Kristoffer Balintona — #Essay

The “Great Books Idea” and liberal versus general education

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 18:30:00 GMT

The origins of the “great books idea” §

The Great Books of the Western World is a landmark event for the manifestation of the “great books idea,” a campaign whose ideal was a liberal education. Throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the great books idea went from “being an academic experiment in New York City to a national phenomenon based in Chicago” (Lacy 86). The spearheads for the movement were Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, the president and chancellor of the University of Chicago, respectively. The Great Books of the Western World, edited by both Hutchins and Adler and published by the Encyclopedia Britannia, where Adler was part of the board of directors, marks when the great books idea’s burst into the public sphere. The Great Books of the Western World is a 54-volume set which compiles ‘great’ written works. The criteria for which works include but is not limited to those which have an “intellectual amplitude,” are “universally relevant and always contemporary,” are “indefinitely readable,” and “deemed indispensable… to a genuine, sound liberal education” (Lacy 269). The final criterion is what Hutchins, Adler, and the exponents for the great books idea most firmly thrust into the public eye.

What exactly is the great books idea? It is the essence of why the Great Books of the Western World found so much success and assent to intellectuals of the era. Its ideal was a universal liberal education — that every citizen be ‘intellectually rounded.’ The great books idea is an approach of what a liberal education should be. Hutchins and Adler identified a gap in liberal education, namely, it wasn’t liberal enough. Hutchins, reflecting on what the great books idea means to him, during a celebratory party for the publication of the Great Books of the Western World, described liberal education as the “education for leisure and citizenship” (Lacy 158). To them, a liberal education, is “but a means to intellectual freedom” (Lacy 158); this is the goal the Great Books of the Western World embodies. This means that thinkers were envisioning something to put into perspective any other knowledge they have — an expansive notion of history and ideas of the past, undiluted from the dispositions and transience of the present, or as Clifton Fadiman asserted, it is a means to escape “from the thralldom of the current… the curse of the contemporary” (Lacy 157).

Chicago’s mayor, Martin Kennelly, proclaimed a “Great Books Week” in September 1948; its top attraction was a public demonstration spearheaded by Adler and Hutchins. Though mostly performative, this demonstration provided an imagery of productive, healthy, organic intellectualism and dialogue the great books idea strove for:

Their discussion of Plato likely resembled the routine of Socratic questioning with which they had plagued unsuspecting University of Chicago students since the fall of 1930… They sometimes argued “moot points” for the students’ “amusement”… Of him Adler later recalled: “His lightning flash rejoinders left me speechless, astonishing those who were already his friends, but confounding others not so well disposed”… McNeill recalled Adler’s “argumentative skill” and “seriousness.” Thomas Aquinas’ “scholastic method” of posing questions and raising objections fit “Adler’s habit of mind perfectly.” (Lacy 85–86)

The ideal of liberal education §

The mission of the great books idea was to shift the attention of what the most important things to learn are. To Adler and Hutchins, the status quo in universities was characterized by vocational and professional training. They were diametrically opposed: “For college students seeking a liberal education, Hutchins, Adler, and his entire community of discourse predicted that their experience in higher education, focusing on specialization and vocationalism, would leave them unsatisfied…” (Lacy 223). The two believed that the education found through reading great books would provide a liberating feeling from the “stultifying, conformist tasks, students and laborers” (Lacy 224).

Underlying their call to a more liberal education was the aim to create a “thinking citizenry,” one which regularly regularly mulls over “liberal causes” of “education reform, world government, nuclear disarmament, free speech, and racial and economic equality” . Ultimately, Adler and Hutchins sought for a “more democratized culture, not the reification of an existing order” (Lacy 159) — they aspired to redefine our values. Though this ideal immediately applies to the university, it also applies to every member of society:

If the great books idea worked this way for [the university] cohorts, perhaps some family members experiencing repression, by way of conformity to gender and age expectations, might also escape into the great books. They could express themselves through buying and reading the great books, or participating in discussion groups. (Lacy 224)

Compare this to contemporary popular discussions of education systems. For instance, education is often framed in economic terms: institutions do not have enough funding (Zyngier). Though money is always involved in implementing educational practices, the conversation only tangentially addresses the fundamental problems of whether what funds are being allocated to is correct in the first place. This is clearly not an exhaustive description of contemporary conversation, but is indicative of how we often miss addressing the faults of the premises of our education institutions, that which everything grounded on. Similarly, concerns of imagination being ‘killed’ in our educational institutions “stifling creativity” leading to “problems in the classroom.” Students start to “act out, drift off, or shut down” (Lynch), then we propose solutions such as physical movement. In other words, presents concerns often superficial chit-chat which neglect the core question of “What should we educate on?”

