Great Books: The Great Conversation

you welcome to this edition of great books a lively discussion of a selection from the canon of exceptional literature here's your host Jack Hatfield welcome thanks for joining us for the great book show on Jack Hatfield our panel meets periodically to discuss great works of classic and modern literature let's will introduce our selection for today an article by Robert Hutchins the great conversation yes in this episode we'll be discussing the founding principles of the great books organization as active participants in this endeavor we are addressing a topic that is dear to our minds and hearts the great conversations is the underlying basis of the great books reading program it utilizes a Socratic method of reading discussion argument all for the purpose of obtaining knowledge knowledge then leads to understanding and that reflects our ability to make sound judgments the use of dialogue is essential to the educational process the great books and great conversations are ideas from several academic sources in the early 1920s the implementation of these ideas are the product of Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer J Adler Hutchins January 1899 to May 1977 was an American philosopher educator lawyer Dean of the Yale Law School president of the University of Chicago at age 30 Chancellor of the University of Chicago his tenure at the University of Chicago set a landmark in the direction of higher education in the United States after leaving the University of Chicago he headed to foreign foundation and later founded the Center for the Study of American institutions Hutchins served as the editor and chief of the great books to the Western world and gateway to the great books additionally he served as co-editor of the great ideas today chairman the board of editors of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1943 to 1974 and also published extensively under his known own name comments by Hutchins speak for his contribution to learning the death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush it will be a slow extinction from apathy indifference and undernourishment to put an end to the spirit of inquiry that has characterized the West is not necessary to burn the books all we have to do is leave them unread for a few generations a liberal education frees a man from the prison house of his class class race time place background family and even his nation to solve a problem it is necessary to think it is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect the object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives Jack I thought for this selection would go a little bit of feel from our usual hearin stew the great book foundation guidelines which is primarily this text itself one thing I noticed reading this that there was very little about fiction and Hutchins great book canon is at least half if not more fiction than nonfiction and I was wondering how he defines different terms he talks about liberal education why what's the the goal of it why should we read Shakespeare why should we read Dickens I think he's addressing the issue of commonality and understanding one of those arguments in here is that the school systems we currently have in place are more vocationally driven and in the process of doing that we're losing part of our humanity and so the program officially is great books and they were determined by a group of scholars that they felt contributed to what society the wide range fiction well leading to that and the reason fiction is not as much a part of this canon but it is still important in the product of what we do because within the great books organization that Jack runs we are not just strictly adhering to the great books as outlined by Hutchins we read all kinds of things and literature contributes another Avenue of understanding that is beyond vocational or science so it frees the mind to look at things through a different lens than just constantly through a scientific approach he talks about commonality and how it's important to have a common core of not beliefs because he says you can have a variety of beliefs but of knowledge and when you read something especially fiction you see the world through a different viewpoint right I love he has a quote in here about it you read it and you see the wisdom of geniuses sometimes and you incorporate some of it into your own lives and I think that's very true it's fiction also because you're living the characters as you're reading and you're also getting whatever message the author is trying to give you and I think if somebody like a grant I mean she wrote fiction but she was a philosopher and she wrote those books to get an idea across instead of writing a political treatise and so there's a lot you can get from reading fiction as well as nonfiction what about the Dickens and the Shakespeare's well a lot of their stories are about life's lessons I think that's part of what he's trying to communicate you know his big subject of philosophy religion and history that's what he and he goes back to scholars I am I correct when I say most of all of those books were written before 90 not before 1900 and he's going back to scholars oh there's great friction writers our scholar I mean you talk about philosophy talk about Huckleberry Finn what's the author Mark Twain Mike Twain I mean my point was a philosopher so I think friction fits into that answered the question and also Shakespeare he specifically mentioned Shakespeare as if you don't have a knowledge of him you're losing something what in society because it's part