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Sorry. I could not get past the introduction. The announcers constant repeating of "Oolmand" for Almond was entirely too annoying.
David Custer
6 years ago
I have a hero. His name is Victor Davis Hanson.. The voice of reason. Will and Ariel Durant spoke to me, but here we have a living bringer of light,Victor, who, sees and knows the heartbeat of my nation. What is left in pandoras box,hope, can only come to the USA, if we have a leader such as Victor, or second best, advised by Victor. The days are numbered, and I fear a battle in Sicily, will leave the folks back in Athens, with an only choice but to abandon the fair city, and quickly sail away, to a colony.
Honey
6 years ago
In the novel, Sophie's Choice, I always considered her choice to be when she was asked to join an anti Nazi organization and help them before Hitler was in power. And she chose not to do anything, she was indifferent and didn't want to get involved.
Tom Demetrion
6 years ago
Bought the book my first year teaching. I could not put it down. I thank God everyday that I had a classical education. And wish more parents today would see the value and beauty of a classical education.
Robert J Stewart
6 years ago
Hi Victor, I've been posting comments following your interview and podcasts, but I don't know if you ever see them. I saw Stephen Blackwood's interview with Jordan Peterson yesterday (Thursday, 15 April), and I was pleased to see that you have also been included in the project to give Ralston College some high level visibility. I think your zoom-like video interviews work well ... I follow them religiously ... even the one with the fellow from the UK Sun, and I would encourage you to include a video presentation in any future interviews with Blackwood.
I think you are onto something very important with your comment on the use of the internet to replace or supplement college. I enjoyed your Athens/Sparta collaboration at Hillsdale, and that makes it clear that much can be done if the resources are made available to include a more personal interaction, for example using teaching-assistants as the host to help students work thru any homework/project challenges that might be part of the internet presentation. When I attended MIT 55 years ago, the head of the Mechanical Engineering Dept. gave the lectures to 2.25, and the incoming Assistant Profs moderated the homework workshops. This was really encouraging for us grad-students as we would see that our workshop mentors were often as as challenged by the homework as we were. This class was a kind of cutoff for grad students who aspired to the PhD program in ME and Ocean Engineering/Naval Architecture, as I was in 1967. There's no reason the entire protocol couldn't be transposed into an internet activity, involving thousands of students and hundreds of TAs/Assistant Profs ($$ permitting, but ten student per workshop session could pony up tuition on the order of a few hundred dollars per class and be tens of thousands of dollars ahead in just a year or two.) I spoke to Larry Arnn about this at an outreach dinner to Hillsdale donors in Belleview many years ago, but a bypass operation (quintuple) sidelined me for several years following that and we never heard anything more about it. That evening was kind of a bust, Cheryl and I never did get our photo in the "President's Club", but I think we're still members.
There are many things I'd enjoying discussing with you. One being your disparagement of deductive logic. I think of Geometry and Euclid in this regard, and I presume that you are unaware that our K-12 students are not given any introduction to the deductive logic of geometry. They are just required to memorize vocabulary (allowing them to pretend to know geometry,) and end results like the Pythagorean Theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and its more general result for any triangle, the "Cosine Theorem". But they can't derive anything, and they have no idea how the initial assumptions work there way thru every theorem and axiom. So they have no idea how initial assumptions lead to every results. This is critical, since most "post-modern" theory is basically circular ... what you assume is what you get.
Eric Clifford Graf
6 years ago
Excellent thoughts from Mr. Hanson and Mr. Blackwood, as per usual. Achilles might learn the lesson of the victory of the elites, but he can never really accept it, can he? I also like the agrarian theme. Aristotle is often pooh-poohed as insufficiently democratic, but he got the importance of farming right, i.e., there's something about owning property that makes people more rational citizens. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of men like Hanson and Blackwood is their willingness to fight and not compromise their principles just to be accepted by their academic colleagues. They don't say so outright, but I think they imply that lazy conservatives are also a part of the problem. For that line of thinking, see: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2020/11/13/huizinga-to-conservative-intellectuals-get-back-in-the-game/
Discussion (7)
Join the conversation. Logged in subscribers avoid the Captcha verification and get priority commenting approvals. No vulgarity, links, or code allowed.
