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How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination
Liberal education is nothing other than the acquisition of a free mind.
Unfortunately, too many of us have a mind shackled by ideologies and moved by outside forces. We’re pulled and pushed by trends and the prevailing culture. Higher education has become ridiculously expensive and is producing graduates whose minds are anything but free, filled as they are with the prejudices of their teachers.
Only when we break these shackles and habitually exercise a free mind can we call ourselves liberally educated.
In How to Keep from Losing Your Mind, Deal Hudson will show you how to avoid the false open-mindedness and groupthink of the modern “-isms” promoted by the PC arbiters of our cultural milieu. Instead you’ll learn to:
-Form the habit of reconsideration, the key to a truly open mind
-Entertain doubts about your own immediate opinions
-Argue coherently from first principles, instead of repeating ideological talking points
-Recognize prejudice and propaganda
-Avoid sloganeering and engage in real thought
This book will enable every person to rise above the shouting, the name-calling, and the brutal incivility of public discourse and rediscover the pleasure and benefit of contemplating the meaning and noble aims of human life.
Unfortunately, too many of us have a mind shackled by ideologies and moved by outside forces. We’re pulled and pushed by trends and the prevailing culture. Higher education has become ridiculously expensive and is producing graduates whose minds are anything but free, filled as they are with the prejudices of their teachers.
Only when we break these shackles and habitually exercise a free mind can we call ourselves liberally educated.
In How to Keep from Losing Your Mind, Deal Hudson will show you how to avoid the false open-mindedness and groupthink of the modern “-isms” promoted by the PC arbiters of our cultural milieu. Instead you’ll learn to:
-Form the habit of reconsideration, the key to a truly open mind
-Entertain doubts about your own immediate opinions
-Argue coherently from first principles, instead of repeating ideological talking points
-Recognize prejudice and propaganda
-Avoid sloganeering and engage in real thought
This book will enable every person to rise above the shouting, the name-calling, and the brutal incivility of public discourse and rediscover the pleasure and benefit of contemplating the meaning and noble aims of human life.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 9, 2019
61 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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February 10, 2020The tone of this book's title doesn't seem to match the content. It turned out to be much chattier and more subjective than I was expecting. For those who want the feeling that they are hanging out with someone and listening to him talk about his favorite books, music, and movies, it would be just right.
DNF.
DNF.
just-not-going-to-finish-this-now
December 15, 2019Abandoned. I had read a detailed and favorable review that did point out editing problems...not sure this was even given to a copy editor...the writing was clunky and cold at best. Over 100 pages in and all I know is the author thinks we should follow Great Books lists, and so far no mention of the topics promised on the dust jacket. Threads are not tied together. I think most of his ideas have merit but are not explained well or convincingly. I am willing to be challenged but not bored and frustrated.
will-never-finish
August 15, 2021Blah. Abandoned because it's not about what it purports to be about. It's mainly just the author opinionizing on what he likes, but without making a convincing argument as to why it should be in the Western Canon or whatever.
October 6, 2025
I find the author's assertions that readers have never heard of the people or books he mentions absurd. (Who hasn't heard of Carl Linnaeus? Yet, Hudson writes, "Let's start with Carl Linnaeus. I would bet you've never heard of him...") Most of the topics he discusses don't have anything to do with classical education and are things that my 9th grader could have said/written/discussed. The book hops around to various topics that seem more like pet subjects of the author's than being relevant to the title given to the book. A more appropriate title would have been: Things the Average Person Should Think About Before Starting Highschool. I'll be donating it in case it is useful to someone else, but it seems like a waste of shelf space for my personal library as I already own most of the books mentioned or summarized in this one, including works by and about Mr. Linnaeus.
September 22, 2024
🖍️ The title of this book is what intrigued me – How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination – and for the most part, I remained interested by the considerations and opinions of Deal W. Hudson. In keeping with the title, this book lays out a road for readers to shrewdly avoid the brainwave-less influence of social media, the insipid noisiness of the world, and the lack of good education – and return to the intellectual stimuli of our ancient forefathers (or maybe our grandparents).