of our common knowledge part of our common dialogue and many references are made to it but I mean but it doesn't have to be both of you've already talked about the commonality beyond that why read mark 25 expand to learn what life's lessons I mean it also enables you to imagine outside of the real world where because in the real world you're kind of bound by certain rules and you're trying to find the end result based on the facts that are available but in fiction you're kind of free to think beyond what's available to you and imagine how the world can be in yeah imagine there's a whole paragraph there he uses imagine listen you remember that one I wish I can remember the details but it was all about imagination there's a quote that I really like to a reader leads a thousand lives no one I love who it's about work that workers it's not an ended to means so you can lead a good life yeah I thought that was is that the two reasons to do commonality which but and also this kind of leading more lives but listen to what he also says he says that you need to read these to have a liberal education and it's a good way to be educated and then he says what is the substance of this liberal education it appears to consist in the recognition of basic problems when you're reading a story even if it's fiction you're put into a problem situation you have to figure out how to solve it okay in knowledge of distinctions and interrelation in subject matter you're getting a whole different viewpoint about things that you're not currently coming across in your daily life and in the comprehension of ideas and you're seeing the world and you're seeing ideas through somebody else's eyes and so therefore fiction can give you a liberal education as well as nonfiction right now I know Jax a big reader of Sherlock Holmes and so there you have CSIS antithesis synthesis and you got problem solving and it's all rolled up I need a story and the end result is your problem solving but the uniqueness is the process of how you're solving the problem this is not related to your question but do you think he was an intellectual elitist Oh Hutchins were for the common man and that they're open to everyone I was confused what's he saying the cow everybody's got to read the great books no because there's a line in there the books are the best for the best he was discussing the idea of democracy going along with a liberal education right right and he's saying a lot of people a lot of critics of the idea of a liberal education instead of vocational or technological education say that everybody can't read these books so therefore no one should in a democracy let's keep everybody equal and he and he said critics also say that if we try to give a liberal education to everyone will ruin it will water it down and therefore nobody will have the benefit of it therefore we shouldn't give it to everyone and he said those were ideas given by the critics of liberal education but he's strongly in favor of it he thinks it should be open for everyone and more important he said that the young sometimes don't get it because they're so we have to continue right reading and thinking and growing as adults one thing that the great books foundation got his start back in the I think it was a early 50s or maybe in the late 40s is all of these soldiers were coming back and they had it's great need for for being exposed to ideas happening spoke - so they devised a program or you didn't it could be a high school dropout and still get something out of it and they used to have things in Chicago these big events discussing a book and it helped 2,000 people watching it so you go to literature that is not academic I mean from my personality the best book I probably ever read is Moby Dick and I belong to a book club and I told him I want him to read Moby Dick and they looked how thick it was and so they struggled through it and then when we had the dissection of it afterwards the light went on and a whole bunch of people's heads because it's not just a story about a whale it's a very very well-written piece of philosophy and so you don't necessarily have to have the great books to teach this you can get the same out of literature and I think it's CS Lewis had said we read to know that we exist in fiction - it shows you the ideas of how to live and then gives you an example of somebody actually living it which is sometimes hard when you read a nonfiction book and said well what does this mean how can I I bring this into my daily life when you read fiction somebody did a character did also allows you to interpret a situation in different ways based on an individual's background so if I were to look at it based on my background I can imagine a specific line with my background I don't decline but the same line can be interpreted in a different way for someone with an engineering background or philosophy background things like that so it was like speeding systems there's there's these transitions in life that you know when we become an adult when we get the job when we lose a job when we have a relative that dies when we finally facing death ourselves all of those we are unprepared for and reading as you said earlier can can give us that sort of we could see through someone's eyes that have actually the characters have gone through the and understand how they have done it there's two quotes he has about the young ya the most important things that humans have to understand cannot be comprehended by the you yes and the other one was the great books do not heal up their secrets to be immature and it also said that a lot of the