Author: Daniel Hero

[File: Soft Monkey – initial training]

[Begin transcript]

Ah, there you are number ten. Have a seat. Did you see number eleven on your way here? I fear he overindulged during midday nourishment and might be feeling the aftereffects. Do give him my sympathy when you see him next. So, you’re off to Earth as well I see. Not to worry, we’ll make you right as rain, as the humans like to say.

The purpose of this station is to outline the personality template you’ve been assigned. In this case, a traditional liberal. Humans being what they are, know that this is only a broad outline and you shouldn’t take this information as dogma – it is a template, a foundation in which to build a nuanced personality. I will help you integrate the language and basic survival skills you’ve already learned with your assigned cover during your three weeks in universe yellow, planet Earth, North America, in the year [{redacted} replaced with era] mid twentieth century/early 21st.

Comfy? Good. Feel free to help yourself to refreshment. It may be best to leave the mayo churros alone, as eleven can no doubt testify. Let’s begin.

Do you prefer top down or bottom up? That’s a good idea, plan top down, build bottom up. So be it.

Your assignment is a female of the species in early adulthood. If you’ll check your language installment you will see liberal defined as one who is open minded and does not regularly follow traditional or orthodox ways or forms. You’ll notice many entries of this word in your language installment – care will be required to utilize each in the appropriate way. More on this later.

As a liberal, you respond well to positive role models. You believe in fairness and helping those who cannot help themselves. Whenever the downtrodden need a champion, the liberal is there. Equality is a level playing field and freedom is freedom from power abuses and inequality. Of the two, equality is preferred.

The traditional liberal holds these general beliefs: Religion is scientific, non-organized, and unconventional. Rights are to be respected by others and minorities protected. Criminals are social and economic victims, often exploited in both. The homeless are downtrodden victims of the system and lack opportunity. The liberal motto can best be summed up as “One for all and all for one.”

Valuable education is perceived as that which fosters learning – to ask questions, to relate to and co-operate with others. A child equipped with this education built on the values of self examination, empathy and openness creates the potential for self realization who then becomes a fulfilled adult. Vocations preferred by the template include: architects, scientists, media, teachers, and law.

Liberal families feature a nurturing parent who build a relationship with their children based on respect and trust. Nurturing parents instill values of empathy and moral diversity in order to create a self nurturing child.

A community based on ethics creates an atmosphere of protection and communication for families to thrive within. When it comes to society and culture a good motto to remember is, “The world can be improved.” You prefer a society that is inclusive, multicultural, and evolving. The preferred community is one based on ethics with a moral underpinning.

I know. It’s a lot to take in. We’re almost done however, we’re at the top now. As a political philosophy, liberalism is based on a progressive nature that looks to the future. It is egalitarian and idealistic stressing the need for equality and favors change over tradition. In practical matters this manifests itself in calling for a regulated economy [see economic packet subsection four{reference function user disabled – no further references will be provided] of business and industry. Taxation and spending is favored to alleviate suffering and provide for the common good.

What else? Hmmm, just remember you’re more than willing to interfere in society and social life if there is suffering to be addressed and you’ll do fine. Your focus is on society and you support fair trade, workers over management towards a goal of personal freedom and self fulfillment.

So that’s it. You’re looking a bit flushed eleven. I warned you about those churros…[end transcript]

Those who urge others to take lessons in their class but offer no real advice or instruction are like those who screw in light bulbs and never flip the switch.

There is no better prod than that which must be done.

Nothing is completely erased.

The mind, like a story, is built one word at a time.

Now is all there ever is.

The most difficult application of power is forbearance.

True, brevity is the soul of wit but speed is its hummingbird heart.

Curiosity is the carrot – empathy the stick.

At the risk of sounding obtuse, introspection is like a triangle; there are several kinds and each have their points but contrary to popular belief they all contain the right angle – it’s simply a matter of degree.

If you would pick a berry, be prepared for the thorn.