Sorry. I could not get past the introduction. The announcers constant repeating of "Oolmand" for Almond was entirely too annoying.
I have a hero. His name is Victor Davis Hanson.. The voice of reason. Will and Ariel Durant spoke to me, but here we have a living bringer of light,Victor, who, sees and knows the heartbeat of my nation. What is left in pandoras box,hope, can only come to the USA, if we have a leader such as Victor, or second best, advised by Victor. The days are numbered, and I fear a battle in Sicily, will leave the folks back in Athens, with an only choice but to abandon the fair city, and quickly sail away, to a colony.
In the novel, Sophie's Choice, I always considered her choice to be when she was asked to join an anti Nazi organization and help them before Hitler was in power. And she chose not to do anything, she was indifferent and didn't want to get involved.
Bought the book my first year teaching. I could not put it down. I thank God everyday that I had a classical education. And wish more parents today would see the value and beauty of a classical education.
Hi Victor, I've been posting comments following your interview and podcasts, but I don't know if you ever see them. I saw Stephen Blackwood's interview with Jordan Peterson yesterday (Thursday, 15 April), and I was pleased to see that you have also been included in the project to give Ralston College some high level visibility. I think your zoom-like video interviews work well ... I follow them religiously ... even the one with the fellow from the UK Sun, and I would encourage you to include a video presentation in any future interviews with Blackwood. I think you are onto something very important with your comment on the use of the internet to replace or supplement college. I enjoyed your Athens/Sparta collaboration at Hillsdale, and that makes it clear that much can be done if the resources are made available to include a more personal interaction, for example using teaching-assistants as the host to help students work thru any homework/project challenges that might be part of the internet presentation. When I attended MIT 55 years ago, the head of the Mechanical Engineering Dept. gave the lectures to 2.25, and the incoming Assistant Profs moderated the homework workshops. This was really encouraging for us grad-students as we would see that our workshop mentors were often as as challenged by the homework as we were. This class was a kind of cutoff for grad students who aspired to the PhD program in ME and Ocean Engineering/Naval Architecture, as I was in 1967. There's no reason the entire protocol couldn't be transposed into an internet activity, involving thousands of students and hundreds of TAs/Assistant Profs ($$ permitting, but ten student per workshop session could pony up tuition on the order of a few hundred dollars per class and be tens of thousands of dollars ahead in just a year or two.) I spoke to Larry Arnn about this at an outreach dinner to Hillsdale donors in Belleview many years ago, but a bypass operation (quintuple) sidelined me for several years following that and we never heard anything more about it. That evening was kind of a bust, Cheryl and I never did get our photo in the "President's Club", but I think we're still members. There are many things I'd enjoying discussing with you. One being your disparagement of deductive logic. I think of Geometry and Euclid in this regard, and I presume that you are unaware that our K-12 students are not given any introduction to the deductive logic of geometry. They are just required to memorize vocabulary (allowing them to pretend to know geometry,) and end results like the Pythagorean Theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and its more general result for any triangle, the "Cosine Theorem". But they can't derive anything, and they have no idea how the initial assumptions work there way thru every theorem and axiom. So they have no idea how initial assumptions lead to every results. This is critical, since most "post-modern" theory is basically circular ... what you assume is what you get.
Excellent thoughts from Mr. Hanson and Mr. Blackwood, as per usual. Achilles might learn the lesson of the victory of the elites, but he can never really accept it, can he? I also like the agrarian theme. Aristotle is often pooh-poohed as insufficiently democratic, but he got the importance of farming right, i.e., there's something about owning property that makes people more rational citizens. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of men like Hanson and Blackwood is their willingness to fight and not compromise their principles just to be accepted by their academic colleagues. They don't say so outright, but I think they imply that lazy conservatives are also a part of the problem. For that line of thinking, see: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2020/11/13/huizinga-to-conservative-intellectuals-get-back-in-the-game/
Does this mean that Homer Simpson is still okay?