Finished "The Great Conversation" by Robert M. Hutchins

This is my second time through this book. The first time was when I got the Great Books of the Western World set two years ago. This time I read it because I was going to take a free webinar to discuss it through Abigail Adams Academy. It turns out the webinar is on the same day that I've set up to go to my Grandpa's and I highly doubt I'll be home by 6pm, so I'm not attending, but I still finished the reading.

The gist of the book is "why Americans should read the great books" and the reasoning is pretty convincing. It was especially fun to read this time because I'm farther along in the Great Books series than I was the last time I read it and now I can see some of the points he makes happening in my own thinking.

Written in 1952, it has some pretty negative views on the direction of public education and reading it in 2013, I can see the results of that direction pretty clearly. I wonder what he would think or write if he were alive today?

Here are some of my favorite quotes.

From Chapter 3- Education and Economics
"We must remember that economic independence is not an end in itself; it is only a means, though an absolutely necessary one, to leading a human life." I'd say, but I believe that the majority of people today do not think our school system is doing well at either.

From Chapter 5 - Experimental Science
"The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect." And I believe our public education is not intended to teach people to think but to train them to do a job the way they are told to do it.

From Chapter 6- Education for All
"Liberal education was aristocratic  in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power then, then it is the right education for everybody today." And we probably have even more leisure today than we did 60 years ago when this was written and we still have political power but have no understanding how to use it or why we should. We are convinced through years of training that we don't have leisure time and even if we do we are supposed to spend that time watching TV and going to the mall.

Last one, promise!
From Chapter Chapter 10 - A Letter to the Reader
"The question for you is only whether you can ever understand these books well enough to participate in the Great Conversation, not whether you can understand them well enough to end it." That's something I've been working on for the past few years and I intend on continuing that pursuit for the rest of my life. A liberal education in the great classics of our western tradition is something all of us have to find for ourselves. It's the basis of being a human being and a road or bridge to understanding other cultures and times.  I'm not a genius. These books were written for the common person. I'm not studying all day and understanding every sentence. I spend an hour a day reading from my list. Some times I get an "ah-ha" moment and sometimes I'm completely confused. A year later, I'm reading something else that makes that bit I read before come clear or I read it again in the future and it clicks. It's a baby step thing. I'll never get there and be done learning, but I will participate in the conversation about what makes us all human beings.

Finished Reading "World War Z" by Max Brooks

I started reading this book because I saw the movie, loved it, and a friend suggested I read the book. Then I saw it was written by Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks and that sealed the deal. I bought it.

The movie was scary and I was pretty sure the book would be scary too. I used to love horror books as a teenager, the gorier the better. I still love them, but have found that I am very susceptible to nightmares! It's not just scary books I dream about. Whatever I'm reading before bed is pretty much what I'll be thinking about all night. So this one kept me up a bit.

The book is good. I wouldn't call it classic material but it was thought provoking and entertaining at the same time. I liked the way it was organized. It's not a straight out story, but a collection of interviews in an order that tells the story years after it has happened. It left somethings open ended, which I'm not a fan of. I like things spelled out and finished. It's just my style. But I did love the story anyway.

I highly recommend it, even if you didn't like the movie. It different. I wouldn't say I got more from the book than I did the movie but I did get a different perspective. Two thumbs up!

Homer's Iliad

I just finished the Iliad for the second time. I've read Fagle's translation and liked it a lot better than this one. The one I read this time is in the Great Books of the Western World. It was still awesome, but not as easily read as Fagle.

My favorite parts? I love the way battles are described. Blah blah, son of blah blah, ruler of blah, who won this battle and that battle and raised these kinds of horses, took a spear through his neck and out his spine spilling his brains on the dust and fell with his armor rattling around him. Awesome.

And in Book XIV, Juno is trying to seduce Jove and he goes into all the women he's had children with, how great they were and the sons they bore him “but with none of these was I ever so much enamored as I now am with you.” Sheesh! He really knows his way around women, huh?

But there was one positive thing the book teaches us. When Achilles has games in honor of his dead friend, there is an argument about who won and who gets what prize but the solve the problem with honor and respect for the elders in the group and there are no hard feelings. That part of Book XXIII could really teach us all some useful social skills.

All told, I love both the Iliad and Odyssey. I'm sure I read them again in the future.

Great Grandpa's and Bouncing

Last Thursday, we went to visit with Great-Grandpa and we took him to Sky High Trampoline Park. I saw some posts from friends in Orange County that had been and it looked like a lot of fun. There was one right near Great-Grandpa's house, so we decided to go and Grandpa and I could watch them get crazy and then have dinner.

The boys loved it!

Bouncing

Falling.

Running.

Love the foam pit!

And Jake is spent!

It was really fun and they can't wait to do it again.We came home, had a nice pot roast dinner I had put in the crock pot before we left, and then took Grandpa to his doctors appointment.

It was a long day, but totally worth it.

Kayaking with Grandpa Bob

This happened over a week ago, but I'm finally catching up on the blog!

We met Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Bob in La Jolla so that Grandpa could take the boys on a cave tour in kayaks. It was great fun! We arrived and found a parking space (parallel parking...ahhh!!) and went to the tour office. The boys changed into swimming trunks and got ready to go. All of them looked pretty excited.

Bonnie and I followed them down to the beach to get some pictures of them taking off and then we went for a walk and some shopping. It was a cloudy day down there and a little muggy but still nice to look around and hang out.


They got their kayaks and some instructions and off they went!

Here are some pictures that Grandpa took while they were "out at sea".

