Gautam Tejas Ganeshan

Disciple. Familist. Musician, "whose gaze is turned upon the depths of things." 📵

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I love the world,
because it is beautiful.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I have written quite a bit about this.

Last year, the question of the 'nature of expertise'
predominated in my thoughts.

Here are a number of relevant excerpts from articles,
many of them inspired by a visit I made in 2024
( @theoeides4 @stephenblackwd
@AntigoneJournal @RalstonCollege )

to @RalstonCollege (nineteen of which articles
are collected in a meta-post linked below, called
"Inspired by Ralston College", after which I continued
to write many more, before desisting for a while.)

1.
"At the University, The Era of the Department is Over."
https://t.co/2kRNd9oKjG

2.
"On Expertise"
https://t.co/S07vIOiP7b

3.
"The University: Why I Care"
https://t.co/xdsYLUZXHm

4.
"Inspired by Ralston College"
https://t.co/VDEkDuwQVz

--

"It is no longer possible for the university to be organized on the premise of specialized expertise. This is not in fact organization, but disintegration.

"What is necessary now is for every 'professor' to *profess* an acquaintance with a formidably wide canvassing of high quality insights, across the board: frameworks of understanding, works of impact and influence throughout history; very much taking up the classical inheritance, even if he is a 'scientist'; very much well read in works of exemplary rhetorical and stylistic excellence, even if he is personally driven to excel in matters of exact analysis and precise formulation; very much able to parse for meaning those complex works composed in a spiritual mode, forming part of - and best read & understood in conversation with - the dense intellectual history of reflection on ultimate questions and realizations, even if he is given to himself producing temporized commentary (sometimes necessary and illuminating!) on the material or secular culture as it has continued to develop until the day before yesterday.

"The truth is that we cannot bear any more 'experts', who are in fact generally nothing of the kind, in the sense of being distinguished by command and competence - but rather are those who have minds which have been highly clipped and distorted over time, are *very* poorly 'rounded' (more closely the opposite, in fact), are enthusiasts for repeatedly pacing around a limited maze of explored territory, blinkered, oblivious, and usually incapable, eventually, of stepping out and saying something viable in a discourse that includes the *other*.

--

"Does your embattled professor know this? ... Is he enabled and encouraged to make himself adequate to the depths and breadths of true scholarly erudition, as it has been occasionally exampled in history? Is he able to comment meaningfully and synthetically, venturing out of his 'lane' to try and speak coherently - broadly, relevantly, with apt specific command of this or that conceptual distinction or significant finding - yet always in conversation with the totality, or better - the whole?"

--

etc.

(there is *much* more of this in the many articles...)

[James Bryson @theoeides4]

I feel some kind of obligation to weigh in at this point. It is possible to split the difference here. It seems there’s a kind of European style education and an American great books world talking past one another.

In a perfect world, the undergraduate lecturer has deep expertise somewhere, so he knows how little he doesn’t know elsewhere. But he also knows how to become a quick study and he knows what it was like not to know, recalling his student days. He should also know what it was like to wonder as a student and should meet students where they are. Lacking expertise, should not rule out teaching in a great books curriculum, almost by definition.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@stephenblackwd @RalstonCollege https://t.co/wHu5wJP7ZH

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Supposing there is a 'battle for the soul',
I would range myself with those with the
*courage* to calmly stand athwart dire trends.

I have quietly *never* owned a phone,
and wrote elaborately here to defend the 'soul':

https://t.co/FVEzaE4Ncy

The essay is long and rangy.
Below is an excerpt - about the soul,
& my 'grounds for hope'.

Also, I find much of the discourse about AI fears
to be rooted in misconceptions, and these
ultimately grounded in people's recognition that
the quality of *their own attention* has eroded,
substantiating the fear not from without,
but from within.

True independence and freedom of mind, are rare.

--

"I think, though, that my grounds for hope are rather in the mode of recalcitrance (and here is where the 'lived experience' plays its rôle, and where, perhaps, 'we are not the same') ... rather than in observations about the internet being supposed to 'heighten awareness'. This it may do, but *still* before the rubber hits the road there intervenes, despite everything, not necessarily the 'agentic' rational monad who 'reasons clearly' (a being who has been recognized as a fiction by Pascal, Freud, Augustine, and Hölderlin), but rather the 'person', whose soul has been discussed for millennia, whose complex inner depth is not susceptible of being *totally* reverse-engineered by *any* latter day developments of techné - whether they are literacy as such, or its opposite (more or less) the 'image' - in either the sense from this essay, or else in the recognizably similar sense from 60 years ago, described in Boorstin's "The Image" (see, if history does not repeat, it rhymes...)

This soul, whose inner contact point is with divinity, or at least eternity, has never successfully been dragged into the 'clear and distinct' light, there to be fully understood apart from its depths and source - and moreover, *is not* totally a creature of print culture, and therefore is not really subject to being 'dissolved' by any developments in the latter. I am dancing around the issue a bit, but fundamentally what I am saying is that I do not believe that the 'checked-out, phone-addicted zombies' (who, believe me, I too discern *everywhere*) - represent any kind of 'stable equilibrium' or 'strange attractor' - it just cannot be, given my priors about the human, and I avow the nature of my argument as such, finally. 'This too, shall pass.' "

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Another fundamental source here is Kant -
who, although he did not finally succeed,
still forthrightly fought to 'save the appearance'
of the 'experience of unconditionality',
that is, our *consciousness* of our *freedom*,
from what were, in his time and ours,
the ascendant natural sciences and their
*mindset* ( ... ie reducing all cause/explanation
to the 'efficient' or 'material' version only.)
Kant somehow, through a difficult 'criticality',
reserved and justified the 'supersensible',
particularly our subjective sense that we
somehow transcend the simple chain
of scientific determinism. Once again,
I do not believe his version is final,
but apropos of what is in question here,
viz. the 'inability to articulate the human',
what strikes me is that a wrestling with his
epoch-making ideas & their presentation -
which is not easy, certainly, but all the same
which is *required* as a 'table stakes' for then
making some claims thereafter, two centuries
in their wake, about: "human obsessions
[w/ the] supernatural" (a quote from the article) -
... a wrestling with his ideas, I say, ought to be
a fundamental criterion vis-à-vis writing as a
"philosopher, psychologist, ethicist" etc. (quote.)
And so it is a pedagogical question; I believe
we come into this world with a (correct) intuition
that we are *born free* - and the elaboration &
retrieval of this intuition (actually, this *truth*),
against the contrary models (did i say models?
i meant idols; idols of the *study*, idols of the
laboratory ... scientist-as-pygmalion, falling in love
w/ his own edifice of understanding, forgetting
its artificiality, no longer able to see the chisel-marks...)
- the models, that is, that (paradoxically) make the
wonderful discoveries of 'natural philosophy'
into workaday, disenchanted collisions of
"purely natural and material entities" (quote.)
It is a pedagogical question to *provide the scaffolding*,
which is abundantly and *centrally* present
in the intellectual tradition - I mean, the earthquake
of Kant's critical investigations led to so many
rejoinders, etc. and so these sorts of debates
ARE BY NO MEANS without precedent ...
(this is what strikes me MOST here - does one think
one is 'philosophizing in a vacuum'?? does one think
that proceeding in 'sovereign disregard' of what has
been said previously on the same topic is admissible??)

... the intellectual scaffolding to stand on in order to
say (to *yawp*, perhaps):

I am here, I am me, I am free.

