A Classical Understanding of Language

My summary of Norms and Nobility by David Hicks

2 - The Word is Truth - A Classical Understanding of Language

Myths show that, however much myths themselves don't make sense, man has a drive to make sense of what he observes in the world. Mythos (man's imagination trying make sense of the world) and logos (man's reasoning attempts to make sense of the world) are two sides of man's mind. Myth, as far as I can make out from this chapter, is like poetry in capturing everyman's feelings and giving them added dignity and beauty. Job's suffering couldn't be rationalized, but in the poetic terms of his dialog with God, Job was able to come to terms with his 'why' questions.

Plato defined and clarified the difference between mythos and logos. It's hard to express reasoning with words because old stigmas and associations stay with words even after their meaning has changed. Words are too fluid and evolving to pin them down and make them express reason, except when words are used in a legal or scientific sense. In education, words have to be used in that precise sense to have any testable standard. So science becomes emphasized over literature, which is more emotional. Schools find it easier to teach scientific principles than vague values like bravery and justice.

Classical education recognizes the power that a word has to inspire, even when the results aren't testable. Character is caught, not taught, through imaginative words rather than rigid scientific terms. Words have power that goes beyond what's observable on a graph.

Interesting Post About Worship

I was looking for a line from a song and stumbled on this blog post. I've sort of wondered the same things in the back of my mind that he posts -- about the line between personal introspection and corporate worship (and, for myself, of feeling emotionally manipulated when everyone is supposed to sing publicly one songwriter's personal confession). I notice that the blogger is a fellow INTJ, so maybe it's a personality thing?

Norms and Nobility ch 1 Virtue is the Fruit of Learning

Part I - The Idea of a Classical Education

1 - Virtue is the Fruit of Learning (another four part-er)

In Victorian England, only the wealthy received some version of a 'classical education,' so classical education and privilege came to be seen as the same thing. By 1900, others started coming up with various theories (mostly utilitarian) to educate the less privileged, and their models were far removed from classical and its stigma of luxury. But real classical education, which is based on "inquiry" that involves curiosity and imagination, isn't limited to any one time or place or class. It trains the mind to keep asking so that a classically trained student never stops learning, and is able to follow a concept to its logical conclusion and pronounce it good or bad. Since "nature doesn't tolerate a void," the young mind is first filled with a core of knowledge using a set curriculum. That way his mind has raw material to inquire about. The curriculum should encourage logical reasoning and spark curiosity and inquiry. The student will probably be taught the right thing to do according to his culture's highest ideals (which might be considered dogma), but he will be invited to test whether it really is right against alternative viewpoints.

Aristotle is "our best introduction to the idea of a classical education." He thought that the goal of education was to produce "happy, well-adjusted individuals" with leisure time to enjoy a good life, and he saw this happening in state-run schools so that it wouldn't be limited only to the privileged classes. Learning and knowing must result in right actions, because knowing isn't passively collecting data, but actively doing. Happiness comes from recognizing good, loving beauty and pursuing excellence and moderation -- harmony with the laws of the land, and virtue. The community's political system is obligated to provide this kind of education to ensure this happiness for the sake of the community's corporate good, but not for utilitarian uses (utilitarian: making productive workers). The state owes the individual a good life of harmony. It's not the other way around: the individual is not a cog in the wheel of the state to be trained/indoctrinated to be its servant or slave.

Cultures down the ages have always taken it for granted that virtue is something that can and should be learned at school. That was never questioned or doubted. Everything else (math, science, language) was secondary. Today, that's reversed: teaching virtue is pushed aside to make room for facts and disciplines. We tell students that they can have luxuries that will buy them happiness by learning technical skills that will result in a good job. In so doing, society has shot itself in the foot -- virtue and constant self-improvement have given way to practical utilitarianism, and the result is greedy, selfish people who don't care about charitable works that benefit the community. The only virtue we demand and teach anymore is basic reasonable civility so as not to be an annoyance to society.