Carts. Horses. Order is pair a mount.

Love humanity and hate people; feel free to switch as needed.

Don’t tell people who you aren’t; show them who you are. You do not want people to think who you are is what you say you are not.

A ring is a fight with four corners – don’t be forced into one.

No waste.

One divides by zero by being equal to everything.

Never teach a monster where you live. When it inevitably shows up, treat it as you would any other guest.

A kitchen and a library provide the same service, if you wish to be healthy and live well, visit both daily. And just like mother said, finish your vegetables.

Remember when you step out of a crucible, you are white HOT.

It all doesn’t have to happen now.

One of the ways to know god is not to.

Truth lies in paradox.

Plan top down, build bottom up.

I am the only one who pushes my buttons.

Ideologies can be bullies too.

The problem I have with religion is that it goes against my religion.

Evil loves company. So does Good.

Misinformation is like body odor: All of us are susceptible, we prefer our own the most, and the least offensive scrub daily.

Strength and Denial often walk arm in arm.

Treat your education like a baby rattlesnake – watch it constantly, listen when it speaks, milk the venom daily, and most important: Remember it is a gift.

One can either break something, fix something, or do nothing. When in doubt, choose the last.

Hope, wisdom, god and a dictionary; note which you reach for first and put away last. The wise note this in others as well.

Hope, wisdom, god and a dictionary – all things to reach for the moment you need them and put away the moment you do not.

Knowledge is like good taste – not everyone has it, or having it, have it to the same degree.

Take care before tossing eggs into the air – even the best jugglers miss the catch from time to time.

We are the math problem that solves itself.

Make sure the authority you appeal to is relevant.

Demand knowledge. Gush wisdom.

Wisdom is to knowledge what a diamond is to coal.

Be the only Hero you worship. Remember all heroes are either tragic or flawed and often both.

Scaring people is a shitty way of making friends.

The only thing worse than a racist asshole is the letter p.

Always pay mind to the second rule of monster hunting: Do not become a monster in the pursuit.

The first rule of monster hunting is to stay away from the end that bites.

Better eight billion gods all speaking at once than one that cannot or will not.

If wisdom is your play, act the fool.

A rattlesnake, a tear track, a solitary yes – these are the essence of eloquence.

Christians and gnostics will always disagree about the serpent.

God’s nose knows no other.

Chase after truth and goodness and you will find beauty hurrying to catch up.

Better to feel groovy than look cool.

It is much easier to make an old friend new than it is to make a new old friend.

The minute you claim to be wise is the second you become a fool.

The wise and the foolish see themselves in the other; the difference between them? Only one is correct for the right reason. If you’ve just wondered what that reason might be, you have your answer. If you feel insulted, the answer is definitive.

There are two types of knowledge – the first involves rummaging around in your own head, the second involves rummaging around another’s. A library is how you achieve both and neither.

I leaned in to kiss Athena and to my delight, she to me.

On the first day, there is usually a syllabus. It often involves a spanking.

Goddesses, like heroes, have a thousand faces.

Jesus on the cross is a hook both god and humanity dangle to fish for the other. So far, both creels remain empty.

Atheists have two choices – believe in no god, or in all of them. Either way, none get special treatment.

I tried to throw god and was instead thrown. So I returned the favor.

A leash is the only whip where the slaves at both ends are content with their position.

It is better to bend than break. Yet, some things must break in order to mend well.

People’s hearts are first contact civilizations: Remember the prime directive. A more advanced civilization is doing the same.

The strength of the crew is the ship and the strength of the ship is the crew.

When god looks in the mirror she sees an atheist.

It is much better to greet the world laughing than crying.

I went looking for love in the library of humanity – and found it.

When cleaning up after a dog, always bring two bags.

When picking berries at the dog park, always choose those above waist height.

The solar system is our oyster and we are its pearl.

You don’t have to be sharp as a tack – just be deeper than one.

The harder the practice, the sweeter the song.