(@theoeides4 , did i get this right?)

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Supposing there is a 'battle for the soul',
I would range myself with those with the
*courage* to calmly stand athwart dire trends.

I have quietly *never* owned a phone,
and wrote elaborately here to defend the 'soul':

https://t.co/FVEzaE4Ncy

The essay is long and rangy.
Below is an excerpt - about the soul,
& my 'grounds for hope'.

Also, I find much of the discourse about AI fears
to be rooted in misconceptions, and these
ultimately grounded in people's recognition that
the quality of *their own attention* has eroded,
substantiating the fear not from without,
but from within.

True independence and freedom of mind, are rare.

--

"I think, though, that my grounds for hope are rather in the mode of recalcitrance (and here is where the 'lived experience' plays its rôle, and where, perhaps, 'we are not the same') ... rather than in observations about the internet being supposed to 'heighten awareness'. This it may do, but *still* before the rubber hits the road there intervenes, despite everything, not necessarily the 'agentic' rational monad who 'reasons clearly' (a being who has been recognized as a fiction by Pascal, Freud, Augustine, and Hölderlin), but rather the 'person', whose soul has been discussed for millennia, whose complex inner depth is not susceptible of being *totally* reverse-engineered by *any* latter day developments of techné - whether they are literacy as such, or its opposite (more or less) the 'image' - in either the sense from this essay, or else in the recognizably similar sense from 60 years ago, described in Boorstin's "The Image" (see, if history does not repeat, it rhymes...)

This soul, whose inner contact point is with divinity, or at least eternity, has never successfully been dragged into the 'clear and distinct' light, there to be fully understood apart from its depths and source - and moreover, *is not* totally a creature of print culture, and therefore is not really subject to being 'dissolved' by any developments in the latter. I am dancing around the issue a bit, but fundamentally what I am saying is that I do not believe that the 'checked-out, phone-addicted zombies' (who, believe me, I too discern *everywhere*) - represent any kind of 'stable equilibrium' or 'strange attractor' - it just cannot be, given my priors about the human, and I avow the nature of my argument as such, finally. 'This too, shall pass.' "

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

A response to @moveincircles "The King & The Swarm" in @firstthingsmag

I write as one who has *never* owned a 'smartphone'. My attention span is legendary. And so, many of the attention-transforming contemporary depredations are, rather than being for me a 'lived experience' ...

( ... which phrase was orig. leaned on by Dilthey in the 19C, btw, in his effort to demarcate/justify/rehabilitate the 'Geisteswissenschaften' / 'human sciences' from unsavory encroachments *then* ... anyway, where 'retrieval' is a theme, as it is in the essay in question, where the word occurs thrice, let us be as retrievers...)

... things I have witnessed but not internalized. I am the control group, as it were, while the frogs otherwise boil, partout - and it is boiling in the 'shallows' (Carr).

Secondly, I am without question or apology a denizen of the depths of print culture, which I plumb from the café table and the well-worn armchair. And so I am assuredly a partisan, capable of resonating with laments for its loss, from the point of view of one with ample 'interiority', scaffolded by reading.

I celebrate unreservedly this deep-dive essay, I love the form, content, and style, and I think it is a contribution well worth encountering and even emulating. That said, straight to the cavils.

First, chinks in the armor of 'facts and objectivity', the 'load-bearing foundations' of high modernity - did not wait until the day before yesterday to be seriously noticed, and not only in scholarly redoubts but also in meaningful movements of art, culture, and thought.

Let alone mid-century 'post-modernism' - much of whose medium and inroads were assuredly ensconced not beyond but *deep-within* print culture (even in its severe 'recondition', let's say) - there had also been, of course, Romanticism - (identified as the 'artistic antitoxin' to industrialism, by Donald Davidson, in 'I'll Take My Stand') - Bohemianism, cults of nature & l'art-pour-art (Rousseau standing at the fountainhead of one, and who at the other, Goethe? Baudelaire *invented* the word 'modernity', btw, and towered over not the 20C but the 19C, also groveling in its sewers...)

and, significantly, and previously, trenchant critique of the presuppositions of the Aufklärung *right from the outset* - I am thinking of Hamann, who chastised Kant right to his face, and then de Maistre, etc. ( ... the latter, of course, being a required 'retrieval' in any conversation about 'throne and altar', a.k.a. kings, symbolism, &c...)

Some of this is immaterial 'history of ideas' only - but first of all, that is much of the mode of this discourse, is it not, a.k.a. a question of 'the displaced worldview', etc. - but pertinently, where there is a significant question as to the *nature of subjects*, which is putatively under transformation as we speak, it is very much to the point to look directly at 'sources of the self' (to use the C. Taylor language) - and, in my view, to see that these have gone not from stable to disarray *simply* or *recently*, but from palimpsest to palimpsest *throughout*, or else, differently valenced, (but notably, *equally honoring interiority*, and once again, not only recently!), from 'glory to glory', as Gregory of Nyssa would have it, quoting St Paul (the first psychologist? pneumatologist...)

My point is - I thoroughly agree with and myself defend certain of the theses of this essay - that 'entelechy', for-its-own-sake-ness, ends, purposes, and meanings had been casualties, driven out by a totalizing 'panlogism' & 'mathesis universalis', underwritten perhaps by literacy itself, whose 'alphabet' had dethroned the 'goddess' (Shlain), & with its linear clunk-and-grind extrinsic relations only (questioned ably by Bergson, who has largely been forgotten, although not by Kołakowski, & @dr_mcgilchrist ! ), particularly vis-à-vis time itself (a.k.a. 'progress', even 'history' itself, esp. in the 'whig' dispensation, as H. Butterfield would have it...

btw, 1.) I once began an essay w/ an H. Butterfield quote, "Shifting one's Myth: The Interior Overthrow":
https://t.co/HZFYtlpmsb
2.) Regarding W. Ong (orality & literacy), I also found him very fruitful for considering these matters, and speculated in 2024, developing upon his terminology, as to whether we are perhaps in "Tertiary Orality; ( ... & a paradigm for renaissance. )":
https://t.co/VJm6SPAIDn
(i said there, fwiw, that "his primary orality is human oral tradition worldwide, and his secondary orality is the early 20C radio-television-film constellation of the then 'new-media' / 'tertiary orality' is my term for our latest phase, hot off the presses, of longform podcasting, etc.")

ANYWAY
(n.b. this is a *tweet*...)

So although I am fundamentally in agreement w/ elements of this causal narrative (& I would point further to 'After God' by M. Taylor for much useful context re: print culture, Protestantism, and more - the subtitle is "Religion & Postmodernism", & it is referred to many times early in @DrJohnVervaeke 's orig. 'meaning crisis' lectures ... those were the days, eh!)

Let me cut to the chase - I think threats to the deep-reading liberal subject, the one who is required for the 'republic, if you can keep it ... ' are *perhaps* new-in-kind, b/c of the 'digital revolution' - but have *never* been absent or inconsequential.

Or, to put the matter positively - 54% of Americans reading a book is ... par for the course. How many read a book in the 18C? Maybe more during periods of the 19C (esp. women, as I recall the argument of 'The Feminization of American Culture'...)

But now, after the advent of mass culture, we're only back where we started, not 'elsewhere'. Which is, of course, the fundamental verdict and presupposition of a non-progressive historical interpretation, right? Move in circles? Or?

