Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Tea room
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How "great" are "great books?"
My first thought, as a teacher, is to tell him there's no significance to results if he doesn't control for multiple voting. But then, we don't really do that on goodreads either, I suppose.
This survey looks totally random. Of the first few questions I was struck by a comparison of Lysistrata to Prometheus Bound with regard to slavery, when neither has much to do with slavery, and Euthydemus to Richard II with regard to infinity. Whaa? But it's okay, because "there are no right answers." No kidding.
That survey seems completely random and pointless to me. Sorry. Not grasping the underlying concept at all. Perhaps the intention is to generate a relative ranking of "great books" for each "great concept" based upon the number of individual comparative responses, but that looks like a GIGO premise to me.
Conflating "don't know" with "neither" also seems like a faulty survey assumption.
Conflating "don't know" with "neither" also seems like a faulty survey assumption.
It's amusing, but I think little more. Plus, one's answers will almost certainly change over time, maybe over a few days. Also, I really wonder how much the answers are based on reputation and how much on actual reading. For example, I frankly doubt that very many of those responding have actually read Aquinas's Summa Theologica (even I have only read parts of it amounting probably to no more than 25% of the work), but it got as many votes as War and Peace and more than the Aeneid.
118 people have answered so far, and at least 6 of them claim to have read Volumes 5 and 6 of Gibbons's Decline and Fall and to rank it above some alternate title. Oh, really?
The other thing is that it apparently uses the Great Books of the Western World titles. The only Dickens that list includes is Little Dorrit, which got zero votes so far. There is no opportunity to vote for Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend. The series is very heavy on science and philosophy, and very short on fiction. So you can vote for Huygens's Treatise on Light (which got as many votes as Romeo and Juliet, and if there were four of those 118 people who have actually read the Treatise on Light I'll go without chocolate for a month), but not for Ovid's Metamorphoses or Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles, or even Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
By the way, the option I was given when I went to the site was between Aristotle's Politics and Tolstoy's War and Peace. How one is supposed to rank those in terms of greatness I have no idea. I would be glad to hear anybody suggest a ranking of those two with a discussion of why they chose the one over the other.
Actually, I started out thinking this was amusing, but I finished less amused than annoyed by the whole concept. Still, thanks for posting it, and there may be a few books on there that we should add to our potential reading list (Galen's On the Natural Faculties, anyone?)
My first question asked me to compare two works "in terms of 'quantity'." Huh?? What I learned from this survey is that I get grumpy when I can't even understand the first question, and I don't like being grumpy so I just quit right there. Good thing it doesn't count toward our grade. ;-)
Everyman wrote: "Also, I really wonder how much the answers are based on reputation and how much on actual reading. For example, I frankly doubt that very many of those responding have actually read Aquinas's Summa Theologica (even I have only read parts of it amounting probably to no more than 25% of the work), but it got as many votes as War and Peace and more than the Aeneid."I think a lot more people read Aquinas than Virgil because most serious Catholics have read at least good bits of the first's work.
M wrote: "My first question asked me to compare two works "in terms of 'quantity'." Count the pages. :D
I'm glad to see so many responses! A few responses of my own:@Andrea
There is some underlying control on multiple voting -- the tab marked "Your Great Books" will list the books you choose as "greater." Now, he can't control for change in computers and/or networks…but if he pushes this past Beta testing, he could have a sign in that should completely control for multiple voting.
@Thomas
I think Eric Lease Morgan designed the survey with an assumption that the person answering would A) know or not know the books and B) appropriately answer. So, if Prometheus Bound and Lysistrata have nothing to do with slavery, the "right" answer is "neither."
@Kate
I agree with the "don't know" and "neither" problem. There's a difference in respect to what is being asked. If I haven't read Aristole's Politics (actually I think I vaguely remember reading this for PolSci) and have read the Aeneid, I can't truly answer which is greater. Therefore the answer should be "I don't know." Whereas, having read both books in question and comparing it to a great idea that's isn't a theme in either book, the answer should be "Neither." I think I may recommend that to him. Hmm…
@Everyman
I don't know that this is supposed to be more than entertainment…and maybe an exercise in coding for crowd-sourcing. The list that this post came to is full of academics, techie people, and librarians…the likelihood of those people having read a large portion of the works is probably pretty high. I think the Great Books of the Western World was just for ease of coding. Since this is a Beta project, I'm sure ELM didn't want to invest a ton of time for little more than proof of concept. As for the options, they are always paired with a great idea. So, they aren't really completing against each other head to head; but as to how a great idea is handled in the work.