Ancients cultures debated whether virtue was inherent in man and only needed saving out of flawed society and bringing out the virtue within him, or whether man lacked virtue and needed it to be taught and developed in him. Technology might develop more virtue in man if it's already there, but technology could be dangerous in the hands of men who have no inherent virtue. Plato's dialectic method of questioning was supposed to bring out the wisdom already in men, and it was only the man living the unexamined life, no longer questioning and analyzing his own motives, who unwittingly did evil acts because he was ignoring the virtue inside him. Aristotle, on the other hand, thought that right actions were what developed goodness in man. Just thinking about goodness does nothing; it's the bodily behavior that makes a person good. That debate kept everyone focused on the nature of virtue and how best to produce virtuous people. Today, we no longer debate it. We just ignore virtue altogether and teach uniformity -- everyone the same.

Miss M Becomes an Author

Miss M got some animals stickers in her Chik-Fil-A kids meal, so she was inspired to write a book with a story for each sticker. She made up the words and I wrote them down for her. One sticker on each page served as the illustration, and the words were written around the stickers.

Animals Nature

Ornate Box Turtle - Mr. Turtle was out one day and saw Mrs. Alligator. He said to Mrs. Alligator, "Who are you?" She said, "Mrs. Alligator. Who are YOU?" "Mr. Turtle. I pastor people." "Oh, I see. And how well do you preach people?" "I don't know. But well enough." "Why aren't you in the ocean, Mr. Turtle?" "I'll tell you later. Good-bye."

Wyoming Toad - Mr. Toad was out one day. He ran into Mrs. Alligator. She said, "Well! Where have you been, Mr. Toad?" "Out on a summer field." "Well, where's your wife?" "She has died." "Shouldn't you be sad if your wife has died?" "Well -- I'm sorry, but I meant -- my mother." "Then you should be sadder. Mr. Toad, do you have babies?" "They live somewhere else. My wife has them."

Fawn (she liked this sticker, so she took greater care to make it a pretty story) - Miss Fawn was out one day in a meadowy field. And the grass was sweet. She ate. And the beautiful, beautiful flowers were gazing at her face. The daffodils were beautiful at the gaze. She loved to see the beautiful blue sky pointed at her face. The beautiful sky was beautiful at her face. And the day was sweet with pleasure. She said to Mrs. Alligator that she was beautiful in the sunlight. And Mrs. Alligator said that Miss Fawn was beautiful behind the wind and her white dots went away. In the daylight she went home and saw her beautiful babies eating, and she said, "My babies are cute."

Scarlet Kingsnake [which is obviously poisonous, so she worked that into the story] - The day was beautiful. We went to a restaurant. Mr. Snake said, "Ooh, what good food this is! I'll go out to the meadow. The day is so beautiful in the meadow and so I'll go to the Arctic and poison some animals. My wife will be surprised how I poison some animals," said he. "The wolves are beautiful; I won't poison them," said he. "The day is beautiful. Good-bye."

Gray Wolf - A family was born at Mrs. Wolf's house. And she loved them dearly. And she took care of them so much and loved them. "Now I'll feed them. You must stay here, little babies. Now I'll go to Papa." The beautiful wind shook her head side to side. The wind shook as hard as it could and blew their fur side to side. "Now I shall see my friends. Good-bye, beauties."

Polar Bear - The day was beautiful. And Polar ran into Mrs. Alligator and said, "I'll go to Mrs. Seal. Good-bye."

Hawaiian Monk Seal (she was excited when I told her this was a Hawaiian animal)- Beautiful days were spread upon her. The day was beautiful. She knew it. Her name was Sarah and her middle name was Maria and her family name was The Quilts. The beautiful skies were so beautiful that she gave herself a nickname -- it was Kerry.

Woodpecker - "My name is Woodpecker. What is yours, Mrs. Alligator?" The day was beautiful. She knew that. And she gave birth to two little eggs -- Sarah and Lovehearted. And the day was shining like gold. Good-bye.

Southern Florida Alligator - The day was hot and it burned the animals. They all got sunburned and they jumped into cold water and got cold and they went home. Good-bye! Mrs. Alligator threw her head to the door of her cage and said, "Well, that's the end of nothing. That's the end of that."