I guess I refer to my own experience - as we all do, eh - for resources in interpreting the *depth* of the threat of digital 'culture' (if that is what it is) to attention spans, etc. And the result of *this* interpretation is - meh. And this meh underwrites a 'motivated reasoning' (is there another kind?) which searches for and finds evidence in some places that 'the kids are alright', that 'bees bee', that humans are, *finally* (a sense I employ deliberately), ordered to truth-seeking, and so where there is 'distraction', they will *find a way* to peer behind the veil and discover the wizard, whether he is a newfangled AI-bot or else an oldfangled plutocratic capitalist purse-string & marionette-string wielder.

I guess I - constitutionally - don't get caught up in handwringing - and this is not ostrich-style, b/c I do acknowledge numerous distressing trends in the zeitgeist and profound ethical failures of public reasoning, etc. And I do not say, either, that the essay in question exhibits a handwringing tenor - rather is it diagnostic, overall, and even dare I say sanguine, in moments, in a sense.

I think, though, that my grounds for hope are rather in the mode of recalcitrance (and here is where the 'lived experience' plays its rôle, and where, perhaps, 'we are not the same') ... rather than in observations about the internet being supposed to 'heighten awareness'. This it may do, but *still* before the rubber hits the road there intervenes, despite everything, not necessarily the 'agentic' rational monad who 'reasons clearly' (a being who has been recognized as a fiction by Pascal, Freud, Augustine, and Hölderlin), but rather the 'person', whose soul has been discussed for millennia, whose complex inner depth is not susceptible of being *totally* reverse-engineered by *any* latter day developments of techné - whether they are literacy as such, or its opposite (more or less) the 'image' - in either the sense from this essay, or else in the recognizably similar sense from 60 years ago, described in Boorstin's "The Image" (see, if history does not repeat, it rhymes...)

This soul, whose inner contact point is with divinity, or at least eternity, has never successfully been dragged into the 'clear and distinct' light, there to be fully understood apart from its depths and source - and moreover, *is not* totally a creature of print culture, and therefore is not really subject to being 'dissolved' by any developments in the latter. I am dancing around the issue a bit, but fundamentally what I am saying is that I do not believe that the 'checked-out, phone-addicted zombies' (who, believe me, I too discern *everywhere*) - represent any kind of 'stable equilibrium' or 'strange attractor' - it just cannot be, given my priors about the human, and I avow the nature of my argument as such, finally. 'This too, shall pass.'

Next on the subject of 'patterns of shared meaning' and 'mnemonic communicative registers' - I certainly know what you mean, the waves of symbolism mysteriously conjuring themselves even throughout the demesne of the severest boolean algorithms, the emergent complexity of online social systems being the field of 'deities and demons' - of a very recognizable sort, it turns out. Social media is basically a ouija board. That we pushed the marker there ourselves, collectively, is *not* a complete explanation, because *within* ourselves, and manifesting 'spiritually' (pneumatology again...) *between* ourselves are forces at play - *once again*, not new!

I'll reproduce here what I wrote to end another essay from 2024, "The Legitimacy of Theology":
https://t.co/IoD2iuP89q

"And, for what it's worth, I actually don't really buy the 'disenchantment' thesis in the end, notwithstanding the light that I admit it sheds towards some understanding of a certain cultural predicament we were once in.

Because, I don't think it's that hard to name the places where the demons still perch, nestled and abiding in redoubts of soul-scary shadows, with bridges yet uncrossed hovering above trolls who will rise to demand tolls yet unpaid.

And when they do, and when you need to consult your guidebook for advice on what to do and how to handle it, you will find that this advice was written for you once, presciently, by a monk in the previous millennium."

All this is to say that - once again - where we *are* is structurally isomorphic with places we have been *before* - predicamentally, situationally - and, what is more, this is *especially* true in terms of archetype, symbolism, narrative, and myth - i.e., the very 'languages' and 'modes' which are being argued for here as being 'retrieved'. *These* (of all things!) are *not* new, but deeply, deeply, recursive, involuted, and ... traditional.

So, where it is a question of 'metaphysical consequences' of 'information technology', & 'aspects of the medieval conception of reality', I say that rather than anything fundamentally unprecedented, despite all the noise, what we have is, yet again, nature and culture, chaos and order, God, self, and world, freedom and immortality - just as before. (Perhaps this is the time to note that besides 'retrieval', 'emergence' is also a theme of the essay, the word occurring *nineteen* times. So perhaps there is something new under the sun...)

( ... but it is not, I think, the conception of an 'ontology of relations', is it? I need to do more homework here, but at first blush the referent of that phrase would seem to be, simply, *structuralism* - i.e. pre-post-structuralism, a.k.a. 'wild thought', in its Lévi-Straussian canonical formulation - his 'la pensée sauvage' was re-translated in 2021 under that title, as opp. 'the savage mind', under which name it was known for half a century as the ur-text of structuralism. as i understood it, the central point is 'ontology of relations' ... i.e. meaning 'emerges' from patterns ... but i digress.)

Robert Jastrow observes:

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

This is approximately how I feel about our present moment. Questions about legitimacy under new conditions of literacy or its absence constitute important considerations, but are *also* interpretable tempest-in-teapot style, where the teapot is the internet - which, I say, in the final analysis, *cannot* usurp IRL-touch-grass-meat-space, however much brain-stem colonization it does of the populace (and this it has done, I agree.)

And so, we may have our work cut out for us as to either restitution, or else novel, salutary development, but the nature who bats last here is *human nature*, and so the fundamental questions of the nature of subjectivity, the resources of the person to negotiate insults to his integrity, the sources of unity and com-munity - are not in our time given anything more than a new 'avatar', let us say...

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Written well before the current fracas.

... a kind of rhapsody on the theme:
https://t.co/4Iiq3IcMTs

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

https://t.co/YGtzhtyBDs

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I believe there are plenty.

Here's my own (wandering) take on all this ... :
https://t.co/SgBEqi4Upi
...in which I do not list them, but I do say:

"Ancient History is not a place to lose yourself,
but to *find yourself* - which requires
continuing to *be yourself*,
hic et nunc / here & now.

Plato & Aquinas spoke ably in their own contemporary
'marketplaces of ideas' - whether the agora or Paris."

[Zena Hitz @zenahitz]

I admire Greer, but I'm puzzled. What is a post-1930 text that by his lights leads the way out of post-enlightenment nihilism?

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

"He could release an astonishing amount of humanity and vital reality at the periphery of the barren heath of the conceptual practices of philosophy, turn it into a fertile soil upon which a multiplicity of ideas and of the 'spiritual animal kingdom' could feed."

Said of Löwith, may it be said of me... Soon.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I'm in sympathy w/ *some* of this,
but will try to elaborate my own view,
with respect to these points.

(I also wrote - a bit meanderingly & poetically -
on this topic, about a year ago:
https://t.co/jc5W0KwgXr )

So:

'Guaranteed rigor' & 'Intellectual heft'
are certainly some of the 'desiderata' -

and so there may be a heuristic at play here,
a sort of 'outsourcing' of the problem
of canon-selection, ie:

"What are the *best* books?
Well, we no longer know,
in light of 'liquid modernity', let us say, (Z. Bauman)
with its confusion and "incoherence" [from the post],
so let's revert ( ... i do not say 'retvrn' ... )
to those books that were once *known*
to be the best books, at the time when
someone, somewhere, had the confidence
assert that there were, indeed, such a thing
as *the best books*..."