The author delves into the history of education in the United States, particularly with the range of subjects and classical works that were once taught in public schools and are no longer even mentioned in the classroom. This section of the book interested me greatly. What the author stated is true: Current education is sorely lacking in important subjects and is devoid of classical influences. (I have several of my aunts’ and uncle’s grammar school books from the 1930s, and when I read them, I see that the subjects presented and how the students were taught is a galaxy away from the so-called educational material today that really teaches nothing but opinions, changed history, and how to acknowledge perceived “grievances” and subsequently be offended without little more that the emotion that is wrought.)
The author writes, that “before postmodernism, scholars did not ignore cultural, historical, and biographical factors when studying the past ” (page 136). Then, when postmodernism came upon the scene, it turns out that “it does not regard the world or human existence as having a coherence or purpose” (page 137). Further along in the book, the author speaks to the inane and absurd vapidity of multiculturalism and how feminism morphed from equality of the sexes into flying a single-message banner (killing babies). He showed how feminism and multiculturalism overall bastardized teaching. He asserts that education always had a multicultural side (in the past, students were taught the many influences from many different areas of the world and the positive impacts upon civilization), but the difference today is that educators do not include all cultures, but rather, pick and choose which cultures to focus upon, and they go on to berate or ignore certain ones (Western civilization bad). They do this for little reason other than believing that other cultures have their own (misguided) victimhood status. “Multiculturalists, whether intending it or not, used a bait-and-switch tactic: ’Let’s widen knowledge, then we will tell you what’s important and what isn’t’” (page 154).
Then there is something called “your truth” and “my truth.” To what end does that serve, except that this kind of thinking leads to the impetus and temptation to excuse bad behavior as good and acceptable. All that, because “my truth” and “your truth” is supposedly owned by the one speaking it. “Truth," states philosopher Julian Baggini, “has become personalized, with the individual sovereign over their interpretation of reality” (page 138). There is no such thing as personal ownership of truth, but because it is embraced, we see people laughing at laws, both secular and religious (The Ten Commandments); so, if it feels good, do it. It's your truth.
Moreover, the lack of acknowledgement and understanding of factual truth also leads some people into believing, for example, that the United States Constitution is “outdated” because it was written by white men w-a-a-a-y back in the eighteenth century. In addition, it goes even further with some present-day people wrongly believing that the electoral system is unfair. Nowadays, “if you challenge someone’s ‘own truth,’ you will be judged guilty of ‘judging’ them—the entire conversation becomes a kind of weaponized absurdity” (page 138).
The last quarter of this book lost me; I was not too interested in Deal W. Hudson’s ideas of which books, movies, and music he considers a part of classical education. Whereas he includes movies such as “Midnight Cowboy (1969) and “Ordinary People” (1980) in the classical education realm, I do not care for movies like that. I suppose it is a matter of taste, and that is where he and I part ways, for I consider most movies, books, and music after the mid- to late 1960s to be absurd, generally speaking. There are exceptions for me, but they are few and far between. This is not to say that Deal W. Hudson believes that his recommendations are the final word in a classical education; he does leave room for readers to decide upon their own course of classical education. I was merely and mildly surprised at his more postmodern examples in books, music, and movies.
I did agree with Deal W. Hudson that social media has a cruel and wicked hand (my words) in decimating our culture and the minds of people. As a whole, we do not have the capacity to remain focused on a topic for more than half a minute. We have become lazy in memorizing important historical dates and events and the “why” they are important. We cannot carry on cohesive, coherent, intelligent conversations. We also cannot credibly debate one another without word jumbles, unintelligible sentences, and without feeling “offended” because someone else has a differing opinion. It is as if people shut down at the mention of that differing opinion and start the emotional screaming (my hyperbole). This is avoidable, and it is discussed in the book.
Moreover, with the immediacy of finding information by “Googling” any given topic, we do not have to retain anything in our brains at all. We have collectively lost our minds.
One way to reclaim our minds is to eschew social media and that perpetual connection that we have with the world – not one hundred per cent, of course, but enough to not constantly have our noses in our electronic devices or our faces glowing in our computer screens. By re-learning how to converse with other people face to face, by reading good books, listening to good music (watch those nefarious lyrics!), and watching thought-provoking movies, perhaps we can recapture and keep our minds and return to civility. (NOTE: I have done this from time to time; and when I am off social media, my brain power and thought process returns. Yes, too much social media has made me a dullard once upon a time, and it was very noticeable to me. Horrifying!)