Snowy Owl (she insisted on seeing the numeral "3" when I had written it)- "The day is bright," said Mrs. Owl. And her beautiful sigh became a happy smile . . . because she had 3 eggs. And she said, "Oh, my, what a beautiful day," and she jumped into the lake and got cool like the others -- and then she got hot and then she got perfectly warm. Good-bye!

Norms and Nobility Prologue

I've just started Norms and Nobility by David V. Hicks. I think the book is going to make a case for classical education. This is a 4-part Prologue.

David Hicks begins by talking about a book called "The Rector of Justin" by Louis Auchincloss, in which a man tries to build a school where students will learn to know, serve and reproduce what is good and realize that their knowledge carries responsibility. But the school fails. In our materialistic culture, is such an education possible? Social theories, important-sounding scientific research and faddish educational models have replaced life's important questions about truth and justice, and old fashioned common sense. Today's people are more fluent in computer language than with age-old questions about what really matters. Our experts are not only inexperienced about wisdom; they aren't even asking the right questions, but people are too awed by their intelligence to notice. They are like raw college graduates steering a ship who are too full of their books and technical skill to respect time-honored experience. We know schools are failing and students are getting involved in drugs and bullying, but we don't know what to do about it. Hicks is going to offer a solution based on ancient classical education. Science should serve and supplement education, not the other way around.

Education reflects what its culture believes about the nature of man, and, whether stated or not, every person who writes about education is influenced by and espouses what he believes to be man's nature, value and purpose. Ancient cultures had an ideal heroic model that they felt man must aspire to, although they varied about whether that ideal was based on bravery or loyalty or duty or whatever. Art, history, science were tools to encourage bravery or duty in the student. But today's experts call such ideas unscientific. The ancients thought that attempts to improve the world with science were arrogant. It was man who needed the improvement. Even math was thought useful only as far as it helped to transform man. Our modern emphasis on using technology to change the world -- and even society and man himself -- is the wrong priority and "can only lead to mental confusion, physical destruction, and spiritual damnation." The problem isn't the world; it's within man himself. Educating man to fix his opinions or environment or circumstances won't fix the evil nature within him.

Our education strives to control our environment [engineer bridges, re-route rivers, genetically modify crops, cure disease, build a business empire] rather than answer age-old questions about our purpose in life. 'Ought' has been replaced with 'can.' Focusing on what seems do-able with science seems more productive than reflecting over questions that make us uncomfortable. Medieval men saw God as being perfect and far off, and their own world as corrupt, they were looking in at heaven from outside God's realm. Modern man sees himself as enlightened and looking from the inside out. Older cultures saw man as a servant who dared not exalt himself to the heights of his deities. Modern man doesn't feel he is out of place to rule nature and rule others.

Education today focuses on the operation of 'can' instead of the normative 'ought:' we exhaust possibilities without questioning whether such a thing ought to be done. And our lives reflect this - the same thinking was at the root of the 1960's attempt to use technology to subdue inequality in Vietnam without asking whether it was a good idea, or simply presumptuous. We teach communication skills to score well on the SAT (and other utilitarian reasons) and rarely ask why communication is necessary for us as people and as a society. [If a person can get a decent job and raise a family, does it really matter if he's illiterate?] We raise brilliant intellectuals who are too prideful to let a bad idea go. We strive to make men more efficient and productive at building and carrying and figuring, as if this present existence is all there is, and ignore his spiritual side. Good education shouldn't just teach what people want to know -- it should teach them what is right to want.

A new blog and some entries for this one

A couple of months ago, being off on my own at school, I started a blog to post thoughts and poetry and news. It's called Old Path, New Feet, if you want to look (name and location subject to change). I'm still off on my own at school, but after some thought I've decided to continue posting most of that stuff here as well. Over the next few days, I'm going to bring old posts from my new blog here to Rusticanda, and thenceforth I shall be cross-posting a lot of entries. Post-dates may fluctuate in the meantime, since I'll be posting old posts from the blog here and then editing their post-dates to match the days I wrote them.

(The moral of the story: scroll down!)

