The Art of Manliness - #430： Why You Need to Join the Great Conversation About the Great Books

00:00:00.000 This episode of the Art of Manliness podcast is brought to you by Online Great Books.

00:00:03.120 If you've made a goal for yourself to read the great books of the Western world,

00:00:06.360 but have had trouble following through, check out Online Great Books.

00:00:09.020 It's an online platform. You sign up.

00:00:10.760 They're going to mail you a physical copy of the book that you're assigned that month.

00:00:13.540 They're going to provide you a reading schedule and send you reminders on how you should read

00:00:17.060 so you can keep pace.

00:00:18.060 Then at the end of the month, you're going to have a online video seminar

00:00:20.860 where you can discuss the book with other people in your group.

00:00:23.340 So if you want to learn more about this, go to OnlineGreatBooks.com.

00:00:26.500 And when you're ready to sign up, use code AOM at checkout.

00:00:29.160 You can save 25% on your first three months.

00:00:31.580 Again, OnlineGreatBooks.com, code AOM at checkout.

00:00:34.360 Save 25% on your first three months.

00:00:36.600 This episode of the Art of Manliness podcast is brought to you in part by Wrangler.

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00:00:59.160 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:01:15.880 Now, there are conversations between friends, conversations between family,

00:01:19.540 and conversations in the media.

00:01:21.180 But did you know there's also been a conversation going on between writers, thinkers,

00:01:24.180 and philosophers for a couple thousand years?

00:01:25.760 What's been called The Great Conversation refers to the way the authors of the so-called

00:01:28.640 great books have for millennia been referencing and riffing on the work of their predecessors.

00:01:32.620 And this is a dialogue that you can not only eavesdrop in on yourself, but join in.

00:01:37.200 My guest today founded an online community that helps people take part in The Great Conversation.

00:01:40.840 His name is Scott Hambrick.

00:01:41.840 He's both a starting strength barbell lifting coach and the creator of Online Great Books,

00:01:45.380 a program which helps people read and discuss the classic texts of Western literature.

00:01:49.000 Today on the show, Scott and I discuss where the idea of The Great Books came from,

00:01:52.160 why they're worth reading, and how to read them.

00:01:54.200 Along the way, we offer sample questions to think about when you're reading these texts,

00:01:57.620 as well as many models of exchanges you can have with others about them.

00:02:00.840 Hopefully by the end of the show, you'll be inspired to pick up a copy of The Iliad or

00:02:04.000 something by Plato.

00:02:05.020 After it's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash online great books.

00:02:09.420 Mr. Scott Hambrick, welcome to the show.

00:02:26.120 Thank you for having me.

00:02:27.180 I'm so excited.

00:02:28.280 No, this is great.

00:02:29.180 This is great.

00:02:29.760 So you and I just got finished training in your spectacular garage gym.

00:02:35.000 Yes.

00:02:35.440 It is spectacular.

00:02:36.220 You've got two racks, stained platforms.

00:02:40.740 It's a classy joint.

00:02:42.180 We try.

00:02:42.880 We try.

00:02:43.720 So we're not going to talk about training the body, though.

00:02:47.900 Right.

00:02:48.820 We're going to talk about training the mind, because you started a little thing,

00:02:53.520 onlinegreatbooks.com.

00:02:55.040 Let's talk about The Great Books for those who aren't familiar with it.

00:02:57.920 What are The Great Books and who decided?

00:03:00.840 Who are the people who got to decide?

00:03:02.680 Like, these books are great.

00:03:04.100 Those books are not great.

00:03:05.380 Yeah, that's sort of the postmodern debate now, like what constitutes The Great Books.

00:03:11.480 Here's my opinion.

00:03:12.960 The Great Books, I believe, the list that comprises The Great Books, I believe, is an emergent canon.

00:03:20.480 Right?

00:03:20.640 So if you pick up one of these books, I don't know, you go pick up Nietzsche, let's say,

00:03:26.120 and you're going to read that for a little bit, and he's going to mention Descartes.

00:03:28.940 You're going to go, gosh, he's that guy.

00:03:30.100 Then you go pick up that book, and then he mentions Aristotle.

00:03:32.860 Oh, gosh, now I've got to go read him.

00:03:34.860 And the way these books are self-referential, and they're like, Mortimer Adler called them

00:03:38.680 a great conversation between all these geniuses.

00:03:41.120 And so the list is self-evident, because they refer to each other and answer each other's

00:03:45.140 questions in term over time.

00:03:47.400 And different organizations have different lists, but they're 90%, 95% identical, because

00:03:54.720 this list is emergent.

00:03:56.420 These books refer to each other, and you really have to read them all to get what all of them

00:04:00.260 are saying to each other.

00:04:01.160 Gotcha.

00:04:01.720 So, great.

00:04:02.380 We're talking classics.

00:04:03.220 We're going, yeah, you mentioned Nietzsche, Descartes.

00:04:05.800 You're going all the way back to Plato.

00:04:07.800 You drill down, and then you end up at the Iliad every time.

00:04:11.860 Yeah, pretty much every time.

00:04:12.920 Yeah, you end up at the Iliad.

00:04:13.980 So you mentioned Mortimer Adler, because this guy was, he was a big part of this.

00:04:18.640 There was like a movement, I would say, in the middle of the 20th century, where intellectual

00:04:23.340 scholars decided, let's systemize the great books for a lay audience.

00:04:29.540 And Mortimer Adler, talk about this guy, because he's kind of, he's an interesting cat.

00:04:33.860 Super interesting guy.

00:04:34.640 Yeah, in the 1920s, there was a guy, John Erskine at Columbia, who started doing this

00:04:41.440 kind of great books thing, where it was kind of a return to basics idea, you know, and trying

00:04:46.100 to kind of reaction to modern academia, I guess.

00:04:48.740 And one of his students was Mortimer Adler, and Adler was smitten by these great books

00:04:54.400 and the changes he saw in himself, and he ended up not graduating from Columbia because

00:04:59.640 he had to take a physical ed requirement, and he refused to take swimming for physical

00:05:05.720 ed, and they didn't give him a degree, and likely he got one in the 80s from there as

00:05:09.300 an honorary.

00:05:10.020 So he walked away, and he went to the University of Chicago and ended up founding with Robert

00:05:13.920 Hutchins, the basic program at University of Chicago, which is based in these great books.

00:05:19.080 And so Adler believed that these books were for everyone, and that reading and studying

00:05:24.640 these books was a great democratic project, not like a political project, but a project

00:05:29.700 for everybody, for the demos, to be a good citizen, you needed to know the things in these

00:05:33.540 books, to be acclimated to society, to know how to think, to know what's at stake.

00:05:38.120 And it was his life work to get more people to read these, and he eventually cut a deal

00:05:44.480 with the Encyclopedia Britannica Company and edited a 54-volume set of what he thought

00:05:50.400 to be the great books of the Western world, and they were sold door-to-door to houses all

00:05:53.860 over America.

00:05:54.640 You know, he was like the Gideons of the great books.

00:05:58.440 And, you know, a lot of people, their grandparents may have had a set of those in the bookshelf

00:06:03.620 by the fireplace, you know?

00:06:04.660 Yeah, they're great books for, like, you put them, like, for decoration.

00:06:08.240 Right, right.

00:06:08.860 Right.

00:06:09.380 Yeah, they're mostly for decoration.

00:06:12.020 The print's too small.

00:06:12.960 You can't write in the margins.

00:06:14.380 No, yeah.

00:06:14.880 If you see the ones, like the encyclopedia kinds, they're terrible to read.

00:06:18.260 Yeah.

00:06:18.400 They're not your reader friend.

00:06:19.320 And I've got four sets of them, because I love them.

00:06:21.020 But they're terrible to read.

00:06:22.740 And he had a lot of trouble getting permission to use, you know, the best translations, you know,

00:06:27.680 or copyright issues and stuff.

00:06:28.760 So he ended up using some out-of-copyright protection editions that are kind of hard to read.

00:06:34.160 But if you find good translations of these books, and you read them in a group, and take

00:06:40.080 it on systematically, it's much easier than people think, because the books are excellent.

00:06:46.760 And, you know, it's a transformative project, I think.

00:06:50.780 And Adler did, too.

00:06:52.140 Right.

00:06:52.560 So this was, like, in the 1950s when this encyclopedia thing happened.

00:06:56.480 And since then, have they added to the list at all since then?

00:07:00.900 Or has it kind of stayed pretty much the same?

00:07:02.920 Yeah, I think the first edition came out in 52.

00:07:05.980 It was 54 volumes.

00:07:07.440 And then the second edition came out in, like, 92, I think, or something like that.

00:07:11.880 And it's now 60 volumes.

00:07:13.560 And so they added Wittgenstein, Karl Popper, Virginia Woolf.

00:07:18.500 There's quite a bit added from the 20th century.

00:07:21.220 And, okay, so it wasn't just, I mean, they created the collection of books.

00:07:25.060 Did Adler also, and this was meant for the lay audience.

00:07:28.780 This was not meant for people who had advanced degrees.

00:07:32.000 Like, he wanted business people in their spare time, housewives. 0.99

00:07:36.040 Everyone.

00:07:36.600 Everyone to read this stuff.

00:07:37.660 So did he establish, like, a system, like, how you used to go through these books?

00:07:41.040 Or was it, like, you just start chronologically from the Iliad and you work your way through?

00:07:44.460 Or was there, like, you do, you know, you're going to do philosophy for a little bit and you're going to do history and you're going to do English literature?

00:07:50.160 Like, what was the system?

00:07:52.040 Well, Adler's system, in the introduction volume to the Great Books of the Western World, there was a reading list.

00:07:58.120 It's a 10-year reading list.

00:07:59.420 And it's organized what he called syntopically.

00:08:02.460 So you'll read about a specific issue and what people have had to say and write about that over the millennia.

00:08:09.000 So you might read about justice, for example.

00:08:11.460 So you'll read some excerpts from the Odyssey, maybe.

