How the Great Books fell out of favor
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- Deanna talks about the Great Books of Western Civilization and why they fell out of favor. She also remarks on how important they remain in today's society.
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I have read all 60 volumes. It took me 5 years.
The translations in that series of books are awkward and not up to date with 20th century discoveries about which texts are the least corrupted by inaccurate copyists in the days before the printing press. While you still can, read more recent translations!
Dedicated scholarship that inspires genuine creativity. The struggle to gain a sense of meaning...deep introspection, the writing.
Bukowski nailed this one, "Any one that could ever write worth the damn, couldn't write in peace."
@@bdwonI'm sure there are few out there who have. What an undertaking, especially considering how many if the volumes are of an extremely specialized interest that few would find appealing for hundreds of pages.
@@bdwon I hope everybody ignores your advice and does the entire opposite. Get the OLDEST editions you can get your hands on.
I bought the older set which only had 54 volumes and intend to use it as part of my home schooling program. If we manage to make it through those, I will consider buying the last 6 as part of an annex. I got really excited to discover it is part of a collection, which also includes a sort of color-coded prequel called "Gateway to the Great Books," and a curriculum, of sorts, called "The Great Ideas Program," by Mortimer Adler.
Very powerful assessment. I am over 70 years old an wish so much I had been exposed to and successful in learning as well as applying the classics. Your presentation is an excellent way to encourage the refocus of education to thinking & problem solving. I am on my own personal journey to catch up and immersing myself in classical thought and writing. Your comments on your website is most helpful. Thank you so very much for your gallent, timely and most useful work!
Well put. What a society if everyone engaged with the works of great thinkers
Thank you for making this video series.
From a Tibetan immigrant.
The YT algorithm pointed me to your video. I've recently started reading some classic literature, and I couldn't agree more that they should be something young minds should seek to learn. Thanks for the video. I know it's been 3 years since you've posted anything, but I hope that you'll have more helpful videos in the future.
which books would you recommend
Great presentation - subbed. Critique: near the end you promote the great books as imparting skills that people in the workforce lack, whereas perhaps a better "sell" is that reading the Great Books enriches one's life and provides a window into our own condition.
The classics got removed when education devolved into an industrialized obedience school for the masses. If your folks could shell out $50k annually for top private/boarding schools, the student would get good tutiliage.
Two of my clients are retired from the Groton school. They are both in their 80's, but they still work to promote these studies in the general population.
Warren, Michelina, and myself thank you sincerely for your efforts!
We had a set of the Great Books and an Encyclopedia Brittanica growing up. There was one major problem with them: the fonts they used were tiny and the line-spacing almost nonexistent! I agree it’s important to read from the sources. Why study about what Freud thought, when he explains it very well by himself? Thanks for your thoughts.
This comment captured my exact thoughts. We no longer read the likes of Plato, but about Plato - someone else's opinion of Plato; rather than reading, and forming our own opinion about Plato...
As an Italian, I’ve been educated in a system that - in the sixties/ early seventies- was still much based on the study of the “classics”. Not everyone liked, but everybody was exposed to it and more or less been influenced by that. Nowadays, most students don’t even know what you’re talking about…and one could notice that by the way they speak or write …if writing is still a communication method.
In my early sixties, I’m constantly returning to those books as a main reference for a deep understanding of the human behavior, of history or fundamental values. Forty years of management experience on technology and economics has by no means replaced those fundamental learnings.
Thanks for being an advocate for great literature! More people should be focused on the classics.
They are what kept me sane.
I’m building my library and reading these one at a time and intend to instill in my daughter an appreciation of these books as a supplemental education.
Education has been devalued. And this has gone on long enough that the ignorance is generational. And the attack on the quality of the education is only getting more forceful. (Note what is going on in Florida for an extreme example.) And that degraded education is forcing our universities to dumb down as well. In the future your only route for a full formal education will be private schooling and then attendance at an ivy league university. It's truly disconcerting.
“Ivy League” isn’t worth anything, given that Harvard gave us such half-wits as DeSantis and Cruz. Really, these Ivy League schools are just boys clubs for wealthy elites to send their out-of-touch spawn so they can have something else to brag about.