The alternative to this has been to be mired
in a contentious, not exactly 'fruit'-less,
but 'conclusion'-less, struggle
to continuously re-imagine the tradition,
in the light of its being still alive.
( ... which it is. ! )

Some do not want to do this re-imagining,
believing that it has been done for them previously,
and that 'guaranteed rigor' & 'intellectual heft'
are simply ready-to-hand ('zuhanden'),
by consulting the *previous* list.

This has the problem identified here, namely that:

" ... it does not incorporate any of the compelling ideas that have transformed the world since then."

And so, the list of 'great books' *rings false*,
in a sense, from the point of view of not merely
the non-intellectual, who 'instrumentalizes' learning
for the sake of somehow being 'highly effective',
thereupon finding that the short shrift given to
(and here I agree), for example the 19C,
which contained beautifully elaborated insight
necessary for all real intellectuals to be engaged with,
is a genuine defect even w.r.t.
education-as-basic-gentlemanly-familiarity.

But, this being easily dismissed from w/in the tradition,
the more serious problem is the *true* intellectual,
who takes history seriously, for example,
in its meaning that the present moment calls for
acts of understanding which *necessarily* require
deep conversance with those 'great books' and ideas
which have directly resulted from the presently
contested fields, so that the genuinely engaged mind
remains alive and curious.

Ancient History is not a place to lose yourself,
but to *find yourself* - which requires
continuing to *be yourself*,
hic et nunc / here & now.

Plato & Aquinas spoke ably in their own contemporary
'marketplaces of ideas' - whether the agora or Paris.

And so the 'great books' as 'ideal education' move
fundamentally requires the courage of newness,
in the sense that whosoever flies this flag
*must* make a complete survey & some bold claims,
otherwise the canon being reverted to
is only a husk, or an escape.

That said, I certainly believe from personal experience
seeking depth everywhere, that much of it is to be found
in the past - certainly *much* more than the typical
'acculturated', college-educated person now believes.

And so, a push of the pendulum towards the inner
recesses of 'the tradition'? Yes please. It is a poor
showing that many, many contributors to the discourse
nowadays make, regarding their *basic* knowledge
of the large stock of *excellent* statements that have
previously been made on their topic.

Stave off embarrassment through classical knowledge -
this much I am not shy to generally admonish.

As for the "implicit teleological vision" -

I don't think the one described here ("nihilistic vision")
is 'given as read' by all those who study Great Books;
I think this arc-of-ideas is only one of the tendencies,
whereas others certainly have their votaries as well,
in the past and the present.

For one example, "human reason & the enlightenment"
have been deeply, deeply disputed - both ways,
right from the outset, and one cannot draw
clear ideological lines here (then *or* now),
and so immersing oneself in the relevant Great Books
necessarily requires discernment and judgement,
rather than simple uptake of a "nihilistic vision"

and that is the 'guaranteed rigor' & 'intellectual heft'!

Finally, regarding some of the sweeping claims
at the end of the post here, let me forthrightly disagree:

1. Philosophy is *not* a
"poor way to understand the world",
even as *yes*, "history, poetry, rhetoric"
are beautiful and fundamental too.
both/and here please.

2. No correlation betw. studying these books
& living a virtuous life, "or even an efficacious one"?

Maybe if studied in a vacuum, or autodidactically
under conditions of untoward influence or context.

But overall, I would disagree.

Book-learning is not a requirement for virtue,
but can be an enormous, enriching support of it,
particularly for the intellectually inclined,
and also, considered as a dimension of the culture
as-a-whole, and its ideas-at-large.
'Great Books' are essential in this sense.
Single-factor cause? Maybe not.
"No correlation" though?
To either virtue or effectiveness?

Oh, and on 'the STEM critique' -

I have personally found *enormous* richness
in the intersection of philosophy, natural science,
certain realms of mathematics (esp. the more
to do with ideas, eg incompleteness, etc.),
plus considerations of 'technics' (ie
technology+society, à la Mumford,
Ellul, Gouldner, Borgmann...)
and while there may be a few 'Great Books' even here,
I would say that in the mind of a real intellectual,
there are not bright lines of demarcation here,
and wonderful insight produced in one 'field',
when rising past a certain threshold unto 'greatness',
lifts itself into being universally relevant & worthwhile.

That is - canonized.

[T. Greer @Scholars_Stage]

I’ll take a stab.

The concept of the Great Books was invented in the 1910s and 1920s and is not some civilizational tradition as often claimed; the implicit version of western civilization it teaches is a false one, giving the Greeks too much credit and erasing the Germanic contribution wholesale; there is also an implicit teological vision built into the current version of the canon that sees the whole affair of human reason, and in particular the enlightenment, as culminating in WWI, the Holocaust, and the incoherence of modernism, thus presenting a nihilistic vision of human potential and of the civilization to which we are heirs; as the canon is frozen in the 1930s it does not incorporate any of the compelling ideas that have transformed the world since then; philosophy is a poor way to understand the world and is less useful for this purpose than history, poetry, rhetoric, language and all of the other things punted out of the canon to stuff more philosophy in; there is no correlation between studying these books and living a virtuous life, or even an efficacious one.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Yes.

Last year, @dr_mcgilchrist wrote:
"Universities are a cornerstone of our civilization,"
in accepting the chancellorship at @RalstonCollege

He was right.
And he listed four benchmarks (below).
I took great inspiration, and elaborated:

https://t.co/yc3hQsGi5D

1. Freedom of Thought
2. True Scholarship
3. A love of excellence
4. Deep Engagement
with the Richness of the Humanities

1. Freedom of Thought

The intellect is constitutionally free, and biographically speaking, in the life history and memory of every boy and girl who has been loved, encouraged, instructed, and listened to, there has occurred a moment of recognizing this - that the structure of interiority brooks no constraint as being 'of the essence' of itself. 'Something there is that does not love a wall,' in the words of the poet. (Frost).

There are of course current boundaries of one's understanding and knowledge, and self-knowledge in particular requires an act of meditative introspection ('gnothi seauton'), to come to terms with one's existence and its meaning (and by 'terms' i do not mean 'conclusions').

Notwithstanding these, the life of the mind is *naturally* free, meaning that freedom is its *nature*. 'Thought', as a frame for noetic events, let us say, in their differentiation and reflexive presence to themselves, *is* what freedom *is*, in a certain sense - in that the outworkings of one's spirit-in-act, that is one's 'life force', or maybe 'conatus', or 'drives' (if you must) *play out*, according to human nature, in an arena of awareness, or 'consciousness and its contents', or beliefs, conscience, desires, dreams.

These are who you are, in truth - and these are free (as you know, in your heart!). And although these *cannot* be produced by 'force' (the machine will produce only a 'ghost', because what was once known was that the soul is the form of the body, not an additive 'res cogitans') - they can, sadly, be distorted by errors and foolishness - and an error is not what is 'not correct' but what 'turns away from truth'.

The saying - which was once characteristic of the university - that the truth shall make you free, does not rely on truth as 'these propositions and not those' (all of that can be hashed out in due time), but rather truth as an orientation, which is why courage is essential to it, and more to the point, which is why freedom and truth are in fact coextensive. 'To think is to be free'.