@M
Same as I mentioned above to Thomas, if neither work covered the great idea, you would chose "neither."
Having said all this, I keep having to remind myself that the survey is A) a Beta project and B) probably more about developing an effective code than great works…although, I could be completely wrong about that.
Lesli-- There are tens of thousands of surveys all over the net. Most are not worth the time and seriousness that you're devoting to them. And I also noted that every time I open it, the first question is different and equally inane. I haven't been so foolish as to go past the first question.
Rochelle,This one I pay close attention to because A) it is designed by an expert in the field of library science, B) I'm a librarian -- a systems librarian and that means lots of technology, C) there's a big movement in libraries and the internet about social apps and crowd-sourcing, and D) the survey takes a novel approach to "great" books and "great" ideas.
As for the survey giving different questions each time you start it, it's supposed to. It's randomized.
Lesli wrote: "Having said all this, I keep having to remind myself that the survey is A) a Beta project and B) probably more about developing an effective code than great works…although, I could be completely wrong about that."
As a code experiment it may work just fine, but I think the designer should take notice of the fact that users of the survey are annoyed by the random nature of the comparisons. The questions don't engage the user because they lack intelligence, and given the target "crowd" for the survey, that is a serious problem.
Ditto. Does Morgan welcome emailed comments?
Lesli wrote: "Rochelle,This one I pay close attention to because A) it is designed by an expert in the field of library science, B) I'm a librarian -- a systems librarian and that means lots of technology, C) t..."
I'm not what that expertise in the field of library science in and of itself makes a person any more or less qualified to judge greatness in books. In my experience of librarians, (my mother was working on her masters degree in library science when she died, and I was chair of the board of our local public library system for a number of years, so don't have your depth of experience with librarians, but I do have more than many people) many, if not most, librarians are more knowledgeable about fairly recent writing, since that's what most of their patrons are primarily interested in -- contemporary fiction and nonfiction, children's literature, audio-visual materials, reference works, and Internet resources seem to be where most librarians I know focus their attention, not on classical literature. In terms of the concept and design of the experiment, yes, there would be benefit in having the technology and crowd-sourcing skills, but this experiment seems more suited to, for example, asking about favorite genres or authors than judging which of two books is "greater," with no criteria for what determines whether a book is great.
As to librarians having read more books than the average reader, probably true, though again in my experience they tend to focus more on recent works and things that their average patrons are reading than on the obscure classical works that are involved here. I still frankly doubt that very many librarians have ever read Huygens's Treatise on Light!
It's an interesting concept, but I think being used for a purpose for which it's not well suited and using a sample set (the GBWW) which isn't appropriate to the audience.
But that's just my opinion.
You could probably leave a comment on his blog post about the project: http://infomotions.com/blog/2010/11/c....
Most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in terms of rating books.Compares apples to orangutans to phantasms. Beyond the mathematics of the code, there is no value to the results. Epic fail!
I've been inspired. Please complete the following, analogous survey:1) Which food is "greater" in terms of prosperity?
a) Kimchi jjige
b) Lime
2) Which food is "greater" in terms of gumption?
a) Baobab fruit
b) Seafood Tagine
2) Which item of clothing is "greater" in terms of shallowness?
a) Spanx
b) Shinguard
3) Which sport is "greater" in terms of arrows?
a) Underwater Rugby
b) Orienteering
4) Which person is "greater" in terms of magnificence?
a) Neil Zenz
b) Brother Theresa
5) Which adjective is "greater" in terms of describing?
a) Unable
b) Thwarted
Thank you for your participation, and remember, there are no right answers! (because all answers are wrong)
Zadignose and John address my issue with this survey: they don't define "great." What does great MEAN? Influential? Entertaining? Inspiring? Something else?
