The atmosphere they created with you speaking through the dramatic classical strings verged on the comedic. Save for the spelling error in one of
your titles, this was a well edited promo that whet the appetite in satisfying ways. You are surprisingly natural in affected positions and dare I say, you’ve lost some flesh.
I hope so. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, so the less of it the better. I’m afraid that hypothyroid conditions are part of the devil’s plans for thwarting grace.
That's a terrific audio piece. The vision of a truly cosmopolitan future and Christianity's role within it is beautiful. As usual, I find your approach liberating and it brings me to tears, which for someone not especially given to crying is marvellously disconcerting.
“Around the inner perimeter of this circle which is our daily world are many, many ways—call them doors—by which we can enter the next smaller, that is larger, circle of their world. Here the inhabitants appear the size of ghost-birds or errant candle-flames. This is our most common experience of them, because it is only through this first perimeter that most people ever pass, if at all. The next-innermost perimeter is smaller, and thus has fewer doors; it is therefore less likely anyone would step through by chance. There, the inhabitants will appear fairy-children or Little People, a manifestation correspondingly less often observed. And so on further within: the vast, inner circles where they grow to full size are so tiny that we step completely over them, constantly, in our daily lives, without knowing we do so, and never enter there at all—though it may be that in the old heroic age, access there was easier, and so we have the many tales of deeds done there. And lastly, the vastest circle, the infinity, the center point—Faëry, ladies and gentlemen, where the heroes ride across endless landscapes and sail sea beyond sea and there is no end to possibility—why that circle is so tiny it has no door at all.”
Totally unrelated, except for the fact that both end their names with a U. ClassicalU is mainly a resource for homeschooling parents and educators in classical schools — although the content is broad enough to be of interest to a wider audience as well.
I am surprised that DBH would appeal to the classical schools/homeschooling crowd. Not that I have anything against the idea, but the Venn Diagram of people who practice classical education and don't think David is some kind of half-pagan socialist heresiarch has to be a very narrow sliver, right?
It is a large tent, from my experience. Some nefarious types are attempting to co-opt classical education for the psuedo-religious right, but I don't think they'll actually be successful. Having students read Plato is not actually a good recipe for creating little ideologues, after all.
True, but I imagine many parents see reading Plato mainly as a way of avoiding them reading Marx. Pardon my cynicism; I once interviewed for a classical school that actually forbid its students from discussing modern culture period, which seemed like a much more insidious version of "white flight" than just moving to the suburbs.
That's a vision of classical education that certainly exists. With what little influence I have within that world, I'm constantly arguing against such narrow-mindedness.
I edit Altum (the online journal for ClassicalU). We recently published a series of essays that may be of interest to Leaves of the Wind readers. These essays argue for a capacious vision of classical education that includes China and world culture more generally. At least two of the authors of these essays (myself and Mr Armstrong) are very much influenced by David's vision of a cosmopolitan Christianity; or, as he puts it in his essay on Goethe, a "glorious cultural promiscuity."
Very fine job, Jesse and crew. And Dr. Hart, it was a delight to sit and sip coffee within earshot of your (often riotously funny) elucidation of your pedagogical vision, over and against so many of the educational impoverishments of our current moment. I wont go so far as to shamelessly promote the school where I teach on *your* substack—even though I am, incidentally, the not-so-degenerate lurker who made you the cup of coffee. But you'll perhaps be pleased to hear that to my own amazement—and sometimes to the delightful amelioration of my own cynical incredulity—said school embodies, in granular and particular ways, much of the vision you describe.
One pithy comment after another. An example: "I have seen grade schools promote themselves as places where children are being given the skills that will allow them to succeed. Give them the skills that will allow them to fail."
Thank you for this kind share. (Btw, alongside of the 10 additional minutes with Hart in the last link above to my personal website, I've noted a coupon code as we happen to have two free months of the ClassicalU subscription currently on offer where the 1.5 hour mini-course is posted.)