Considering how badly the academic rigor has collapsed in the ivy league schools (not to mention the lowering of entrance standards), I would buy these books in lieu of an ivy league education and know that I'm getting a better education.
These books are very very powerful! They represent being very infulencial
Thank you for creating this video.
How the Great Books fell out of favor? When the Russians launch Sputnik, there was a mass hysteria in education in this country that here our best and brightest were learning Pilgrim's Progress or whatever, and the Rooskis were learning how to bomb us from outer space. There was a sudden change in emphasis as to what was to be favored in school curricula. The idea of a liberal education never regained the ground it lost.
I prefer the World Books series due to the inclusion of the Syntopicon. The Syntopicon allows me to interrogate the Great Books at will, without having to read them all. On any given topic it provides a summary of the books, a reading guide, and an index. Within an hour or two I can have a good grasp on what all these great authors had to say on a particular subject, or within a few minutes I'll have the gist. There is nothing I love more in a reference book than a good index, and the Syntopicon is the best I've ever seen.
The GBWW series also has a syntopicon; the series is actually part of 3 interconnected sets: 1) Gateway to the Great Books (10-book series), 2) The Great Ideas Program (10-book series) and 3) Great Books of the Western World. The GGB series contains the syntopicon and is a sort of "prequel" to the GBWW in that the authors and topics are easier for readers to understand (Hutchins specifically states that the average 16-year old should be able to comprehend it). The GIP is a companion series by Mortimer Adler that acts as sort of a syllabus and curriculum to help the reader get the most out of the series (I use it as a homeschooler).
They have fallen out of favour because these books were meant to be read before the age of 20, and their contents well known and studied along with the wisdom of the Bible! The people who had this education already had a lot of skills. The shift was towards "industrial applied labour" which was a way of ensuring that many lost the actual skills that were passed down from Father to Son and sometimes Daughters ! It was a way from people to be brought under "masters" of industry. It had little to do with skills. It had everything to turning people into cheap labour, and those who worked in industry did not develop skills, merely they undertook dangerous work inside dangerous factories so other men could profit from their hard labour for a very few shillings in making bricks or rope making. They lost the freedom of their farms and working in the fresh air to be forced into the dreadfully toxic cities of the day such as London which were filthy, miserable and sad places.
You explained everything very well. Thank you again
Can't disagree that reading the great books is immensely valuable, but if you say something like "the Romans read the Greeks", that's true, but keep in mind that we're talking about a tiny minority of Romans. Most people, for most of history, were illiterate. There are more people alive today reading the ancient Greeks than there were at any time during the history of Greek antiquity, not only because of the massive increase in global population but also because of the spread of literacy.
I shall check out your website. Great video!
As a homeschooler, when would you first introduce these books to your student? What age or grade? What order? Thanks!
Let the kids pick up a volume at random and see if they can handle it.
Speaking as a kid that has been reading old classics. I found that books like the Illiad, Dune, and The Histories were way above my level of reading. After rereading parts that I didn't understand I started to learn how to break down the words to understand it. So I would say you start immediately and have your kid get used to reading the complex material.
@@lephinor2458 Thank you for your input! Do you remember which one your read first?
Ben Franklin is a friendly guy to begin with. He brings science, history, family and business into the discussion.
@@pa1attention the Illiad, but I would say find a subject your child likes because at first the complexity might make the child bored or confused. So if your child likes sci-fi then you can make them read foundation or Dune.
Well said indeed! Cheers!
"Compulsory education systems are designed to inculcate into the masses the values of the King because one doesn't revolt against one with whom he or she shares values."
-Amos Wilson
Nice. I wold add that Dewey was a Socialist/Communist eugenics enthusiast and elitist who wanted to create an army of workers for industry. He never taught school but was full of theories about how to run a classroom. Basically a complete fool with a profound influence on American education methods and the teacher colleges.
