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Sunday, April 23. 2023

Is higher education wasted on the young?


Temperamentally, I always had respect for my elders despite some adolescent rebellion and stupidity which lasted too long. 


In college, we all had to read The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Code of Hammurabi, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Hesiod, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Old Testament, and lots of more modern things like Plato. Foundational things. Yeah, parts of the New Testament too. Good (required) intro to everything wonderful. I had a good liberal arts education but we were too young and stupid for it.


Do American colleges have lots of lectures nowadays - not for credit, but just for general interest outside of politics? I don't know. I am grateful for Youtube. 


I was interested then, but it was more dutiful. Now I have a different sense of time. Gilgamesh feels recent.


This guy tells you lots about the Gilgamesh epic but too little of the story and maybe too much about the archeology. All fun:





Posted by Bird Dog in Education at 14:44 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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Youth is wasted on the young and wisdom is wasted on the old but music is your special friend...until the End.
Dumbed down dullards are easy to control with visions of stunts, blunts and hip hop all day as the egalitarian EBT cards roll right in.
As philosopher George Carlin said, they don't want people sitting around a kitchen table figuring out how they got thrown overboard by the best government that money can buy years ago.
You are on your own and the cavalry is in the mirror.
#1 The Thief He Kindly Spoke on 2023-04-23 17:31 (Reply)
You will be hard pressed to find a a more comprehensive compendium of world history than Will & Ariel Durant.

They provide a vast repertoire of knowledge to stimulate or kindle intellectual curiosity, the essential purpose of liberal arts learning. Not to be confused with socialist propaganda university pablum.
#2 Tallywhagger on 2023-04-23 19:37 (Reply)
As I approach 80 years of age, I have started reading many of the works which I read in college and in graduate school. It is amazing how much more one sees in re-reading the works read long ago. Life's experiences help appreciate a wider canvas in the art.
#3 Bob Wilson on 2023-04-23 21:18 (Reply)
There a couple of good translations of Gilgamesh from the past 15 or 20 years. I think the one I listened to as an audiobook was the 2004 translation from Stephen Mitchell

And I can recommend Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf. There is an audio version that I believe is read by Heaney, which is wonderful. (The old Epic Poems were meant to be told as stories.)
#4 Zendo Deb (Link) on 2023-04-24 21:43 (Reply)
A liberal arts college education seems like a waste. None of those texts mentioned couldn't be read on one's own time at a decent library and internet access. If you have the intellect and curiosity you can likely achieve 90% of it on your own.

I never did, so I went for a technical education when I spent my college dollars. Thankfully, the institutions required very little in the way of liberal arts, which I found boring and avoided as much as possible. I think I lasted through two lectures in a Philosophy class before dropping the course. I'm happy with having picked up maybe 5% on my own. If I recollect, the Odyssey was a high school book reading assignment, not collegiate level.
#5 ruralcounsel on 2023-04-25 08:16 (Reply)

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