2. True Scholarship

Whereas 'freedom of thought' is fundamental not only to the university but to society in all of its 'spheres' (and its 'integrity', according to the language below) - *scholarship* is the special charge of the university, and the special calling of a certain type of necessary person, with an ample capability for articulated knowledge and a vocation to know what has been known in order to speak with the assurance of that knowledge.

I will cut to the chase here by saying that it is my view that the existence of authentic scholarship has been gravely dissociated from its appurtenances - that is, its association with the university (or 'academe' in McGilchrist's scholarly language below) - and I do not mean merely in the popular mind, but, what is worse, that this commonsense dissociation is more or less *accurate*, as commonsense often is.

And what is 'grave' about this is the percolation through the culture that somehow, therefore, since knowledge is evidently *not* present where one had thought it would be present (the university, or else the knowledgeable authority of another kind, whether the professional, the expert, etc. - all of whom are in a tailspin of sadly well-deserved degraded prestige) - that, anyway, that somehow this means it may have turned out there is *no such thing* as knowledge after all, that 'true scholarship' is a phantom or a mere 'superstructure' masking the interests of a rent-seeking intellectual elite. There *is* something answering to this description - but what it is is *not* 'true scholarship', which has *continued* to exist (thank god), despite having been driven out of its wonted homes.

All this is *precisely* the reason for @RalstonCollege be a 'reinvention' of the university - not that the basics are a grand mystery, but that a tragic complex of realities has seemingly hampered the incumbents. Many do not realize this, but many do. And none of those in this 'space' who are the admirable players are at all pleased at any waywardness or do at all celebrate any failures - let us speak with one voice to desire recovery, course correction, and the flourishing once again of vibrant academic culture.

But let us also recognize that it is time to think outside the box - and, particularly, where it is a question of supporting 'true scholarship' - to discover it in some sense *newly*, vet it, and promote it according to a refreshed sense of what it has meant in the past and what it could mean now. As a matter of fact, we are sorely lacking the elevation of 'true scholarship' in the wider culture, even if it will always remain in certain redoubts, given that (as Voegelin has noticed): "There are always young men with enough spiritual instinct to resist the efforts of 'educators' who pressure for 'adjustment'..."

3. A love of excellence

This is my favorite one.

A votary of the 'liberal imagination', Lionel Trilling, has also written of 'the moral obligation to be intelligent.'

One intuitively senses the fragility of achievement as such, and a spiritually well-tempered soul will be true to the haphazards of fate and chance, and so will in some sense 'lay not up for itself treasures upon this earth' - that is, will not take personal credit for excellence, even if it is a consequence of an individual effort, but will offer it up in humility and gratitude.

And yet, the excellence is *in itself* not 'optional' whether or not to acknowledge or pursue - it is obligatory. There is very clearly, for those who have eyes to see, a strange phalanx of forces in the culture seeming to abhor excellence-as-such, and many fairy and folk tales are there to remind us of the corrosive effects of envy. But, somewhere, over the rainbow, excellence-as-such must be honored without shame - otherwise, what can possibly orient the attitudes of children, and also all the rest of us who also continue to grow, who continue to show a tropism to the light, who continue to search for beauty and goodness? Excellence cannot and will not be effaced from this earth - and what is more, excellence has been beautifully exampled throughout history, and an acquaintance with how and why and in what manner is an essential part of an education, that 'we may not loosely through silence permit things to pass away as in a dream...'

4. Deep Engagement with the Richness of the Humanities

'The Humanities' are an invitation to the 'richness' of perception, to the depths of inquiry, to the facets of the mystery of life, of relationships, of destiny, that have been visited in the minds of those who have offered something to the 'conversation of mankind'.

Poetry, what has become as if ornamental to the culture, means in fact creation itself, and is much more, and has meant much more, than imagery or mere words on a page. Think of what a novel is, and compare it to an 'article' of any kind, and you will have in hand right away one genre of important argument for the humanities - there is nothing to compare with the tapestry.

And what are the stories we tell ourselves? Do you imagine that you are not in one, at this very moment? Myth is a word for the existential, cosmological story. And the symbol is required where it is thought that what is 'clear and distinct' tops out somewhere. It is amazing that for every person it surely does, there surely are things which your understanding of is not eidetic, clear, and totally explicit - and yet, that this is not simply for lack of trying, or time and effort (and 'materials'!), but that it is structural and can be named and housed in not only symbolism but even performance and liturgy - these realities of history and culture, these perceptions and discussions, *these* are the 'depths and richness' of 'the humanities' - and once again, it takes a deliberate turning away, a kind of 'idiocy', to create the conditions for their refusal.

The healthy self and the healthy culture welcomes and is invigorated and rejuvenated by the perennial conversation, and seeks to make itself adequate to and contribute to it.

--

I celebrate the existence of a 'new bright star in the firmament of academe', and its consecration to these ideals.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