In 1929, “Adler recalled that ‘reading the great books, both as a student and as a teacher, had done more for [his] mind than all the rest of the academic pursuits in which [he] had been so far engaged’” (Lacy 24). The great books ‘methodology’ is most critically founded on the prioritization of (i) facilitating conversation around “Great Ideas,” that is the “Great Conversation,” via (ii) a common corpus of texts. Return to the core aim of Adler and Hutchins to create a “thinking citizenry”: a functioning democracy requires a literate populace (Lacy 26). Thus, one had to be aware of the larger issues and concerns of society — the Great Conversation: “… a discussion of ideas by authors who, though spread across twenty-five hundred years of Western history” (Adler 252). This followed from the claim that “…ideas can be studied only in their historical context” (Adler 252). A common set of texts is vital in order to grapple with such broad and important ideas. Indeed, how can productive discourse occur without a common set of facts that are agreed upon. In the words of Adler, a common set of texts “provided ‘common intellectual themes’ for students, and prevented conversations from ‘degenerating’ into small talk.’” (Lacy 23).

The 1950s was the peak of the great books idea:

During the 1955-56 fiscal year… In 889 Canadian and American communities, 1,735 great books discussion groups existed by June 1956. By December 1961 the “world total” was 3,135 groups. Actual participants numbered around 26,000 in the mid-1950s, indicating a median steady state between 50,000 in 1947 and 17,000 in 1952. Estimates for late 1961 were 47,025. In 1956 the largest numbers of groups were in New York and Colorado (165 each), Illinois (129), and Ohio (115); the smallest in Idaho (2), Montana (3), and Vermont and Wyoming (4 each). The Foundation was based in Chicago, but its reading groups spread all over the country. (Lacy 226–27)

This speaks to the appeal the public found in the values of liberal education. Furthermore, the great books idea complicates the common intuition that education is an individualistic pursuit. Although learning occurs with the individual, the value of dialogue should not be neglected.

A case against Adler and Hutchins §

Although there substantial momentum around the great books idea and its values of liberal education in the 50s, the 60s and particularly the 70s marked its nadir. The great books idea is promising: an ideal for the intellectual optimum of every citizen, found in participating in the “great conversation.” It seemed to be a panacea. The “encyclopedia businesses” of the early 1950s are an ostensive signal that for the growing belief that, in a world becoming more and more complex, “Buying the great books, or encyclopedias, secured your child’s place in America’s middle class” (Lacy 221); in reading the great books of the past all can cut passed the bombardment of information that was coming with mass media such as television. But it is problematic: the ideal hinges on the student being a reader. What happens if one isn’t?

Let’s return to the our common intuition that education is a pursuit for the individual. Why is that? There certainly is a kernel of truth: information and wisdom are held within books, but that is only useful for facilitating growth; the growth only occurs once the individual has taken the steps to utilize that resource. Mere reading is not enough; reading is not intrinsically useful. Reading can be good or bad, it is up to the individual to get take the effort and time to make use of what a book has to offer. It is indisputable that there is effective and ineffective reading. That is, there will always be members of the public who do not like or want to read, and will therefore get less out of out of a book compared to inherent readers. Compare the software engineer who sees the smartphone as a miracle of human ingenuity and the layperson who only sees convenience. This observation complicates the proposition of universitization liberal education: how can a pedagogical philosophy possibly be suitable for a population which arguably is unreceptive to deeply reading the classics of Western society?

Beneath the exciting and grand promise of liberal education is the suspicious presupposition that a liberal education is the best general education. A liberal education is one with “considered to be subject centered, with a fairly fixed body of content material, logically organized. Its goal is also the stimulation of reflective thinking, with less emphasis on behavior, and it draws its clientele from the intellectual elite.” In contrast, a general education is one designed to “fit all students — not just the upper ten percent… liberal education as often defined and practiced, will not fit all students” (Zayed 42).

And Alder and Hutchins did indeed envision this as an ideal for the public. For instance, in their talks for a promotional movie in 1954, Adler and Hutchins wanted to market the movie as a ‘family-friendly’, relaxing venture, “Benton directed Adler to ‘imagine that the movie is to be shown in a home to small group of people… make it as intimate and friendly and relaxed as possible.’ Benton reminded him: ‘You are not lecturing; you are teaching.’ Adler and Hutchins heeded Benton’s input” (Lacy 234). Thus, ironically, although the great books idea argues that liberal education is the path to being the ideal citizen, the ideal is inherently exclusionary. For instance, what the general public should read is likely different from what a reader already receptive to reading should read.

