"Great Books as Graphic Novels" has been done twice. Does anyone remember the old Classics Comics?

And there is a Graphic Novel series on the market (I really need to spend some of my book budget on these suckers!) called "Age of Bronze." The world's oldest and most famous war novel in graphic novel format. Trojans shown in Hittite dress, reasons for that choice explained by the author, very lush and intriguing. Have to Google for it; the local Comix Shoppes are too full of the usual.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

what changes should we make to our curriculum as the late-wave Millies and Homelanders pass through the educational system? What more can we do to make sure people don't reach the age of 21 willing to dehumanize themselves out of fear? The "multicultural" model built in the Second and Third Turnings seems inadequate to the task... we need something that both understands and empathizes with non-Western cultures while still expounding Western values. How can this be accomplished? Thoughts, anyone?

It should be remembered that children are inherently bold and open-minded (they must be; for how are their culturally-blank-from-birth minds to develop in the first place?) from the get-go. The question, then, is not how to imbue them with those qualities, but how to nurture the qualities that they are born with; how to refrain from crushing them in the course of their upbringing.

Stated that way, the question seems a bit less daunting. The obtaining of new information is something that children are hard-wired for. For certain, exposure to some quantity of 'Greats' is useful; but rather than a curriculum -- which is itself inherently limiting -- I would advocate simply broadening their library. Stop being afraid of overwhelming the kids (Bob). Put The Iliad, The Double, The Way, The Essays in Idleness, The Epic of Sundiata, The Mysteries of Unification, The Heimskringla, and so forth on the low shelves along with the Hemingway, Thoreau, and Hugo. Let children pick them up and put them down as they will. Be ready to help them understand when they work through the difficult parts when they elect to do so rather than giving up.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

For certain, exposure to some quantity of 'Greats' is useful; but rather than a curriculum -- which is itself inherently limiting -- I would advocate simply broadening their library. Stop being afraid of overwhelming the kids (Bob). Put The Iliad, The Double, The Way, The Essays in Idleness, The Epic of Sundiata, The Mysteries of Unification, The Heimskringla, and so forth on the low shelves along with the Hemingway, Thoreau, and Hugo. Let children pick them up and put them down as they will. Be ready to help them understand when they work through the difficult parts when they elect to do so rather than giving up.

Well, I would never crush a kid by handing him Dostoevsky early in development, but your general point is taken. I was raised in a Montessori preschool, so I see your point well. Bob's (and my) point is that the kids will get bored and never pick them up unless they see the relevance. I am reminded of inner-city school projects where involvement in math class shot out the ceiling the moment the kids finally realized that math = the way to make money...

So instead of a linear curriculum, provide pathways for them to explore. Say, the Chronicles of Narnia leading to The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, which lead in turn to Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and Thomas More... Find or make a good dramatization of the Trojan War -- USA Network's Helen of Troy was a lot better than that Hollywood crap -- and then hand them the real Iliad and let 'em browse away.

It's getting the hook set that's the trick we're trying to turn.

Sorry, double-post caused by wireless frell-up

Showing a population teeming with ignorance that something ought be known or at least be considered because it is relevant is a path toward nowhere fast.

One doesn't know with 100% or even 20% certainty if the Millennial or Homelander in one's charge will find the information imparted by the instruction will be applicable in five years, ten years or fifty.

Should one give Hesiod or the life of Geo. Washington Carver to the youth as the self-feeding of a population in thirty years time will be more and more at hand? Or should one offer instead Boethius or Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon as your charge is quite likely to be swept up by the prison industry as an inmate or a warder? Is there room for de Sade (what with the coming need for both interrogation technique and extreme entertainments) or Celine or Pound or Nabokov? Alfred Rosenburg or Mao as cautionary tales?

The matter at hand and the matter on the table in thirty years time might not be the same. I think we ought to instruct most irrelevantly and most widely so as to cover as many bets as possible. This would lead to a vast variety in what we impart and a vast menu of choices for the imparted.