.@dr_mcgilchrist here helpfully describes four benchmarks essential to the the university.
I wholeheartedly agree with these, and I am going to gloss them further here, elaborating my understanding.
1. Freedom of Thought
The intellect is constitutionally free, and biographically speaking, in the life history and memory of every boy and girl who has been loved, encouraged, instructed, and listened to, there has occurred a moment of recognizing this - that the structure of interiority brooks no constraint as being 'of the essence' of itself. 'Something there is that does not love a wall,' in the words of the poet. (Frost). There are of course current boundaries of one's understanding and knowledge, and self-knowledge in particular requires an act of meditative introspection ('gnothi seauton'), to come to terms with one's existence and its meaning (and by 'terms' i do not mean 'conclusions'). Notwithstanding these, the life of the mind is *naturally* free, meaning that freedom is its *nature*. 'Thought', as a frame for noetic events, let us say, in their differentiation and reflexive presence to themselves, *is* what freedom *is*, in a certain sense - in that the outworkings of one's spirit-in-act, that is one's 'life force', or maybe 'conatus', or 'drives' (if you must) *play out*, according to human nature, in an arena of awareness, or 'consciousness and its contents', or beliefs, conscience, desires, dreams. These are who you are, in truth - and these are free (as you know, in your heart!). And although these *cannot* be produced by 'force' (the machine will produce only a 'ghost', because what was once known was that the soul is the form of the body, not an additive 'res cogitans') - they can, sadly, be distorted by errors and foolishness - and an error is not what is 'not correct' but what 'turns away from truth'. The saying - which was once characteristic of the university - that the truth shall make you free, does not rely on truth as 'these propositions and not those' (all of that can be hashed out in due time), but rather truth as an orientation, which is why courage is essential to it, and more to the point, which is why freedom and truth are in fact coextensive. 'To think is to be free'.
2. True Scholarship
Whereas 'freedom of thought' is fundamental not only to the university but to society in all of its 'spheres' (and its 'integrity', according to the language below) - *scholarship* is the special charge of the university, and the special calling of a certain type of necessary person, with an ample capability for articulated knowledge and a vocation to know what has been known in order to speak with the assurance of that knowledge. I will cut to the chase here by saying that it is my view that the existence of authentic scholarship has been gravely dissociated from its appurtenances - that is, its association with the university (or 'academe' in McGilchrist's scholarly language below) - and I do not mean merely in the popular mind, but, what is worse, that this commonsense dissociation is more or less *accurate*, as commonsense often is. And what is 'grave' about this is the percolation through the culture that somehow, therefore, since knowledge is evidently *not* present where one had thought it would be present (the university, or else the knowledgeable authority of another kind, whether the professional, the expert, etc. - all of whom are in a tailspin of sadly well-deserved degraded prestige) - that, anyway, that somehow this means it may have turned out there is *no such thing* as knowledge after all, that 'true scholarship' is a phantom or a mere 'superstructure' masking the interests of a rent-seeking intellectual elite. There *is* something answering to this description - but what it is is *not* 'true scholarship', which has *continued* to exist (thank god), despite having been driven out of its wonted homes. All this is *precisely* the reason for @RalstonCollege to be a 'reinvention' of the university - not that the basics are a grand mystery, but that a tragic complex of realities has seemingly hampered the incumbents. Many do not realize this, but many do. And none of those in this 'space' who are the admirable players are at all pleased at any waywardness or do at all celebrate any failures - let us speak with one voice to desire recovery, course correction, and the flourishing once again of vibrant academic culture. But let us also recognize that it is time to think outside the box - and, particularly, where it is a question of supporting 'true scholarship' - to discover it in some sense *newly*, vet it, and promote it according to a refreshed sense of what it has meant in the past and what it could mean now. As a matter of fact, we are sorely lacking the elevation of 'true scholarship' in the wider culture, even if it will always remain in certain redoubts, given that (as Voegelin has noticed): "There are always young men with enough spiritual instinct to resist the efforts of 'educators' who pressure for 'adjustment'..."
3. A love of excellence
This is my favorite one. A votary of the 'liberal imagination', Lionel Trilling, has also written of 'the moral obligation to be intelligent.' One intuitively senses the fragility of achievement as such, and a spiritually well-tempered soul will be true to the haphazards of fate and chance, and so will in some sense 'lay not up for itself treasures upon this earth' - that is, will not take personal credit for excellence, even if it is a consequence of an individual effort, but will offer it up in humility and gratitude. And yet, the excellence is *in itself* not 'optional' whether or not to acknowledge or pursue - it is obligatory. There is very clearly, for those who have eyes to see, a strange phalanx of forces in the culture seeming to abhor excellence-as-such, and many fairy and folk tales are there to remind us of the corrosive effects of envy. But, somewhere, over the rainbow, excellence-as-such must be honored without shame - otherwise, what can possibly orient the attitudes of children, and also all the rest of us who also continue to grow, who continue to show a tropism to the light, who continue to search for beauty and goodness? Excellence cannot and will not be effaced from this earth - and what is more, excellence has been beautifully exampled throughout history, and an acquaintance with how and why and in what manner is an essential part of an education, that 'we may not loosely through silence permit things to pass away as in a dream...'
4. Deep Engagement with the Richness of the Humanities
'The Humanities' are an invitation to the 'richness' of perception, to the depths of inquiry, to the facets of the mystery of life, of relationships, of destiny, that have been visited in the minds of those who have offered something to the 'conversation of mankind'. Poetry, what has become as if ornamental to the culture, means in fact creation itself, and is much more, and has meant much more, than imagery or mere words on a page. Think of what a novel is, and compare it to an 'article' of any kind, and you will have in hand right away one genre of important argument for the humanities - there is nothing to compare with the tapestry. And what are the stories we tell ourselves? Do you imagine that you are not in one, at this very moment? Myth is a word for the existential, cosmological story. And the symbol is required where it is thought that what is 'clear and distinct' tops out somewhere. It is amazing that for every person it surely does, there surely are things which your understanding of is not eidetic, clear, and totally explicit - and yet, that this is not simply for lack of trying, or time and effort (and 'materials'!), but that it is structural and can be named and housed in not only symbolism but even performance and liturgy - these realities of history and culture, these perceptions and discussions, *these* are the 'depths and richness' of 'the humanities' - and once again, it takes a deliberate turning away, a kind of 'idiocy', to create the conditions for their refusal. The healthy self and the healthy culture welcomes and is invigorated and rejuvenated by the perennial conversation, and seeks to make itself adequate to and contribute to it.
--
I celebrate the existence of a 'new bright star in the firmament of academe', and its consecration to these ideals.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@stephenblackwd @RalstonCollege @dr_mcgilchrist https://t.co/9wz9XDVqKj

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Some further reflections here,
related to my comment above that:

https://t.co/0lgoCosP2G

"I celebrate this ceremony in its concrete details of regalia and 'laying on of hands' as, firstly, *beautiful* - but also as *necessary*, in reminding these students and those gathered in witness of the, shall I say, sacramental character of their 'accession' into the perennial academy."

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@stephenblackwd @RalstonCollege @dr_mcgilchrist https://t.co/GTw8ZsgVoJ

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I will furthermore adjoin some remarks
on "Scholarship as a Portal to something
that will Open an Imaginative World":

Although it often seems that the lines
of demarcation in the turmoil of the academy
are drawn between those who affirm
1.
'realism' in its older sense - ie that *ideas*
are real, that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*objective* / *verifiable* / *singular* -
but, at least, *real* ... and, contrarily,
2.
'nominalism' in its postmodern permutations,
variously asserting (or seeming to assert,
... or, as often, seeming to prevaricate & demur)
that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*arbitrary* / *various* / *impossible* -
but, at least, *not to be deified*
(is that fair? i hint at the point merely, & proceed)

False dichotomy, I say - and those who repeatedly
pronounce it as a load-bearing analysis
have not done their homework.

It was Alasdair MacIntyre who argued (famously)
that there are "rationalities rather than rationality".

The reality of *Weltanschauung* ('worldview')
- a vision of reality - situated in and 'at the base
of individual and collective life' - and this in turn
underwriting 'traditions of inquiry', etc.

all of this in short means that *formation*
as well as the *intangibles* play a huge, outsize
role in re-grounding claims about the transcendentals,

that is, the Beauty, Goodness, & Truth
that are the wonderful freight of our articulate history -
but, that are also not *simply* universal,
but 'absolute' only in a special way,
as a *revelation* to the imagination,
(not necessarily the discursive intellect,
which will always quibble, bless its heart...)

What I am saying here is that this
'scholarship as a portal' & this 'imaginative world' -
are, I think, the proper framing for the
*itinerarium mentis* ('mind's journey'),
since it is not a matter of being 'convinced'
but of being 'transformed' (in *metanoia* )

Education is in some sense 'conversion to Truth' -
of which no-one worth his salt, no-one who is
"a gentleman and a scholar", will claim to be
in possession, but rather familiarly acquainted with,
nevertheless according Truth and Nature and God
their dignity, whether as ever-receding and retiring,
in the 20C dispensation (Heidegger, Marion, et al.),
or else *maior dissimulitudo* ('ever greater')
in 'dissimilarity' - (non-capturability in our concept),
in the dispensation of the 13C analogy of being.

It amounts to the same thing - that the work of
the Scholar is the work of a 'rhythm' (Przywara),
a 'circle' (Gadamer), a 'journey' (Bonaventure),

and this is because of the 'anagogical' entry
into this 'Imaginative World' (@dr_mcgilchrist ),

first into its outer precincts (reading and thinking)
then admitted into the 'temenos'
(reflection, contemplation, 'rumination'),
and thence into the 'Interior Castle' -
which is, perhaps communion & conversation
with the legacy of those who have upheld,
as it is well said here, "something cherished..."

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Some further reflections here,
related to my comment above that:

https://t.co/0lgoCosP2G

"I celebrate this ceremony in its concrete details of regalia and 'laying on of hands' as, firstly, *beautiful* - but also as *necessary*, in reminding these students and those gathered in witness of the, shall I say, sacramental character of their 'accession' into the perennial academy."