This is more than theoretical. The great books idea only became a cultural phenomenon after coming from a plea originating from the “planes of high culture” (Lacy 159), “The Great Books came to be a form of mass culture, subject to the concerns of business: sales, marketing, production, profits, standardization, and efficiency. Once the great books idea took a fixed form, critics targeted it as the commodification of culture” (Lacy 159). The movement, however, never quite grew out of this population. The 1962 Marplan-Chicago Great Books Awareness study analyzed the market of the Great Books of the Western World and concluded the following:

A typical great books owner’s social and personal profile in 1962, according to Marplan, began with the fact that they were “upper middle class.” They filled occupations “structured and governed by definite rules, such as medicine, engineering, accounting, and middle management jobs.” Because of their “high intelligence,” however, they correctly perceived “their lack of knowledge in the philosophical and liberal arts fields.” The Great Books and the Syntopicon enabled them to remedy their knowledge deficit without forcing them to “contemplate ambiguities” or determine the “appropriateness of… vague ideas.” The set offered them “satisfaction” in that they could find “the answer to questions.” Owners were “action” driven people who liked to accomplish “something,” or “complet[e] a task with perceivable results.” In sum, “the Great books appeal to the core culture [of] individuals who strive to function efficiently and within the outlines of what is proper and correct.” So long as America’s larger culture retained this tendency, centering on order and propriety, then the great books idea would maintain its appeal. (Lacy 256–57)

Despite the aspirations for a ‘responsible citizen’, a goal directly broadly, the ones who took up the mantle of the great books idea were those already predisposed to doing so already. In other words, the great books idea remained localized to a self-selecting populous. The actions of Adler himself during the great books idea’s nadir shows that, despite his words, his audience was not the common man, “Adler had been involved in Aspen seminars, which utilized a great-books approach to learning, regularly since the 1950s, but the seminars were aimed at business and government executives: the elite” (Lacy 264).

To Adler, “the great books should be read ‘to deepen and broaden our intelligence and imagination, not to acquire up-to-date information’” (Lacy 244). At the heart of the great books idea is the universal imposition of a value, namely of reading the greats as the best path for self-improvement and ideal citizenship, that the “most satisfactory byproduct of reading the Great Books was that you ended up “a much more satisfactory companion to yourself” (Lacy 240). The great books idea is alluring solution to a definite problem but with too broad a scope. The great books idea, and by extension liberal education, is not a pedagogical panacea; it is more suitable as a personal goal — for one’s personal education, not as a standard.

Author’s note §

This a paper I wrote for one of my classes. It is in an incomplete state but I put a lot of work into it and think that someone might enjoy taking a peek at it.

Adler, Mortimer Jerome. Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography. Macmillan, 1977.

Lacy, Tim. Making a Democratic Culture: The Great Books Idea, Mortimer J. Adler, and Twentieth-Century America. 2006, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/making-democratic-culture-great-books-idea/docview/305319330/se-2?accountid=9758. Ann Arbor.

Lynch, Matthew. “Is Education Killing Imagination?” The Edvocate, 5 Sep. 2016, https://www.theedadvocate.org/is-education-killing-imagination/.

Zayed, Kevin. “The Paradox of Mortimer J. Adler: Revisiting the Distinction between Liberal and General Education.” 2013.

Zyngier, David. “Test Shock: Is Our Education System Failing Students?” The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/test-shock-is-our-education-system-failing-students-11308. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021.

On Zettelkasten purism and the misdirection of backlinks

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 22:37:00 GMT

TL;DR §

Don’t be distracted by the allure of backlinks; a good knowledge management practice provides more value. Luhmann’s Zettelkasten isn’t law; your needs should instruct the directives you follow.

I disagree with ‘backlink exceptionalism’ §

The commonly understood novelty of the Zettelkasten tool is its non-hierarchical organization composed of hyperlinks. Backlinks generate interconnected networks of thought which mirror the associative nature of our brains. It is a departure from traditional hierarchical note-taking practices. Looking at the outlier of Niklas Luhmann, we can be quick to conclude that the backlink is the cause of Zettelkasten’s efficacy. The novelty of backlinks has made the concept synonymous with ‘Zettelkasten.’ However, there are many successful personal knowledge management systems, and it would be unwise to study only a sample size of one, decontextualizing Luhmann’s methodology from other successful knowledge management systems.

The spotlight is regularly on the serendipity and surprise from backlinks from an emergent network of interconnected notes. However, this is too narrow of a spotlight; there are many other changes in note-taking and production. For instance, the time spent writing — and thus thinking — is increased. There is a heightened intentionality from creating links, rearranging ideas, and concretely classifying new information. Deliberate writing and thinking has benefits to production which are too scarcely acknowledged. That is what I wish to address here.

The ‘practice’ is most essential §

At the broadest level, what makes a Zettelkasten effective? Firstly, a faithful Zettelkasten should help produce written pieces. Secondly, Zettelkasten’s note-taking process facilitates idea mastery and emergence. The latter induces the former because the artifacts of that note-taking process are directly used in future works; much of the thinking is often done before the first draft is even begun. Take away those artifacts, and you’re left with something awfully similar to a conventional note-taking system. Thus, we arrive at idea mastery as the core vehicle for Zettelkasten’s success.