An All Hallows' Eve Tale

Once upon a time—a time not so unlike our own—there lived a man who, like all men, was a traveler. This man loved a maiden, as many men do; and the maiden loved him in return, which is more than many men can say. Nor was she an ordinary maiden, though she was a commoner, for she was as fair as autumn and as faithful as the seasons. But there are other powers in the world than Love, and not all are powers for good. So it was that the man and maiden were parted, and both were laid under binding spells that they might not go and seek one another. They remained many days in duress; but upon All Hallows' Eve Day, the man broke the spells that bound him and set forth upon a journey to find the maiden again. Twice a hundred miles he traveled, through misty mountains and over dark rivers, until he came to a town in the midst of a forest.

That was a strange place, for the town lay upon the borders of Elfland, and heavy were the enchantments that held it there. No time passed in those shadowy marches between our world and the other, but each morning dawned upon the same day, so that the folk grew no older, and the land did not decay. The force of the spells about the town was such that it was often hidden from human sight; at such times, any who found it would find only empty buildings and whispering streets. Indeed, only a few days in the year could that town be found by mortals; but All Hallows' Eve Day is of all days the most potent.

In that town, under the veil of enchantments, the maiden was hidden. Resting as it did on the border, the town had become a meeting-place for the worlds, and men named it Fairhaven, for within its walls humans and elves alike found refuge. Through its streets passed lords, ladies, peasants, pickpockets, fairies, elves, merchants, craftsmen, swordsmen, scholars, knights-errant, stranded seafarers, traveling jugglers, wandering minstrels, and others so many that the tale of them would last seven days in the telling. Among these the maiden took her place, living by her music upon the streets, and waiting for her love.

The man stopped before the gates of Fairhaven. The guards that keep the gates looked him up and down and muttered amongst themselves, for they let none pass that have not the welcome of the town's governors; and the man was a stranger. So he stood without the gates, gazing with wonder into that elfish place. Hard it seemed to have come to the gates of Faerie and be denied entrance; and harder still, for the man knew that the maiden had passed through those gates; and now only a single wall lay betwixt them; yet it was an impassable wall. Still he was patient, and waited for something to happen; and, as usually happens, something did.

For, by some way of magic, the maiden had learned of his coming. When she knew that he was without the gates, she ran thither as swiftly as her legs would bear her. And there in the doorway of the elfin city those two long parted met again, and in the twilight between Earth and Faerie the man found the end of his journey, and the maiden the end of her waiting. After a time she led him through the gates, for she had a word of passage from the governors of the town, and once within she became his guide through all the wonders of that place. The sights that she showed him there, musicians and players, merchants and craftsmen, jousts and processions, and more beside, must be left for another writing, for there is not space nor skill here to describe them. Through all these things she led him; and all that day he did not leave her side.

Yet, when the day ended, and All Hallows' Eve had passed, the enchantments that had bound the man once more summoned him away. All Saints' Day was come; the day of wonder was gone, and the man returned whence he had come. Once more the man and the maiden were separated: she went again to the town of Fairhaven to await his return; and he was borne back to a far-off land of thick and dreary enchantments. Yet even there, at times, the memory of Faerie, and of her who waits, returns to him in waking dreams. And it may be that they shall not remain thus parted: for there be other days in the year with potency against dreary enchantments; and there be other powers in the world besides those that strive with Love.

(I, Owen Locksley, son of Sir Reginald Locksley, servant of the Crown, do attest to the truth of this tale. Yet it may be that some find the story dark, and think the right shape of things hidden by the telling, and the facts obscured in webs of words. For those that make such complaint I say merely that this account is true to the utmost, as far as it goes; and for a clearer telling of the facts, they must wait for some other day. For tales take long in the weaving, even such tales as be reworkings of things already past; and a knight's son has scant time for tale-weaving.)

New Book

I'm starting a new book. For the moment, I'm just going to paste a couple quotes from its Preface without even divulging the title of the book...