All my plans are elaborate. That is why they fail.

The internet is like a divorced spouse, it hates being wrong, loves to point out when you are, and will destroy you if you aren’t careful.

I am not spoon feeding you. I am pointing out the shape of the spoon.

Evil teaches oblivion.

The price of paradox is death; life is the coin in which it is paid. The opposite is also true.

Love is the amber that preserves and the reason why it is timeless.

When trying to teach someone a lesson, remember you are the student.

Sometimes it is necessary to burn a bridge that is rotten and unsafe to travel; this does not necessarily free you from rebuilding the bridge.

There are those whose works exceed their wisdom and those whose wisdom exceed their works. The latter is better.

Speak to me of wisdom – I thirst for it.

When the ship sinks make it sing.

The man who stands corrected strikes a heroic pose.

Consciousness is a participation with the numinous in the resolution of paradox.

Those who take a beggar’s pride in their own thoughts are first a king among thieves.

The satisfaction of knowledge is an ever expanding sphere of ignorance.

“I am the voice of awakening in the eternal night.” – Gnostic Hymn

Asshole; n. The fundamental test and proving ground of humanity. A pile of feces dressed up and shambling across the countryside, leaking. The distillation of billions of years of bad behavior. The mistake that cannot solve itself. The example that isn’t. The reconciliation of infinite self loathing and limited years of existence. Your ticket to another trip around the wheel of life. The primary reason the devil has slept in late since the dawn of creation, that is to say, delegation. The last remaining man on Earth. Or woman. Only an asshole discriminates based on gender.

Atheist; n. What god sees when she looks in the mirror.

Beauty; n. One of humanity’s oldest deities, this tragic figure, either locked in a tower or kept in a cave, is eternally guarded over by the fraternal twins known as Pride and Shame.

Birth; v, n. 1. The movement from one thing to all things.

2. See Death.

Bar; n. A place people get together to be alone. Churches, libraries, and brothels also provide this service.

Bra; n. A subject to keep well abreast, as difficulty often disguises itself in the lingerie of simplicity and vice versa.

Book; n. The treasure chest that unlocks you.

Circle; n. 1.The combination of convex and concave; distinct by definition yet inseparable by nature.

2. See Universe

Cliché; n. The people’s phrase, always readily at hand, like a comfy throw pillow you just can’t bear to toss out.

Company; n. The box you put yourself into or find yourself in.

Crucible; v, n. 1. That which defines you.

2. See Universe.

Death; v, n. 1.The collection of all your boxes placed into just two – sometimes set aflame, sometimes not.

2. The movement of all things into one thing.

3. See Birth.

Expert; n. Everyone but you.

Faith; v,n. Dwelling place of both Lord and Goddess – the indomitable castle in which their daughter, Hope, makes her last stand.

Fame; n. A love story where each partner is both giver and taker, yet eternally unsatisfied.

Fight; v, n. A ring with four corners combatants always retreat to.

Friend; n. You.

Fool; n. What you transform into the second you claim to be wise.

Goddess; n. 1. That stunning bitch who can divide by zero in her head but would rather smoke a joint with a friend.

2. See friend.

Hero; n. 1. A fool, properly motivated.

a. Said fool, fortunate.

b. Said fool, deceased.

c. Said fool, both fortunate and deceased.

2. A thin layer, once scratched, revealing a villain.

3. A villain, properly backlit.

4. A broad category covering villains past, revised and updated.

5. A broad category covering noble ancestors, ignored and minimized.

6. A convenient category one places those that do what one cannot or will not.

7. A citizen, rightly informed.

Hope; v,n. Daughter of possibility and faith.

Humanity; n. The universes’ tool to make all tools; a cosmic Swiss army knife.

Idea; v, n. The end product of humanity – as indestructible as matter and energy and far more precious.

Intellectual; n. Just one of many species facing extinction.

I oft reply when asked of me,

what words you use to label thee?