I ask at T4Ters Heart Multi-Culture what do you find of worth from outside the present Anglo-sphere; what has brought charm and joy and instruction to the life of the T4Ter from elsewhere and elsewhen from the variety of cultures. I know that there is some feeling for manga from the Land of the Rising Sun; is it thought to be un-patriotic to have any affection for the Cultures other than one's own? Is it because you feel the need for solidarity in the Present Turning (for those in the This is a 4T school) that even if you have found such worth, it is a betrayal to admit that it is so (at least publicly)?

Originally Posted by catfishncod

Well, I would never crush a kid by handing him Dostoevsky early in development, but your general point is taken...

Let the kid decide when he's ready. Picking it up and putting it back down after a couple pages is also good experience for a kid. Helps him realize that there is still something to strive for, personal-development-wise. I know I wouldn't have made it more than twenty pages into the work of any Russian author until I had a bit of experience with people outside my cultural background.

...the kids will get bored and never pick them up unless they see the relevance.

That's freaking insane. Kids pick up all sorts of things; relevace has almost nothing at all to do with it. The question is primarily one of availability and then one of not having been previously conditioned to having a bias against the new thing. I read Animal Farm when I was six (because it was laying around and I had read most everything else that sounded interesting). Of course, the whole communism-analogy was almost totally lost on me, but the mechanics of the story and the ultimate lesson of power corrupting is pretty accessible to anyone old enough to understand the words used in the book.

Relevance is something that is experienced by the reader, not something imposed. Why is it, I wonder, that people think that education is something that needs to be imposed? Naturally curious apes that we are, learning is one of the few very powerful instinctual behaviors that we have. Watch an infant or a relatively undamaged toddler. Force it -- associate it with pain -- and you are doing to the child what Pavlov did to his dogs; breaking the instinct. Besides, determining for ones self the relevance or irrelevance of something is a much more important life skill than is merely being widely-read. Why deny a child that chance by only allowing them to read the relevant?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Let the kid decide when he's ready. Picking it up and putting it back down after a couple pages is also good experience for a kid. Helps him realize that there is still something to strive for, personal-development-wise. I know I wouldn't have made it more than twenty pages into the work of any Russian author until I had a bit of experience with people outside my cultural background.

That's freaking insane. Kids pick up all sorts of things; relevace has almost nothing at all to do with it. The question is primarily one of availability and then one of not having been previously conditioned to having a bias against the new thing. I read Animal Farm when I was six (because it was laying around and I had read most everything else that sounded interesting). Of course, the whole communism-analogy was almost totally lost on me, but the mechanics of the story and the ultimate lesson of power corrupting is pretty accessible to anyone old enough to understand the words used in the book.

Relevance is something that is experienced by the reader, not something imposed. Why is it, I wonder, that people think that education is something that needs to be imposed? Naturally curious apes that we are, learning is one of the few very powerful instinctual behaviors that we have. Watch an infant or a relatively undamaged toddler. Force it -- associate it with pain -- and you are doing to the child what Pavlov did to his dogs; breaking the instinct. Besides, determining for ones self the relevance or irrelevance of something is a much more important life skill than is merely being widely-read. Why deny a child that chance by only allowing them to read the relevant?

AMEN about Pavlov, or why I truly hate seeing the Heinlein Society wanting to reissue the juveniles with (I forget the terminology) school questions at the back. Upon asking someone, I think Jane Silver, I got back the answer that most school libraries will not even *consider* stocking a book without those stupid little teacher-set exercises included. Why? Because they have to PROVE that what they contain is truly educational.

I would offer an opinion on that entire phenomenon but will have to wait until I can offer it in the language of a rational human being rather than the language of a gutter rat on meth.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Kids pick up all sorts of things; relevace has almost nothing at all to do with it. The question is primarily one of availability and then one of not having been previously conditioned to having a bias against the new thing.