00:08:16.140 And you might read the first book of the Republic.

00:08:18.680 And then you end up reading some John Locke, and you see the whole scope of thought around that one topic.

00:08:24.280 So that's a good way to approach it because you move from author to author.

00:08:28.480 You don't get bogged down in somebody's, you know, crusty style that you don't like, you know, and it helps you kind of move through it.

00:08:33.980 At OnlineGreatBooks.com, we go through them in chronological order because we believe that they scaffold on each other.

00:08:39.880 And, you know, to best understand the Republic, we think that you need to have read the Odyssey, the Iliad, a great number of the tragedies, and have worked your way up to that.

00:08:50.780 Because that's what Plato did, right?

00:08:51.940 He was familiar with Odyssey and the Iliad and those tragedies.

00:08:54.920 And that was the milieu that he came out of.

00:08:57.760 And he refers to that stuff all the time.

00:08:59.660 And if you've read those things, when you come to the Republic, you know, you get all the inside jokes.

00:09:04.960 Like, you're in on it.

00:09:06.120 Right.

00:09:06.320 Yeah.

00:09:07.040 A lot more insight.

00:09:07.840 A lot more productive reading when you do it that way.

00:09:10.640 But, you know, the challenge, though, and I think it's a good thing to point out.

00:09:14.380 Like, this is a long-term project.

00:09:17.120 A lot of people, like, when they first hear about the great books, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to put that on my bucket list.

00:09:21.980 I'm going to start doing that.

00:09:22.880 Right.

00:09:23.140 And I'm going to get this done in a year, two years, like, that is impossible.

00:09:28.080 Like, you're in this for the long haul.

00:09:30.900 Yeah.

00:09:31.220 It's like the weight training we do.

00:09:33.060 It's a lifestyle choice that you make that it's transformative and is worth it.

00:09:39.940 But you can't just go squat a little bit and then be a strong squatter, right?

00:09:44.100 It's something you commit to and you have to do on a regular basis and commit yourself to it.

00:09:48.080 And, you know, I don't want to scare anybody off of this project.

00:09:50.320 If you've got a year you can devote to it before you have to, you know, take on this new job or have kids or whatever, then by all means, give it a year.

00:09:58.100 Right.

00:09:58.380 But, you know, we're in it for the long haul.

00:10:00.140 And we love it.

00:10:01.420 It's not a sacrifice at this point, you know.

00:10:03.680 I mean, you said it's transformative.

00:10:05.280 How do you – I mean, what was Adler's goal?

00:10:06.940 You said his goal was to make – you know, he wants people to read these great books to create better citizens.

00:10:12.160 I mean, beyond that, I mean, what's the personal reward from reading this stuff?

00:10:18.120 Because a lot of people think, well, you know, what do I get out of reading stuff written by dead guys from ancient Greece?

00:10:26.020 Well, for me, I've obtained a liberal education.

00:10:28.700 You know, I have a background in chemistry and microbiology.

00:10:30.620 It's a very specific, very pointed, you know, education that I got.

00:10:34.740 And I had big holes in my education.

00:10:37.160 You know, I didn't have much humanities work.

00:10:38.620 I wasn't familiar with schools of psychological thought or philosophical thought.

00:10:45.580 And, you know, I get into my mid-30s and start to realize kind of how lopsided I am, you know.

00:10:51.160 Kind of got the mind of an engineer maybe.

00:10:53.580 And, you know, taking on these things.

00:10:55.380 Learning how to read fiction.

00:10:56.660 I mean, a lot of guys struggle with reading fiction, you know.

00:10:59.380 Learning how to read fiction.

00:11:01.180 Eavesdropping on this great conversation about these big issues has made me a more well-rounded person.

00:11:05.760 And it helps break reading these books.

00:11:10.120 We'll talk about the Republic again.

00:11:12.580 The Republic starts by asking, what is justice?

00:11:16.080 Right?

00:11:16.320 And then they wrestle that out.

00:11:18.560 And in reading these geniuses talk about what justice may or may not be, it starts to break.

00:11:25.000 It has broken the script in my head of what I thought justice might be.

00:11:28.460 Right?

00:11:28.620 Because we hit 21 years old and you've got a toolbox of ideas in your head that your parents gave you.

00:11:34.480 And pop culture gave you.

00:11:36.560 It's just there.

00:11:37.780 It's baked in.

00:11:39.260 And by using this material as food for thought, we can break that script we're headed, you know, and refine our tools and refine the way we think about things.

00:11:51.160 And Adler believed, and we believe, that you don't just read them.

00:11:55.400 You also have to discuss these books as well.

00:11:57.600 Because that's where the comprehension of the material goes way, way up.

00:12:02.240 And where the transformation, that's where you take action on what you've read is in the discussion.

00:12:06.600 And so in having those discussions, I have, I've been able to know why I believe something.

00:12:13.220 Right?

00:12:13.340 Right.

00:12:13.440 Because when you're 21, you're like, I believe this.

00:12:14.940 And if somebody holds your feet to the fire and says, why, a lot of times we end up saying, well, because.

00:12:20.520 Because, yeah.

00:12:20.960 Because.

00:12:21.560 No.

00:12:22.020 And so knowing why I believe something gives me permission and gives me room to actually change my mind.

00:12:30.600 Right.

00:12:31.340 Which is interesting.

00:12:32.240 Knowing firmly why you believe something will actually let you, you know, change one of your presuppositions, change one of your axioms later, and then move off of that.

00:12:39.680 Putting a stake in the ground lets you actually be able to change position more easily.

00:12:43.380 Yeah.

00:12:43.980 No, I found in my experience with, you know, writing content for the site, like, I don't really understand a concept until I write about it.

00:12:50.660 Right.

00:12:50.860 Until I'm forced to, like, explain things.

00:12:53.480 And the discussion, I mean, I think it's the same thing with discussing.

00:12:55.980 Yeah.

00:12:56.260 You really, it's like that whole iron sharpens iron thing.

00:13:00.320 We are trying to use a trivium model in addition to the great books.

00:13:04.460 So, yeah, trivium, what is that?

00:13:06.100 Yeah, so the trivium is the three basic liberal arts, grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

00:13:09.620 And grammar, loosely, is sort of the bones of a subject, right?

00:13:14.560 It's the jargon that you use.

00:13:17.180 It's the vocabulary specific to that subject.

00:13:20.100 Logic is how all of those bones of the subject are organized.

00:13:23.660 And then the rhetoric part is, you know, teaching, writing, persuading, you know, using your words, like our mom told us to, to get the ideas out of our consciousness into the consciousness of an other.

00:13:34.920 And in our onlinegreatbooks.com project, the seminar is the main tool we use to execute this rhetoric.

00:13:45.760 We also do some writing.

00:13:46.980 It's not required, but we have opportunities for people to write and present papers and defend those papers.

00:13:51.480 And they can take that really as far as they want to.

00:13:53.980 In fact, we have a group inside our program who are studying Greek and Latin.

00:14:00.620 Oh, wow.

00:14:01.040 That's impressive.

00:14:01.600 So we've used, we've just, I've just extended our platform for those guys to, you know, use our accountability tools, use our online classrooms and stuff to meet and work on Greek and Latin.

00:14:12.100 So we've got some guys, I say guys, it's men and women, but we've got some members that are really taking the trivium piece of this very seriously.

00:14:19.700 That's amazing.

00:14:20.260 Yeah, I like those.

00:14:20.940 I think I want to hit on this point of the trivium because I think it's a really useful way to think about education because you and I probably, when we got our education,

00:14:30.100 we didn't like, you know, I remember in history, I'd have teachers say like, facts don't matter, like the dates don't matter, right?

00:14:37.020 Well, in a trivium model, they say, no, that, that does matter.

00:14:40.160 That's the grammar part, right?

00:14:42.120 You know, because I remember like my teachers be like, you just got to be able to make an argument, right?

00:14:46.140 But in order to make that argument, you need to know the facts.

00:14:49.640 You need to be able to, and I think we've had, what's her name?

00:14:52.120 Susan Wise, University of Virginia, she talks a lot about homeschooling and self-education.

00:14:57.520 And she hits this point, it's like, it's super important for you to learn basic facts because you can't, you can't be expected to make a good argument.

00:15:06.640 You know, the rhetoric part, you can't skip, you can't skip the grammar and go right to rhetoric.

00:15:10.880 Like you have to go there.

00:15:12.820 Knowing the facts is how you organize yourself in the thought space.

00:15:15.720 It's how you negotiate in your mind, you know, where, where you are, I'm making air quotes, uh, in, in an argument.

00:15:23.800 And you, you have to know the basic facts of the matter at hand or your, or your argument is, I mean, it could be anything.

00:15:29.720 It could be anything, right, right.

00:15:30.980 It often is, right?

00:15:32.200 Right, yeah.

00:15:32.780 We're all about opinions, right?

00:15:34.460 And I think one of the things I found with the great books that it does for me is it, I've kind of realized like, I'm just reading it stuff.

00:15:40.320 You know, it's been a part of my background.

00:15:42.300 Like I studied classics at college and I've done it off, on and off reading the stuff.

00:15:47.880 And one of the things I found is like, man, these guys have been grappling with these questions.

00:15:51.440 Like what is justice?

00:15:53.100 What is courage for a thousand?

00:15:55.660 They're still not getting it right.

00:15:57.460 Right.

00:15:57.700 And so it's like, for me, it's like, boy, these guys have had a hard time.

00:16:00.440 They're really smart.

00:16:01.040 Like maybe I should have fewer opinions.

00:16:03.160 Right.

00:16:03.660 About, and I can not be so certain.

00:16:05.600 It doesn't mean you, you don't, you don't have, you don't have any certainties, but it, as you said, it, once you realize,

00:16:12.300 that how hard it is to pin this stuff down, there's a humility that comes with that.

00:16:18.640 Yeah.

00:16:19.420 Socrates said that the only thing that he knew was that he didn't know anything.

00:16:22.580 Right.