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Insightful, esp. the part about
'living respectably' -> 'local mythology'.

Many have noticed the phases of this
'aura-less-ness' / 'withdrawing roar' (M. Arnold)
across the spectrum & eras:

'ceremony of innocence drowned' (Yeats)
all 'mystique' become 'politique' (Péguy)
'squandering away the objects which made the happiness of their fellows' (Burke)
W. Blake's whole impassioned oeuvre, in a way,
'entzauberung' / 'disenchantment', in a way (M. Weber)

& further in the realm of 'theoretical discourse',
the analysis of 'authority' & its 'crisis' (esp. vs. 'power')
by Del Noce / de Jouvenel / Forsyth / Capograssi, etc.
( & many more ... )
(Forsyth wrote: 'The Principle of Authority in relation to
Certainty, Sanctity, and Society', & Capograssi wrote:
'Reflections on Authority & its Crisis')

That's just off the top of my head,
but I think the threads go way deep ...

and I can easily think through versions of the history
traced to the Enlightenment rejection of Tradition,
in favor of evaluating in the court of Rationality alone,
whereas the 'critical' faculty has trouble 'elevating'
anything, let alone 'worshiping' it ...
("nobody admires anything anymore", from the tweet)

( ... and so the very concepts of 'piety', 'devoutness'
a.k.a : 'living respectably in a local mythology'
are, in the wake of the above, now difficult to
credit or even parse at all for meaning.
who is now *devout* other than your grandmother?)

or the Fr. Rev. 'cashiering of the governors',
which certainly dealt a death blow
to 'class' (or 'estate') 'aura', anyway
(for better or for worse, or for both -
i'm not rendering a judgement here)

the Reformation disavowal of the Institution,
which left behind much 'aura' which had been
prev. housed in hierarchy & the 'armature' of civilization
(ie architecture, artworks, & the 'deposit' of faith,
referring to the vast canons of elaborated literature
and philosophy surrounding the central mystery,
rather than a strict, severe, & austere limitation of these)

I'm just riffing on a theme from the perspective of
*intellectual history* - but as pertains to our moment,
Yes - I believe that a central story of our times
is the total, comprehensive evacuation of 'aura'
from institutions. The very ones named are a useful
list of 'schelling-point-like' real world examples,
i.e. NYT standing in for 'journalism',
Harvard standing in for 'the university',
Hollywood standing in for 'contemporary culture', etc. ...

I would add Science, Industry, Liberalism,
and other ... what ... shibboleths of high-modernity?

Our topic is their *aura*,
and this has noticeably diminished.

The problem is - children *require* 'aura'
to orient themselves morally.
(And so do the rest of us still, too.)

'Aura' = 'Morale'

Where to place it - or, better,
find it existing there already - now?

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I will furthermore adjoin some remarks
on "Scholarship as a Portal to something
that will Open an Imaginative World":

Although it often seems that the lines
of demarcation in the turmoil of the academy
are drawn between those who affirm
1.
'realism' in its older sense - ie that *ideas*
are real, that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*objective* / *verifiable* / *singular* -
but, at least, *real* ... and, contrarily,
2.
'nominalism' in its postmodern permutations,
variously asserting (or seeming to assert,
... or, as often, seeming to prevaricate & demur)
that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*arbitrary* / *various* / *impossible* -
but, at least, *not to be deified*
(is that fair? i hint at the point merely, & proceed)

False dichotomy, I say - and those who repeatedly
pronounce it as a load-bearing analysis
have not done their homework.

It was Alasdair MacIntyre who argued (famously)
that there are "rationalities rather than rationality".

The reality of *Weltanschauung* ('worldview')
- a vision of reality - situated in and 'at the base
of individual and collective life' - and this in turn
underwriting 'traditions of inquiry', etc.

all of this in short means that *formation*
as well as the *intangibles* play a huge, outsize
role in re-grounding claims about the transcendentals,

that is, the Beauty, Goodness, & Truth
that are the wonderful freight of our articulate history -
but, that are also not *simply* universal,
but 'absolute' only in a special way,
as a *revelation* to the imagination,
(not necessarily the discursive intellect,
which will always quibble, bless its heart...)

What I am saying here is that this
'scholarship as a portal' & this 'imaginative world' -
are, I think, the proper framing for the
*itinerarium mentis* ('mind's journey'),
since it is not a matter of being 'convinced'
but of being 'transformed' (in *metanoia* )

Education is in some sense 'conversion to Truth' -
of which no-one worth his salt, no-one who is
"a gentleman and a scholar", will claim to be
in possession, but rather familiarly acquainted with,
nevertheless according Truth and Nature and God
their dignity, whether as ever-receding and retiring,
in the 20C dispensation (Heidegger, Marion, et al.),
or else *maior dissimulitudo* ('ever greater')
in 'dissimilarity' - (non-capturability in our concept),
in the dispensation of the 13C analogy of being.

It amounts to the same thing - that the work of
the Scholar is the work of a 'rhythm' (Przywara),
a 'circle' (Gadamer), a 'journey' (Bonaventure),

and this is because of the 'anagogical' entry
into this 'Imaginative World' (@dr_mcgilchrist ),

first into its outer precincts (reading and thinking)
then admitted into the 'temenos'
(reflection, contemplation, 'rumination'),
and thence into the 'Interior Castle' -
which is, perhaps communion & conversation
with the legacy of those who have upheld,
as it is well said here, "something cherished..."

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Insightful, esp. the part about
'living respectably' -> 'local mythology'.

Many have noticed the phases of this
'aura-less-ness' / 'withdrawing roar' (M. Arnold)
across the spectrum & eras:

'ceremony of innocence drowned' (Yeats)
all 'mystique' become 'politique' (Péguy)
'squandering away the objects which made the happiness of their fellows' (Burke)
W. Blake's whole impassioned oeuvre, in a way,
'entzauberung' / 'disenchantment', in a way (M. Weber)

& further in the realm of 'theoretical discourse',
the analysis of 'authority' & its 'crisis' (esp. vs. 'power')
by Del Noce / de Jouvenel / Forsyth / Capograssi, etc.
( & many more ... )
(Forsyth wrote: 'The Principle of Authority in relation to
Certainty, Sanctity, and Society', & Capograssi wrote:
'Reflections on Authority & its Crisis')

That's just off the top of my head,
but I think the threads go way deep ...

and I can easily think through versions of the history
traced to the Enlightenment rejection of Tradition,
in favor of evaluating in the court of Rationality alone,
whereas the 'critical' faculty has trouble 'elevating'
anything, let alone 'worshiping' it ...
("nobody admires anything anymore", from the tweet)

( ... and so the very concepts of 'piety', 'devoutness'
a.k.a : 'living respectably in a local mythology'
are, in the wake of the above, now difficult to
credit or even parse at all for meaning.
who is now *devout* other than your grandmother?)

or the Fr. Rev. 'cashiering of the governors',
which certainly dealt a death blow
to 'class' (or 'estate') 'aura', anyway
(for better or for worse, or for both -
i'm not rendering a judgement here)

the Reformation disavowal of the Institution,
which left behind much 'aura' which had been
prev. housed in hierarchy & the 'armature' of civilization
(ie architecture, artworks, & the 'deposit' of faith,
referring to the vast canons of elaborated literature
and philosophy surrounding the central mystery,
rather than a strict, severe, & austere limitation of these)

I'm just riffing on a theme from the perspective of
*intellectual history* - but as pertains to our moment,
Yes - I believe that a central story of our times
is the total, comprehensive evacuation of 'aura'
from institutions. The very ones named are a useful
list of 'schelling-point-like' real world examples,
i.e. NYT standing in for 'journalism',
Harvard standing in for 'the university',
Hollywood standing in for 'contemporary culture', etc. ...