What do you think I'm talking about? This is all about availability! Excepting twentieth-century authors still under copyright, all the Great Books are available online for free. But which books to read? The pathway idea is meant to let the kid select what interests him. The current publication of the Great Books is in sixty volumes! Sixty! Only complete bibliophiles will just dive in. Packaging to get the kid to pick that book up, click that link, try it out, is key. In the twenty-first century, attention is a precious commodity.

The MIT Science Fiction Society library contains in excess of 50,000 volumes. It's overload for anyone interested in the topic. The result is that, in addition to indexes by author, title, series, etc., there is also a "GoodDex" -- an index of recommendations and sorting by interest. The Great Books, and the further distillations we are discussing, are like a GoodDex to the foundational texts of civilization: here's the good stuff, kid, have at.

You keep insisting that I'm trying to make a rigid curriculum out of this. I'm not. I'm trying to throw a thousand darts at a wall and see what sticks.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Showing a population teeming with ignorance that something ought be known or at least be considered because it is relevant is a path toward nowhere fast.

Dear Lord, not you too, Mr. Saari? It's the student that decides the relevance, not the teacher. If the teacher then fails to acknowledge and cater to that relevance, the student ignores the teacher, for they teach not what is needed or sought. The students decided the relevance, not the teacher; and while these students were ignorant of 'book-learning' they knew much of the ways of their world! The only truly required learning is how to learn, a task made immensely easier with the coming of the Network. After that, if there's a mistake in early education, the adult student can fix it themselves later.

For efficiency's sake, I advocate teaching of the origins and rationales behind the current structure of the Commercial Republic, and the critiques thereof, as well as some of the scientific and mathematical thinking that underpin our society. These are matters of long-proven utility (centuries).

The matter at hand and the matter on the table in thirty years time might not be the same. I think we ought to instruct most irrelevantly and most widely so as to cover as many bets as possible. This would lead to a vast variety in what we impart and a vast menu of choices for the imparted.

I disagree not, except that students need a well-presented menu to facilitate their choice. This is by the same logic that leads to ingredient lists on packaged food, to posted statistics on the crashworthiness of automobiles, to the collection and dissemination of statistics on airline on-time performance.

Well-functioning free markets require freely flowing, accurate data about the goods on sale.

So let me get this straight: smoting entire civilizations is ill advised but reading books about smoting entire civilizations is crucial to the intellectual and moral development of small children and the relative decline in this activity (from the high of the hyper-literate middle ages or else some other time when men were men, women were women, and things were pretty bitchen) is a big reason why things are so messed up today or at least kind of boring.

Now, even as I don't think it's overly-nice to kill large numbers of people because a few of them might try to fly an airplane into your place of work, I have no special objection to books or movies or murals on the walls of brothels about killing large numbers of people (although you have to admit that impalings and beheadings became kind of de rigeur for Hollywood by the time of that first Omen sequel), but you can color me skeptical that reading Great Books or seeing Great Movies is liable to make you a better doctor, lawyer, plumber, or supply chain manager, or even a better parent, friend, or human being. I'm not even sure that reading extensively will necessarily make you a better writer. F Scott Fitzgerald was raised famously on a diet of popular fiction and his friend Edmund Wilson (who envied his talent) was a genuine classics scholar. Yet most people - not unjustifiably - have no idea who Wilson is (although he had more interesting things to say about 99% of critics today).

A long time ago I was a kind of psychological determinist. I thought that if you peered into the unconscious long enough and removed all those dark maladjusted parts the world would be a Much Better Place. Over time you realize that with the exception of behaviorism psychology is not science but pseudoscience and that the practice of psychology is little more than latter witch doctoring designed mostly to coerce and compel folks into conforming to the norms of polite, middle class society (ever wonder why all those parenting books extoll the virtues of "authoritative" parenting [which happens to be most common among western middle class families] rather than the virtues of "indulgent" parenting [which happens to be most common among the rich]?).