The Great Books effort was well intended but rather rushed and the translations chosen are random in quality, ranging from horrible to OK. Nearly every high school library had a set when I was a kid, and a lot of people who subscribed through Britannica salesmen.
But the decline since the 1960's is from a much different cause. Look up the Cloward and Piven Strategy.
Do you know of a good discussion on which works included in the GBWW were poor translations? I have just gotten the series and would like to supplement it with better translations for those sections that are problematic, but I do not know where to start.
@@asdisskagen6487 That is a good one. I recall discussions decades ago on CSPAN. Maybe look for reviews of them a little after they came out. I know they had to settle for what was available or affordable at the time in some cases. These things change as more is discovered about languages and cultural history. I would look for some modern critiques on each translation on a book by book basis.
Thank you for the video. I'm actually on a plan to read all 60 volumes and the 50 volumes of the Harvard Classics over the next three years.
That is an incredibly ambitious goal. Good luck to you.
Well said...amazing video..your awesome... You hit it perfectly
* _you're_
Another aspect, in modern times at least, is the criticism that most of the great books programs are too heavily comprised of white male authors. Many schools now prefer to select from a more diverse corpus than the traditional western canon. I think this perspective is a healthy one, in principle, but in practice I think the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. In my opinion, the best solution is to continue to read the great books while additionally incorporating a more diverse set of authors as well. The great books are too important to skip, but at the same time we should recognize the importance of a multicultural and more gender-equal education.
Exactly. Supplement; not replacement
brown people and women are to be ignored
And how many books do we have from Africa, 2000 years ago?
Just asking.
We already have and are already using diverse writings and writers.
They have been around for years.
I love Tolstoy and other Russian authors Cervantes Hardy from all parts of the globe 🌎
This didn't happen. No great books of diversity are taught either.
Elitism my arse. Adler intended the masses to read them. He believed that, rightly or wrongly, a citizenry who are versed with these books would protect themselves from propaganda and probably help elect leaders who are guided by the wisdom of these books. (see 'The Great Conversation')
If these critics of these great books simply dismiss these gems altogether, they probably have a low standard of what elitism is, namely reading these works in the original languages. (see 'Climbing Parnassus' as well as videos by Alexander Arguelles)
Me personally, even reading a small fraction of these works have been valuable to me in expanding my mind and my perspective. I would probably mine much gems the more I read these. These are valuable by themselves in translation, but would probably be more in the original for those who are willing.
You are so right! Adler wrote "Aristotle for Everybody."
WELL SAID!
Lovely description about the Great Books. Job well done and thank you.
Oh, no! I tried the link to your website and it was down.
Although the Great Books series is a valuable resource, society has moved forward with remarkable advances in science and even history. Ahead of the Great Books I would place learning another language to at least read in it moderately well. Perhaps one would even consider learning Latin and Koine Greek. In dong so, one would confront a host of great authors in their own languages.
So what books besides the great books should one read? are their any of these books invalid for this day and age?
Great Books 📚 Transforms. As does the encyclopedia of knowledge which I read from cover to cover truly amazing box indeed.
Hope you are well well said and will be sharing often
2:14 it moved from HOW to think to WHAT you had to think
Thank you for this video, it's another piece of the puzzle.
I didn't know that Dewey pressed for skills based education why that matters is because Dewey was a socialist. Controlling the education of the people is important to both them and the big business interests back then who wanted people to be useful components in their industries.
Independent thinking really doesn't have a place in socialism outside of the small cadre of socialists doing the thinking for everyone else- and having workers question that goes against their revolution.
I think a good way to follow this line of thinking and also update is to include great works from non western cultures. The poems of the Middle Eastern mathematician, the bava gita of india, the romance of the three kingdoms, an the book of the five rings.
on of the more legit arguments against the classical education was its western focus but i think that is easily remidied and more importantly the idea that we learn the classics first is something i 100% agree with
Here in the UK we still study this, including US authors.
A universal foundation makes for economy in sharing and synergy.
Great video.
I saw a set of great books on sale on eBay today and I was just wondering what it actually was, after watching your video I think I might actually try and look for these books, do you know if there are any on the internet for download?