00:16:23.380 And that's why he's probably the best teacher that ever lived, or at least our conception of him, you know, is a symbol for what the best teacher that ever lived could be.

00:16:30.460 Right.

00:16:30.960 And he, he, he called himself a midwife.

00:16:34.680 He called himself a gadfly.

00:16:36.420 Yeah.

00:16:36.560 So he would just, he would be in the Agora, the marketplace, and some poor guy would just be trying to buy some pottery or something.

00:16:41.960 And he would just accost them, you know?

00:16:43.540 He's like, what's virtue?

00:16:44.740 And the guy's like, I'm trying to buy pots.

00:16:46.160 No.

00:16:46.740 Yeah.

00:16:48.260 It's funny.

00:16:48.740 I have like a love-hate relationship with Socrates, or at least the way Plato portrayed him.

00:16:52.580 Cause he, he just sounds like, he sounds like an internet troll.

00:16:55.840 Yeah. 0.78

00:16:55.980 Right.

00:16:57.580 Sometimes, right.

00:16:58.400 He can come off as kind of trollish.

00:17:00.000 Oh, well, I think he was, but you know, he's in Athens, you know, I'm just some redneck from Katusa, Oklahoma.

00:17:05.840 So, you know, there are going to be errors of fact I'm going to make here, but he's in Athens.

00:17:09.360 It's a small town, actually, you know, I don't know, 40,000 people there, and not many of the people have the franchise.

00:17:15.700 Not many people can vote, right?

00:17:17.400 Right.

00:17:17.520 So he, he probably knows most of the people who can vote.

00:17:21.360 Actually, they own property, they're men, they've been, had military service.

00:17:25.260 Like, there's not a lot of people that can vote, and he knows a great number of those people.

00:17:28.580 So when you read one of these, these dialogues, and he just accosts some poor guy at the well, you know, trying to get some water.

00:17:34.980 He probably knows that guy, and he probably knows how he voted the last time.

00:17:39.360 You know, but that's the backstory we're not getting.

00:17:41.380 And he's like, hey, you know, and he just, you know, can you actually teach virtue?

00:17:46.240 You know, what is virtue?

00:17:48.040 What is virtue?

00:17:49.240 You call yourself a teacher of virtue.

00:17:50.620 Tell me what is virtue.

00:17:51.260 Yeah, what is virtue?

00:17:52.260 Yeah, actually, that's how it starts.

00:17:53.780 Mino, he asked, Mino asked Socrates, you know, the Mino, which is one of my favorite of the dialogues.

00:17:59.480 He says, Mino says to Socrates, hey, can virtue be taught?

00:18:02.820 And Socrates goes, I don't know, time out.

00:18:04.760 What's virtue first?

00:18:06.100 Right.

00:18:06.340 And they argue about that, and they really never figured out.

00:18:11.000 And then they talk about whether it can be taught.

00:18:14.120 And so they talk about virtue, and then they talk about whether it can be taught or not.

00:18:18.320 And the consequences of this short little story are enormous.

00:18:22.360 Can you teach something or not?

00:18:24.600 It has consequences for child rearing, criminal justice, public education, everything.

00:18:31.760 Epistemology.

00:18:32.280 Epistemology, right.

00:18:33.440 Where does knowledge come from, right?

00:18:35.400 What is knowledge, right?

00:18:36.100 What can be known?

00:18:37.040 How do we know it?

00:18:37.980 It's all in this little, you know, 39-page dialogue.

00:18:43.460 And, you know, you get to have a super rich conversation about a lot of the things that matter.

00:18:48.720 And so, to add, you know, back to Adler, you know, he loved the idea of people who have the franchise, people that can vote.

00:18:56.260 We're essentially, because I can vote, I'm responsible for you to some degree.

00:19:00.060 Right.

00:19:00.200 Or at least responsible to you for some degree.

00:19:02.080 Right.

00:19:02.700 And Adler wanted people that were voting to have had civil, deep conversations about the things that matter.

00:19:09.800 And using these great books is one way to do that.

00:19:13.140 And, you know, I get, me and you talk about utopia a lot.

00:19:17.320 I guess I'm a utopian.

00:19:18.500 I think if everybody did this and met in each other's living rooms every other week or once a month and argued about justice, when the stakes are low, right?

00:19:26.020 We're reading Amino, we're reading The Republic, and the stakes are low, I think discourse in the public would be more civil.

00:19:31.580 I think voting would be more reliable.

00:19:33.900 I think we'd have a better outcome.

00:19:35.100 Right.

00:19:35.500 Well, let's go back to this.

00:19:36.620 Let's hit on the symposium part.

00:19:37.800 So, that was a big part of it.

00:19:38.780 Like, Adler didn't just want people to read these.

00:19:40.700 I mean, you can read these individually.

00:19:43.260 You bet.

00:19:43.760 And get something out of it.

00:19:45.260 But Adler envisioned, and some of these other proponents of the great books, they wanted people having conversations.

00:19:50.440 They basically wanted people to have, like, a college class, you know, philosophy class experience in their homes.

00:19:58.300 That's right.

00:19:58.600 With their neighbors and friends.

00:20:00.380 And Adler advocated for what he called a shared inquiry model.

00:20:05.260 So, there's nobody in charge.

00:20:07.200 Okay.

00:20:07.340 So, there's no teacher.

00:20:08.200 There's no teacher.

00:20:08.860 Right.

00:20:09.180 Okay.

00:20:09.360 In fact, and we adhere to that, too.

00:20:11.400 You know, I tell the guys that host our seminars, you know, if you get caught teaching, you're fired.

00:20:15.940 Because the reading and discussion of these books should be a very personal experience, because we'll go back to that.

00:20:23.260 So, it's a shared inquiry model.

00:20:25.040 So, we do have, even if you do a home great books group, you're going to have somebody that's nominally in charge.

00:20:31.960 They start the meeting and finish the meeting and kind of keep it on track.

00:20:34.660 But they're the first among equals, and they're asking questions about the book just like everybody else is.

00:20:40.000 And in asking those questions, you bring the consciousness of the entire group to bear on the idea in the book.

00:20:46.480 And talking to those other consciousnesses about these ideas is very instructive, helps us round out the trivium.

00:20:52.840 And it helps us actually interact in a physical way and mental way with the text.

00:20:58.100 And those two things are necessary, I think, for the book to actually transform your brain, transform you, make you into the new person.

00:21:07.360 No, I totally agree.

00:21:08.060 I mean, so, let's talk about how this whole, your thing started, the online.

00:21:13.080 Because, like, I'm part of a book group nominally.

00:21:15.960 I'm not as active as I wish I would.

00:21:18.380 You drop in sometimes.

00:21:19.380 I drop in sometimes.

00:21:20.360 But, like, I remember when you first were getting this thing going a couple years ago.

00:21:25.540 So, what prompted you to say, I want to read these great books, but, like, I don't want to do this by myself.

00:21:32.300 Like, how did that whole thing happen?

00:21:34.120 And how did that, your personal experience, turn into, I'm going to offer a service to other people so they can experience this as well?

00:21:40.860 Well, it's a crusade.

00:21:42.720 You're on a mission.

00:21:43.540 You are a utopian.

00:21:44.820 Yes, I am.

00:21:45.360 No, I, well, we were sending my kids to the little snotty prep school, private school here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was unsatisfied with the education they were getting.

00:21:53.700 And we, my wife and I, decided to home educate the kids.

00:21:56.900 And in doing that, I realized that my education wasn't as full as it could be, and I started figuring out, you know, how can I make up these deficits, you know, as a busy, you know, guy in his late 30s, you know, how would I do that?

00:22:07.700 And I found the Great Books program and started working on that a little bit.

00:22:12.200 And then I realized that I did lack that seminar, that, that group experience, that discussion.

00:22:17.400 And a friend of mine, Jim Furr, and I decided, well, we're going to start a group.

00:22:21.180 And so I wrote, I have a dining room table that with eight chairs and I, Jim was coming to the meetings.

00:22:27.300 And so I wrote six letters to six men that I knew and invited them to come to the group.

00:22:32.280 All of them came, but you.

00:22:34.360 But I was, I was really, I'll be honest.

00:22:36.140 So I was super stoked.

00:22:37.300 I was like, this is amazing.

00:22:38.480 This is great that someone's doing this.

00:22:40.120 I just, I didn't have the, I didn't have the, I didn't want to commit.

00:22:42.900 I didn't have the bandwidth.

00:22:43.980 But I knew that, I knew that you'd actually taken up that project on your own.

00:22:46.820 And then I wrote one more letter because you bounced me.

00:22:49.100 And then that guy came and then the group grew.

00:22:52.000 And we've been meeting on the third Thursday at my house now for almost four years.

00:22:55.460 We've read 12,000 pages.

00:22:57.520 Yeah.

00:22:57.840 Where are we at?

00:22:58.700 We're doing Aquinas right now, right?

00:23:00.160 St. Thomas Aquinas.

00:23:01.020 St. Thomas Aquinas.

00:23:02.380 That's just metaphysical stuff this month.

00:23:04.240 But imagine that that's four years and you guys started at the Iliad.

00:23:07.780 Yeah.

00:23:07.980 And we're like, what, what century are we in now?

00:23:10.940 I don't even know.

00:23:11.540 What is it?

00:23:11.920 1,100?

00:23:12.680 1,100.

00:23:13.660 So we're not, I mean, it's, that's a long, it takes a long time to get through this stuff.

00:23:18.220 The really hard one, Augustine.

00:23:22.120 Augustine was tough.

00:23:23.040 Yeah.

00:23:23.120 We read all of the City of God.

00:23:24.500 City of God.

00:23:25.100 And it's, you know, it's 1,100 pages.

00:23:26.840 And he's just, everybody's grumpy grandpa.

00:23:30.360 He's crusty.

00:23:31.600 Right, right.

00:23:32.360 He's kind of funny though.

00:23:33.580 He is funny.

00:23:34.040 He's kind of snarky about the Romans and their barbaric beliefs.