Sorry in advance for both the length of this comment and its irrelevancy to the actual post, but I recently watched your interview with Jennifer Newsome Martin for University of Notre Dame Press and was wondering if you could clarify some things for me. You mention that in salvation, God merely removes impediments to our nature rather than adding to it. However, the question might then become "Why is such a thing even necessary, why are there impediments to our nature?" I know almost nothing about the two-tiered Thomist system, but in many ways it seems to reflect how we understand Christian eschatology (there's an Age Abiding and an Age to Come). How are "impediments to nature" understood in such a way as to produce the dualistic relationship between the Age Abiding and the Age to Come which we know to exist, thus rendering a two tiered system unnecessary? I can see such impediments leading to something like a spectrum of states of being, but not to two distinct Ages, which seems to be what's actually happening in creation (at least, according to the Christian story).
Additionally, how would you fit Jesus's role into all of this? The way you describe human nature, it seems like you see the incarnation (and specifically the cross/resurrection of Christ) as unnecessary to salvation. Or, at the very least, all it can do is provide a sign of something which already necessarily happens due to potencies within our nature that God cannot fail to actualize. Do you understand Jesus's role as being instrumental in some way? During your talk with Tariq Goddard, you mentioned that the reason you call yourself a Christian is because you "cannot be done with the person of Christ," which at least makes it seem like you do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God--he doesn't seem central or necessary. To an inquirer into Christianity like myself, a rejection of this concept seems almost inevitably like a rejection of Christianity as such. In rejecting the necessity of the death and resurrection of the individual man Jesus Christ in the drama of salvation, aren't you essentially implying that this core element of Christianity is built upon faulty premises about the grace/nature distinction? Do you conceptualize Easter as God's direct rescue as Christ, or merely as a revelation of God's rescue which is not itself the rescue? For you, in what sense is Jesus Christ peculiarly, actually God, if any?
Sorry if you've answered some of these questions in the past and I just haven't noticed--I'm fairly new to your work, and so I'm still making my way through your books.
I’m sorry, but you’re asking too much for a comment box. You’re also drawing hugely unwarranted conclusions from brief remarks you’ve heard me make. If you want answers on that scale, you will have to go to my books; that’s what they’re for.
For ordinary Christians, that "Jesus is ...." said of may not be the concept nor the core element, but, well .... Faith and Truth! For non-Christians, that is the Christian tradition and Christian faith as respectful. For atheists, that may be an idea. (I'm a Christian too btw).
I sincerely doubt that. The distinctively American forms of Orthodoxy that have evolved in the last decade and a half have come from the white Evangelical world and have retained its modes of thought and its understanding of doctrine. You may belong to a traditional form of Orthodoxy located in the US; but that is not what I mean by "American Orthodoxy"--the religion of John Whiteford, Lawrence Farley, and a disturbing number of very right-wing (even white nationalist) former Evangelicals.
The atmosphere they created with you speaking through the dramatic classical strings verged on the comedic. Save for the spelling error in one of
your titles, this was a well edited promo that whet the appetite in satisfying ways. You are surprisingly natural in affected positions and dare I say, you’ve lost some flesh.
I hope so. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, so the less of it the better. I’m afraid that hypothyroid conditions are part of the devil’s plans for thwarting grace.
Thank you for noting the spelling error. That's a shame. We'll get that fixed.
That's a terrific audio piece. The vision of a truly cosmopolitan future and Christianity's role within it is beautiful. As usual, I find your approach liberating and it brings me to tears, which for someone not especially given to crying is marvellously disconcerting.