Phebe wrote: "Zadignose and John address my issue with this survey: they don't define "great." What does great MEAN? Influential? Entertaining? Inspiring? Something else?"Yes. Not to be facetious, but those are all part of being great. I'm not really sure it's definable, but Russell Fears in his lecture series "Life Lessons from the Great Books" for the Teaching Company gives his definition by saying that a great book is a book that "has a great theme, speaks across the ages, is written in noble language, and can touch the reader as an individual."
He continues -- and I'm looking here at the outline of lecture 1 -- "Each of the books we will read addresses some of the most important questions we can ask: How should we live our lives? What decisions should we make?...each of these books is also about wisdom ... a great book should be written in language that elevates the soul... each book contributes to an ongoing current of intellectual excitement and dialogue."
I have cited before, but will cite again, what I take as the core concept of the great books, as stated by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler in their introductory essays o the Great Books of the Western World series. Hutchins talks of the "Great Conversation" which has engaged thinking men and women since the dawn of awareness. The Great Books are works that participate in this Great Conversation, which is ongoing and continuing to this day.
Adler in his introductory essay to the second edition writes:
The goods of he body are food and drink, sleep, clothing, and shelter. These are goods we need because they are indispensable for sustaining life....
The goods of the mind are information knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We seek these goods not just in order to live, but in order to live well. Possessing them lifts us above the plane of animal existence, for these goods enhance our existence as human beings, as well as providing enjoyment and pleasure."
I can't do any better than that.
Everyman wrote: "is written in noble language,"I am intrigued that you (or Russell Fears) includes necessarily that the work be written in high diction.
This would exclude a lot of older literature......Catullus, some Ovid, Rabelais certainly and Balzac of Droll Stories; I am not so sure my current obsession Parzival would pass that sieve, with the beautiful youth repeatedly escorted to bed by multiple maidens giggling about what might be going on under his clothes or bedcovers. (Wolfram was plainly a highly entertaining stand-up comedian/bard.)
I have an edition of Don Quixote that actually shows in a colored illustration what happens when Sancho Panza is afraid to leave Don Quixote's side in the night to relieve himself. Parts of Chaucer cannot be considered high diction, and as for Shakespeare -- Well, it helped that he fired Will Kemp, but still, that Dogsbody!
What do you think about the diction issue?
Phebe wrote: "What do you think about the diction issue? ..."Well, diction is about: "choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness: wording used."
It doesn't really pertain to the "what" to which it is being applied, does it?
However, democratic and global modernity, medieval-ism, and antiquity probably embrace acceptance of a wider range of diction than was considered appropriate when and where conservative or Victorian-type standards were applied.
Phebe wrote: "Zadignose and John address my issue with this survey: they don't define "great." What does great MEAN? Influential? Entertaining? Inspiring? Something else?"This instructional video might or might not define greatness, but it does illustrate why the survey in message 1 does NOT accomplish its goal...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmayC...
Lily wrote: "Phebe wrote: "What do you think about the diction issue? ..."Well, diction is about: "choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness: wording used."
I'm referring to high diction versus low diction, as seemed to be implied by the term "noble language." High diction is that used by Malory, with his knights of the Round Table considering only noble matters; low diction is used by many Internet posters today, who use coarse language referring to sex and excrement, and also low diction was used by Thomas More when describing Martin Luther pejoratively. Both in Latin and English, the low Latin insults being considered quite a feat at the time.
Jim wrote: "This instructional video might or might not define greatness, but it does illustrate why the survey in message 1 does NOT accomplish its goal..."I looked at that survey and tried to answer a bunch of the questions. They reference obscure and very old literature and random questions about pointless words, like "mechanics" and "space." My guess is it's one of those psychology questionaires that actually tests something quite different from what it pretends to test. They used to always be doing that sort of thing where I went to school.
It's a form of lying, really.
Phebe wrote: "Everyman wrote: "is written in noble language,"I am intrigued that you (or Russell Fears) includes necessarily that the work be written in high diction.
This would exclude a lot of older literat..."
Isn't Fears talking about style, rather than content? Catullus, Rabelais, Cervantes, et al. certainly had style, which is indifferent to moral propriety. Plenty of morally reprehensible authors had (and have) a noble style.