The boys really liked the tour. They came back telling us all about the caves, the "homeless guy" that lives in one, the kelp, fish, and sea lions, the preserve, the houses on top, and the restaurant that got flooded.

They were all tired afterwards. Jake was a little sea sick. He said it was fine while they were paddling but they would stop and group together while the guide talked and that's when he started to get sick.

Tom was dared to try and stand on the kayak and fell in. He was pretty proud of that moment.

Bonnie and I watched them come back to shore.

Grandpa got rolled by his partner coming back in, so he was soaked! It was a great day and it ended with pizza from Round Table, so I don't think it could get any better. Grandpa did this for his birthday and the boys were pretty stoked that they got to share in it!

Thoughts about "The Illiad"

I had a moment with the Iliad yesterday when I read this, “I lay no blame upon you, it is the gods, not you who are to blame.” It was Priam talking to Helen. Really? She isn't to blame?

I find this kind of thing a lot in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The gods made this guy do that, or some other guy do something else. No one ever has an idea without a god coming and giving it to him, like when Agamemnon encourages his people to fight Troy, not because he thinks it's a good idea and they have the advantage, but because a god gave him a dream. Even the heroes are only doing what they can against whatever odds the gods have laid down for them.

Do we have new gods to blame in our stories? Do we do things in the name of happiness, money, or our circumstances? Or do we believe we make the best choices we could at the time we made them?

I believe we make choices and we have to live with the results of those choices once we make them...or do I? Bad things do happen to good people all the time. Maybe it's more about what we do with what is dealt us, like Achilles and his short life.

A revised version of my thoughts

I rethought this post  for a few weeks and re-wrote it. Here it is.

Listening to the talk about the federal government mining data from phones and internet use, I've grown more and more agitated. And it gets worse as I hear people dismiss the action as "a necessary evil".

Nine years ago I was accused of armed robbery and attempted carjacking in a nearby city. I was naïve and gave up as much information as the investigators asked without the advice of an attorney. I had done nothing wrong. I was completely innocent. How could they find anything I said or did to support their accusations? I was safe, even without a lawyer. They had the wrong person.

But I was wrong. My words were used against me. The suspect was a female that resembled me. I knew the area of the robbery well. I had a gun in my house.  I had no alibi. They turned me into what looked on paper to be a very violent person who had hurt people and stolen property at gun point. If you had not known me and had only read what the court papers said, you would have believed it. It took a lot of money, prayers, and support to get them to let me go. And they still believe that I am that person they made me out to be.

What could a federal government, with infinite resources and power, do with the same information about anyone? And how in the world would anyone fight it?

I sit here and wonder what I can do. I wonder if I should write something, tell people how I feel, what my resources have led me to believe. I wonder should I speak up and tell the people I know what I believe is right. Or should I keep quiet? What if my words are misconstrued? What if I’m accused of a crime against the state? What if some day, it’s against the law to speak out against our government and the words I write today are used against me?

This isn’t the only example in history, but it’s a recent one. Nazi Germany convinced the people that the Jews were the problem with their progress. They made it illegal for a German to help a Jew. Talking to a Jew could land you in a concentration camp along with them. You were sympathizing with enemy.

We don’t even have a concrete “enemy”. At any time, anyone could be considered a “terrorist”. So if I have friends in other countries like Iran or Afghanistan, and they happen to be Muslims, I now suspect if those friends of mine happen to be involved with our countries so called enemies? Now my calls and emails are being kept in a big database somewhere and if my friend ends up helping his people and is somehow hurtful to my own country, they can look it up and see if they can interpret my conversations as suspect?

And it doesn’t end at other countries or other religions. What if the survival website I read regularly for help preparing my home for an emergency ends up on some list? What if the owner of a blog I follow ends up hurting people, or takes steps against our government? Am I suspicious now? And how far will they go? From my daily experience, the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” no longer applies. I need to be able to prove my innocence at every turn and that is not always possible.

Then I read this in Plato’s “Apology”, “For fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.”

And then this, “...and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”, and this, “…understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”

Reading classic philosophy, history, even classic fiction shows me that the disputes we have today are no different than any other time in history. It gives me peace to know that throughout time everyone faces these types of problems. Even the Bible has help for what our world is going through now.

And we live in a time when anyone can get a good grasp of these subjects. I started studying these things only a few years ago when I could have been reading them since high school. When I started I only read fiction because it’s what I could handle. And I read as my small children went to sleep, at most an hour in the evening. But the more I read, the better I could read and I wanted more. I started reading the Great Books of the Western World. I followed their reading list and the more I read, the more I could understand. Things started coming together for me. I was being educated by these great authors of the past in only about an hour of reading a day.

Now, I’m passing that drive to learn and explore on to my children. They are getting a head start at these subjects because I use it in our daily lives. When I see something that reminds me of Aristotle, or John Locke, I mention it. When they want more information, I direct to them to the stories I started with and let them find their way through on their own time as I did. I feel like I’m doing my part for my community by showing my children how to think and learn on their own. My hope is that I can lead my family to not let the fear of the unknown stop them from doing what is right.

I won’t let the actions of a few dictate what I do with my life, what I read, who I talk to, or what I own. I will think for myself and make decisions based on what I believe is right, regardless of the threat to my person. The United States has lived on an island of freedom in a sea of tyranny since its beginning. I see a typhoon coming and hope we can build enough of a sea wall before it hits, for the sake of our children and theirs. The only way to build that sea wall is to educate ourselves. We have no excuse not to.