I listened to an interview recently of a right learning historian named Victor Davis Hanson. He is a professor of classics at Stanford University I believe. He was asked what he thought it meant to study the Classics, why people don't study them as much and what are he consequences. His answer fascinated me in a non-pc way that only a conservative military historian could. He said that the Classics aren't about learning facts, but they are about learning how to think. When you study Ancient Greek and Roman texts, there are no preconceived notions about right or wrong. That is probably because it is so long ago that we have no moral bias as we might if we were studying Nazi Germany (my point, not his). So modern education has become more fact based. But thats not the interesting point. The thing he said that struck me cold in my tracks was that the Classics died as soon as Universities started offering departments and majors that end in the word "studies". For example, environmental studies, women's studies, asian studies, african-american studies, etc. The problem with these types of programs, he claims, is that the start off with a prejudiced blame, inherent in the teachings. The entire basis of environmental studies is that Man has done something to the globe to ruin it. At the base of all women's stuidies as well as any other "culture-studies" is that white, european men did something wrong or evil, which created their current situation.
I'm not nearly as interested in whether or not white man did ruin the globe or ruin other cultures, that is a complicated question. But what is interesting is how accurate his statement of those new age departments really is. Those types of classes do have, at their core, the belief that somebody did something wrong and created a screwed up situation in the world. Is it a good idea to send off college graduates with the idea that someone is to blame? If you look at American Society, we love to lay blame. It is at the heart of everything we do. Our society is as over-litigious as ever. Every car accident has to have someone to blame, even thought its very name, "accident", implies that there is no blame. I think we would be doing ourselves a favor if we stopped trying to post blame every time something in our world is wrong and started to try to understand things better, purely for understanding's sake.
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Joe,
Being someone who majored in environmental studies (Environmental Sceince to be exact) your assessment could not be any more wrong. While doing environmental studies, it is not necessarily the goal to point out the problems, but to find out what caused what reaction, or figure out how to build a better mouse trap. We strive for knowledge and the only way to gain knowledge is to study. There are studies to try to answer questions like: Why does the earth create diamond in some coal mines, but not others even though the same heat and pressure has been there for the same amount of time? Why do the exact same environmental conditions (i.e. slope, speed of water, depth, soil type, etc) on a river produce different results in how the river reacts to flooding and the creation of oxbow lakes? These are not problems, and not an issue that we are putting blame on man, but things that man craves to find the answers for.
Harnessing the power of the sun or wind to create usable energy is not putting blame on man; it is just enabling man to be more efficient. In order to harness that power guess what? You need to study the environment. See your assessment in your post is severely flawed. I could go on and on, but I am not carrying my soapbox all the way over to your blog.
People don’t study classics anymore because they are non-applicable to the real world. Do you think a lab scientist who is working on curing the plague of the 21st century really gives a shit that Dante and Virgil saw the hoarders and the spendthrifts in the fourth circle? Does the scientist care at all that the Songs of Bilitis were a great hoax? No. The scientist cares about real world applications to help find answers. Classics, although great for reading and learning stories, are just that: stories. They will not help anyone because they cannot be used for anything more than a bedtime story.
I do want to point out that you make comments about wanting to put blame on things and you criticize it. Yet in your post, you blame colleges for offering things like “studies”. You are placing blame on something rather that accepting the shift in education. You complain about laying blame on someone or something, yet you do it your self. Maybe you should go back to school and major is “Hypocrisy Studies”
1) if you read carefully, the post was inspired by an interview from a Stanford historian. so you should direct some of your outrage towards him as well.
2) all of the things you described are perfectly interesting studies, but what you described sounds a lot like ecology and/or geology to me. Not, environmental studies. The "studies" of the environment and the world are not new, so I ask you what did your "environmental studies" department bring to the fold that was needed? Why not just have those perfectly reasonable classes under the older departments. The answer is more a political one and not one derived from an intellectual need.
3) You are completely wrong about studying the classics. The ability to think and reason is at the heart of literature, not throwing out trivial tidbits of information as you do in your comment. These thinking and reasoning abilities are central to all sciences. Unlike the people from more directed departments, people in the pure sciences merely ask questions that intrigue them and attempt to understand the world around us more than we did before. there is no motive, and there is no theme, other than knowledge. I don't deny that the fields more like what you describe are useful, but they are all hatched from academic research at some level, and academic research would also "have no use" as you claim for the classics.