“Around the inner perimeter of this circle which is our daily world are many, many ways—call them doors—by which we can enter the next smaller, that is larger, circle of their world. Here the inhabitants appear the size of ghost-birds or errant candle-flames. This is our most common experience of them, because it is only through this first perimeter that most people ever pass, if at all. The next-innermost perimeter is smaller, and thus has fewer doors; it is therefore less likely anyone would step through by chance. There, the inhabitants will appear fairy-children or Little People, a manifestation correspondingly less often observed. And so on further within: the vast, inner circles where they grow to full size are so tiny that we step completely over them, constantly, in our daily lives, without knowing we do so, and never enter there at all—though it may be that in the old heroic age, access there was easier, and so we have the many tales of deeds done there. And lastly, the vastest circle, the infinity, the center point—Faëry, ladies and gentlemen, where the heroes ride across endless landscapes and sail sea beyond sea and there is no end to possibility—why that circle is so tiny it has no door at all.”
John Crowley. Little, BIg. A wonderful book.
"Please note: Dr. Hart uses some salty language (such as “what the hell”) at a few points in his comments throughout this course."
lol, I'm glad this kind of moral sensitivity still exists.
Will there be any assignments or anything or is it just recordings?
I don't share your gladness.
I was asked not to swear on yr site
Yes, but I meant something coarser than that.
Fiddlesticks.
I knew you’d descend toward the gutter.
Other than the ridiculous music (and it's too loud, making Hart's charmingly quietly grumbly voice), this looks pretty good!
I suspect the music was chosen specifically so they could coordinate the final two chords with my hand gestures.
Glad to see that you were concerned about the World Series, it’s good to keep your mind set on the important things.
While this sounds interesting, I hope ClassicalU is nothing like the preposterous and ideologically motivated and unethical and fraudulent PragerU.
Totally unrelated, except for the fact that both end their names with a U. ClassicalU is mainly a resource for homeschooling parents and educators in classical schools — although the content is broad enough to be of interest to a wider audience as well.
I am surprised that DBH would appeal to the classical schools/homeschooling crowd. Not that I have anything against the idea, but the Venn Diagram of people who practice classical education and don't think David is some kind of half-pagan socialist heresiarch has to be a very narrow sliver, right?
That would have been my guess too, but it may be a larger tent than we know.
It is a large tent, from my experience. Some nefarious types are attempting to co-opt classical education for the psuedo-religious right, but I don't think they'll actually be successful. Having students read Plato is not actually a good recipe for creating little ideologues, after all.
True, but I imagine many parents see reading Plato mainly as a way of avoiding them reading Marx. Pardon my cynicism; I once interviewed for a classical school that actually forbid its students from discussing modern culture period, which seemed like a much more insidious version of "white flight" than just moving to the suburbs.
Yeah, there are those sorts out there. But I'm pleased to discover that they're not the whole story.
That's a vision of classical education that certainly exists. With what little influence I have within that world, I'm constantly arguing against such narrow-mindedness.
I edit Altum (the online journal for ClassicalU). We recently published a series of essays that may be of interest to Leaves of the Wind readers. These essays argue for a capacious vision of classical education that includes China and world culture more generally. At least two of the authors of these essays (myself and Mr Armstrong) are very much influenced by David's vision of a cosmopolitan Christianity; or, as he puts it in his essay on Goethe, a "glorious cultural promiscuity."
The three essays are:
1) "Hospitality to Truth" by yours truly (https://classicalu.com/hospitality-to-truth/) ;
2) "Classical Education Must Include the East" by David Armstrong (https://classicalu.com/classical-education-must-include-the-east/);
3) "Redeeming the Six Arts: A Christian Approach to Classical Chinese Education," a review by Jacob Andrews (https://classicalu.com/redeeming-the-six-arts-a-christian-approach-to-classical-chinese-education-reviewed-by-jacob-andrews/).
You would be surprised. I have a good friend in this circle who is also a Seminary professor and read TASBS with great interest.
Plan is for us to send this to our full list in the first week of January. We shall see…
Very fine job, Jesse and crew. And Dr. Hart, it was a delight to sit and sip coffee within earshot of your (often riotously funny) elucidation of your pedagogical vision, over and against so many of the educational impoverishments of our current moment. I wont go so far as to shamelessly promote the school where I teach on *your* substack—even though I am, incidentally, the not-so-degenerate lurker who made you the cup of coffee. But you'll perhaps be pleased to hear that to my own amazement—and sometimes to the delightful amelioration of my own cynical incredulity—said school embodies, in granular and particular ways, much of the vision you describe.
