The Modern Trivium: A Guide to Self- Education

An introduction to the idea of a modern version of the classical trivium as a means of re-educating ourselves based on classical principles drawn from Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and Classical China.

[@zakkonieczka6811]

Thanks so much for what you do. You take complex ideas and make them so comprehensible, listening to your lectures always inspires me to want to learn more!

[@pillmuncher67]

I hated school. I fucking hated it. I hated it so much. Except for reading and writing, basic math skills, and English (I'm German) and whatever Latin I haven't forgotten, I never learned anything interesting in school. Now I'm a computer programmer, a musician, and a philosopher. I understand advanced concepts in all these disciplines. Every other year I program an embedded domain specific language for logic programming in another programming language as an exercise. I can explain the ins and outs of Schopenhauer's philosophy. I can explain Wittgenstein's private language argument. I can explain most of the Dao De Jing. I can play the electric bass, both fretted and fretless, and the double bass. I have some understanding of macro economics and politics. I learned all that from reading books, practicing a lot, and becoming friends with academics. I do understand that I was privileged in that I didn't come from a poor family. Not a very rich one, but wealthy enough so that I had some time on my hand in my teens and early twenties without having to scramble for money.

[@klosnj11]

As a fellow philosopher (my focus a bit older) and bass player, we have a lot in common. I didn't hate school...I just didn't do the things I didn't want to and skirted through with Cs. I loved learning what little programming I have (very basic stuff) but I have more focus on economics and handiman skills (fixing cars, plumbing, home electrical, carpentry, large scale gardening, etc). We are homeschooling our children, sending them for just a couple classes at public schools. The math teacher is baffled at the drive and passion that my son (15) has for learning math and his drive to work his way up to advanced calc before 18. My youngest (still in elementary full time, third grade, homeschooling starting next year) astounds her teacher with a vast array of knowledge and interests. My middle child (10 years old) likes to reference famous poetry by Shelly, Dickenson, Longfellow, Frost, etc. I have done much, but nothing I am so proud of than the outcomes of my efforts with my children.

[@klosnj11]

@@Eet_Mia believe it or not, I am a rural citizen from birth. I grew up raising livestock, hunting, fishing, etc. My experience with other rural people is that they assume that you think they are stupid. But they arn't. They just have a vastluly different knowledge base and skill set; one that is far better suited to their life. If you try to talk Tolstoy with them, they are likely going to see it as you holding your education over them. Instead, ask them things. Guaranteed, they can sharpen a buck knife better than anyone in the city, they can probably show you two dozen knots you have never heard of, and can retrofit a tractor starting moter onto their grandfathers old International Scout with basic tools and some scrap parts. Show them that you know they are smart but in a different way, and they will show you much more respect.

[@TomRauhe]

​@@klosnj11what about if they likewise appreciated your knowledge? Wouldn't that be an open minded thing.

[@klosnj11]

@@TomRauhe ah yes? The onus should be on the poor and uneducated to be openminded, extending the olive branch? Now, some of them do. But many have found that they gain nothing by doing so. Some pompus arrogant snobs are not worth the time and will treat you with diserspect and disdain so long as you haven't gotten a masters degree at least, even if you have read through the 54 volumes of Britanicas Great Books of the Western World. Then again, for all the skills and knowledge they have garnered through less than traditional means, the saint-like patience to deal with some university types is not in their repertoire. I can hardly ever muster such self control myself.

[@TomRauhe]

@@klosnj11 depending on where the curiosity should rather lie. "Show me how to chop wood" or "you've seen much of world, tell me what it's like"?

[@nguyenhs9800]

Your beginning line is so iconiccc. Gooood eveningggg lady and gentlemen!

[@herefornow9671]

THANK YOU WES CECIL!!! Have been Loving your lectures for many years now 🙏 Port Townsend 💜

[@Davidfrompluto]

We love you, Dr. Cecil. Your amazing consilience and insights are such delightful companions for those of us who aspire a Renaissance man education. I agree with Socrates, " The good lies in wisdom." I might only suggest that one could find onself second by stidying the world first. This has been my road. Gracias, maestro! You are light.