Expert generalist is my reply divine

and herein is how I define:

reason wed to curious comportment

a facile grasp of what’s important

facing a subject ignorance doth show

we resort to the wisdom of

“I don’t know.”

P. Bogomil

Jackpot; n. The result someone who is pushing your buttons and cranking your lever hopes for.

Knowledge; n, v. See Fame.

Leash; n. The whip with a slave attached at both ends.

Library; n. The preferred afterlife of forests.

Logic; n, v. The frequentative flutter of fitful flight forestalling the fateful fall.

Lord; n. 1. That magnificent bastard a goddess wants to hang out with.

2. See Friend.

Love; adj, v, n. The one thing there is always time for. That which you get by giving; how you get by being got.

Mind; n. 1. Something precious you are tasked with improving.

2. See Purse.

3. See Universe.

Money; n. See Fame.

Nothing; n, v. 1.The something that isn’t.

2. The universe’s graveyard.

3. Where all the interesting stuff happens. Or doesn’t.

Oubliette; n. The opening, passageway, and final destination of the forgotten.

Pain; n. See Crucible.

Penis; n. The hammer of god.

Possibility; n. The father of doubt and the mother of hope.

Purse; n. A bottomless pit filled with mystery.

Tower; n. An inverted oubliette in every way, except destination.

Universe; n. 1.The box you cannot look into before jumping.

2. The box you cannot climb out of.

3. See Mind. (Ed. note: This bears some correlation with Birth and Death, above.)

White Supremacy; n. That part of the pimple indicative of trouble below; just prior to a certain future – the only thing worse than a racist asshole is the letter p.

Word; n. A sacred thing you are nonetheless encouraged to play with.

[File: Hard Monkey – initial training]

[Begin transcript]

Oh, there you are. Take a seat number eleven. I’m reviewing your file and I see you were recruited from universe blue. So you’re probably a little nervous about your first assignment. Well don’t worry, first assignments are always observation only and we’re going to make you as inconspicuous as grass.

That’s where I come in. I will help you integrate the language and basic survival skills you’ve already learned with your assigned cover during your three weeks in universe yellow, planet Earth, North America, in the year [{redacted} replaced with era] mid twentieth century/early 21^st.

Your cover is a male of the species in maturity. Your personality profile template assignment is conservative, traditional. My job is to cover the broad outlines of this template, give you a feel for attitudes and preferences, that sort of thing. This alone will not stand personal scrutiny; your next training station will add the individual quirks and contradictions you’ll need in order to avoid detection and capture.

You do not want to be captured.

Comfy? Good. Help yourself to refreshment.

Let’s begin. Do you prefer top down or bottom up? Ah, me too.

As I mentioned, conservative, traditional. If you’ll check your language installment, you’ll see conservative is defined as tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions; marked by moderation or caution. Dress and style is indicated by a preference for traditional norms of taste, elegance, and manners.

As a political philosophy itself? You do like the top down, don’t you? Well, this philosophy is based on tradition and social stability, it stresses established institutions preferring gradual development to abrupt change. In practical matters this manifests itself by calling for lower taxes [see economic packet subsection three], limited government regulaton of business and investing [see economic packet subsection four], a strong national defense [see species preference packet {redacted, level 2 authorization required}], and individual financial responsibility for personal needs such as retirement and health care [see economic packet subsection 7 – capitalism, stage 4]. Broadly speaking you believe in equity, the law of the jungle [reference function user disabled – no further references will be provided], survival of the fittest, and tend to look to the past for solutions.

But let’s narrow down a bit shall we? Your assignment is North America, specifically, let’s see, what are they calling themselves here… ah yes, the United States of Colo… oh no, wait, America. You refer to yourself as “the right.” What’s that? No, as much as they would like that, the opposite party is called “the left.” Yes, humans are that simple. And may I say, I’m encouraged by your speed in getting into the spirit of this species, eleven. You’ve been doing your homework.

