Everyman’s Comments (group member since May 22, 2009)

Everyman’s comments from the Johnnies group.

Hope everyone has seen this article.

https://qz.com/994810/the-most-forwar...

If it's time for you to read some Plato again, but you like the format of an intelligent group discussion rather than just reading alone, the Classics and the Western Canon group will be reading the Republic starting on January 4th and reading one book a week.

You'll be in good company -- we have several Johnnies on board.

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Thomas posted in another group this list of the seminar readings from 1940-41. Fascinating list -- many familiar titles for my years in the 1960s, but others not read by then. Considerably more science in these seminars than in my day.

http://www.sjc.edu/blog/st-johns-read...

David wrote: "I would be interested if there are enough people"

So far, it doesn't look good. But maybe in time.

You might have received a flyer about the Summer Academy. It's a series of one-week intensive seminars and tutorials with high school juniors and seniors. I wondered whether there would be any interest here in getting the exact readings and having our own on-line seminar here during one or more of the the Summer Academy weeks.

Here's a link to the program
http://www.sjc.edu/admissions-and-aid...

If there's enough interest, I'm sure we could get a copy of the detailed reading list.

For those interested, Coursera (the site that offers free college level courses) will be starting a course on Kierkegaard on October 7th. It will be taught by Jon Stewart, of the University of Copenhagen. (Although he teaches in a Danish university, his English is excellent and will be no problem.)

The course description reads "In this course we will explore how Kierkegaard deals with the problems associated with relativism, the lack of meaning and the undermining of religious faith that are typical of modern life. His penetrating analyses are still highly relevant today and have been seen as insightful for the leading figures of Existentialism, Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism. "

In a pre-course email he writes "During the first week, the basic premise of the class is presented, namely, the idea that Kierkegaard used Socrates as his model. Since Kierkegaard sees himself as fulfilling a Socratic task, it is important to gain some insight into the thought of Socrates in order to determine exactly what it is that this means. So a portion of the first week’s lesson looks briefly at a couple of Plato’s dialogues, Euthyphro and The Apology, which Kierkegaard studied carefully."

Since Coursera courses are free, you can try them out and, if you don't find one worthwhile, you can drop it with no issue. And you can decide on your own level of interaction: just listening to the lectures, that plus doing the readings, engaging in the discussion forums or not, taking any quizzes and tests and doing any assigned writing or not. Entirely up to your time and interest. I have tried about a dozen courses; some I completed all the way with great enjoyment and intellectual reward, some I just listened to the lectures and got the information without doing all the readings and assignments, some I dropped out of because they weren't satisfying me for some reason or other.

This is a link to the Kierkegaard course page, where you can view an introductory video by Professor Stewart discussing the course.
https://www.coursera.org/course/kierk...

The reprise of Freshman Year continues in the Classics and the Western Canon group where we will start reading the Odyssey in ten days. Would be happy to see more Johnnies there!

Those who want to reprise part of their Freshman year are invited over to the Classics and the Western Canon group, where we will be starting a six week reading of the Oresteia beginning on Wednesday.

Thomas wrote: "I think it's right that an idea like personal excellence, arete, or what have you, is common and recognizable. But that wasn't my first reaction to the Iliad. I thought it was about how the gods manipulate men into slaughtering each other. That was a little shocking for a good Catholic boy just out of high school. (A little too good, and far too naive.)
"

Nice point. Yes, on first reading by still fairly young minds, it can be a bit shocking. In my case it was less the divine manipulation you speak of than the graphic violence, given that I was brought up with a fairly sheltered life in a strongly pacifist home without a TV, so that I had not even been exposed to the images of the Vietnam war, which at that time was still several years from its peak of violence.

All those graphic descriptions of disemboweling, slicing through flesh, corpses dragged through the dust, and all the rest were a shock to me at the time.

I understand and partly agree, Thomas, but I think we did have more of a background than you admit. Some of the Greek concepts were certainly strange (some still are), but others weren't. The idea of a man being judged in part by personal courage is implicit in our society -- as little boys the "I dare you" "I double dare you" was part of our cultural background, as were such games, which I certainly played and I think many of my classmates did also, as King of the Mountain. (I have no idea whether it is also implicit in other societies). Most of us had at least heard of the Trojan War and had heard of Hercules, if not of the other Greek heroes. And there was more I think that we didn't recognize but was there.

Andrew wrote: "I know that these arguments are not your own but rather were given to you, but I need to say that (A) is really weak."

I actually think it's not as weak as you seem to. Every piece of literature or thinking is written in the context of a cultural background. Students who get to St. John's have almost all been raised or educated primarily in a Western cultural environment. Many of the references of literature we know instinctively. For simplistic examples, if somebody says "that idea was too hot, and that one too cold" we instantly know what the reference is to. More complexly, we have been raised in a culture which places value on individuals, which is not the case in all cultures. Whatever our religion, we understand the parameters and basic values of the Christian religion, so can pick up on veiled references to them in writing. Talking about an "Eden" is meaningful shorthand to us.

When we are reading a work from a very different culture, we don't have these clues to pick up on. References which the author expected to have meaning for us don't. Subtleties in the text based on cultural assumptions will be missed.

While we won't catch all references in Western literature, we will catch enough of them to make sense of the writing, wheres that would not be the case with other cultures for almost any 18 year old starting out at St. John's.

Certainly all this can be learned, references can be looked up, annotated editions can be used, etc. But the essence of the St. John's approach is that we do NOT rely on such external references or annotated editions. First of all, we just don't have the time. Second, the idea is that we read and learn from the original sources, not from interpretations of them or cultural textbooks.

Certainly as we mature and our exposure to world literatures and cultures increases we can make more sense of Oriental, Islamic, African, and other writings. But I think trying to read those as part of the seminar program for students fresh out of high school would not be productive.

Andrew wrote: "Why completely ignore so much of the contributions of the medieval Islamic thinkers? "

the reasons, as they were explained to us back in the 60s (back then it was more Oriental than Islamic texts at issue, but I think the same principle applies) were that a) we didn't have the cultural background to do justice to these texts and didn't have time to develop it, b) these works were not in the immediate line of development of Western thought which we needed to fully understand the later texts (the Hutchins theory of the Great Conversation -- these may have been great writers, but they weren't part of the Conversation), and c) given the problem, as you point out, that the college already needed to cut out a lot of important Western texts to get within the four years of the curriculum, there was nothing they were willing to cut out in order to include those texts.

I don't necessarily agree with all that, but this is what we were told when we raised the issue.

Thomas and I, both members of the Classics and the Western Canon group here, were discussing our next book read. Eliot's Middlemarch was one of our choices, and I had posted that its validation as a "classic" classic was attested to by its inclusion on the St. John's seminar reading list. Thomas said not so. We figured out that it IS on the Annapolis reading list, but is not on the Santa Fe reading list, which apparently substitutes The Scarlet Letter.

One wonders why this discrepancy. Any thoughts?

The Classics and the Western Canon group will be starting a reading/discussion of Don Quixote on July 1st. If you have any interest in reprising part of your Junior year, you're welcome to come join us.

There are several new translations out since I read it in, well let's just say close to half a century ago. They are a bit more enjoyable to read than Putnam was.