For a good while afterward I was something of a biological determinist, thinking that if we could just raise the average IQ about 30 points utopia might be at hand. But I've lived just long enough to have met enough bright, crazy people to doubt this prospect. And of course there are also the bright assholes, and bright monsters. The people that run this world are mostly bright, and monstrous.

And then there's everyone else. Most of those people will stand around and watch as the playground bully beats the crap out of some hapless kid. In any number of cases they'll cheer the bully on.

On the other hand, I actually enjoyed the experience of being told to dress up, sit down, shut up, and read Great Books in my school days. And when you think about it school is more about the experience of being in school than all that crap you're ostensibly there to learn. This is the reason it's a shame a great many children in this country are educated in schools that - in more ways than one - resemble Krushcev-era Soviet military barracks in the Urals. I heartily await the coming of school choice and the government destroying private schools the way it has destroyed public ones.

When I was 14 I ran into a stack of "the great books" in my high school library and picked up Plato. The Allegory of the Cave was like an epiphany to me, I loved philosophy ever since.

Originally Posted by Linus

The relative decline in this activity (from the high of the hyper-literate middle ages or else some other time when men were men, women were women, and things were pretty bitchen) is a big reason why things are so messed up today or at least kind of boring.

There is no relative decline. There is both an absolute and a relative increase. The so-called 'decline' is an artifact of the widening circle of politics from the days when only nobles or literati or slaveowners or god-priests or whatever could play. The widening circle is an effect in a positive-feedback loop with the dissemination of information... such as the Great Books.

...you can color me skeptical that reading Great Books or seeing Great Movies is liable to make you a better doctor, lawyer, plumber, or supply chain manager, or even a better parent, friend, or human being.

So noted. I've learned a good deal, including about being a doctor. A number of the Great Books were written by doctors, you know.

On the other hand, I actually enjoyed the experience of being told to dress up, sit down, shut up, and read Great Books in my school days. And when you think about it school is more about the experience of being in school than all that crap you're ostensibly there to learn. This is the reason it's a shame a great many children in this country are educated in schools that - in more ways than one - resemble Krushcev-era Soviet military barracks in the Urals.

Preach it. The 'factory' model of schooling needs to go, and the factories as well. I've watched local school boards squander their wealth raising up more and more beautiful factories, all the while decrying the disasters within. You get what you pay for.

In other news, Arkham and I were discussing a few days ago how determinism is dying. And then you come crying to me and telling me how all your deterministic philosophies have failed you. And I go, um, no sh**, Sherlock.

Sometimes the Great Ideas come from Great Books. And sometimes Joe Schmoe comes up with them on his own. Where do you think new Great Books come from, anyway? Do you think everyone on that list was a brainiac? Not so -- some of them were ordinary people with extraordinary determination, or faith, or courage, or thoroughness, or compassion.

When I grow up I hope to be an adorable and totally not unwanted man-child who knows if not everything than certainly most things. I will save the world without ever risking my hide or having to take orders from anyone and everyone will thank me every day for the rest of my life.

Or maybe I'll just post a lot of messages on some internet forum imagining myself to be this way and hoping that others might think of me this way as well.

Originally Posted by Linus

When I grow up I hope to be an adorable and totally not unwanted man-child who knows if not everything than certainly most things. I will save the world without ever risking my hide or having to take orders from anyone and everyone will thank me every day for the rest of my life.

Hmm... Well. Thanks in advance for for saving the world, Linus. I hope you don't mind if I thank you just the once, and let the rest of the population of the world handle it on subsequent days.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

...what if ...the assessment given by myself and previously postulated by the commentators of belmont club jihadwatch and others proves to correct? THAT is the scenario I fear..

If you REALLY feared it, why wouldn't you act to prevent it by volunteering for service in Iraq now?