As for high diction, I give you Mark Twain:
“What's the use you learning to do right , when it's troublesome to do right and it ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” (Huck Finn)
Which I consider wonderfully noble style, even if it breaks every convention of grammar in the book. A philosopher might take a dozen pages to express the same question, and do it with less elegance than Huck.
Thomas wrote: "...“What's the use you learning to do right , when it's troublesome to do right and it ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” (Huck Finn)..."So I said in my heart,
“As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?”
Then I said in my heart,
“This also is vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 2:15
As an armchair Platonist, I tend to think that it is the idea, not the language, that bestows nobility and dignity to our utterance. An ignoble idea dressed with noble diction is "like earthenware covered with silver dross.", or "a ring of gold in a swine’s snout".
The ribaldry and ignoble language in Shakespeare, Rabalais, Twain, Ovid, and so forth belong not to the authors but to the authors' characters.
Roger wrote: "The ribaldry and ignoble language in Shakespeare, Rabalais, Twain, Ovid, and so forth belong not to the authors but to the authors' characters."Well...
Though I appreciate that character =/= author, and I don't think authors are morally tainted by the actions of their characters, generally speaking (not that I care much for such evaluations), I'd say these authors took delight in the ribaldry and ignoble language that they crafted with their own pens, and it belongs to them as much as to the mouthpieces they commanded to speak the words.
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Meanwhile, I think that to understand any definition of "great works" such as the one proposed above regarding noble language, it can only be understood by appreciating (or rejecting) the sentiment. It can never stand up when deconstructed, micro-analyzed and subjected to tests.
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Furthermore, I don't think Patch Adams should have encouraged those kids to rip pages from books. Of course the contents were execrable, and Rabelais may have used such matter as toilet paper, thus inviting the descriptive "excrement," but all book burnings are rationalized by those who execrate the contents of the books they burn. Perhaps it's better to venerate the printed page.
Thomas wrote: "Isn't Fears talking about style, rather than content? Catullus, Rabelais, Cervantes, et al. certainly had style, which is indifferent to moral propriety. Plenty of morally reprehensible authors had (and have) a noble style. "I agree. I think "noble" may be a poor choice of words. I think he's saying that the language should be more elevated, and elevating than, say, normal conversation or a Harlequin romance. I agree with Thomas that the passage he quoted from Huck Finn is noble in its effect on the reader, which is where it should be tested.
Nemo commented that "As an armchair Platonist, I tend to think that it is the idea, not the language, that bestows nobility and dignity to our utterance. An ignoble idea dressed with noble diction is "like earthenware covered with silver dross.", or "a ring of gold in a swine’s snout".
Yes -- not only the language but also the content must both be elevated above the common.
Thomas wrote: "As for high diction, I give you Mark Twain: “What's the use you learning to do right , when it's troublesome to do right and it ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” (Huck Finn)
Which I consider wonderfully noble style, even if it breaks every convention of grammar in the book. A philosopher might take a dozen pages to express the same question, and do it with less elegance than Huck. "
No, I disagree: Mark Twain commonly writes in what is the very essence of low diction: he does so deliberately and it is his great charm. His whole POINT is that he is not using high diction.
High diction is an elevated style ("noble language") and low diction is a common-man's style. Of course one can express extraordinarily stirring feelings and concepts in low diction, if the writer is good enough, and Twain was definitely good enough: that's the power of Huckleberry Finn.
Quite a lot of authors have tried that on, using low diction to express great ideas and emotions, and when they succeed, they are read and remembered. Gulliver's Travels and Voltaire's Candide are perhaps two such works.
Another example: people here in this group usually write in high diction. But the Internet generally is a haven for people who use low diction and are proud of it: so that on the poetry part of the Dead Writers Group somebody has headed a discussion, "Shelley is the SHiiiiitttttttttte!"Okay, that's low diction. [:-)
No, but I have been an editor. I'm retired now.
No, I disagree: Mark Twain commonly writes in what is the very essence of low diction: he does so deliberately and it is his great charm. His whole POINT is that he is not using high diction. "
I think we actually agree on that point. "High diction" does not determine the quality of the expression, as can be seen in Twain. That's why I supplied the quote. But Fears doesn't actually say "high diction," nor does he dstate what constitutes "nobility" with respect to language. Would he exclude Dante because he wrote in the vernacular instead of the more "noble" Latin? Of course not. Would he exclude Aristotle because his work is in the form of class lecture notes? I doubt it.