time that the young spend in school is waste always wasted well it was interesting how he went through the eight years of grammar school for yourself and then he knocked off three or four years he said it's like what do you think about that concept do you think we're in school too long yeah yes yes I think a lot of what's taught especially in the early years is drawn out so much that a lot of students can probably do it in a more compressed material time frame so they can be exposed to more material and right now it's not for too many students you know what's interesting to me is that liberal arts is slowly making a comeback and today in today's world when you got a you're familiar with Mark Cuban yeah yes sitting there well you know he's saying that he's looking for people with liberal arts background because they know how to think there's a lot said that well some engineers can't read and write you know so it was yes I'm specialist right why why did this liberal arts give you more ability to think it allows you to get into different fields which kind of broadens your thinking as in not specific to a field as in whether computer science or physics or such rather it allows you to read various materials like physical sciences biological sciences and other fields as well so it kind of broadens your let's do look at things in different perspectives so that's with you I would say think broadly because well what more cubed is saying not not think I mean if you're building a bridge you want an engineering or mathematician right but it to look at a problem from many different points of view you should have been exposed to many different points of view so you can think outside the box subjects liberal arts addresses itself to versus specialties a specialty is very narrow yeah okay but liberal arts is asking the big questions of life who are we why are we here what's this all about and each generation is asking that question I think the point he's making about education is we have to continue this great books in this liberal education for every generation that I but I also want to say that liberal arts also includes the sciences and math you know what it doesn't include is engineering or you know pharmacy or it's all the specialized yeah the specializations even Isaac Newton said my accumulation of knowledge and all the things he came up with he stood on the shoulders of giants yes so I mean he didn't get where he was without and he was you know he was a philosopher well that's true not only for science which is what he was trying to but that's also true for for psychology and philosophy and how do you stand on his shoulders and giants unless you read them unless you've heard them unless you study right and speaking of books I love Einstein's cold who says the only knowledge you need is directions to the library he had one comment that I thought was interesting taking a different direction he said that once we stretched our minds must be website and having difficult works does that for us which is a real plus I love the quote as Aristotle remarked learning is accompanied by a sense in which every great book is always over the head of the reader he can never fully pretend it that's cool I was having a discussion earlier today about do you have to read the great books and they're original I mean do you learn more from reading Romeo and Juliet or can you get it from West Side Story you know which is the the same story modernized can you read an easier version instead of reading Shakespeare can I read the Shakespeare in English in modern English as opposed to your enjoyment of West Side Story is great life increased if you know Romeo exactly I'm thinking it might be an opening a way in for for people to whom jumping right into the brain works might be too little more salt yeah it might be too painful yeah so let me ask this question the really really great books are bedtime stories oh really really great literature great books it's bedtime stories how do you how do you encourage your children into reading you do it by telling them stories and in those stories are morals and ethics and oceans it's treasure they don't understand it their brain doesn't understand it but you put the foundation in early and hopefully that leads to them wanting to be curious and looking for other things later in life in fact Jack boy years ago we used to have a fable or two in our yeah yeah look at the Lord of the Rings or the lion which in wardrobe with which both have been made into popular movies and people have gotten access to these great ideas and great works of literature through the movies you know and hopefully when they then turn to the books the books have more layers and a deeper experience but there's a easier way you access that's in some of the movie makers who did the Jedi he he took most of that the first one from Dante's Inferno and so even a great portion of it came from Homer's Odyssey and so you wouldn't know that unless he knew the stories uh alright these great writers and having maybe somebody hearing you say that now we'll go and read The Odyssey know and see yeah really that's Star Wars Apocalypse Now that you know that came from the heart of darkness sure I mean almost almost verbatim just about oh yeah I thought it was something also interesting that he pointed on it's been a great deal of this essay talking about is when people turned away from any ideas that weren't the result of experiments right he talked about that a great great times the scientific method was applied to things that they shouldn't better right right before people live out the