Learning about the great thinkers and the fascinating history of the world makes life so much richer, thankyou for helping to bring light into my world.
Dear Thomas, I am pleased to announce that the entire Roman History series is now available on my new Patreon page. patreon.com/MatthewKeil659 Unfortunately, there were a number of videos in that series that had copyright issues, so RUclips blocked them. But they can all be watched now. I will be uploading the entire Greek series to there as well. Thank you very much for your enthusiasm and encouragement!
Thank you very much for this. So many things for contemplation.. Towards the end you are comparing Plato's education ideal with modern times. I agree with what you say, however, we have to take into account the context, the complexity of modern societies, where specialization is unavoidable, and life long learning does continue for some, such as academics, researchers, etc. but nothing like Plato envisioned, this is done now on a very narrow professional, specialized level. In any case, we cannot compare a modern nation of 100+ million to ancient Athens of the 20-30.000 citizens. Specialization, and therefore lack of general knowledge (which really means lack of education on a personal level), is the price we pay for the large numbers and our economic system which depends on mindless consumption and production. This is also a difference in educational philosophy between Europe and the US, general vs specialized knowledge. In the US, they teach in the colleges (as electives) what Europeans learn already in high school, or even before.. History, Geography, etc. Another modern problem is that in the vast majority of jobs, real thinking, initiative, is actually discouraged, a good worker is the one who follows a predetermined procedure, a protocol, and good examples are Germany, China, Japan, even the US... Hannah Arendt made a good point, trying to understand how Nazism took over an entire nation of highly educated citizens, she basically said, " question everything", which of course points to the ancient philosophers. The other ironic difference with the ancient world that we all (purposefully) decline to admit, is that back then, people had free time and energy to 'think', because they had slaves to do the hard work. Now, WE are actually the slaves, and we have normalized it (with the 'work ethic' which was btw shameful for the ancient Greeks), if you consider that our jobs leave us with just a couple of free hours in the night, but since we are too tired by then, we just take the easy way out, which is, passive entertainment... and just like the ancient slaves, we are the majority, but we now call it 'middle class' ... What you mention in the end sums it up perfectly : ' propter vitam vivendi perdere causas'
Fascinating, until your modern parallels I found the lectures very refreshing. Identifying Western public health efforts as the most telling examples of illiberalism, well i think betrays your own affiliations I suspect. How about Hungary and all the other xenophobic rightist regimes on the rise as more obvious examples ? But still, I'm enjoying them, so please continue. Maybe some balance?
Thank you, Fred, both for your interest and your candidness. I have to admit, I really see the threat to freedom nowadays coming from the left and not the right. Viktor Orban of Hungary I think is unfairly characterized in the press. His policies are more similar to Bill Clinton's and the Democrats of the 1990s, than they are to anything dictatorial. But I think that you're right, that these classical subjects are a refreshing departure from the noise of modern day politics. I think I'll try to avoid such topics in future lectures. Thank you again for listening and commenting.
@@matthewadamkeil thank you for the detailed response. Agreed that the classics as a refuge from modern politics is a rare thing to be protected. Although I agree also that today’s politicians of all stripes could benefit from some exposure to the ancients. The Orban/Clinton comparison is a debate for another venue… Thank you again for the effort that must go into the lectures.
![ARGENTINA vs. PERÚ [1-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 12](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xtI25ENDDSY/mqdefault.jpg)
It’s so cool that I can watch your lectures and learn. Thank you!
Thank you for posting these lectures, I really appreciate them.
Learning about the great thinkers and the fascinating history of the world makes life so much richer, thankyou for helping to bring light into my world.
Thank you for posting so many lectures, I'm learning so much. I look forward to more in the Rome and Ancient Greece series.
Dear Thomas, I am pleased to announce that the entire Roman History series is now available on my new Patreon page. patreon.com/MatthewKeil659
Unfortunately, there were a number of videos in that series that had copyright issues, so RUclips blocked them. But they can all be watched now. I will be uploading the entire Greek series to there as well.
Thank you very much for your enthusiasm and encouragement!
Really good lectures.
Appreciate it is giving historical prospective and comparisons among cultures for each subject
Thank you very much for this. So many things for contemplation.. Towards the end you are comparing Plato's education ideal with modern times. I agree with what you say, however, we have to take into account the context, the complexity of modern societies, where specialization is unavoidable, and life long learning does continue for some, such as academics, researchers, etc. but nothing like Plato envisioned, this is done now on a very narrow professional, specialized level. In any case, we cannot compare a modern nation of 100+ million to ancient Athens of the 20-30.000 citizens. Specialization, and therefore lack of general knowledge (which really means lack of education on a personal level), is the price we pay for the large numbers and our economic system which depends on mindless consumption and production.
This is also a difference in educational philosophy between Europe and the US, general vs specialized knowledge. In the US, they teach in the colleges (as electives) what Europeans learn already in high school, or even before.. History, Geography, etc.
Another modern problem is that in the vast majority of jobs, real thinking, initiative, is actually discouraged, a good worker is the one who follows a predetermined procedure, a protocol, and good examples are Germany, China, Japan, even the US... Hannah Arendt made a good point, trying to understand how Nazism took over an entire nation of highly educated citizens, she basically said, " question everything", which of course points to the ancient philosophers.
The other ironic difference with the ancient world that we all (purposefully) decline to admit, is that back then, people had free time and energy to 'think', because they had slaves to do the hard work. Now, WE are actually the slaves, and we have normalized it (with the 'work ethic' which was btw shameful for the ancient Greeks), if you consider that our jobs leave us with just a couple of free hours in the night, but since we are too tired by then, we just take the easy way out, which is, passive entertainment... and just like the ancient slaves, we are the majority, but we now call it 'middle class' ...
What you mention in the end sums it up perfectly : ' propter vitam vivendi perdere causas'
Thank you, my friend, for your enthusiasm and your very thoughtful responses. I hope to put some more lectures up online by this summer.
excellent
Fascinating, until your modern parallels I found the lectures very refreshing. Identifying Western public health efforts as the most telling examples of illiberalism, well i think betrays your own affiliations I suspect. How about Hungary and all the other xenophobic rightist regimes on the rise as more obvious examples ? But still, I'm enjoying them, so please continue. Maybe some balance?
Thank you, Fred, both for your interest and your candidness. I have to admit, I really see the threat to freedom nowadays coming from the left and not the right. Viktor Orban of Hungary I think is unfairly characterized in the press. His policies are more similar to Bill Clinton's and the Democrats of the 1990s, than they are to anything dictatorial. But I think that you're right, that these classical subjects are a refreshing departure from the noise of modern day politics. I think I'll try to avoid such topics in future lectures. Thank you again for listening and commenting.
@@matthewadamkeil thank you for the detailed response. Agreed that the classics as a refuge from modern politics is a rare thing to be protected. Although I agree also that today’s politicians of all stripes could benefit from some exposure to the ancients.
The Orban/Clinton comparison is a debate for another venue…
Thank you again for the effort that must go into the lectures.