by Robert M. Woods In all of our Great Books based programs we exalt the primary readings, unmediated by commentaries, critical theories, jargon ladened treatises, and a mountain of secondary works explaining what a given author meant within his work. What we generally do is encourage the students to jump right in and start swimming. By [...]
I distinctly remember reading Jacques Ellul’s books on technology, and specifically even remember where I was sitting when I read his The Technological Bluff, where he essentially argues that it is all but over and people will give over to the tidal wave of technology/technique. Here we are more than twenty years later, and if [...]
In the university where Adler would be Dean, all courses would at some point and in some way have the Socratic method as a dominant part of instruction. There would be no textbooks. There are little to no written exams, there are only verbal exams. Imagine every class, every day as an oral exam. The [...]
Josef Pieper Also, the range of his wisdom is most impressive. Some of the titles I have read and re-read and actually use in classes include: In Defense of Philosophy—It is difficult to explain to people who have ever met a “professional philosopher” that this lot has seriously perverted what real philosophy is, and [...]
One of the many advantages in reading the Great Books is that truly Great books have the ability to remove us from our present moment and take us somewhere else, expose us to different ideas, issues, and landscapes, and then return us to our own. This enables us to see our own world, and more [...]
If I think about it, I am saddened that I received the invitation later in life. I wish I had received and accepted the invitation in High School, or college, or certainly graduate school. It was not all my fault, I was not told about the invitation until about twelve years ago. Since that time, [...]
Eric Voegelin Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) penned an essay entitled On Classical Studies (1973)–an essay that was shaped by the Classical west and the Christian faith and is philosophically opposed to the distortions of Enlightenment rationalism. Reading Voegelin is akin to reading Amos or Joel. But instead of ancient Israel, it is the modern [...]
Beginning with the definition of education, Eliot relates the nature of education to culture as a whole. Specifically on culture Eliot says, “if we mean that Culture is what is passed on by our elementary and secondary schools, or by our preparatory and public schools, then we are asserting that an organ is a whole [...]
During my years of teaching, I have frequently admonished students with this deeply held conviction. If you can find a cultural critic or essayist that you enjoy, and he or she also happens to write fiction—read it. While Russell Kirk (1918-94) is best known as one of the founding fathers of post-World War II conservatism, [...]
Russell Kirk On occasion, someone will email me or ask me at a conference, “if there is one article or essay on the problems and solutions to modern education, that everyone should read, what is it”? Questions like this are wonderful on at least two levels–it gives me the exhilaration of mentally scanning [...]
What prompted this blog is that not long ago, a professor I have tremendous respect for stated in an interview that there are few, if any great essayist alive and writing today. If I understood him correctly, I disagree. If I misunderstood him, I apologize. In either case, I wanted to write a blog (not [...]
Of all of the readings in volume one in The Great Ideas Program, by Mortimer Adler, an introduction to the Great Books toward a liberal education, possibly the one that many would be more likely to skip and yet should read now is the The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. You might ask why? [...]
Having read several of Eva Brann’s books, I can say without exaggeration that she is among the most impressive contemporary scholarly readings. Among the qualities that make her so astute is that she is extraordinary at two things: she is a practiced close reader, and she has a range of knowledge that is generally limited [...]
The Invention of Lefse: A Christmas Story, by Larry Woiwode, Crossway, 2011. So it is that time of year when the “seasonal” reader is bombarded with lots of maudlin Christmas tales with the main objective of giving that warm, sappy feeling. It is always refreshing when a rare story comes along that gives a window [...]