If you believe the world as you know it is going to end unless Americans stand up to the jihadist threat, then isn't joining the fight in Iraq yourself the obvious course of action for a non-coward?

The the only reason for a non-coward not to have volunteered for service in Iraq is if you believed that what you are doing instead was more important.

But what could be more important than survival? Hence I have to conclude either (1) that you don't really believe what you are writing, (2) you do but cowardice prevents your action upon it.

Just the other day I found a site that claimed not only that bin laden had over 600 nukes but that over 400 of them have been placed in our cities and that 200 of those nukes were megaton class city-buster nukes. The same site also stated that Iran had a nuclear arsenal of over 1,000 nukes and that north korea had an arsenal of over 1,400 nukes. In a final nugget the site claimed that all three of these enemies had chem/bio arsenals many times as large as the arsenal iraq had before 1991 and was proported to have in 2003 plus libya's arsenal combined.

Invisible, marmoset-eating unicorns live under your bed. The government is suppressing the information.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Just the other day I found a site that claimed not only that bin laden had over 600 nukes but that over 400 of them have been placed in our cities and that 200 of those nukes were megaton class city-buster nukes. The same site also stated that Iran had a nuclear arsenal of over 1,000 nukes and that north korea had an arsenal of over 1,400 nukes. In a final nugget the site claimed that all three of these enemies had chem/bio arsenals many times as large as the arsenal iraq had before 1991 and was proported to have in 2003 plus libya's arsenal combined.

Holy crap! and I just got an email from a guy in central Africa who needs my help to get his tens of millions of dollars out of his country! And he's willing to pay me to help him out! And all he needs from me is a measly couple thousand to pay for processing the wire transfer paperwork!

And I found out on another site that unicorns are hiding under our beds; and that they are invisible and decimating the world's marmoset population! And the worst part? The Governments Knows, but Doesn't Want Us To Find Out!

All hail the Inter Nets for bringing us such a bounty of undisputable intellectual integrity!

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Just the other day I found a site that claimed not only that bin laden had over 600 nukes but that over 400 of them have been placed in our cities and that 200 of those nukes were megaton class city-buster nukes. The same site also stated that Iran had a nuclear arsenal of over 1,000 nukes and that north korea had an arsenal of over 1,400 nukes. In a final nugget the site claimed that all three of these enemies had chem/bio arsenals many times as large as the arsenal iraq had before 1991 and was proported to have in 2003 plus libya's arsenal combined.

Cynic? You should be careful about what you say about these things. Haven't you been reading Kathaksung's posts? A tin foil hat will not keep you safe anymore. The government now has an EMP device that could kill you if you don't surround your bed with a metal shield. This post explains...

That night and the next night (Feb 25), there was a strong EM wave radiation shooting on me. I slept behind metal plate, the radiation was so strong that it penetrate the thin metal plates. I could feel uncomfortable, unusual feeling at my face when the radiation was applied on me. I was afraid I might be fatally hurt by this strong radiation that on Feb 26, I moved to sitting room and slept there. My bedroom shares the wall with neiborhood and I allege the strong radiation were from there. The sitting room is seperated from it with laundry room and heating furnace.

I received an e-mail about the concern of a fellow poster whose missives I have put beyond use. I was queried about the lack of depth in the consideration of the much vaunted and often greatly feared attractions of multi-culturalism in Our Commercial Republic.

I reply that I am not greatly interested in the depth of knowledge amongst T4Ters about the Several Cultures on this planet, but rather I wonder at the breadth of positive influence from outside the Anglo-sphere upon the population of T4T. Is part of our Progress to Reform Eurasia simply the need to deal with all those varied peoples and since we do not have any great interest in them as people, we would reform them into good, little Anglo-sphereans in a rights-regime and a commercial economy. Once, they are much more like us, we have no longer any need to consider their views and traditions.