[@Astrologon]

Great stuff, as always. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else talk about education and make this amount of sense consistently. Personally, I had a lot of pretty good schooling by modern standards, but it was all basically pointless and useless by the ancient metrics. They even failed to teach me English, computer games did that. Fortunately, as a talented student, I was always left alone to do my own stuff, which is how I learned everything that both feels fulfilling to me now and allows me to make money. It worked out for me this way, but it would sure be nice if literally any part of it was also happening at school - in my case, the actually helpful things were debating competitions, poetry and theater, computer games, and, believe it or not, astrology. I guess my education was in many ways literally ancient and classical, plus computers. Then again, they had Antikythera mechanism back then, so maybe computers wouldn't be a very surprising educational addition to them.

[@shafouingue]

I agree with your arguments and I'm looking forward to your next videos on this. It's only 2 years after finishing my bachelor's degree that I realized there were many topics I wanted to learn about, like philosophy, and that getting a stable income from a job was not getting me any happier or less confused about life.

[@ZainKhan-sm8gr]

In the same boat here!

[@dandiacal]

I very much like your channel and feels it performs a much needed role on the YT in terms of cultural literacy and related matters. I had overwhelmingly positive experiences with school because I went to both an arts high school and then onto music and liberal arts studies for college. From what people tell me there is a world of difference, you could say different galaxies, between the particular schooling I experienced and the generic mass kind - yet all are in the (same) educational system. There are trends over the past thirty years, possibly forty, that seem to be negative in the way that you diagnose in this episode. But I was long out of school before these took hold.

[@toddb9311]

Barthes thought every class should be taught like a literature class. His denotative, connotative and symbolic are in the ballpark.

[@TheIntrepid7]

Thank you very much for doing this.

[@Linkzcap]

thanks for providing some needed insight

[@eyg90]

Thank you so much.

[@Bobby-mq6lc]

I really appreciate the notion of being fluent and perfect, but it is a illusion We are one, and to know thy self is to clearly know the other. There are millions of different experiences some more valuable than others, have some prudence choose wisely and judge the tree by the fruit. Just found your channel love it;

[@w1cked001]

First! Listening on my lunch break right now

[@obrotherwhereartliam]

Question for you Wes, when you say people conflate money with power and that it is a false connection. What about power with money, or in the case of the CasP people, capital is a way to quantify one's power? I know that you added the Capital as Power book in the library app you are a part of, I would be interested in your thoughts of the book. Thanks again for the lectures!

[@rcmrcm3370]

A hammer is a tool, so is money. The USA is finding out right now that no matter how much money you have if you can't produce ammunition, then no matter how much money you have you are disarmed, or rather Ukraine is disarmed. USA at least still has two oceans to protect it.

[@HerrEinzige]

Liking and commenting for algorithmic purposes

[@JC-qh6wl]

It’s interesting that you alluded to a “progress” that had occurred by the Renaissance, but it seems to me that this sense of “progress” is what justified abandoning the liberal arts as the basis for education. In my mind, the whole point of the liberal arts is that they are timeless. No adaptation should be necessary, and once you’ve conceded that it needs to be adapted it’s only a few more logical steps to abandoning it entirely. I also find it interesting that, at least in my experience, the sons and daughters of the upper class often pursue our closest approximations to classical education. They go to liberal arts colleges and study philosophy, mathematics, English, etc. and if they enter professions, they enter professions like law and journalism. The strictly technical education is given to the masses of middle and working class people for the most part, whereas before they typically received no education at all. Neither the children of English aristocracy nor the children of Kennedys and Rockefellers tend to study engineering.

[@aymenboussouar1880]

Can you write about suicidal thoughts please

[@Tom-rg2ex]

Albert Camus said that the question of whether or not to you-know-what oneself is the question in philosophy that must be answered before all others. Existentialism in general is really great for addressing the subject, it does away with all the positive affirmation B.S. that only makes people more unhappy by setting unreasonable expectations, and really addresses the questions of pointlessness and purpose in the world with serious inquisitive rigor. I genuinely think it's not great that our contemporary culture labels questions about whether or not to exist as a "mental illness," to me it echoes the clergy calling it a "sin," and I think it's one of many ways that our culture discourages the population at large from thinking about their lives philosophically except when it's cloistered in detached academic circles.

[@iqbalmatondang]

Love it. I used to listen to John Gatto about Trivium

[@andrewgentner6169]

The idea that you should know yourself and know the world before you become into power... That's Confucianism