I tend to think that diction is a superficial characteristic that has nothing to do with nobility at all. The problem with "Shelley is the SHiiiiitttttttttte!" is not the vulgarity of the language, but that it articulates very little.
Perhaps the claim that great literature must use noble language is simply wrong, and the term "noble language" is too ambiguous in its connotation. If one lets it be ambiguous enough, then one can redefine it on the fly in order to allow every case to prove the hypothesis. Or we could try tautology:-All great literature employs noble language.
-"Noble language" is defined as that type of language which is employed in great literature.
Thomas wrote: "The problem with "Shelley is the SHiiiiitttttttttte!" is not the vulgarity of the language, but that it articulates very little."That's rather a good point! I hadn't thought of the common Internet diction that way: it shocks, and is intended to shock or amuse, but it doesn't actually SAY very much. Perhaps because the person enunciating it can't, really.
Zadignose saying, "...we could try tautology:
-All great literature employs noble language.
-"Noble language" is defined as that type of language which is employed in great literature."
I'm not sure I want to call Huck's language "noble," precisely....I think it would irritate the author, since he worked so hard to ensure it would be just the opposite. I like your idea that the original quote is simply wrong: it's not about high diction, though it is true that a majority of "great literature" IS in high diction. But Shakespeare in the Great Beyond is looking exasperated now and wondering if he has to revise most of his plays to qualify for this forum. I'm going to say he doesn't have to make any revisions to raise the diction.
Jim wrote: "Phebe wrote: "Zadignose and John address my issue with this survey: they don't define "great." What does great MEAN? Influential? Entertaining? Inspiring? Something else?"This instructional video..."
Jim, that was great! I'm not a movie buff - what movie is this?
Martha wrote: "Jim, that was great! I'm not a movie buff - what movie is this? "In case Jim doesn't see your question, it's Dead Poets Society.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/
As a former high school English teacher, I'm somewhat ambivalent about it. I love the passion, but I think there are more adult and responsible ways of showing passion.
Everyman wrote: "As a former high school English teacher, I'm somewhat ambivalent about it. I love the passion, but I think there are more adult and responsible ways of showing passion..."True, but it's a Hollywood movie, and so, the drama.
What I enjoy about the scene is the idea of trying to use rational, scientific means - as in the survey from message #1 - to measure and arrive at conclusive results that describe the irrational, subjective products of creativity. Art in any form derives its value/greatness in the experience of the viewer/reader and varies from person to person.
"I like Byron. I gave him a 42, but you can't dance to him." is absurd and highlights Mr. Keating's point.
So then, back to the original point - How "great" are "great books"? Each reader can decide for themselves what constitutes great. Writers, philosophers, critics, and high school teachers keep returning to the Western canon century after century and I would guess that readers and students over the centuries have either agreed or disagreed with the "greatness" of the books on the list. So we're left with the ambiguous conclusion that there must be something there if the books keep returning each year. But this return does not in any way address the question of "how great" because that is a quantitative question that can't be answered in any way beyond personal opinion/experience.
Everyman wrote: "Martha wrote: "Jim, that was great! I'm not a movie buff - what movie is this? "In case Jim doesn't see your question, it's Dead Poets Society.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/
As a forme..."
Thank you for the movie title. I remember this name. I told my 18 yr. old son about this & he said his English teacher showed this clip in her class.
I did not agree at all with the destruction of the book, I agree, but I loved the passion idea - getting the kids attention and making them think in a different direction.
Martha wrote: "I did not agree at all with the destruction of the book, I agree, but I loved the passion idea - getting the kids attention and making them think in a different direction...."I wish all of you with a passion for not destroying books could be at the AAUW annual book sale in Bernardsville, NJ, this afternoon. For 50 cents a volume, less for some sets, you could have an auditorium still-filled selection of the remainders of its annual multi-community book sale -- including volumes of the letters of Virgina Woolf and at least three cases of Great Books selections. This is after the dealers pulled "the best" at $1.25/copy on Thursday. As for food, distribution of books is such a flawed process in our society.