00:23:38.800 So that, well, that's how it started.

00:23:40.140 And I loved the group.

00:23:41.740 I loved what it's done.

00:23:43.180 The guys that come to the group won't miss it.

00:23:45.700 I mean, it's a big part of their life now.

00:23:47.940 And you and I were talking out in the garage gym one day and you're like, you really ought

00:23:51.120 to do that online.

00:23:51.700 And so we did.

00:23:54.380 So January 8th, we kicked the door open at onelinegreatbooks.com.

00:24:00.300 And, you know, I've got those guys, the people that, we've been open now for six months or

00:24:05.520 whatever it is.

00:24:06.220 And they've read like almost a half a million pages collectively.

00:24:09.040 You know, I've had several people email me, thanking me.

00:24:13.100 I want to get choked up.

00:24:14.180 Get choked up.

00:24:15.640 They said that they'd never read a book before and they read the Iliad and they could have

00:24:18.660 done it without it.

00:24:19.320 And, you know, we've got auto mechanics, you know, HVAC guys, nurses, you know, stay

00:24:25.300 at home moms, all kinds of people doing this.

00:24:29.380 And, you know, people have never read a book before.

00:24:33.500 Can you imagine the first book that you've ever finished is the Iliad?

00:24:35.700 Iliad, no.

00:24:36.300 Like my first book I ever finished was like the Boxcar Children.

00:24:39.880 Which is good though.

00:24:40.820 I love that.

00:24:41.560 I love those.

00:24:42.760 Yeah.

00:24:43.500 I mean, that's amazing.

00:24:44.380 I mean, you're kind of fulfilling Adler's dream here.

00:24:46.900 Like he wanted the everyman.

00:24:48.760 This was supposed to be an education for every free democratic Western citizen.

00:24:53.960 Like they need to know this stuff.

00:24:55.500 And I think, you know, one of the reasons I said, you know, I encourage you to get this

00:24:58.080 online because we've talked about this before on the Barbell Logic podcast is that there's

00:25:04.180 a lot of people, they want that.

00:25:06.180 They want a group of people they can meet with and discuss ideas with, but they don't

00:25:12.040 have any friends.

00:25:12.900 I think you've had that issue.

00:25:13.720 I think you mentioned it one time on your Instagram feed and people were like, I want

00:25:17.860 to do this, but like, I only know like one guy.

00:25:20.620 Yeah.

00:25:20.640 A lot of people don't know how to host.

00:25:22.360 They don't know how to host.

00:25:23.200 They don't know how to host.

00:25:24.140 Right.

00:25:24.500 Yeah.

00:25:25.440 And, you know, onlinegreatbooks.com, it's super awesome.

00:25:29.620 Go sign up.

00:25:30.600 Right.

00:25:30.760 But it's way better to do it at home.

00:25:32.760 Like if you can get five, six, eight people to come to your home on a regular basis, eat

00:25:36.920 some good cheese and, you know, and talk about these books, it's a better experience, but

00:25:41.860 it's really hard.

00:25:42.600 You know, people in metropolitan areas often don't have the space to do that.

00:25:46.080 A lot of people don't know five, six, eight people that'll read stuff like this.

00:25:49.520 Right.

00:25:49.600 That's the thing.

00:25:50.000 Like you might know, you know, 10 people in your circle, your social circle, but how many

00:25:54.520 of them want to, you know, read the Iliad and discuss it or read St. Augustine.

00:25:59.460 Right.

00:26:01.120 And discuss it.

00:26:02.080 It's probably not many people.

00:26:03.420 So like what I think the value that you provide is you're able to get people who want to do

00:26:08.200 this and give them that symposium.

00:26:10.040 So like how are you sign up?

00:26:11.420 And it is a paid service.

00:26:12.860 Yep.

00:26:12.980 Right.

00:26:13.240 And I know you encourage like you, it's like sign up, right?

00:26:16.260 It's fantastic.

00:26:17.180 But if you want to do it at home, do it at home.

00:26:19.000 There's a list out there.

00:26:20.300 They're free.

00:26:20.900 Do it on your own.

00:26:21.640 Yeah.

00:26:21.760 Let me say a little bit about the list.

00:26:23.100 Right.

00:26:23.320 If you just Google great books of the Western world list, you're going to find that.

00:26:27.360 You can go find the St. John's College reading list.

00:26:30.800 You can find the University of Chicago basic program reading list.

00:26:33.520 The lists are out there.

00:26:34.900 There's tons of lists.

00:26:35.780 Yeah.

00:26:35.940 And they're all good.

00:26:36.960 Yeah.

00:26:37.140 But if you want that symposium part and you're having a hard time finding people in your...

00:26:41.020 Now, wait a minute.

00:26:41.700 The symposium, that's the drinking.

00:26:43.060 Okay.

00:26:43.260 That's the drinking.

00:26:43.980 Well, there is drinking.

00:26:45.580 There is drinking at ours.

00:26:46.600 At yours.

00:26:47.400 I don't imbibe.

00:26:48.580 But I get the benefit of that because everyone gets loosened up and in vino veritas.

00:26:54.260 Right.

00:26:54.320 But so the seminar aspect, if you want that and you can't get it where you're at, Online

00:26:58.980 Great Books can do that for you.

00:27:00.840 That's right.

00:27:01.340 And as you said, there's no teacher.

00:27:03.560 There's just a facilitator.

00:27:04.820 There's midwives of thoughts. 0.99

00:27:06.380 That's right.

00:27:06.720 Right.

00:27:07.260 Yeah.

00:27:07.560 You sign up.

00:27:08.200 If you sign up with us, we send you a hard copy text directly to your house.

00:27:12.200 We really think that reading difficult material requires, when it's best, requires a paper

00:27:17.580 book.

00:27:17.840 Yeah.

00:27:17.920 I prefer it.

00:27:18.740 But also, it's just nice having a collection.

00:27:20.660 It is.

00:27:21.520 Yeah.

00:27:21.960 When you turn around at the end of the year and you see that stack, that knee-high stack

00:27:24.860 of books that you went through, it's pretty great.

00:27:27.280 But we send you that to your home.

00:27:29.300 We've got a chat community that's almost too busy for me to keep up with.

00:27:33.780 People are in there talking about the text, talking to their groups.

00:27:35.980 And then once a month, we have a two-hour online meeting where people, well, they have

00:27:40.640 this similar experience.

00:27:41.500 And we have one of our trained hosts lead those things.

00:27:45.300 And they're just asking questions.

00:27:46.460 They're asking questions.

00:27:47.160 So, for example, if we were going to talk about the Iliad, let's say, well, let's kind

00:27:50.860 of give people a sample of like what an Adlerian great books seminar, like what are the questions?

00:27:58.700 Like I say, we read the Iliad.

00:27:59.800 Yeah.

00:28:00.020 So, if we were going to kick off an Iliad session right now, and they're, well, even if

00:28:03.900 it was just me and you, and I'm the seminar leader for tonight, I might just open the

00:28:07.920 thing up and say, so, you've read the Iliad now.

00:28:10.040 We've read the whole thing.

00:28:11.900 No spoilers.

00:28:13.040 There's no Trojan horse in this one.

00:28:14.180 I want to start the discussion tonight by asking you, what is war?

00:28:21.460 Yeah.

00:28:22.700 And, you know, a good open-ended Socratic question like that will let us ultimately talk

00:28:28.960 about everything in that book almost.

00:28:31.960 So, you know, it's about the Trojan War.

00:28:34.920 And I ask, what is war?

00:28:37.100 Well, Brett, you've read the Iliad, what's war?

00:28:39.740 What do you think war is?

00:28:40.480 Like, well, the ultimate competition.

00:28:45.080 So, would a sporting event then constitute war?

00:28:49.620 It is a simulation of war.

00:28:52.320 So, we simulate it to make it safer then.

00:28:55.800 So, does war, does that imply violence then?

00:28:58.500 I mean, does it have to be violent to be a war?

00:29:00.980 Yeah.

00:29:01.460 I'd say it's some sort of violence.

00:29:02.900 It doesn't have to be physical violence necessarily.

00:29:05.040 It could be...

00:29:05.960 Oh, a trade war.

00:29:07.080 It could be a trade war.

00:29:08.000 Right.

00:29:08.740 Or it could be...

00:29:09.960 I'm trying to think of another type of psychological.

00:29:12.340 The war on drugs.

00:29:13.620 The war on drugs, right?

00:29:14.800 Where you're trying to cause another party to submit or eliminate them completely.

00:29:21.460 So, in the instance of like a war on drugs...

00:29:25.920 Right.

00:29:26.960 Like, that's really not nominally a war.

00:29:29.100 Is that a...

00:29:29.480 So, is that a rhetorical thing that we're using?

00:29:31.320 Yeah, I think it's a rhetorical because like drugs can't fight back.

00:29:34.680 Right.

00:29:35.040 There's no...

00:29:35.580 Oh, so there has to be an opponent.

00:29:36.680 I would say there have to be an active opponent.

00:29:38.620 An active opponent.

00:29:39.820 So, yeah, when you say like war, that's more of a...

00:29:41.880 It's a metaphor.

00:29:44.360 In that case, for the war on drugs, it's a rhetorical thing.

00:29:47.180 So, a real war implies violence and an active opponent.

00:29:51.520 I would say so, yes.

00:29:52.500 Yeah.

00:29:53.140 Kind of where I'm at, maybe.

00:29:54.260 But I could be wrong.

00:29:55.600 Right.

00:29:56.080 Well, I mean...

00:29:56.640 And then like you would have other people chime in.

00:29:58.280 Yeah, and there's eight other people in the room or 15 other people in the room.

00:30:01.420 And then, you know, there are groups of people in these seminars that just scratch their chin

00:30:05.740 and listen carefully.

00:30:06.980 That's fine.

00:30:07.720 That's great.

00:30:08.620 Because the next time, they may jump in and somebody else will lay out.

00:30:12.100 And there are people that bring complaints about the books.

00:30:15.120 Like, oh, man, I don't get it.

