no inheritance But no inheritance but must make their own way in the world and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on right is living and going To exile to live with the swine that children learn or miss learn both what a child and what a parent is what the cast of characters May be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are To project stories and you leave them unscripted anxious stutters and their actions as in their words So page 216 if you ever want to let it up So what do we need both the ancient stories? But we do also need the modern stories we find ourselves in a modern context and we need people we heroes specific to where we are to set the example for us of who we are to be so we need both and That's the landed plane cool cool.
Well, this has been classical stuff You should know if you have questions or comments or your own further thoughts about ancient role models and modern role models Email us at classical stuff at veritas academy net you can find us on Twitter at cool school stuff CLS S C al stuff and I will like and retweet your things and maybe send sassy things back because it's internet if you we can find us online all of our episodes at classical stuff net and We thank you for listening if you want to be that 100th comment or please do so maybe one day boys We need to like read out some of our comments because there are some there's some good ones in there So maybe we will read out some comments every now and then there's one that made you guys pass through right? Yeah, there's one that was like oh, I love their podcast is really great But presumably they can do that their bachelor hood affords and their freedom to do this and I was like I beg your pardon I'm married and Thomas is about to be a father. Thank you. Um, anyway, but yes So thank you for listening.
This is Graham AJ and Thomas three modern heroes signing off