I don't think the survey has much to do with the Western Canon --- the titles I saw were mostly highly obscure writings distinguished primarily by their antiquity. I would guess that's part of whatever scam the questionaire is working, get people to pretend they know works they don't know at all. Even the Shakespeare I ran across in the survey were the more obscure plays, relatively --- Titus, and Anthony and Cleopatra. No Romeo or Hamlet, which people get in high school. So what IS "great literature?" Here's a book that annoyed me a lot and I wasn't the only one. I panned it on Amazon because it left out all the illustrations in the ebook [sigh -- I really hate that, but publishers will fix it eventually, probably: it's fraud, really] and the copious illustrations were the only thing that could have helped it.
The Fictional 100: Ranking the Most Influential Characters in World Literature and Legend What was irritating about this book is that (presumably for stupid PC reasons) the author was pleased to include a surprising lot of so-called literature that no one in the West has ever heard of, and some of it from places that have not had writing till quite recently in historical terms, and that taught them by Westerners: American Indians, Africa, and Western Pacific Islander "literature" were some of her "influentials."
Well, that's just silly, in my opinion.
Okay, I admit that because of this book I now have several samples of new translations of Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, as it appears that the Arthur Waley version beloved of my college days was not the last word on the subject....
However, a lot of her non-Western "influential characters" cannot possibly have been influential on very many people or indeed even KNOWN to anyone but specialists. I guess what I am annoyed about, besides PC silliness, is this idea that the Western Canon means OLD, or obscure, or only read by people with a pass to the Bodleian.
I don't think that. I think great literature means readable, useful, GOOD. The Wall Street Journal just reviewed "The Book of the Courtier" by Castiglione. Not a new version, not a bio or history --- they just reviewed this mid-16th century work! Wow. Now that's high style. Then I found that this very book is salted all through Hilary Mantel's "Bring Up the Bodies" because Thomas Cromwell is known to have read it, but also, he could have taught Castiglione everything he knew. That's what *I* mean by "great" books -- readable, useful, and still being used because they are relevant.
Phebe wrote: "What was irritating about this book is that (presumably for stupid PC reasons) the author was pleased to include a surprising lot of so-called literature that no one in the West has ever heard of..."Perhaps she was pleased to do this because her book was about World Literature, not Western Literature. In India perhaps there is someone complaining about Tarzan being included. I might have to agree with that person, just on general principles. :)
I love this group, but its one great weakness is that we only read works from the Western Canon. Limiting the scope is necessary for practical reasons, but it excludes Eastern classics of monumental importance. Educated Asians and SE Asians know the Western classics fairly well, but Westerners are generally ignorant of the East, and this is shame. I expect that in a few generations this Western/Eastern divide will blur, and one day school children in the West will be as familiar with great classics of the East as they are of the West. (Which means not all that much, I suppose. But at least there's Dante manga: http://www.mangareader.net/1154/dante... )
Mysticism -- you mean like, reincarnation? Pythagoras? Plato? On the other end of the spectrum there are Eastern skeptical traditions like Nyaya and Vaisesika that are purely analytical and non-theistic, about as far from superstition as you can get. My Greek tutor at St. John's first got me interested in Buddhist logic when he said Nagarjuna was the most ferocious logician he'd ever read.
You'd be surprised how similar Western and Eastern traditions are once you sit down and look at them carefully. I know you're interested in ancient history in particular, so I think you'd find The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies of special interest. It's long, but fascinating.
Phebe wrote: "That's what *I* mean by "great" books -- readable, useful, and still being used because they are relevant. "Nothing at all wrong with that definition.
Thomas wrote: "I love this group, but its one great weakness is that we only read works from the Western Canon. Limiting the scope is necessary for practical reasons, but it excludes Eastern classics of monumental importance."It's not just for practical reasons, though that's part of it. But the primary reason, for me, is that literature takes place not in a vacuum but in a cultural context. It's true that as the world becomes more multicultural we are becoming more exposed to non-Western ideas than, say, Plato, Dante, or Shakespeare were, but although I have read a few of the major Eastern classics, I am wary of my "understanding" of them because they come with a very different set of cultural assumptions and values than I have been raised with, and so I'm not sure that I can fairly discuss them on their merits, rather than reading into them ingrained Western cultural values which significantly distort their intended meaning.