Okay, I shamelessly promoted the school. But I didn't state its name, so it's really not promotion. More an expression of delight, gratitude, etc.
One pithy comment after another. An example: "I have seen grade schools promote themselves as places where children are being given the skills that will allow them to succeed. Give them the skills that will allow them to fail."
Seriously. He’s a marvel.
I've just started my day with a big wide warm smile. Must share and share.
Thank you for this kind share. (Btw, alongside of the 10 additional minutes with Hart in the last link above to my personal website, I've noted a coupon code as we happen to have two free months of the ClassicalU subscription currently on offer where the 1.5 hour mini-course is posted.)
Dr. Hart,
Sorry in advance for both the length of this comment and its irrelevancy to the actual post, but I recently watched your interview with Jennifer Newsome Martin for University of Notre Dame Press and was wondering if you could clarify some things for me. You mention that in salvation, God merely removes impediments to our nature rather than adding to it. However, the question might then become "Why is such a thing even necessary, why are there impediments to our nature?" I know almost nothing about the two-tiered Thomist system, but in many ways it seems to reflect how we understand Christian eschatology (there's an Age Abiding and an Age to Come). How are "impediments to nature" understood in such a way as to produce the dualistic relationship between the Age Abiding and the Age to Come which we know to exist, thus rendering a two tiered system unnecessary? I can see such impediments leading to something like a spectrum of states of being, but not to two distinct Ages, which seems to be what's actually happening in creation (at least, according to the Christian story).
Additionally, how would you fit Jesus's role into all of this? The way you describe human nature, it seems like you see the incarnation (and specifically the cross/resurrection of Christ) as unnecessary to salvation. Or, at the very least, all it can do is provide a sign of something which already necessarily happens due to potencies within our nature that God cannot fail to actualize. Do you understand Jesus's role as being instrumental in some way? During your talk with Tariq Goddard, you mentioned that the reason you call yourself a Christian is because you "cannot be done with the person of Christ," which at least makes it seem like you do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God--he doesn't seem central or necessary. To an inquirer into Christianity like myself, a rejection of this concept seems almost inevitably like a rejection of Christianity as such. In rejecting the necessity of the death and resurrection of the individual man Jesus Christ in the drama of salvation, aren't you essentially implying that this core element of Christianity is built upon faulty premises about the grace/nature distinction? Do you conceptualize Easter as God's direct rescue as Christ, or merely as a revelation of God's rescue which is not itself the rescue? For you, in what sense is Jesus Christ peculiarly, actually God, if any?
Sorry if you've answered some of these questions in the past and I just haven't noticed--I'm fairly new to your work, and so I'm still making my way through your books.
I’m sorry, but you’re asking too much for a comment box. You’re also drawing hugely unwarranted conclusions from brief remarks you’ve heard me make. If you want answers on that scale, you will have to go to my books; that’s what they’re for.
For ordinary Christians, that "Jesus is ...." said of may not be the concept nor the core element, but, well .... Faith and Truth! For non-Christians, that is the Christian tradition and Christian faith as respectful. For atheists, that may be an idea. (I'm a Christian too btw).
I sincerely doubt that. The distinctively American forms of Orthodoxy that have evolved in the last decade and a half have come from the white Evangelical world and have retained its modes of thought and its understanding of doctrine. You may belong to a traditional form of Orthodoxy located in the US; but that is not what I mean by "American Orthodoxy"--the religion of John Whiteford, Lawrence Farley, and a disturbing number of very right-wing (even white nationalist) former Evangelicals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU3y_h47ByE
Forgive me the pedantry, but where French is concerned I can't resist: milieu.