It is important to note that overall, How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination reads much like the scholarly books I read in my last two years at the university and during the time I spent working on my post-graduate studies. Sometimes I felt I was not on the same plane as the author; he at times came across too academic, and there was little reason for it. I wished he just stated his thoughts without being highfalutin.
I enjoyed the time I spent over five days reading How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination. Because the last quarter of it was a bit redundant and bored me, I quickly flipped through the paragraphs that were preaching to the choir.
I touched upon a small portion of what the entire book presents. It is deep and the author presents well-thought-out views and provable facts to make this a good intellectual book that the reader can use or not use for his own edification. There is a good bibliography in the back of the book, too.
*•̩̩͙ *How I came across this book: I enjoy reading books that hopefully fill my need for intellectual knowledge and to contemplate other writers’ viewpoints. I bought this one from TAN Books, which is a good source for very good books (and their monthly $5 books, too).
જ⁀➴ 📕 Read from my private library.
✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎
The author delves into the history of education in the United States, particularly with the range of subjects and classical works that were once taught in public schools and are no longer even mentioned in the classroom. This section of the book interested me greatly. What the author stated is true: Current education is sorely lacking in important subjects and is devoid of classical influences. (I have several of my aunts’ and uncle’s grammar school books from the 1930s, and when I read them, I see that the subjects presented and how the students were taught is a galaxy away from the so-called educational material today that really teaches nothing but opinions, changed history, and how to acknowledge perceived “grievances” and subsequently be offended without little more that the emotion that is wrought.)
The author writes, that “before postmodernism, scholars did not ignore cultural, historical, and biographical factors when studying the past ” (page 136). Then, when postmodernism came upon the scene, it turns out that “it does not regard the world or human existence as having a coherence or purpose” (page 137). Further along in the book, the author speaks to the inane and absurd vapidity of multiculturalism and how feminism morphed from equality of the sexes into flying a single-message banner (killing babies). He showed how feminism and multiculturalism overall bastardized teaching. He asserts that education always had a multicultural side (in the past, students were taught the many influences from many different areas of the world and the positive impacts upon civilization), but the difference today is that educators do not include all cultures, but rather, pick and choose which cultures to focus upon, and they go on to berate or ignore certain ones (Western civilization bad). They do this for little reason other than believing that other cultures have their own (misguided) victimhood status. “Multiculturalists, whether intending it or not, used a bait-and-switch tactic: ’Let’s widen knowledge, then we will tell you what’s important and what isn’t’” (page 154).
Then there is something called “your truth” and “my truth.” To what end does that serve, except that this kind of thinking leads to the impetus and temptation to excuse bad behavior as good and acceptable. All that, because “my truth” and “your truth” is supposedly owned by the one speaking it. “Truth," states philosopher Julian Baggini, “has become personalized, with the individual sovereign over their interpretation of reality” (page 138). There is no such thing as personal ownership of truth, but because it is embraced, we see people laughing at laws, both secular and religious (The Ten Commandments); so, if it feels good, do it. It's your truth.
Moreover, the lack of acknowledgement and understanding of factual truth also leads some people into believing, for example, that the United States Constitution is “outdated” because it was written by white men w-a-a-a-y back in the eighteenth century. In addition, it goes even further with some present-day people wrongly believing that the electoral system is unfair. Nowadays, “if you challenge someone’s ‘own truth,’ you will be judged guilty of ‘judging’ them—the entire conversation becomes a kind of weaponized absurdity” (page 138).
The last quarter of this book lost me; I was not too interested in Deal W. Hudson’s ideas of which books, movies, and music he considers a part of classical education. Whereas he includes movies such as “Midnight Cowboy (1969) and “Ordinary People” (1980) in the classical education realm, I do not care for movies like that. I suppose it is a matter of taste, and that is where he and I part ways, for I consider most movies, books, and music after the mid- to late 1960s to be absurd, generally speaking. There are exceptions for me, but they are few and far between. This is not to say that Deal W. Hudson believes that his recommendations are the final word in a classical education; he does leave room for readers to decide upon their own course of classical education. I was merely and mildly surprised at his more postmodern examples in books, music, and movies.