00:30:16.420 What the heck?

00:30:17.080 You know, they bring a complaint.

00:30:18.720 There are other people that bring...

00:30:19.760 Which is legit.

00:30:21.000 Because not all of these books, I mean, they're not...

00:30:23.220 Some of them are really...

00:30:24.300 They rub you the wrong way, man.

00:30:25.240 They rub you the wrong way.

00:30:26.180 Or you just don't jive with it.

00:30:28.160 Right.

00:30:28.540 And there's that.

00:30:29.040 That's the other kind of thing that comes.

00:30:30.340 You're like, you know, I read this.

00:30:31.760 I don't get it.

00:30:32.680 Right.

00:30:33.580 But I think there's value in that.

00:30:35.600 There is value in that.

00:30:36.500 Right.

00:30:36.720 Because you can...

00:30:38.100 Like I said, you can bring all these other consciousnesses to bear on that thing that

00:30:41.980 you don't get.

00:30:42.880 And maybe they can help you, in turn, get it.

00:30:45.160 Right.

00:30:45.760 But what happens more often is the guy says, I don't get it.

00:30:48.840 And somebody who thinks they got it says, oh, well, this is the answer.

00:30:52.200 And then they get disabused of that, which is also pretty interesting.

00:30:55.700 But back to the war thing.

00:30:56.860 Like, you know, we talk about the Iliad.

00:30:59.480 You end up talking about just war.

00:31:01.500 Like, okay, isn't it just war?

00:31:03.080 Right.

00:31:03.180 Was it for cause?

00:31:04.640 Role of man in the state?

00:31:06.660 Like, there are guys that rowed boats that had no skin in this game.

00:31:09.900 I mean, ultimately, unless they were...

00:31:11.780 Until they were conscripted.

00:31:13.540 You know, there's so much you can talk about that.

00:31:15.420 And it's maybe a work of fiction.

00:31:17.760 It's fictionalized.

00:31:18.900 We don't even know what the thing is.

00:31:20.140 Right.

00:31:20.860 I mean, with Iliad, you could talk about honor.

00:31:22.820 What is honor?

00:31:23.520 Honor.

00:31:23.860 Duty.

00:31:24.100 Is honor a good thing?

00:31:25.180 Oh, we did the Aeneid.

00:31:26.400 That was one of my favorites that we did here at your place.

00:31:29.440 You know, we spent, I don't know how long, discussing what is duty.

00:31:32.600 And is duty good?

00:31:33.840 Right.

00:31:34.500 Yeah.

00:31:35.020 Yeah.

00:31:36.180 That's a big problem, actually.

00:31:37.660 Yeah.

00:31:37.960 Is duty good?

00:31:39.200 And so, back to Adler.

00:31:41.680 If we have a large, large number of people in our society that develop a complete concept

00:31:48.780 of what duty is.

00:31:50.220 I'm not even dictating what that is.

00:31:51.720 I think that that has good consequences for living amongst each other.

00:31:57.620 Like, you know, that's going to change your notions about paying taxes.

00:32:02.720 Voting.

00:32:03.160 Voting.

00:32:03.700 War.

00:32:04.440 Everything.

00:32:05.200 Right.

00:32:05.500 Or even family.

00:32:06.400 Family.

00:32:06.980 I mean, in the Aeneid, like for, I think, we kind of talked about this for them, for Aeneas,

00:32:10.900 duty was more about filial, like, you know, piety to your family.

00:32:15.660 And, like, you know, that's a problem that everyone faces, like, well, you know, my family

00:32:20.300 really is bringing me down.

00:32:22.580 Right?

00:32:22.980 They're kind of toxic.

00:32:24.180 Right.

00:32:24.580 I need to get, for me, I got to get away from it to be better, like, for my, but like, there's

00:32:29.260 that, like, but do I have a duty?

00:32:30.780 Like, do I have a duty as a son to still take care of mom and dad, even though they treat 0.99

00:32:35.940 me like garbage? 0.97

00:32:36.640 Yeah, they put cigarettes out on me. 0.98

00:32:37.900 Right.

00:32:38.280 Now, mom's sick. 1.00

00:32:39.340 Yeah.

00:32:39.900 And this is where, that's, this is like, I have a friend who, he said, these are like

00:32:43.060 the Tuesday afternoon questions, right?

00:32:45.240 It's like the questions that are relevant, not on the big picture, but like on Tuesday

00:32:48.120 afternoon, how does this affect your life?

00:32:50.840 And I think that's a great example of, of that.

00:32:54.400 Yeah.

00:32:54.760 Duty.

00:32:55.360 Back to the Iliad.

00:32:56.080 I think it's book six.

00:32:57.140 I think Hector, who's the, the, the Trojan hero.

00:33:01.600 Right.

00:33:02.220 Goes back to his chambers and his wife's there and he's got a baby and she says, Hey, we've

00:33:06.180 been in the walls for 10 years.

00:33:07.920 And if it's been okay, you don't have to go back out there.

00:33:10.600 Don't go out there.

00:33:11.720 He's like, I have to.

00:33:14.040 And he goes back out on the field of battle and doesn't make it.

00:33:17.140 Yeah.

00:33:18.320 And it's just this heart wrenching scene about his duty to the state, his duty to his wife

00:33:22.760 and his child, honor.

00:33:25.140 He has to go back out because of his honor.

00:33:27.020 It's crazy.

00:33:28.680 Yeah.

00:33:29.040 It's crazy.

00:33:30.440 We're going to take a quick break for you.

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00:34:27.080 Thank you, Jeremy.

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00:35:35.660 And now back to the show.

00:35:37.180 So, I mean, you guys are right now really ancient.

00:35:40.880 I think when people think they're great books, they often think Plato, Iliad.

00:35:44.800 But how far, like, you said Wittgenstein is like the latest edition.

00:35:50.520 But I mean, besides philosophy, is there like fictional literature in there?

00:35:54.020 I mean, are you going to read Dickens and things like that?

00:35:56.600 Yeah, there's Dickens in there, Swift, Shakespeare.

00:35:59.320 Shakespeare, I know, yeah.

00:36:00.220 Twain.

00:36:01.080 Yeah, Mark Twain's in there.

00:36:01.980 They've added.

00:36:02.840 I'm curious, are there any religious texts?

00:36:04.600 Do they have like the Bible, the Quran, the Gita?

00:36:08.020 Well, it's of the West.

00:36:09.680 Okay, so it's Western.

00:36:10.560 So if you go look at, you know, Great Books of the Western World or the St. John's Deal,

00:36:15.560 whatever, you're going to find the Christian Bible in there.

00:36:20.280 We don't read it.

00:36:22.240 Not because I'm against it.

00:36:23.920 I just don't know how to do it online and do a good job.

00:36:28.460 You know, if you, it's just so charged.

00:36:31.180 It is really charged.

00:36:31.980 So if you have a seminar and you're talking about the Bible, and some person says,

00:36:35.980 this is the inerrant word of God, and the other guy says, Bible as a myth.

00:36:39.420 Right.

00:36:39.940 We're just off the rails.

00:36:40.880 Or if you've got Calvinists and Catholics, and then, you know, it's... 0.67

00:36:45.920 I don't know how to do a good job of that.

00:36:47.900 I think it takes a certain kind of person, you know, to be in there, to like be intellectually,

00:36:54.220 you know, have your beliefs, but still be intellectually curious.

00:36:57.520 It definitely takes a certain type.

00:36:58.860 And it's hard.

00:36:59.520 I mean, I admit it's hard.

00:37:01.000 And the good news is, is the Bible is probably the most discussed book out there.

00:37:05.180 Like if you want to get in a discussion group covering that,

00:37:08.060 they're down at your church or whatever, you know, three days a week, that one's not too

00:37:13.920 hard to cover.

00:37:14.840 So we've opted to stay away from that.

00:37:17.540 Although I think it's, you know, it is foundational.

00:37:19.600 It's important.

00:37:20.560 The canon references it all the time.

00:37:22.920 I mean, you're reading St. Augustine.

00:37:24.160 We're reading St. Augustine.

00:37:25.460 And yeah, Bible's going to be in there, references.

00:37:27.860 Yeah.

00:37:28.380 Yeah.

00:37:28.700 That's one of the things that people ask me.

00:37:30.120 They're like, well, how do you read St. Augustine?

00:37:31.440 How are you reading Aquinas without the, you know, out reading the Bible?

00:37:34.500 Well, first of all, so many of us have read it.

00:37:36.900 I mean, that's, but Augustine, Aquinas, all these, Luther, they cite heavily and the material

00:37:46.680 that you need from the Bible is cited in their text.

00:37:50.140 They let you know what you need there.

00:37:51.600 And so we have opted to not cover it.

00:37:55.860 Although I think people should do it.

00:37:57.300 No.

00:37:57.660 Yeah, I think.

00:37:58.160 I just don't want to be, I don't want to be responsible for that one.

00:38:00.660 Yeah, I think everyone should at least read the Bible once all the way through because

00:38:04.760 it's a lot of fun.

00:38:06.080 The Old Testament is, it's crazy.

00:38:08.540 It's interesting.

00:38:09.580 You know, I said that for the Iliad, you know, our sort of kickoff question might be,

00:38:13.840 what is war?

00:38:15.060 And a good kickoff question can often be, so you've read this book.

00:38:20.880 Like, what is the author's project?

00:38:23.220 Yeah, what's he trying to do?

00:38:24.060 What's he trying to do?

00:38:25.520 Another good question can be, what is this book?

00:38:29.320 Like, what is it?

00:38:30.040 Like, the Iliad, what is that?

00:38:31.940 Is it historical fiction?

00:38:33.880 Is it a piece of, is it a drama?

00:38:36.100 What is it?

00:38:36.740 Is it propaganda?

00:38:37.680 Is it propaganda?

00:38:38.080 Is it maybe a critique?

00:38:40.560 I mean, because what's interesting about the Iliad, it was, you know, written by Homer.

00:38:46.200 Who is Homer?