To continue, your focus is on the individual, with a goal towards economic freedom. You support employers and advocate for free trade. You strive for a deregulated economy, business, and industry. You wish to avoid taxing and spending and want little or no government interference in society or social lives. Your feelings towards social progress is a strong preference for maintaining the status quo.

When it comes to society and culture a good motto to remember is “The world is fine as it is.” You prefer a society that is exclusive, established, and nationalistic. The preferred community is one based on morals.

This community of morals holds the family unit as the primary source of socialization and cultural transmission. This atmosphere is one of reward and punishment. A strict parent, preferentially two, preferentially heterosexual, as according to the principles of equity and tradition, through a method known as tough love, builds a relationship with the child based on respect and fear, and through this relationship instills moral strength and absolutes. The primary goal is to produce a self reliant child.

Valuable education is perceived as that which teaches the skills necessary to compete and succeed, with an emphasis on individualism. A child equipped with this education built on the values of self discipline, self defence and moral strength, builds character. Those with a successfully built character become self reliant adults. Vocations preferred by this template include: police, military, stockbrokers, sales, law, and agriculture.

I know. It’s a lot to take in. Would you like a break? No? Very well, we’re almost done anyway. We’re down to the individual. The traditional conservative holds these general beliefs: Religion is theistic, organized, and conventional. Others must not interfere with rights. Criminals choose to be criminals and the homeless have no work ethic, no values, and no shame. Society is survival of the fittest. Equality is opportunity and freedom is the chance to achieve or fail, but of the two freedom is best. That said, if opportunity needs a champion, the conservative is there.

What else? Hmmm. Just remember that you uphold order, like those who help themselves, and respond very well to strong role models and you’ll do fine.

I think we’re done here. Have you had midday nourishment? Ever had a mayonnaise churro? Oh, you’re in for a…[end transcript]

The supplicant stood swaying at the feet of the wise one – head heavy, pack slung by one strap in the crook of an arm, the dust of miles caked upon a troubled brow.

“Master…” (Deep breath)
“…I seek…” [Sharp exhalation]“…THE TRUTH!”

The wise one took in the supplicant toe to crown.

“Fuck.” She said with a smile. “Another dreamer.”

There’s a guitar by my bed

I don’t know how to play it

a poet kissed my lips

I don’t know how to say it

rising water at my door

I don’t know how to stay it

they passed an ugly law

I don’t know how to obey it

But I do know you

But I do know you

But I do know you

There’s a guitar by my bed

I don’t know how to play it

a monster in the cave

I don’t know how to slay it

that whisper in the dark

I don’t know how to pray it

knotted hands behind my back

I don’t know how to fray it

But I do know you

But I do know you

But I do know you

There’s a song in my heart

think I know how to sing it

iron bell in the night

I’m in a rush to ring it

hammer in my hand

you know I’m gonna bring it

because I know you

yes I know you

I said I know you

There’s a guitar by my bed

think I’ll learn how to play it

• I hear this as a bluesy Mick Jagger song, something with a little slide guitar (only a little) and maybe saxophone at the end.

My heart is a planet in motion

turning slow on itself in the void

every evening the freeze of the dark

each morning a thaw in the dawning

the revolution measuring my day

I am held in transit by your attraction

racing at the memory of your approach

laboring under the strain of your absence

each affecting the distant other

(if only by a tiny wobble)

the cycle measuring my year

we are distinct by definition

and yet inseparable by nature

like the convex and concave

that describe my circle’s circumference

I am not complete without you

and something greater together.

sung to the tune of
Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet

Nibblin’ on sponge cake
watchin’ the news break
all the victims covered like oil
he used a few six guns, the last used a long one
your thoughts and prayers are merely a foil.

Wastin’ away again in Smith&Wessonville
searchin’ for a real leader with salt
Some people claim there’s the crazy to blame
but I know
it’s the shotgun’s fault.

