A review of “Voltaire and Rousseau” (audiobook)

Voltaire and Rousseau disagreed with each other on many issues. Nonetheless, they do have at least one thing in common, which is that they were both prominent figures of the French Enlightenment (and of the Enlightenment more generally). Thus, they are covered together in this audiobook despite their disagreements. It is a single unified audiobook covering both philosophers, rather than two separate audiobooks being sold together. Since Voltaire was born more than 17 years before Rousseau, they focus first on Voltaire’s life, and then focus on Rousseau’s life, making little effort to connect their lives.

Some thoughts about general education

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”

– Thomas Sowell, economist

An anecdote about education vs. experience, from the 1958 movie “Teacher’s Pet” …

In 1958, a romantic comedy called “Teacher’s Pet” presented its audience with some surprisingly deep coverage of the topic of education. In the movie, Clark Gable plays an old-school newspaper reporter with a contempt for formal education, who unexpectedly falls for a journalism professor played by Doris Day. He starts out with contempt for eggheads like her, but grows to have deep respect for them, while they gain an equally deep respect for his practical experience. One of them is a mutual friend (and Clark Gable’s competitor for Doris Day), a psychology professor played by Gig Young. Clark Gable comes to find that his experience commands more “serious” respect among these professors than he thought, and realizes that he is smarter than he believed. At the same time, though, he realizes how much he has missed out on by not getting a formal education, and grows to respect the journalism lessons taught by Doris Day in her classroom.

… with a character in the movie who has to excuse himself from educated conversations

Clark Gable is unfamiliar with certain topics taught by general education, and has to excuse himself from conversations about them when they go over his head, going to the men’s room as a convenient pretext to leave them. At one point in the movie, he thus laments that he has “spent one-third of my life going to, staying in, and coming back from men’s rooms.” It’s a funny line, but it probably describes the experience of many who haven’t gained a formal education, even if their informal education has nonetheless been quite good. If we want to spare our students this unpleasant embarrassment, we should take pains to require some general education of them, at least when they enroll in college (and preferably sooner). That way, they won’t sound like idiots, when people judge their intelligence by whether or not they know certain things. We cannot possibly teach them everything (which would be an unreasonable goal anyway), but we can teach them some things.

A scene from “Teacher’s Pet” (1958)

I can’t decide what to major in …

If you’ve arrived at this page, chances are that you’re either in college, or will be in college soon. Presumably, you know that you want to get a degree, but you haven’t decided yet what to major in. What should you choose?

Blog posts by region

I was once asked whether I covered world history on my blog. The answer is a simple “yes.”

Here is a sort of table of contents for my blog posts. Each link shows you the most recent posts in that category, up to 20 of them (at least, where there are that many).

A review of “Friedrich Nietzsche” (audiobook)

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

He was the most controversial thinker in the entire history of philosophy …

I have never been a fan of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, or any part of his philosophy that I have ever heard about. He may be the most controversial person in the entire history of philosophy. He attacked virtually every aspect of the existing culture, and advocated disturbing ideas in their place. But there are still people today who believe in his ideas, so I thought that it would be worthwhile to know something about them. Thus, I listened to this audiobook (narrated by Charlton Heston), to learn about him. I was not disappointed, and learned much about him and his ideas – much of it disturbing, as you will see in this post.

Some thoughts about classical education

“[Chaerephon] went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him … whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser.”

“When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men?”

– Socrates at his trial, as recorded in Plato's “Apology”

Classical education, in this context, is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome

Classical education, in this context, is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome. It was once all the rage in Western schools, but that changed drastically in the 1960s. At that time, some thought the subject to be too focused on the “dead white guys” (as they saw them). There was also an increased focus on math and science education after the then-recent Sputnik crisis, and less focus on humanities education. The Classics survived (and still live on today), but are no longer seen as being “central” to Western education in the way that they were seen before. This is a shame, because the Greeks and Romans influenced so much of who we are today. They had a great influence on our art, sculpture, architecture, theater, drama, literature, philosophy, science, and even our form of government. If history is about understanding who we are and how we came to be that way, the Classics actually have much to tell us about our identity as a people, and how it came about.

The “Forum Romanum,” better known as the Roman Forum

What is “linguistics,” and why is it important?

“If you are considering becoming a linguistics major, you probably know something about the field of linguistics already. However, you may find it hard to answer people who ask you, ‘What exactly is linguistics, and what does a linguist do?’ They might assume that it means you speak a lot of languages. And they may be right: you may, in fact, be a polyglot! But while many linguists do speak multiple languages—or at least know a fair bit about multiple languages—the study of linguistics means much more than this.”

– Website of the Linguistic Society of America

Linguistics is the scientific study of language

I am an amateur “linguist,” in both of the popular senses of that word. In everyday speech, the word usually means someone who knows a lot of languages (I have some basic knowledge of about four myself). But the word also has the meaning of someone who studies linguistics, a different but related discipline. In the words of the Linguistic Society of America, “Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and many topics are studied under this umbrella.” (Source: LSA website) They further state that “while linguists may be better informed if they know multiple languages, the work of a linguist actually involves learning about Language, rather than learning different languages.” (Source: LSA website)