It occurred to me today that we might be suffering because of a lack of classical knowledge.
Now, don’t get me wrong; there are many things that I am enjoying about the twenty-first century. The availability of information has been nice, but I wonder about the quality of that information and the sources of that information. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want to, but I think that there are probably people who manipulate what’s available on the internet –for easy access– to keep people who use the internet in check, to keep them believing in certain things.
Another problem that exists in the modern convenience of the internet, despite how much I, like many Americans, appreciate it, is that having things made easy for us has the unfortunate side effect of making us soft, intellectually speaking.
More to my point, I’ve been wondering about this experience I keep having, where I encounter classical philosophical knowledge, and each time, it seems like the greatest new truth that I’ve never heard of before. It shouldn’t be the case that I’ve been unaware of these authors and their wisdom, in the midst of a life of education and seeking knowledge.
As an example, I have a book of positive quotations that I use to try to motivate my students. I’ve chosen a number of those quotes to push out to my students regularly to keep them motivated and inspired.
The question that I most often get from my students about these quotes are questions like, “Who’s Epictetus?” and “Who’s Publilius Syrus?” and “Who’s Lucius Annaeus Seneca?” And while it doesn’t surprise me that my high school students don’t know who these people are, I wonder how many adults do.
The wisdom and advice of philosophers and intellectuals from the past, as valuable and applicable as that information might be today, isn’t what’s flooding the internet these days. But, it is available, if you go looking for it. In fact, for me, my starting point for this area of interest –other than the philosophy classes that I had many years ago during my undergrad– has been Pinterest. I have a couple of different boards on Pinterest where I am collecting little snippets of philosophical wisdom and advice. As I head back to those boards, looking through them at different points in time, it has occurred to me that I should just break down and start a reading journey through some of the greatest philosophical classics. Maybe you could try it, too.
But here’s the problem with that idea.
I don’t know how long it’s been for you, since you’ve picked up a piece of reading that was difficult for you to read, that contained language that needed to be unpacked, or that contained concepts that weren’t so easy for you to comprehend on a first reading, but if you endeavor to read some classical philosophical works, you’ll discover that difficult challenge, once again. Reading philosophy, especially classical Greek and Roman philosophy –Aristotle and Socrates and Plato and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca– is not at easy as it sounds.
For example, try heading HERE for a short bit of philosophical wisdom from Epictetus, called The Enchiridion. Try reading some of it, and you’ll probably see what I mean –> reading philosophy isn’t easy work.
In fact, I think it is happening, more and more often these days, that the “softness” that I mentioned earlier, the “softness” that comes from having so much made so easy for us, keeps us from being able to engage in hard things. I’m not going to bring up my running in yet another blog post, but I will say that I have recently become acquainted with the idea of doing hard things and finding joy in succeeding at what has been hard.
So, maybe a difficult process of reconnecting to the philosophical roots of modern society could be just the ticket for me in finding something hard to do with my mind to make it more “fit”.
And, as if I needed more motivation, there are some additional problems that are associated with not going to these original sources in the first place, for the wisdom and information that they contain.
If you’ve never noticed it before, the internet isn’t always exactly honest; whether this is the result of people publishing things on the internet that are wrong on purpose or accidentally, you can’t be sure of what you see on the internet.
Speaking on the subject, I have a t-shirt that quotes Abraham Lincoln as saying, “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.” Unfortunately though, the inaccuracies of the internet aren’t always as obvious as my t-shirt is.
Ever heard of snopes.com or factcheck.org? Would there even need to be websites like these if people only published the truth on the internet? Here’s a thought –> how do you know that you can trust the fact checkers? Who’s fact checking them? Scary stuff, when you stop to think about it.
If you can see where I’m going with this, I think we need to head back to the sources of information, if for no other reason than to avoid being mislead. And, to get back onto the topic of this post –having strayed somewhat– I think that I would probably be better served if I spent less time pinning (possibly erroneous) quotes from classical philosophers on Pinterest and more time actually reading the works of those classical philosophers.
If I am able to get nothing from these readings that I wasn’t able to get from seeing their quotes on the internet, at least I will have had the opportunity to 1) challenge my mind in the difficult reading of the classical texts, and 2) confirm that the quotes that I expected to belong to a certain author, actually do.
So, rather than trying to end this post with some witty closing statement, perhaps I’ll just generate a short list of some of the philosophers who show up most often in my Pinterest feed and on my boards, and the works that I think I am going to read from them.
It Occurred To Me Today 