I did agree with Deal W. Hudson that social media has a cruel and wicked hand (my words) in decimating our culture and the minds of people. As a whole, we do not have the capacity to remain focused on a topic for more than half a minute. We have become lazy in memorizing important historical dates and events and the “why” they are important. We cannot carry on cohesive, coherent, intelligent conversations. We also cannot credibly debate one another without word jumbles, unintelligible sentences, and without feeling “offended” because someone else has a differing opinion. It is as if people shut down at the mention of that differing opinion and start the emotional screaming (my hyperbole). This is avoidable, and it is discussed in the book.
Moreover, with the immediacy of finding information by “Googling” any given topic, we do not have to retain anything in our brains at all. We have collectively lost our minds.
One way to reclaim our minds is to eschew social media and that perpetual connection that we have with the world – not one hundred per cent, of course, but enough to not constantly have our noses in our electronic devices or our faces glowing in our computer screens. By re-learning how to converse with other people face to face, by reading good books, listening to good music (watch those nefarious lyrics!), and watching thought-provoking movies, perhaps we can recapture and keep our minds and return to civility. (NOTE: I have done this from time to time; and when I am off social media, my brain power and thought process returns. Yes, too much social media has made me a dullard once upon a time, and it was very noticeable to me. Horrifying!)
It is important to note that overall, How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination reads much like the scholarly books I read in my last two years at the university and during the time I spent working on my post-graduate studies. Sometimes I felt I was not on the same plane as the author; he at times came across too academic, and there was little reason for it. I wished he just stated his thoughts without being highfalutin.
I enjoyed the time I spent over five days reading How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: Educating Yourself Classically to Resist Cultural Indoctrination. Because the last quarter of it was a bit redundant and bored me, I quickly flipped through the paragraphs that were preaching to the choir.
I touched upon a small portion of what the entire book presents. It is deep and the author presents well-thought-out views and provable facts to make this a good intellectual book that the reader can use or not use for his own edification. There is a good bibliography in the back of the book, too.
*•̩̩͙ *How I came across this book: I enjoy reading books that hopefully fill my need for intellectual knowledge and to contemplate other writers’ viewpoints. I bought this one from TAN Books, which is a good source for very good books (and their monthly $5 books, too).
જ⁀➴ 📕 Read from my private library.
✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎⋆✴︎
April 27, 2020
Ideas presented in "How to Keep From Losing Your Mind" are sound, but the content only partially responds to what the title promises. Dr. Hudson starts with a bashing of postmodernism and then seeks to elaborate on a number of virtues through focusing on works (books, music, film) that explore those virtues. He is certainly erudite, but I guess I was expecting much more.
January 16, 2022
If you want to find pointers to the classics of books, film and music then this is the book for you.
Some good insights into these classics. Good to sit with your music streaming service and listen to the suggested classics.
There are various scenes in the films mentioned that makes you seek out and examine them and ultimately watch them. Three Godfathers I bought just from the description of a scene.
The title of the book is a bit of a puzzle but with all that is going on in this 20th year of the 21st century it is a sure way to distract yourself.
Some good insights into these classics. Good to sit with your music streaming service and listen to the suggested classics.
There are various scenes in the films mentioned that makes you seek out and examine them and ultimately watch them. Three Godfathers I bought just from the description of a scene.
The title of the book is a bit of a puzzle but with all that is going on in this 20th year of the 21st century it is a sure way to distract yourself.
April 25, 2024
This book is one of the few non-fiction books I've read that I can honestly describe as hard to put down. The title resonated with me the most, but I discovered its author as an online professor who taught a class on Walker Percy.
January 7, 2020
The author has a vast knowledge of the classics whether it's music, art, literature,movies etc.I think he could have developed his own ideas more fully. He discusses Plato's SOCRATES but what relevance is that to todays philosophy or his own.I enjoyed reading about these long lost classics. I watched North by Northwest the other night and it was refreshing not to hear the f word or somebody going to the toilet.
January 4, 2020
I really enjoyed some parts of this book and skimmed over others mostly when he discussed music and movies that I'd only heard of and thus couldn't really follow along. It seemed all over the place in its content, so that I wasn't sure what the author was ultimately trying to convey.
October 26, 2019
Fantastic! Don't lose your mind; read this book.
November 11, 2019
Book review
I didn’t care for this book at all. It was not related to the title as far as I could see. He was way to critical of music that I enjoy.
I didn’t care for this book at all. It was not related to the title as far as I could see. He was way to critical of music that I enjoy.
Want to read
January 1, 2020Nice review here: https://theimaginativeconservative.or...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews