[lbo-talk] Essential Reading - Hah!

[shag carpet bomb]

the nice liberals who used to own this house were on all sorts of junk mail 
lists. a brochure advertising this just showed up in the mail a couple of 
weeks ago, except they're audio books. They also get a flyer advertising 
100 courses on Western Civ - dvds - or something like that. That sort of 
thing was marketed at the lower middle and working class strivers, like my 
mother, who'd buy great books sets and encyclopedia sets in the hope that 
her children would be able to move into the middle class by having such 
knowledge and/or because they would hope that their children could "pass" 
by having such knowledge. a deeply held belief among such folks like my mom 
that, if you're culcha'd, that's the magic ticket to the american dream.

the great books idea was resurrected in the late 80s/early 90s by E.D. 
Hirsch and his arguments for "cultural literacy". He argued that the 
problem with our school system (the debates that dominated the 80s seem 
quaint in retrospect given the actual problems we face today!) was that it 
emphasized things like phonix, when what children really needed was good 
content in their reading material rather than Dick and Jane books that 
focused on the mechanics of reading. For some reason, though, I vaguely 
recall that, when it came to math, he advocated rote learning of math skills.

At any rate, Hirsch thought that reading literacy was necessarily built on 
something, IIRC, often referred to as "whole books" approach. IIRC, instead 
of teaching kids piecemeal, you would just have them struggle to read the 
whole book - some Western classic that conveyed a store of cultural and 
historical knowledge with which they'd build on throughout their learning 
lives.

Funny story: this book was assigned for a class I took once. A woman who 
would become my best friend was sitting around outside of class during 
break (night class) with a bunch of us who were reading the jacket notes to 
Hirsh's book, Cultural Literacy. There was a  quiz on the back  cover which 
contained a list of things Hirsch thought a literate person should know. 
So, we're taking it and we come across "G.I. Bill"

My friend: Wasn't that G.I. Joe's buddy?

ha!

At 02:08 PM 2/4/2012, John Wesley wrote:
>Does anyone remember the mass-marketed 54-volume set of "The Great Books" 
>of the Western World, that was so extensively advertised in 
>popular-circulation magazines back in the Sixties?  I think that it may 
>also be related to the concept of having all one's "essential" readings, 
>in one handy collection. Funny, I haven't seen or heard of the "Great 
>Books" set being marketed in years.  Another casualty of the Internet, maybe?
>Mike G.
>
>El pueblo armado jamas sera aplastado!
>
>
>________________________________
>  From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Sent: Saturday, February 4, 2012 12:37 PM
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Essential Reading - Hah!
>
>If I recall correctly, St. Johns College had a curriculum wholly grounded in
>"The Great Books." And it was by no means posited as a goal of the education
>of the many -- I was admitted to Chicago, but there was no way I could
>afford it. So I attended Western Michigan College of Education instead. I
>think there are still those possessed by the delusion of "Essential Reading
>for the Good Life" or something like that. See Alan Bloom's bizarre book.
>Some still take it seriously.
>
>You have heard of "muscular Christianity." The Great Books were muscular
>humanism.
>
>Carrol
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant
>Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 8:49 AM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Essential Reading - Hah!
>
>
>On Sat, 4 Feb 2012 15:37:08 +0200 Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com>
>writes:
> > On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > As many histories have pointed out, as late as the mid-18th-c it was
> > widely
> > > assumed that a list of books existed which all "educated men"
> > shared in
> > > common.
> >
> >
> > How does this differ from the "great books" concept, which arose in
> > the
> > United States in the 1920s and 30s?
>
>R obert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler were among the leading
>advocates of that, and they had a rather specific agenda behind
>this which was based on Adler's neo-Thomism.
>
> >
> >
> > > Anyone who has not read Wellek, Frye, & Tamas is of course not
> > competent to
> > > engage in this discussion.
> >
> >
> > Maybe not, but try and stop me!
>
>Anyone who has not read Farmelant is not competent
>to engage in ANY discussion on this list.
>
>
>
>Jim Farmelant
>http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
>www.foxymath.com
>Learn or Review Basic Math
>
> >
> > --
> > "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure
> > mægen
> > lytlað."
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
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