Home » “Classical education” making a small comeback

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“Classical education” making a small comeback — 14 Comments

  1. “We base ourselves in the West, in the culture of freedom that produced the Magna Carta, the founding documents of this country…”

    Wonder what “culture” that could have been?

  2. I once read that Duane Allman “stole” licks off Miles Davis “Kind of Blue’ album.

    I know that many jazz artists including Miles Davis “stole” licks from other artists including classical artists. All the jazz greats know their classical.

    Im not a Jazz expert, but some of it is

    well, listen

    https://youtu.be/1MvCnQIAQNM

  3. John Guilfoyle:

    If you’re talking about Western civilization of the time, it was based on many foundations: Christianity, its earlier influence Judaism (see this for the limitations on the rights of kings in ancient Israel), the feudal system and its effects, the Enlightenment (later on), and the idea of the rule of law.

    On the latter principle – the rule of law, as well as the allegation that it has divine underpinnings – please see this post, with particular attention to Noahide law #7.

  4. I only skimmed the article, because it does not correlate with my experience with the movement at all. I kept hoping the article would make sense.

    There is a huge emphasis on the Greeks and Romans (spoiler alert, the Romans were no friends of the Christians) at such schools, to the extent that Latin and Classical Greek are taught.

    It is literal, classical Liberalism. There were many Christian apologists and scholars who wrote great works on the subject, so those subjects are taught, but so is a wide breadth of other material. Even atheist philosophers and writers are taught.

    Seems like a fear tactic to scare parents into thinking such schools are Christian and/or right wing indoctrination camps. Sad.

    I taught a class for a year at just such a school, purpose built for Junior High aged boys from disadvantaged homes. All boys attend on 100% scholarship, paid by donors of many creeds and colors. Although bright, most all of the incoming sixth graders are a year behind their peers from less disadvantaged areas. At graduation, three years later, most are a year ahead of that same peer group. In other words, it works.

    I’m pretty sure Vivek Ramaswamy attended such a school in Ohio. Vivek. Who is Hindu. While majority Christian, I know from first hand experience the schools in my area oriented on classic education have Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist students as well as many atheists.

    I believe the now forming University of Austin is passed on these principals and is not associated with any faith, Christian or otherwise. Weren’t all of the Ivies founded as Christian colleges?

  5. Every part, down to the last vestige of Caucasian civilization must be eliminated, especially it’s history.

    The only way that the Caucasian race can atone for its ‘ancestral sins’ is through racial, cultural and national suicide.

    “Shakespeare through a glass wokely, as new book accuses legendary writer of ‘white-people-making’”
    https://nypost.com/2023/03/13/shakespeare-through-a-glass-wokely-as-new-book-accuses-legendary-writer-of-white-people-making/

  6. I’ve used this word classical pretty near my whole life, bar the first six or seven years I suppose. To say a bit more, it isn’t as though I didn’t have an iintention in mind when doing so: I meant something by it, though the something surely varied from time to time; an epitome here, an excellence there, a shining by-god best of all there was or could ever be on yet another occasion, and over this way another, narrower category, a special time period of musical brethren in associated styling propounding a permanent beauty into the universe. There are probably other meanings I’m missing just now, but that’s ok, and not where I’m aiming anyhow.

    It’s the origin of the thing that gets to, or puzzles me.

    Of course for the longest time, as with so many other terms which seep unbeknownst into our lives and speech (I’m looking at you, CULTURE) without our having fashioned them, or determined their trajectories in any meaningful sense, this one, this classic, suddenly jumped out at me, demanding I find where it came from (and why? well maybe, one day). So I went looking.

    And? Yeah, and. Apparently it’s from the Latin word for a marine, as in a naval infantryman. Jeez Louise. What the hell kinda thing is that?

  7. its earlier influence Judaism (see this for the limitations on the rights of kings in ancient Israel)

    Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

    A tenth doesn’t actually sound all that bad. That’s the rate in the lowest 2024 US tax bracket. UK’s lowest rate is 20%. Canada’s is 15%, Australia’s is 19%. So much for Israelite kingship vs common law. Though I suppose what Samuel was describing may have been more of a wealth tax really, though it did seem apply to each years’ harvest.

  8. Niketas Choniates:

    From the link:

    But more important, the book of Deuteronomy provides many rules to limit the king’s power (Deut 17:14-20): the king must be from the people of Israel and chosen by their deity; he must not multiply horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire them; he must not multiply wives for himself; and he must not acquire excessive silver and gold for himself. The king is to study the Torah daily under the supervision of the levitical priests so that he might observe Yhwh’s commandments properly and understand his proper role as king. 2Kgs 22 portrays King Josiah’s officers reading a newly discovered Torah scroll to him, and he subsequently declares a program of religious reform and national restoration in Judah and Israel (2Kgs 23:1-31).

    According to the Torah, kings were not in charge of the judicial system. Deut 16:18-17:20 calls for an independent judiciary of officers and priests in which the high priest serves as the chief justice. Consequently, the kings of Israel are subject to Yhwh’s law via an earthly court. And when these courts failed, the prophets stepped in.

    The idea was that the law limits the king and is separate from the king.

  9. Neo…precisely!
    It was the Biblical worldview of Christendom which allowed the Archbishop of Canterbury to hand the King a document aimed at preserving peace & extending freedoms & rights beyond the throne.

    That Dan Scoggin fellow can read Marx & Rousseau & pushback against Christianity all he wants & he’ll end up where we are now. Cut yourself adrift from that Biblical worldview & it’s a mighty rough ocean to sail. You don’t have to link yourself to a particular faith expression, but to pretend the foundation beneath your feet isn’t…

  10. well one should be familiar with Rousseau and Marx, because ‘we’re soaking in it’
    the Jacobin spirit of the former, inspired the Terror, and the anarchists like the so called Occupy and Antifa, like the squatters, again a euphemism for outright theft of property,

    Socrates is an interesting character, he opposed the council of 300, which were the oligarchy that arose out of the ruins of Athens defeat, one of his lead pupils Plato’s solutions were the philosopher kings, because well the people had made a hash of it, IF Stone made a big deal of the Trial of Socrates, as if it made his point, in the wars against Civilization

  11. I’m amused that the critics of classical charters liken them to a Trojan Horse. How would they or their readers know that appellation without knowledge of the classics?

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