00:38:47.080 Who is Homer?

00:38:47.560 That's another question.

00:38:48.340 Like, who is Homer?

00:38:49.060 I think it's a great one, especially when you get to the Odyssey.

00:38:52.100 To me, it's clear they're not written by the same person.

00:38:55.180 Right.

00:38:55.740 They don't read alike at all.

00:38:57.920 But, you know, Homer, whoever he was, or multiple, there could be multiple people making that.

00:39:02.880 That's another theory out there.

00:39:03.840 That's fun to explore.

00:39:05.560 He was Greek.

00:39:07.080 But when he writes the Iliad, he sort of paints the Trojans as, like, I don't know,

00:39:12.320 the good guys in a way.

00:39:14.020 Yeah.

00:39:14.380 So that's kind of interesting.

00:39:15.180 Why would Homer, a Greek, do that with the Trojans? 1.00

00:39:19.320 That's a question.

00:39:20.180 It's like, what's going on there?

00:39:21.220 And those are the kind of things that we discuss.

00:39:23.440 And, you know, in your home groups, those are the kind of things that you can discuss

00:39:27.020 and, you know, approaches that you can take towards these books.

00:39:30.700 So if you say, so if we were going to do a session on the Old Testament, let's say,

00:39:35.900 which is a big chunk to cover in a two-hour seminar, and you're like, hey, what's the

00:39:39.460 project here?

00:39:40.260 Right.

00:39:41.020 What's the author trying to accomplish?

00:39:43.140 What is this?

00:39:44.200 What is this?

00:39:45.100 Yeah.

00:39:45.580 When we're at our best, we can approach those questions and dig into it and really benefit.

00:39:49.540 And when we're not at our best, we flip the table over and storm out, you know?

00:39:54.560 Well, yeah, we had a fun discussion with this on the Aeneid when we were discussing, like,

00:39:58.920 okay, what's the point of the Aeneid?

00:40:00.120 Why was Virgil writing this?

00:40:02.060 What was the point?

00:40:02.760 And, like, because the Aeneid, for those who don't know, it's basically, they took the

00:40:07.080 Odyssey.

00:40:07.800 It's fan fiction.

00:40:08.640 It's fan fiction, the Odyssey, but made it Roman.

00:40:10.760 Yeah.

00:40:11.060 So, like, okay, what is, and it's about the founding of Rome.

00:40:14.680 Aeneas goes on this adventure.

00:40:16.840 He's at the Trojan War.

00:40:18.860 He comes home, goes on this crazy adventure, and he ends up finding, founding Rome.

00:40:25.120 So, it's fan fiction, but it's like, but why did he do that?

00:40:27.480 What was his goal in doing that?

00:40:29.980 We had a pretty long discussion about, you know, is this basically, is he creating a

00:40:34.500 founding myth to give the Roman people a sense of who they are?

00:40:39.120 Yeah.

00:40:39.480 And today, that's my reading of it, that, you know, he wrote that to acculturize these

00:40:46.480 Romans and to hold them together, you know?

00:40:49.600 And we have that.

00:40:51.360 We don't have one text, but we've got stories about George Washington.

00:40:54.460 George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

00:40:56.680 Ben Franklin with his kite.

00:40:58.280 Yeah.

00:40:58.740 You know, so we're honest.

00:41:00.580 So, us Americans, we're honest.

00:41:02.760 We're curious, right?

00:41:04.860 We got Paul Revere, you know, in his ride.

00:41:07.060 And so, you know, we're brave people.

00:41:11.060 And so, we have this.

00:41:12.020 It's not only one story, but we have this founding myth in that preliterate.

00:41:16.280 I don't know if it's not preliterate, but in a Roman society at that time, it was probably

00:41:22.000 harder to put that founding myth forward.

00:41:25.820 So, he did that.

00:41:26.840 And so, you have the discussion.

00:41:27.660 Is that useful?

00:41:28.360 Is that good?

00:41:29.160 Is it good to tell people that are sort of, tell a people stories that aren't necessarily

00:41:34.280 factual, but are hitting on some important truths that you're...

00:41:39.580 So, I love that, you know, distinction, Indiana Jones, right?

00:41:42.620 You know, archaeologists look for facts.

00:41:45.820 You know, we're looking for truth.

00:41:47.080 There's a difference between facts and truth.

00:41:49.240 That's great.

00:41:49.760 Well, what is the difference between facts and truth?

00:41:52.220 I mean, that's what I love about the seminar.

00:41:55.540 Because you start somewhere, and you think you're going to go somewhere else.

00:41:58.780 And then you're like, well, what about this?

00:42:01.020 And it's just so much fun to see where you go.

00:42:03.480 It is fun.

00:42:04.100 It is fun.

00:42:05.060 And you get to tear yourself down and maybe build yourself back up.

00:42:08.520 And it's really interesting.

00:42:10.700 Yeah.

00:42:11.220 So, Plato, he talks about, you know, is it okay to lie to get people to do the right thing?

00:42:16.360 Right.

00:42:16.580 This is the Republic.

00:42:17.640 Yeah, facts.

00:42:18.100 The noble lie.

00:42:19.240 Yeah.

00:42:19.540 Is that okay?

00:42:20.280 Right.

00:42:20.520 So, yeah, for those who are like, I think the Republic is, you know, it's, Republic is

00:42:25.720 a utopian government, right?

00:42:27.080 It's ideal.

00:42:28.080 I mean, people think, if you actually read the Republic, you're like, this sounds terrible.

00:42:32.360 Right.

00:42:32.760 Because, like, you're born and you're automatically sorted into one of three.

00:42:39.720 Gold, bronze, and silver people.

00:42:41.260 Right.

00:42:41.420 And then whether you have children or not is completely determined.

00:42:45.060 And if you do have kids, they take them away from you and raise them in a commune.

00:42:48.900 Right. 0.95

00:42:49.240 Crazy. 0.71

00:42:49.760 Right.

00:42:49.880 So, here, is the Republic satire?

00:42:54.460 Yeah, that's another good question.

00:42:56.380 And there's some people, you know, who say Plato was often very satirical in his, but other

00:43:01.560 people say, no, he's dead serious.

00:43:02.960 He wanted to do it.

00:43:04.340 But, yeah, for that Republic to start, like, he had to convince people.

00:43:07.340 Basically, he said, we have to tell people that they are either gold, silver, or bronze.

00:43:13.120 Like, that's the noble lie.

00:43:14.280 Like, this is the creation story that we have to make up for people to get on board with

00:43:19.580 this.

00:43:20.080 And then, again, going back to how all these great books are iterative.

00:43:23.520 The Republic, you know, you have, what was it, Thomas More talking about utopia.

00:43:30.200 You know, like, I mean, like, utopianism, like, started with Plato.

00:43:34.140 This idea there's, like, you can create a perfect society.

00:43:37.480 You know, you see that with More later on.

00:43:40.700 You see it with Marx.

00:43:41.940 That influences the Soviet Union, what's going on there.

00:43:45.400 And then you end up with the dystopian.

00:43:46.720 You end up with 1984.

00:43:48.460 1984.

00:43:49.300 Right, New World.

00:43:49.940 And those things wouldn't exist.

00:43:51.120 It's hard to understand that completely, what's going on there, if you don't read

00:43:56.880 the Republic.

00:43:57.780 Yeah.

00:43:58.960 Today, as Americans especially, we take it for granted, or we think it's a given that

00:44:04.400 you can design the government system that you live under.

00:44:08.120 And Plato is kind of the first person that says that maybe that's possible.

00:44:14.080 Maybe it is possible to sit down with a pencil and paper and figure out the best way to govern

00:44:18.000 people.

00:44:18.360 Up until then, it had been pretty much, government had been emergent, I mean, kind

00:44:22.160 of feudal or, you know, whatever, you know, tribal and emergent.

00:44:26.660 And he said, no, you know, maybe we can, whether it's satire or not, he introduces the idea that

00:44:31.200 we can thoughtfully come up with a way to govern ourselves.

00:44:33.500 And then he passes the baton to Aristotle, and he writes the politics, and he puts forth

00:44:36.840 how he thinks maybe it should be done.

00:44:39.000 And off you go.

00:44:40.400 And so interesting.

00:44:42.200 Yeah.

00:44:42.500 Well, I'm curious.

00:44:43.280 So let's say someone wants to take up this baton and do it themselves.

00:44:46.420 Like, I'm going to start reading the great books.

00:44:47.960 Like, is there, do you have any suggestions based on your experience in maybe reading

00:44:53.320 Adler?

00:44:53.720 Because Adler wrote a book called How to Read a Book.

00:44:56.060 I think you start with How to Read a Book.

00:44:57.500 How to Read a Book.

00:44:58.160 I mean, so he has it kind of broadly.

00:44:59.620 Like, how does he recommend people read these texts to get the most out of it?

00:45:04.320 Yeah.

00:45:04.580 He talks about there are kind of four levels of reading.

00:45:07.920 You know, you kind of make an inspectional reading.

00:45:09.540 You pass over the thing.

00:45:10.500 You look at the table of contents, the headings.

00:45:12.380 Maybe look through the index a little bit, kind of get an idea of what the thing's about.

00:45:16.200 And then you do a little closer reading.

00:45:18.440 And then, you know, eventually, once you've read enough and you're good enough, you can

00:45:23.720 do what he calls syntopical reading, S-Y-N-T-O-P-I-C-A-L, where when you read these books, you're actually

00:45:31.160 reading them in context with all the other things you've read.

00:45:33.840 And as you read, you can kind of juxtapose them with the other ideas that you hold or other

00:45:37.980 ideas you've read.

00:45:38.760 You can do that on the fly.

00:45:39.800 And, you know, that's like the highest level of reading.

00:45:42.120 But he talks about how to do that in that book.

00:45:44.100 He talks about how to make notes.

00:45:45.800 And I think it's really important.

00:45:47.280 I was a school kid in the 70s and 80s, and they taught me to skim and scan, you know.