I ask: from what does most of your mastery over new material arise? How does Zettelkasten facilitate idea mastery and emergence? Most would turn to the feature of backlinks because of its perceived novelty. However, I counter the common sentiment by claiming that idea mastery mostly arises from the practice associated with maintaining a Zettelkasten. I argue Zettelkasten’s essence is to repeatedly revisit, recall, and engage with that which you have learned, iterating upon the writing artifacts of that process — your crystallized thoughts — over time. Engaging with what you learn is the crux to a successful knowledge management system. The contribution of backlinks is too commonly conflated with the contribution of that routine. Backlinks are a complementary feature.

An aside: but what about backlinks?! §

I will address a potential concern. Namely, to underappreciate the power of backlinks is to discard the essential power of associative thinking. However, we must remember that we naturally think associatively irrespective of what system we use. Luhmann’s Zettelkasten is just the most formalized system (I know of) for this process. We need not be interdisciplinary to Luhmann’s degree; serendipitous discovery is not necessary for interdisciplinary work. At the very least, we should settle for a ‘good enough’ system and be productive, rather than working to find the perfect system. Surely, devoting all your energy to creating the perfect system is putting the cart before the horse — good thinking and meaningful work take priority.

Luhmann isn’t the only success story §

I observe similar principles intuitively arrived at by other incredibly productive and learned thinkers. It is common for scholars to reread books, have discourse with other intellectuals, obsess over ideas in gaps in their day, and, perhaps most importantly, write and talk about it. For instance, many authors and writers espouse the idea of a Commonplace Book, traditionally a journal which contains quotable passages, personal comments, and literary excerpts. Ryan Holiday, a prolific reader and author who has published over ten books in just a decade, is famously known for his own incarnation of the Commonplace Book known as The Notecard System. His system was directly adopted from one of his mentors, another bestselling author by the name of Robert Greene. I currently attend university and more than one of my professors have intuitively created their own knowledge management systems and found success in their academic work. One of those professors recommended I read How to Write a Thesis by Umberto Eco, which I found to be a surprisingly close analog to Luhmann’s Zettelkasten. The Zettelkasten community is also very familiar with Andy Matuschak’s Evergreen Notes, which is inspired by, but significantly departs from, Luhmann’s Zettelkasten. Also in this list are many notable figures in history including George S. Patton and Ronald Reagan. In short, Zettelkasten isn’t the only successful knowledge management system.

All of these systems have found incredible success, yet are not Zettelkasten; their particulars drastically differ. How? I have found that the details of these systems — when a note is made, when it is returned to, how sources are managed, et cetera — differ widely but are united by the common directive to continually linger with the material.

So what do you do now? §

Methodologies should not be dogmatic. The Notecard System, Evergreen notes, the Commonplace Book… Luhman’s Zettelkasten is just one incarnation of a personal knowledge management system out of many. The very fact that there are so many methodologies demonstrates that none are a panacea. Purism is counterproductive — it confines expression to Zettelkasten-esque formulations. Treat them as resources and conclude your own decisions. Eclectism is a sign of thoughtfulness and intentionality.

Furthermore, Luhmann likely did not begin with an awareness of the exact rules and principles his Zettelkasten would ultimately have. Rather, he began with an initial premise and built his Zettelkasten — and its rules — around what he needed: a means to think interdisciplinarily and broadly, enough to form a ‘Theory of Society.’ Thinking interdisciplinarily and broadly are attractive and most would no doubt value those benefits in a Zettelkasten system. But should that be the North Star for your Zettelkasten? Is that your ultimate goal in knowledge management? You must appreciate the difference between your goal and Luhmann’s. If they do not align, your system will not serve you as well as it should. Worse, if you do not have a clearly defined and articulated purpose, then your Zettelkasten will become a hodgepodge of things gathered elsewhere, vying for your attention to use it this way and that. It will be undirected and reliant on luck to stay afloat.

Indeed, new Zettelkasten users often get swept away by the semantics of “What does it mean for a note to be atomic?” or “What should be in a literature note instead of a Zettel?” or “When should I make a note?”. On the other hand, most longstanding users of Zettelkasten intuitively arrive at the same conclusion as me: consider what others have done, and take what is appropriate for you.

How has my own advice affected me? §

Once I disabused myself from the notion that I should know exactly what Luhmann’s principles were in order to follow his rules to a T, everything fell into place. Instead of thinking that a malfunction or failure of my system reflected my own lack of understanding, I started to adopt a problem-solving mentality, treating other implementations as resources and making my own judgments. For the first time my Zettelkasten started truly being effective.