I hope you were able to procure a hard copy of this set. It is worth the investment if you are interested in improving yourself as an individual, and as a critical thinker. It is especially good if you have children you are homeschooling.
The "liberal-minded" elites have always enjoyed the idea of a controllable serf-type population, so the shift away from the great ideas and higher level thought(especially surrounding politics) has been really successful toward that end.
Im confident that Milton and his beloved Lycidas are digging your thesis👍
Привет из России! Я всегда считала, что американцы только смотрят кино про инопланетян, а оказывается, вы тоже читаете книги. Это очень хорошо! Как вам русская литература? Читали? Понравилось?
It is difficult to get a lot of Russian literature with good translations. I have read some Russian literature; it is very ... grim. Well, written but my word is it depressing.
At 1:10 I’m already in agreement. Too many “educated people” and homeschoolers just do what they want and within their comfort zone. Your video was perfect
Don't forget science - arguably the most impactful of all these subjects.
Now there are “textbooks” only, no longer the “Great Books.”
Because people stopped eating three meals a day, because they found out it was racist, so they didn't have the energy it takes to read Great Books anymore.
Great
People who read great books were, are, and always will be a minority. That's just the way it always has been
Well said!
The ancient Greek sages got their education by attending wisdom schools in Egypt. The wisdom did not originate in Greece, but the set, which I also own, is a great value. There are also the set of The Sacred Books Of The East.
Yes, it's sad these ideas were pushed out of favor.
I think the great books have fallen out of favor because Americans clearly started putting far too much cream in our coffee. ;)
Thanks 🙏🏾 all great books. Truly amazing books.
Very good, succinct discussion!
Thanks.
Awesome
It's because of the Shakespearechuckers.
Good video but very repetitive with a lot of broad generalisations that paint an inaccurate picture of history.
What's inaccurate about it?
@@williamgass9242 The idea that everyone read these texts for centuries is clearly inaccurate. Just think about it - we're talking centuries where most people were just busy surviving, where many were illiterate and oral education was still the main route as just making books was a laborious task, where oral history was still significant, and just ideals around education and varied widely. Also, the formation of this book collection started in late 1800s with the Ancient Classics Reader and had significant uptick in the early 1900s with several collections including Harvard Classics and Everyman's Library. The Great Book Collection in the 1950s being pretty late on this trend, and after reading collections tended to move towards broader range of works. There are benefits to reading widely across time and place - the latter being something the Great Books is fairly limited on, it doesn't really need to be sold as an eternal education and misrepresent the history of it this way - like some of the books in the Great Books Collection like Plutarch's histories do.
@@dehn6581 what are you talking about? People who dont read don't read. People who do do.
Why the Great Books fell out of favor in education? Easy and obvious: corrosive effects of cultural relativism and cultural (race) marxism.
Love 💗 your fantastic conclusions
Have the set myself and Harvard Classics. Read all these with the Bible and you will have a strong education in western Culture and potentially gain strong insight into purpose. At a minimum, you should come away with a fondness for your neighbor since our diverse thoughts make us so interesting.
Well done
Well said.
People used to read because they wanted to learn, not because they wanted to appear better than others. Egos weren't so messed up back then, which great books help with.
Fallen out of favour with who?
The American Education system, and likely the public education systems of most Western Countries.
So weird how one person can come up woth an idea and people jump on bandwagon and they become the thing. Like what you mentioned in the video. Same thing with Femenism in the 60s and Christianity in school. not starting political arguements just pointing something out
Read whatever you want whenever you want for as long as you want, there’d be lay people very happy with this collection. Literature snobbery is such a vacuous attitude
Reading in general has fallen out of favor as the religious and political right continue to denigrate education and develop a society that spurns intelligence and education
That is a bogus rotten lie from an agent of Marx and the devil himself. The only thing that kept the U.S.A. ahead of and better than other nations (until 1963) was the basic Christian education many people had in America when the only book most Pioneers and settlers could afford to buy was a copy of the Holy Bible. The U.S. churches were far better than churches in Europe and the U.K., partly because people were encouraged to read the Bible at home 6 days a week instead of sitting on a pew and doing rituals for an hour once a week.