4) Where you see hypocrisy, I see nuance. My criticism of -studies, is an attempt to understand something, not "blame" per se. I'm not trying to find an individual responsible for the shift. I clearly acknowledge the shift, comment on the fact that I don't like it, and then talk about why it may have happened. that is a long way from "blame". blame is quick and easy and typically directed at an individual, whereas analysis has no aim.
I think you are saying that because of the classics we are able to think and reason; therefore we are able to make great scientific discoveries. Those great scientific discoveries equate to great inventions that progress man along. My question to you is: How do you explain the greatest invention known to man being invented before there was such a thing as classics that would help man think and reason? The invention I speak of is, of course, the wheel.
I find it interesting that someone with a blog titled Triple Helix and has a profession listed as a postdoc scientist is defending studying the classics. That being said, I think that you are both correct, but wrong at the same time. Joe, there needs to be a balance between studying classics, and being a scientist. Classics do teach us to think rationally, or to learn from mistakes. Characters in tales that have only been told orally, before a written language was developed, can be considered classics. It all really just depends on your definition. Joe is clearly going with the definition of classics as the principal study in the humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, and archeology of the world. Stephen is clearly taking the definition of classics and applying it to the traditional sense, meaning the term classics generally refers to the Mediterranean World specifically starting with Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
With Joe’s definition, the wheel was invented by using classics. Man took the story of other’s strife through other tribe’s language, their cave paintings (which was literature at the time as well as art), remains of man in that area, and realized that by looking at all of that struggle; an easier way of life can be made. Those “classics” taught man to learn from his mistakes, so he thought rationally and invented the wheel.
I would hate to break this to you Stephen, but those “stories” that you claim are nothing but bedtime stories teach you a lot. Take the name you chose: Dedalus. The story behind that name teaches us a valuable lesson. Not a bedtime story, but a lesson in rational thought. This is just one of many. Think about how many everyday expressions you use to express you ideas and show you rational thought that you picked up from the Classics. You may not have studied them, but you know them. In fact, many of the classics that you have read have taught you to think rationally and you don’t even know it. I will just mention two classics: The Odyssey and The Aeneid. Without mention the plot, I can guarantee you are already forming thoughts and conclusions. You are comparing and contrasting Roman culture and Greek culture. You are remembering notable quotes from both. This proves Joe’s point that classics provoke rational thought and therefore provokes progress.
Enough of talk of the classics. Clearly, they are important for shaping society, no matter which definition you chose to use. I do want to mention the fact that colleges and universities are using areas called “studies”. I think these majors with studies in them are very important in learning more, and not laying blame. You don’t just get a Science degree. You get a Chemistry degree. You can even narrow that down to getting a Chemistry degree with a study (or concentration if you will) in physical chemistry, inorganic, or organic chemistry. These are a study. To use your women’s studies example, chances are one would be going for an Anthropology degree with a study in women’s studies. The aspect of adding a “study” adds a more detailed look into a specific subject. I don’t just work with computers, I have a study in programming. More specifically I have studied C++ programming. I added that concentrated study to learn more about a specific area. No, I do not blame any one either. I am glad that study was offered. It made me a better person, because I can concentrate my study and make myself a master in my area of expertise. This has been done since the dawn of man. An example: Man has studied stone working, but made a specific study in being a mason. Even more concentrated, they concentrated their studies to be a Master Mason which in turn allowed man to make some great architectural marvels.
Just a recap: The Classics are beneficial. Science needs man to survive and man learns from classical works. Concentrated studies benefit society. They help man figure out the answers rather than point blame.
Thanks for the intelligent commentary. Please keep it coming.
I think I should preface my original post with this nuance: Victor Davis Hanson (and myself) were referring to the springing up of whole departments with the suffix "-stuides". I doubt he would ( and I certainly don't) have any issue with the studying of any topic. I think its great to be a historian and specialize in how women have shaped human history. The same goes for any culture.
But the problem, that neither you nor Stephen have addressed is preconceived notions vs. inductive reasoning. The classics attempt to teach the latter. My questions are two fold. Firstly, why should there be an entire department dedicated to "Culture X-studies", instead of allowing that to fall under the rubric of the history or political science departments. Is there really a need for an entire new department? And secondly, if anyone who reads this comes from a "-studies" background, (which I, admittedly, do not), did you experience a feeling of blame? That is to say, was there a theme running through the entire departments faculty?
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