There is also the issue of translation. It's hard enough to translate one Western language into another without losing many of the subtleties of the work, but to translate not only from one language to another in a fairly unified culture but between languages and cultures makes me wonder how true those translations can really be to the original works.
It's certainly an interesting, and valid, issue, and I will continue from time to time to read some of the major Eastern works I'm aware of (I happen to be extremely fond of Tagore, though I recognize he's not an ancient classic author), but as to having a quality discussion of those works here, with few if any participants who are immersed in the cultural values which underlie those works, I'm not sure we could really do justice to them.
Besides which, and back to the practical, there are so many foundational works of our own culture that we haven't yet approached that I am jealously protective of the limited number of slots we have available for reading and discussion here.
Patrice wrote: "I do think that there is a reason that Western ideas have spread to the East and not vice versa. "I've read a theory that provides an explanation for that.
The traditional Eastern cultures (e.g., Chinese and Indian ) don't value commerce as much as those in the West (as exemplified by the Greeks), the merchants in those cultures belonging to the lower classes. According to Adam Smith, commerce is the necessary path to wealth (and power). With the expansion of Western powers, the spread of Western ideas was brought about, by might, not by right.
Now that the gap in economic power between the East and West has been narrowed, there has been a steady and increasing trend of Eastern ideas being spread and accepted into the West.
Speaking of being useful and relevant, Art of War seems to be one of the most popular Eastern classics now known in the West. Many people read it for business strategy, career development and personal growth.
As for the concept of justice, Sun Tzu seems to agree with Plato when he states that the ability to win the war is good, but the ability to judge why and when to wage war is better, and the best strategy is one that does without war. I've read quite a few war epics and military commentaries in the Western Canon, but they all pale in comparison, in terms of the scope and depth of the ideas presented in that book.
Patrice wrote: " ..the Chinese... felt that they had reached the height of civilization and had no interest in any other culture. Why mess with perfection? "They also believed that they lived at the center of the earth, not unlike the Jews. :)
Change is not necessarily progress. China had gone through many changes of empires and dynasties in the past, while maintaining essentially the same social structure.
You may very well be right that "Questioning and freedom, are necessary for creativity". What prompts people to question? Socrates was put to death by the Athenians, so apparently the West did not like questions either.
Nemo wrote: "Socrates was put to death by the Athenians, so apparently the West did not like questions either. "I always believed it was an Oscar Wilde-type trial.
That's what they SAID, after all. They condemned him to death for perverting the youth of Athens. I figure -- why are we making it so complicated? It probably WAS for perverting the youth of Athens.
A lot of people think the Socratic method is pretty tedious, but I don't think they'd sentence him to hemlock for that. The evidence as reported by Plato for the Wilde stuff is none too subtle.
Socrates didn't like his wife, either. Hmmmmm.
Gives one furiously to think. We named a ewe lamb last year Xanthippe in her honor...a black lamb, of course: the naming of black sheep is a minor literary form, I believe.
Phebe wrote: "Nemo wrote: "Socrates was put to death by the Athenians, so apparently the West did not like questions either. "I always believed it was an Oscar Wilde-type trial."
I don't think it was. (Pederasty was culturally acceptable in ancient Greece, so it was unlikely to be put to death for such a thing.)
Aristophanes, who probably represented the popular Athenian view at the time, lampooned Socrates in his comedy Clouds and claimed that his taught the youths to challenge the traditional moral and religious beliefs by reasoning them out.
Another ancient author, Plutarch, wrote that Socrates proved himself a true philosopher, not because of the Socratic method, but because he was able to live in peace with his wife, "the hardest to get along with of all the women there are".
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (other topics)The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (other topics)
The Nature and Art of Workmanship (other topics)
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction (other topics)
Lily Briscoe's Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism, and China (other topics)
More...
Eric goes on (in a later post) to say that he was inspired by a blog post about mapping "great ideas" and posted this map: http://bit.ly/9bYXRA. Here's the post that inspired his map: http://bit.ly/cR11Ev.
I find this concept of "how great" interesting. Greatness is subjective and ruled by whim, I think; but crowd sourcing the greatness of books is pretty inventive. I guess it's really no different than the lists here on GR.
Thoughts?