scientific method they thought and they wrote great books and then all of a sudden people turned away and said no because this wasn't part of a controlled experiment and he makes a point that not everything even some scientists can't do controlled experiments you know a spotters can't do controlled experiments well let's blow up this store and not that store you know they can't do that they can just observe but he also made the point that there's a quote by david you saying that you should burn all the books that don't contain numbers fires [Music] that but then it would be a powerful that would that would eliminate poetry because poetry is not a scientific method would be eliminated dude whom's right let me ask the question what things ask ask me several times do you want your doctor to be to concentrate on science and medical knowledge or do you want him to read first for the great books I've got an answer for that but I just conveyed the point that most scientists very good scientist also or only to literature right and that enriches them and that's the kind of doctor I want I don't want a robot in the future who only know they have to do that yeah a lot of doctors face end-of-life and of their patients and and have them be able to accept some some limitations to their mobility or whatever and if they just knew the science that wouldn't give him them the knowledge of to be able to deal with situations like that the problem I hear most people with their doctors it's not that or it's that they don't know how to listen they're looking at you not as a person but as a body and therefore they're not hearing what you say is important to you about your future they're just looking at you as a case and that's one of the things I think they're not teaching them in medical school and I don't know if you can teach this there's a concept of compassion I mean they're there to solve a problem and that the old saying goes the operation was a success but the patient does I mean you need to have some compassion as a person of medicine won't we go around why do you read fiction great books great books in general why do I read the great book oh my gosh well if you're a reader you know what a good book is a good friend turns out to be a good friend and how many times you can't wake it okay you can't wait to get home to pick up that book again well you know I like reading mostly nonfiction there is so much to look if you look at the great books you know most of that is nonfiction okay and if there's the only thing I think is more exciting then really is you know what I like being exposed to different ideas and whether that idea those ideas are in fiction or nonfiction it expands my world I can only live one life I only have one brain you know but I can't read what other brains have invented and conceived of and I love doing it listen as a child I used to ask a lot of questions and my teachers told me to shut up because there was disrupting the class and so after I get beyond that I found out there's all kinds of answers out there if you just look for Cindy so I am interested in rational thinking and how we came about to be with the scientific method so grade books is kind of an avenue to all those knowledge how they came about to be with different fields and scientific method and all that so that's one of the reasons why I like three criticals yeah how about you Jackson oh yeah one of the distinctions that another article made was between light reading and in-depth reading and one thing that our way of doing things is to not is to take a small relatively on 30 to 50 pages and really study it and then talk about it and that kind of forces me to really examine it in the discussion always adds so much more so that some very which I've kind of skimmed over my first reading and then the second reading and the third reading needs more and then finally it sinks in this is what this guy is wrestling with whether it's fiction or nonfiction and once I understand what he's wrestling with I understand why he wrote it and I just why I like it because most of those those problems that they're wrestling with are my problems too and in some way so that's kind of and I interesting joy there's another did I I'm really big into meditation there's many you know there's been some studies showing that reading can give you the same benefits or similar benefits and sometimes when I really stressed you know just picking up a book even if it's slock book you know it's just reading and it just calms me down yes so that kind of retreat from the world for a bit a little bit of rest is I think very valuable it's kind of the opposite what we're talking about before we can immerse ourselves and the problems of the author but we can also use that to retreat from our problems that's it's both so I've always wanted to have a show on why we read and I'm finally glad we could do it I wish we had another to help by not knowing knowing the great books in history by not knowing the great books in history we are often deprived of the light that they might chin upon our present problems and that's a story history thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed the show join us next time as we discuss another great selection as Aristotle said the best way to learn is to get together in small groups and discuss great ideas [Music]

Channel: Naperville Community Television NCTV17

Views: 5,594

Rating: 4.8800001 out of 5

Keywords: Great Books, The Great Conversation, Robert Hutchins, NCTV17, Naperville

Id: -IzfgwCcBrw

Length: 28min 47sec (1727 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2017