00:45:54.020 They taught me to speed read.

00:45:56.480 And that's not how you do it when the stakes are high.

00:45:59.080 That's the way you read the newspaper.

00:46:00.800 But that's not the way you read, you know, difficult, important material.

00:46:03.620 And so a lot of us have that sort of a training.

00:46:08.820 And Adler gives you permission to go slow, to not understand, tells you it's okay to struggle.

00:46:15.220 And, you know, so if you start with how to read a book, that will set you up for, I think,

00:46:20.240 more success in reading these important books.

00:46:23.800 So you can't speed read through this stuff.

00:46:25.460 Can't speed read through this.

00:46:26.080 Right, so, like, you have to make time to read.

00:46:28.320 So, like, how many, like, how much time does someone have to devote a day to reading?

00:46:34.080 Does it take an hour?

00:46:35.300 Is it just 30 minutes?

00:46:36.660 I mean, is it?

00:46:37.420 Well, we'll take what we can get, right?

00:46:39.360 You know, don't strive for perfection.

00:46:42.280 You know, do what you can.

00:46:43.700 But, you know, the onlinegreatbooks.com and in my home group, we try to make,

00:46:48.980 we try to pick chunks, reading chunks, that we can get done in three one-hour sessions a week.

00:46:53.500 We think that that's not too much to ask from busy people.

00:46:57.480 I do think if you've only got 15 minutes, you know, it takes a little while to get in the groove,

00:47:02.660 you know, and then you have to kind of, sometimes I have to reread that first page or two that I

00:47:06.700 picked up in the session, you know, the reading session.

00:47:09.420 You know, 15 minutes isn't really enough.

00:47:10.800 And hours are pretty good, a pretty good chunk.

00:47:13.140 So three one-hour chunks a day, you know, you're going to read 3,000 pages a year.

00:47:17.520 Yes.

00:47:17.980 You know, an average person.

00:47:19.060 And sometimes, sometimes the difficult, the material is really, really difficult.

00:47:25.200 And we end up reading maybe six, eight pages an hour.

00:47:29.800 You know, like Plato is a Protagoras.

00:47:31.620 Right.

00:47:31.720 Some of this stuff's tough.

00:47:32.760 And the other times it's light and it's airy and it's fun and you just fly through it.

00:47:36.600 And you read all of Prometheus Bound in an hour.

00:47:38.680 Yeah.

00:47:39.100 Tragedies you can read.

00:47:40.020 Yeah.

00:47:40.740 And they're fun to read.

00:47:41.440 I say it's fun.

00:47:42.220 I mean, it's dreary stuff.

00:47:43.400 Right.

00:47:43.780 The doing is fun.

00:47:44.940 Right, right.

00:47:45.500 Yeah, for me, one tip I have for people, this is just my personal experience.

00:47:50.000 Yeah.

00:47:50.300 Whenever you read something and you don't understand it, don't stop.

00:47:53.680 That's right.

00:47:54.180 Just keep reading.

00:47:55.240 If you don't, like make a mark so you know I'm going to go back here and hit this part

00:47:59.560 a little bit harder.

00:48:01.200 But don't, just keep reading.

00:48:02.940 Because if you let yourself get bogged down, you're never going to make any progress.

00:48:05.880 Aquinas is doing this to me on every single page.

00:48:08.600 I read a paragraph.

00:48:09.320 I'm like, I don't get it.

00:48:10.420 And then he explains it.

00:48:11.680 Right.

00:48:12.040 Two paragraphs later, he ties all the loose ends up and I'm like, oh, I get it.

00:48:16.500 Also, I think I'm a pretty good reader.

00:48:18.780 I've got some reps in.

00:48:19.980 I've got some experience.

00:48:21.180 And some of these books, I'm really lucky if I squeeze eight or 10% out of them.

00:48:25.040 I mean, and that's okay.

00:48:26.820 That's okay.

00:48:27.440 I tell people all the time, like the Iliad, all of these books, one of the reasons they're

00:48:32.740 great books is because they will meet you where you are.

00:48:35.000 If you're a 14-year-old kid and you want to read the Aeneid, it's a great action-adventure

00:48:42.000 story.

00:48:42.560 And you don't have to deal with issues of duty and founding myths.

00:48:46.980 It's a great action-adventure story.

00:48:49.520 Just enjoy it for that.

00:48:51.140 Enjoy it.

00:48:52.860 And then when you're an older person and you read that, it can be about legacy.

00:48:57.900 It can be about your grandkids.

00:48:59.300 It can be about posterity.

00:49:01.380 And so these books, all of them will meet you where you are.

00:49:05.620 That's why sometimes you have to reread them at different times in your life.

00:49:09.640 Like the Odyssey is that for me.

00:49:11.260 Like when I first read the Odyssey, it was just a fun read because it's a crazy, it's an

00:49:15.720 adventure story.

00:49:16.560 The first adventure story.

00:49:18.040 But then I had Daniel Mendelsohn on my podcast.

00:49:21.780 He's a classics professor.

00:49:22.860 He wrote a book.

00:49:23.800 There's a memoir about his dad taking his Odyssey seminar.

00:49:28.880 And that was a crazy, because it opened up an idea that, no, this is a story about fathers

00:49:36.260 and sons, what war did to that family.

00:49:39.900 It's about marriage, Penelope and Odysseus.

00:49:43.580 It's my favorite part.

00:49:44.520 It's the best part.

00:49:45.620 So Odysseus is gone for 20 years and he comes home and his wife doesn't recognize him.

00:49:51.660 And he says, oh, I know about your bed.

00:49:54.240 Right.

00:49:54.780 Because his, beautiful symbolism.

00:49:57.560 He found this giant tree.

00:49:59.980 He made, and he cut, you know, he cut this thing up and he made their bed out of the trunk

00:50:05.140 of this tree and it was on the second floor.

00:50:07.260 So their bed, and they built, he built their home around this bed that was rooted in the

00:50:13.000 ground.

00:50:13.620 And it was secret.

00:50:14.680 Only she, only she knew that only he knew about her bed.

00:50:17.780 Right.

00:50:18.060 And I just cried like a baby, like, it's marriage.

00:50:22.900 Because marriage is, it's those secrets that only you and your wife know.

00:50:28.520 Yeah.

00:50:29.020 And the, yeah.

00:50:30.020 And the conversations that you have.

00:50:32.320 The inside jokes.

00:50:33.280 Yeah.

00:50:33.620 The pet names.

00:50:34.600 Ugh.

00:50:35.080 So good.

00:50:35.760 Like, that's how you develop a strong relationship.

00:50:37.960 So you, with this, this project has just started, as a lot of your groups here were just

00:50:43.080 with Play-Doh, personally you're with, you're on Aquinas, are there books that you're like

00:50:48.920 really looking forward to getting into?

00:50:51.460 Are, are, the people that signed up in January are now, are now digging into Play-Doh and I'm

00:50:57.520 super excited for those people.

00:50:59.020 Nobody reads Play-Doh and says, boy, that was a waste of time.

00:51:01.560 You know, I'm super excited for those people.

00:51:03.920 I'm always excited for the next book, man.

00:51:06.140 I really am.

00:51:07.220 I, you know, we've got, uh, we've got some Dante coming up in our home group, you know,

00:51:11.420 come around Thanksgiving time, we'll hit Dante.

00:51:13.600 I'm excited about that.

00:51:14.800 I'm always excited about the next one.

00:51:16.400 I really am.

00:51:17.580 Well, no, let me take that back.

00:51:18.660 I was not excited about City of God.

00:51:20.800 Yeah.

00:51:21.280 I remember when you sent the email out, it's like, guys, this is not going to be fun.

00:51:24.660 It's a giant brick of a book, but it's worth doing.

00:51:27.620 It's worth doing.

00:51:28.140 So here's the thing about that thing.

00:51:29.900 The thing about that thing.

00:51:30.760 It's 1,200 pages depending on what edition you get.

00:51:33.360 But it was so important that people hand copied that at night by candlelight on dead sheepskins

00:51:42.340 so that we could get it.

00:51:44.620 It was so important to them that they copied that by hand for centuries.

00:51:49.820 Well, let's talk about like, what are the big ideas that it hits that we're still grappling

00:51:52.780 with today?

00:51:54.820 In the city of God?

00:51:55.900 Yeah, the city of God.

00:51:56.640 Oh, the nature of God, nature, the nature of a man and society.

00:52:00.380 What is, you know, what's right and what's wrong?

00:52:04.180 What about, where do ethics come from?

00:52:06.520 What is the role of morality in the state?

00:52:09.360 I mean, it's just...

00:52:09.980 He was a Neoplatonist, right? 0.79

00:52:11.420 Correct?

00:52:11.760 Or is that...

00:52:12.380 Sort of, Neoplatonist.

00:52:14.520 Yeah.

00:52:14.760 Yeah.

00:52:15.080 Yeah.

00:52:15.320 He was, he's very influenced by the Platonists.

00:52:17.440 He was a Manichaean.

00:52:20.380 Manichaean, what is...

00:52:21.040 For a minute.

00:52:22.320 Kind of a, I don't know a great deal about him, but he was not Christian.

00:52:26.140 Right.

00:52:26.400 And then underwent this conversion experience.

00:52:30.120 And then his mother was a Christian, Monica, I think her name.

00:52:35.280 And he went and she prayed and prayed and prayed that he would have a conversion experience.

00:52:38.480 He was kind of a riotous.

00:52:39.980 He was having a riotous.

00:52:41.040 He was like a, you know...

00:52:41.900 Yeah, he had a concubine and a kid by this concubine.

00:52:45.420 And then he ended up having this conversion experience and ended up being the Bishop of Hippo.

00:52:52.040 And then he wrote Confessions.

00:52:53.940 Actually, I may have that out of order, but he wrote his Confessions where he pretty much, he's like a 12-step person.

00:53:00.880 He takes his personal inventory, all of his character defects and flaws, everything he's done wrong, and he writes it up.

00:53:06.620 And, you know, it's the first autobiography that we read.