I would add Science, Industry, Liberalism,
and other ... what ... shibboleths of high-modernity?

Our topic is their *aura*,
and this has noticeably diminished.

The problem is - children *require* 'aura'
to orient themselves morally.
(And so do the rest of us still, too.)

'Aura' = 'Morale'

Where to place it - or, better,
find it existing there already - now?

[Amal Dorai @amaldorai]

Young people are entering a world with almost no aura left anywhere

There used to be aura everywhere: the New York Times, Harvard University, the Catholic Church, the Hollywood studio lot, Goldman Sachs, billionaires, the Pentagon, the United States Senate, the Peace Corps, the British Royal family, the trading floor. Places where you were a "made man" if you were on the inside and even on the outside made you feel a little special just to be in proximity to...

And even ignoring these big institutions, aura didn't need Latin mottos and mahogany desks and cufflinks, you could build aura by doing very normal things like being a teacher or accountant or a restaurant owner and living respectably in your neighborhood for 50 years and raising a family. You could have a local mythology. "She taught half this town how to read."

Now everybody's seen too much, nobody admires anyone anything, everything is "cringe," and the only way to have aura is to be hot on Instagram or become an astronaut

I feel bad for the youth

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@dr_mcgilchrist @RalstonCollege 2.
https://t.co/GTw8ZsgVoJ

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

I will furthermore adjoin some remarks
on "Scholarship as a Portal to something
that will Open an Imaginative World":

Although it often seems that the lines
of demarcation in the turmoil of the academy
are drawn between those who affirm
1.
'realism' in its older sense - ie that *ideas*
are real, that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*objective* / *verifiable* / *singular* -
but, at least, *real* ... and, contrarily,
2.
'nominalism' in its postmodern permutations,
variously asserting (or seeming to assert,
... or, as often, seeming to prevaricate & demur)
that Truth is ... what ... not nec.
*arbitrary* / *various* / *impossible* -
but, at least, *not to be deified*
(is that fair? i hint at the point merely, & proceed)

False dichotomy, I say - and those who repeatedly
pronounce it as a load-bearing analysis
have not done their homework.

It was Alasdair MacIntyre who argued (famously)
that there are "rationalities rather than rationality".

The reality of *Weltanschauung* ('worldview')
- a vision of reality - situated in and 'at the base
of individual and collective life' - and this in turn
underwriting 'traditions of inquiry', etc.

all of this in short means that *formation*
as well as the *intangibles* play a huge, outsize
role in re-grounding claims about the transcendentals,

that is, the Beauty, Goodness, & Truth
that are the wonderful freight of our articulate history -
but, that are also not *simply* universal,
but 'absolute' only in a special way,
as a *revelation* to the imagination,
(not necessarily the discursive intellect,
which will always quibble, bless its heart...)

What I am saying here is that this
'scholarship as a portal' & this 'imaginative world' -
are, I think, the proper framing for the
*itinerarium mentis* ('mind's journey'),
since it is not a matter of being 'convinced'
but of being 'transformed' (in *metanoia* )

Education is in some sense 'conversion to Truth' -
of which no-one worth his salt, no-one who is
"a gentleman and a scholar", will claim to be
in possession, but rather familiarly acquainted with,
nevertheless according Truth and Nature and God
their dignity, whether as ever-receding and retiring,
in the 20C dispensation (Heidegger, Marion, et al.),
or else *maior dissimulitudo* ('ever greater')
in 'dissimilarity' - (non-capturability in our concept),
in the dispensation of the 13C analogy of being.

It amounts to the same thing - that the work of
the Scholar is the work of a 'rhythm' (Przywara),
a 'circle' (Gadamer), a 'journey' (Bonaventure),

and this is because of the 'anagogical' entry
into this 'Imaginative World' (@dr_mcgilchrist ),

first into its outer precincts (reading and thinking)
then admitted into the 'temenos'
(reflection, contemplation, 'rumination'),
and thence into the 'Interior Castle' -
which is, perhaps communion & conversation
with the legacy of those who have upheld,
as it is well said here, "something cherished..."

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@dr_mcgilchrist @RalstonCollege I wrote the following two reflections,
upon watching this commencement address.

Here they are, in series. 🧵
Penny for your thoughts.

1.
https://t.co/bOak43Rj8f

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

Uniquely solemn and taut with import,
because the man delivering these finely honed remarks
assuredly experiences their weight himself,
and embodies in his own life and work
an exemplification, very admirable, of one version
of their advice and exhortation being carried out in fact.
I was overjoyed, and that is the right word,
when I learned that @dr_mcgilchrist was to be
the chancellor of @RalstonCollege -
as a close follower of his work as well as a
well-wisher of the enterprise of renewing the University,
I found it a shining bit of inspiring good news.
Because of his authentic polymathy and also
humility before knowledge of every kind,
he is an excellent representative of the Tradition
of, as he says here, "Scholarship as a Portal
to something that will Open an Imaginative World".
Speaking as myself someone who has undertaken
a lifelong work of private scholarship,
apropos of no appointment or gain,
but only in recognition and honor of the gift
of my own desire, implanted in me as in us all,
perhaps as a divine deposit, which directs our minds
to the Truth, "lifts our eyes to the Heavens",
as it is said in this speech ... speaking as such an one,
and in communion and 'ahistorical continuity'
with others who have learned and prized this
"way of being in the world" (may it never perish),
I celebrate this ceremony in its concrete details
of regalia and 'laying on of hands' as, firstly,
*beautiful* - but also as *necessary*, in reminding
these students and those gathered in witness
of the, shall I say, sacramental character
of their 'accession' into the perennial academy.
What is described here as a "degree of urgency"
regarding the need to "bring back the stars
to the wandering bark tossed on the seas ... ",
is indeed a dramatic reality of our times,
and yet - few are the attempts to actually do it,
without any concession to what is hectic, hurried,
de-centered, superficial, vacant - without any
aping of, indeed nary any reference to,
the literal 'profane', crowded out as it rightly is,
"seen through", as it is said here, replaced by
a vision unashamed, through acquaintance
with a dignified past, and through knowledge
of indeed what the inheritance consists of,
what has been "travestied" and "scorned"
... unashamed to be sincere and genuine,
in the face of this, and to carry a dimension
of *gravitas*, as a tonic to a flighty, cynical world ...
and as a reminder - as a *symbol* - of what is eternal.

[Gautam Tejas Ganeshan @heyGTG]

@stephenblackwd @RalstonCollege @stephen_wolfram @elonmusk @elonmusk it's time to support @RalstonCollege

I can explain why in 5min.

So can @stephenblackwd

... in two words:

Civilizational Renewal

https://t.co/5RuFhDO56f

[Stephen Blackwood @stephenblackwd]

How Civilizations Die

The Provost of @RalstonCollege David Butterfield—an astoundingly talented and courageous man—with @KonstantinKisin and @francisjfoster on the @triggerpod. A bracing conversation on the essential, indeed existential, question of our time.

https://t.co/aQNHRreXY0