Europe, starting in France with Voltaire, Rousseau and the scum of the French revolution in the late 1700's to Marx & Engels in Germany in the later 1840's started the ruination of good thinking based upon the God-breathed scripture. almost all European and British Isles churches and colleges went down the drain due to liberal theologians and writers who did not believe the Holy Bible was true. The words of the Holy Bible are 100 % better than the gunk and garbage of the Greek philosophers and godless Germans/Austrians and French writers and revolutionaries.
It's just not realistic in this day and age to expect the typical working class layman to read these books. A person's reading and comprehension skills would already have to be top notch just to absorb them. Our education system does not train our kids on this level anymore, if they ever did. You would have to have an enormous amount of free time to even begin to tackle these books. Most people simply don't have the time or inclination to read these books, most of which are not as relevant in the modern age as they once were. Also....it is not elitist to say that many people simply don't have the mental firepower it takes to read books like these.....so they MUST concentrate on a more practical education.
They are certainly very relevant in the development and evolution of Western Civilization and they should be touched upon in history classes.....but there are only so many books you can read in a lifetime.
Right. I guess that's it, case closed. Pack it up...nope..wha..sorry no, you didn't hear the lady?... No she said it's too hard... They don't have enough time....got marvel movies to see..got CZcams to browse.....they aren't able to get it
@@Ahab_786 You may not like what I said....but it's the reality we live in, so yes ....case closed.
This is bullshit. Read if you want. If you hate reading, then leave it for others who do love it.
You need to give a concrete examples of how reading Kant or Hegel will help me interact with others.
Bro Kant’s categorical imperative is exactly that! Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals is where to start, otherwise, if Kant gets boring I’d recommend Spinoza’s Ethics
@@BobBob-cy9cu I don't think that answered my question.
@@hanskung3278 your comment wasn't a question?
@@BobBob-cy9cu Ok, so give me concrete examples of how reading Kant and Hegel will help my interactions with others.
@@hanskung3278 It won't. It's just a philosophical carousel for people with a lot of free time on their hands to indulge.
This lady is so wrong and superficial! Dewey was nowhere near as influential as she argues. One reason the Great Books fell out of favor is that the people who taught about them during most of the 20th Century were, in fact, elitist! And now the people who teach them tend to neglect most of the 20th century scholarship that provides a useful understanding of the cultural context which created the possibility for the authors to write the great books! Also she neglects to mention how late 20th century science is excluded from most programs that teach great books.
Are they really that great? Primarily, these works are historically significant. As literature, their style, prose and pacing are antiquated and stultified. They are boring books.
You can teach critical thinking without relying on outdated texts. Don't rely on public schools to guide you child's journey to ethical adulthood.
Don't force your students to slog through crusty, dusty tomes so they can sew on their "literature" badge.
Agree.
Disagree.
Reading boring books takes discipline and the ability to persist at something you really do not want to do, but these great books can definitely improve your understanding of thinking and living. In fact reading these books today when they are out of favor seems to be the "diverse"thing to fo.
@@dalecoughlin5124 Karate teaches discipline, old books are just boring, doubly so for students. People need to develop their critical thinking skills and stop believing falsities. Diversity? People who preoccupy themselves with delusions are beyond the help a mere novel will provide.
A lot of people don't not do something just because you think it's boring. Some people have values you wouldn’t understand. Reading would help with that, broaden your mind. It seems like pc culture nowadays would be all about discovery.
Cause they are no longer relevant?
@BVale Point made.
Shakespeare is still the most popular writer in the world
The level of ignorance necessary to make such a comment is absolutely wild.
If anything, comments from random strangers on CZcams are irrelevant
@@PotterPossum1989 Got me with a good one....but I was being sincere, ALOT of it seems far removed from daily life, or perhaps I'm a prisoner in Plato's cave and it's all an illusion.
GET “The Great Books Program” to accompany.
I would also recommend "The Great Ideas Program" by Mortimer Adler as well.