00:53:10.840 Yeah.

00:53:11.720 Autobiographical work.

00:53:13.100 And he tells the story of the pear tree.

00:53:15.120 Like, he's like, the worst thing I've ever done was I stole this pear, not because I wanted to eat it, not because it tasted good, but just to steal it.

00:53:22.940 So, right.

00:53:25.180 The stakes were low, and I did it because it was naughty.

00:53:27.540 He's like, this is the worst thing I've ever done.

00:53:29.060 That's really...

00:53:29.780 Yeah.

00:53:30.040 So, you could talk about that for hours.

00:53:31.760 Right.

00:53:32.220 Now, he's got some great stuff in the Confessions about unordered loves or disordered loves, right?

00:53:37.380 Like, the turmoil in your life is often caused by not loving, quote-unquote, loving the right things or putting them in the right priorities.

00:53:46.660 That gives you, like, whether you're a Christian or not, it gives you something to think about.

00:53:50.820 Like, how am I prioritizing my life that will allow me to flourish?

00:53:56.740 Not necessarily be happy, but flourish, live a good life.

00:54:00.600 Right.

00:54:00.840 So, Adler says, and I believe, and so many of us believe, that reading these books sets us up to have the good life.

00:54:10.420 Right.

00:54:11.140 That's the whole point of it.

00:54:12.200 That's the whole point.

00:54:12.700 That's the whole point of this conversation.

00:54:13.820 That's the whole point of philosophy.

00:54:16.080 But it's about that.

00:54:18.480 I mean, reading these things is about that.

00:54:20.200 And so, we read about Penelope and that marriage, and we realize how much it meant to Odysseus, and we read about justice and virtue and Plato, and then we read about stealing those pairs.

00:54:30.520 And the ultimate misery it caused him, the guy he stole them from, probably never knew it had disappeared.

00:54:37.620 Right.

00:54:38.320 But he talks about, you know, what it did to him.

00:54:41.420 Aristotle, before him, talks about continence and incontinence, right?

00:54:45.180 He talks about, you know, knowing what's right, but not doing it anyway, like, and knowing what's wrong, and knowing that it's wrong, and doing the wrong thing anyway.

00:54:53.820 And so, you know, we get to start to put our personal decisions into a more orderly context.

00:55:00.300 Right.

00:55:00.840 And it does make for a better life.

00:55:03.480 Also makes you miserable, too.

00:55:05.320 Yeah.

00:55:05.500 Because you're like part of a, you know, it feels like you're part of a secret club, like you've got the owner's manual.

00:55:10.360 Yeah.

00:55:10.600 And you're like, why is nobody else reading this?

00:55:12.660 Why did they not know these things?

00:55:14.140 Yeah.

00:55:14.360 And what's great, too, is you get to, you know, we've been discussing a lot of philosophy, but you get to the literature, and the literature can be really just, I think, just as impactful and thought-provoking, you know, compared to the philosophy.

00:55:28.080 Because it takes those ideas that you've, you know, been, like, it takes the grammar, right?

00:55:33.360 We'll call it, you know, Plato and Aquinas, like the grammar, the ideas, and then puts them in, like, a story, which allows you to play with those ideas in a different way.

00:55:43.260 I think whenever you put something in a narrative, it helps you remember it better.

00:55:49.360 So that gets fun.

00:55:50.520 Like, you get to talk about or think about that as well.

00:55:53.960 Yeah, you get to think about it and not actually have to do all of it.

00:55:56.760 Right, right.

00:55:57.320 You know, that's, right, isn't that the mark of, you know, the wise person is they don't have to make all the mistakes themselves, you know, and it's wonderful.

00:56:06.440 The people that are reading this with us seem to be having a wonderful time.

00:56:11.860 I get very, very kind emails that get me all choked up about these people that are reading these books.

00:56:16.420 Guys are taking a break.

00:56:17.500 They're working the auto body shop, and on their smoke break, they're reading, you know, they're reading Sophocles.

00:56:24.400 That's awesome.

00:56:25.040 It is.

00:56:25.780 And that's how it should be.

00:56:26.840 Like, that's how it should be.

00:56:27.940 My dream is that, you know, we've just got, you know, electricians, apprentices, and, you know, just regular folks all over the country that are working all day, applying their trade, and they come home, and they don't watch Netflix.

00:56:42.340 They're cracking one of these books, you know, and then they do it for years.

00:56:46.140 The next thing you know, they're 40, they're 50, they're 60, and they're the kind of people that we all want to be.

00:56:52.960 You know, we all want to be the kind of person that knows this stuff, that's been through it.

00:56:58.060 And I think we can do it.

00:56:59.600 The thing is, you ask, how long does it take to read these books?

00:57:02.100 What's the time commitment?

00:57:03.260 Does it even matter?

00:57:04.520 Like, five years from now, you're going to be five years older.

00:57:07.420 If you've spent the time on this over those five years, you will have been through that material.

00:57:10.980 You'll know it, and you'll be changed by it.

00:57:13.380 And if you binge watch, you know, whatever show it is, five years from now, will you be changed by that?

00:57:18.700 I was changed by Cobra Kai.

00:57:20.680 That was pretty good.

00:57:22.780 No, but you're right.

00:57:23.740 Going back to, you know, the connection with weight training, which you're also a starting strength coach, that's the same thing.

00:57:29.620 Like, it's never too late.

00:57:31.740 Right.

00:57:32.200 Right?

00:57:32.620 You might not get through all of it.

00:57:35.180 Right?

00:57:35.400 You might die. 0.95

00:57:36.480 Right.

00:57:36.840 But, like, you might never reach, you know, a 600-pound deadlift, but you're better for just getting started and doing it now.

00:57:46.800 You start where you are, and you do better.

00:57:48.640 That's all we do.

00:57:49.480 That's all you can do.

00:57:49.900 So we've got guys, I have a 16-year-old, and I have a gentleman in his 80s, and then everybody in between.

00:57:55.640 And you're talking about Mendelssohn's discussion about the Odyssey.

00:57:59.640 Carl Schutt, who leads some of our seminars, he's a philosophy PhD, and he's been a big help to me in getting this started.

00:58:06.220 His dad's taken this, too.

00:58:07.760 That's awesome.

00:58:08.380 Yeah.

00:58:09.120 He's awesome.

00:58:09.860 I'm going to tear up again.

00:58:10.680 I know.

00:58:11.020 That's a great experience to have.

00:58:12.460 Yeah.

00:58:12.880 Well, Scott, this has been a good conversation.

00:58:14.980 Where can people go to learn more about what you're doing?

00:58:17.260 Oh, go to onlinegreatbooks.com, and you can go sign up there.

00:58:23.280 If you give the coupon code AOM, you get 25% off your first three months.

00:58:27.700 There you go.

00:58:28.460 And it helps support Brett's show, too.

00:58:30.780 And we will send you a couple books right off the bat.

00:58:32.760 We can send you the How to Read a Book and the Iliad.

00:58:36.860 And the next book you go into is the Odyssey.

00:58:38.960 And then after that, we read Prometheus Abound and the Oresteia.

00:58:43.520 Those are the book about Agamemnon's family, essentially.

00:58:46.600 No, it's just great stuff.

00:58:47.220 It's crazy.

00:58:48.420 No, it's really good.

00:58:49.720 I'm curious.

00:58:50.260 If someone's listening to this right now, they want to get started.

00:58:53.000 They want to get a taste of what it's like reading the great books.

00:58:57.060 Is there like one that you recommend that this is a good one to cut your teeth on?

00:59:00.940 It's not super intimidating.

00:59:02.740 It's not going to take – you just do it in a week or two.

00:59:06.580 Yeah.

00:59:07.760 Well, I love the Iliad.

00:59:09.460 I don't know if that's a week or two.

00:59:10.580 I love the Iliad.

00:59:11.720 But if you just want to see what the heck all of this is about, Prometheus Bound is wonderful.

00:59:15.320 It's a very short little Greek strategy.

00:59:18.140 Plato's dialogue, The Mino, I think is a wonderful place to start because it's about learning.

00:59:22.480 It's about education.

00:59:23.460 It's about virtue.

00:59:25.060 You can go get it.

00:59:26.100 You can go to archive.org and get the Benjamin Jowett translation for free there.

00:59:30.180 It's pretty good.

00:59:30.800 It's not the best one, but it's a pretty good translation.

00:59:33.480 And I don't know, 39 pages, something like that.

00:59:36.920 And you can get the beats.

00:59:38.140 You can get the feel of what Plato's like, what Greek philosophy was like, and well, get your feet wet.

00:59:44.080 That's awesome.

00:59:44.740 That's great.

00:59:45.500 Well, Scott, thanks so much for your time.

00:59:46.540 It's been a pleasure.

00:59:47.380 Wonderful.

00:59:47.840 Thanks, man.

00:59:48.540 My guest today was Scott Hambrick.

00:59:49.860 He's the founder of Online Great Books.

00:59:51.940 You can find out more information about his program, onlinegreatbooks.com.

00:59:55.020 As Scott himself even said, you don't need to sign up for his program to do the great books.

00:59:58.980 There's plenty of lists online we've linked to in our show notes.

01:00:02.120 If you got some people who want to discuss this stuff, start one in your living room today.

01:00:05.560 But if you're having trouble finding people to discuss the great books with, it's definitely a great service to check out.

01:00:10.100 If you do decide to use it, use code AOM at checkout for 25% off your first three months.

01:00:14.200 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash onlinegreatbooks, where you'll find links to different great books lists that are out there.

01:00:21.820 Well, links to resources that we discussed in this conversation.

01:00:24.460 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

01:00:39.740 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

01:00:43.640 And if you enjoy the podcast, you got something out of it, I appreciate you taking one minute to give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

01:00:48.160 It helps that a lot.

01:00:48.940 As always, thank you for your continued support.

01:00:50.620 Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

01:00:54.460 I'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - August 09, 2018

#430： Why You Need to Join the Great Conversation About the Great Books

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