Having now had an opportunity to study schools as a headmaster as well as a teacher, I would argue that the teacher, not the curriculum, needs to be the focus of reform. The greatest value of the curriculum proposed in this book, I now believe, is that it sustains and nurtures teachers as practioners of the art of learning while discouraging non-learners from entering the profession. (What non-inquisitive, discipline-bound person would want to teach in such a school as I have outlined in the second part of this book?) The classroom should be no place for teachers who are afraid of change, who are willing to talk about ideas ad nauseum but unwilling or unable to act on them, to experiment, to grow, to absorb new disciplines, to teach beyond themselves, their college lecture notes, their State-approved lesson plans, their textbooks.

[My book] presents a formidable challenge to schools controlled by administrators and teachers who simply want to be left alone and allowed to maintain old habits in the midst of a rapidly changing world. Some will defend their traditionalist stance as a means of protecting time-honored values or of avoiding educational fadism, but underneath, I suspect, indolence and insecurity have not a little to do with it At any rate, this type of conversation is contrary to the spirit of learning. Schools are places where students learn because they are places where teachers learn. Only a school (and by extension a curriculum) that encourages teachers to be always learning will keep its teachers fresh and fearless and its students happy and motivated in their studies, ready to test their lessons against life.

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There is a disturbing trend these days, in this era of hyphenated Americans, to seek to motivate students and to build their self-esteem by devising ethnocentric studies tailored to their race or creed or to some high-sounding social agenda. Until now, the American school -- for all its shortcomings -- has embraced the idea of a common American culture and has acted as a powerful centripetal force in American society. The new craze for ethnocentric studies, however well intentioned, erodes the school's power to help our nation forge out of many, one.

American culture is, like all cultures, derivative. Its sources are sundry and varied, but they are not different for Latinos and Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans. It is one culture characterized by racial and ethnic diversity and, yes, by predominantly Western and European influences, but none of these sources or influences is as worthy of study as the common landscape and history, the shared political creed and social identity, the mutual aspirations and disappointments of the American people. Intellectuals, the media, and ethnic leaders tend to dwell upon our differences, which are often more interesting (for some reason) than our similarities. This makes it all the more important for schools to define in their curricula a common American culture and in this way to frame the debate that will naturally arise in a pluralistic society like our own.

One must ask, if our schools fail to believe in a common American culture and to teach it, what will become of us? This question would certainly perplex the ancient whose language, perhaps wisely, could not distinguish between education and culture. It is -- as this book attests -- the sacred duty of the school not only to believe in our common inheritance, but to teach the unfolding truth of that inheritance. Respect for truth -- not the self-esteem of our students or our regrets about the past or our hopes for the future -- must guide us in the quest for that common inheritance and in our definition of the curriculum.

Song of the Valley

To be sung in the manner of Chesterton

Splendid rides the sunset o'er the garden of the Lord
Where summer spreads its colors on the hills like emerald wine
And the mowers raise the incense of the grass and of the soil
And the ponds and trees and houses gleam like grapes upon the vine
In the sun that smites the valley with the brightness of a sword:
In this cool and quiet garden in the center of the world
Where the people's death and living makes a song of righteous toil
In this precious piece of nowhere in a corner of the world;
In this garden of the people which is sacred to the Lord.

Summer's End

I'm sitting on the lawn outside my dorm at school. That may sound lifelessly urban, and I suppose it would be in a lot of schools: but my school is settled right in the middle of a country Tennessee community, without a fence and sometimes without even a road separating them. There is beauty in this place and moment. The sun has set and the sky is glowing russet and pale blue. The woods are so close across the road that I can hear the cicadas humming. A flock of geese just flew overhead, calling the evening bugle of summer as they sped southward. I guess this is really my Beginning of Autumn post, which seems to have become something of an annual tradition. I didn't intend it that way; but for some reason there is a day or a set of days as summer ends that remind me of the season changing and make me want to write about it. Perhaps it is because, as Chesterton said, you realize how much you love something when you begin to lose it. I don't notice how much I enjoy summer until a cool evening or a red leaf on the ground reminds me that it is passing. Perhaps that is why I love autumn so much. After the peace of summer, it is a reminder that the seasons change; that the years turn; that time passes. And that reminder makes me enjoy the seasons, and the years, and time itself, all the more.