While we Crowns of Creation apply such a method to our dealings with the lower orders of the Generations in the Anglo-sphere; those orders and the Crown of Creation do share a vast cultural heritage. We think everyone wishes to be a Boomer; perhaps it is true that we think largely that everyone would be an Anglo-spheroid if he/she had that opportuntity.

And, those few who would not walk under the yoke of the Anglo-spherean Way are so much lower than angels, that their extinction would benefit both portions of such a Manichaean struggle. Oh to be such as us... that all Crowns of Creations be Anglo-spheres!



------
On the possibility of education, I think I am content with its relative rarity in so much as I am hostile to majoritarian democracy. The fans of King Numbers have to reach a much larger population with their programs of instruction than those who hold the Mobility in much less esteem in King Numbers is to rule with anything approaching Justice.
------
I think a variety of educational/cultural materials should be made available on the lower shelves and the screens of the day. For the many who would choose The Cat in The Hat, there is the certain reader who would be swept away by Bruegel or The Gallic Wars. We differ so greatly in our understandings of what is needful and what is appropriate for our charges. I think the time has passed for factory schooling and a combination of Nordic regimentation and non-Anglospheric anarchic play would be a way of change. It may not be a way forward; it may not put the Millennials and Homelanders on the march.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

I can see it now...

...on my grandmother's bookshelf.

Right idea, wrong application, I think. (Though still a good idea, for Boomers and above.) Here are some random ideas that might be a little closer to the Millenial Experience...

* The Norton Anthology of the Great Books
* Cliff's Notes on: The 200 Greatest Books in History
* lj-feed: great_books
* Great Books @ youtube.com
* Great Books For Dummies
* Oprah's Great Books Club
* Great Books CurrentTV
* What's So Great About These Books, Anyway? (webcomic, updated Mondays and Thursdays)

... some of them might even be doable...

Some time ago, I came across The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer. It not only tells the student what to study, but how to study it. Her reading lists include novels, autobiographies, histories, drama, and poetry. Well worth perusing, IMHO.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"Great Books as Graphic Novels" has been done twice. Does anyone remember the old Classics Comics?

And there is a Graphic Novel series on the market (I really need to spend some of my book budget on these suckers!) called "Age of Bronze." The world's oldest and most famous war novel in graphic novel format. Trojans shown in Hittite dress, reasons for that choice explained by the author, very lush and intriguing. Have to Google for it; the local Comix Shoppes are too full of the usual.

You might also find it in your local library. I bought vols. 1 and 2 for my YA collection.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Just the other day I found a site that claimed not only that bin laden had over 600 nukes but that over 400 of them have been placed in our cities and that 200 of those nukes were megaton class city-buster nukes....

You know, I have a great selection of bridges for sale at reasonable prices.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

AMEN about Pavlov, or why I truly hate seeing the Heinlein Society wanting to reissue the juveniles with (I forget the terminology) school questions at the back. Upon asking someone, I think Jane Silver, I got back the answer that most school libraries will not even *consider* stocking a book without those stupid little teacher-set exercises included. Why? Because they have to PROVE that what they contain is truly educational.

I would offer an opinion on that entire phenomenon but will have to wait until I can offer it in the language of a rational human being rather than the language of a gutter rat on meth.

I'll do it for you, Pat.

F*ck "Accelerated Reader." Let's make reading a competition. Let's earn points for reading crap at the proper level.

Sheesh.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Just the other day I found a site that claimed not only that bin laden had over 600 nukes but that over 400 of them have been placed in our cities and that 200 of those nukes were megaton class city-buster nukes. The same site also stated that Iran had a nuclear arsenal of over 1,000 nukes and that north korea had an arsenal of over 1,400 nukes. In a final nugget the site claimed that all three of these enemies had chem/bio arsenals many times as large as the arsenal iraq had before 1991 and was proported to have in 2003 plus libya's arsenal combined.

That must be some pretty strong weed your smoking...