We all know the reason
they die every season
nothin’ to show but a racist tattoo
thinks it’s his duty
kill a Mexican cutie
how you can think that I have a good clue (side eyes you know who).

Wastin’ away again in Smith&Wessonville
searchin’ for a real leader with salt
some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
but I know
it’s that damn incel’s fault!

So vote out the flip flop
death that he won’t stop
donate no more, send him back home
put their careers in a blender
and soon it will render
that true legislation that helps us hang on.

Wastin’ away again in Smith&Wessonville
searchin’ for a real leader with salt
some people say that there’s a congress to blame
but I know
it’s our own damn fault.

I am a fortunate man. And if I’m honest, I’m forced to conclude something a friend told me over 20 years ago: “You’re like a cat, man. You always land on your feet.” He was referring to my ability to trip, fall, and somehow manage to never break a bone. True both literally and figuratively, this only proves I am as clumsy as I am lucky. I had to be – my astigmatism was so severe at five years old that I would regularly walk into door frames when entering a bedroom. I earned my first lifelong scar (on the bottom of my chin) when I was six and tumbled off the back steps of our house in New Hampshire. That was the same year I jumped from a rock in the meadow behind that house – directly onto a huge hornet’s nest. It was a 400 yard screaming sprint from that spot to my house. My next door neighbor corralled me, lifting up my shirt with one hand while spraying me with a can of raid in the other. He was stung at least 30 times. I easily outnumbered that times ten. I’m very lucky I wasn’t allergic. I wore glasses by then and one of my most vivid memories is having so many hornets crawling over the lenses that I couldn’t see where I was going and so flung them from my face as I was racing away. It wouldn’t be the last excuse I had for losing my glasses but it was by far the best. My second lifelong scar was from the appendectomy I underwent a year later. I woke up from surgery and spent the next week in the hospital (this was the early 70’s, everyone stayed in the hospital longer then) eating ice cream next to a two foot stack of comic books. Pure heaven.

I don’t want to be all Carl Sagan (reason be upon him) here but I think it’s worth mentioning how insanely lucky we are to exist at all. Study some basic cosmology, or hell, even just astronomy, throw in some middle school level biology and it isn’t hard to be gobsmacked by the odds all of us beat – me in order to sit here and be writing this, you in sitting (or standing, I don’t judge) there reading it. It’s one of those profound truths that once learned, runs the risk of the descending spiral: from profound truth, to proverb, to cliché (we are all stardust). Or at best, it’s something one can manage a nostalgic smile for, the sort you wear when hearing it occur for the first time to a circle of stoned philosophy students. But like all profound truths, it bears repeating, and repeating, and repeating.

I’m lucky. I am a white man born in America during the middle of the 1960’s. This statement means I’ve been the recipient of gifts both earned and stolen since the day of that birth. I grew up in an environment that had by some estimates 60% more wild species than we have today. My childhood described a kind of freedom that no child enjoys today – not just the freedom derived from my whereabouts being unknowable but freedom from the fear of being shot in school. On the other hand, today’s child has powers at their fingertips I could not dream of. Dewey decimal system? Anyone? Anyone?

I’ve lived through the transition of the analog to the digital. From the space age (initial, tentative, but fantastic) to the information age (ditto). Given the ever increasing rate of change, I expect I’ll see a good portion of the next age as well. If the next age is to biology what the current one is to computing, we all may live to see a great deal of it. Provided we don’t kill ourselves and everything more complex than bacteria. This fortune, both in the place and time of my birth, is very important. It means I was born in the wealthiest place on Earth during the height of that society’s power, as part of that society’s ruling racial heirarchy, a society that also happens to be the mightiest in human history. Now, someone born in Rome 2000 years ago was also able to make that claim, as was each successive empire that took that spot since. What makes our time different is, for the first time, the real possibility that there won’t be a next. Not just a next empire, any next at all. You could say to yourself, well that’s not lucky. That is downright terrifying. The truth is it is both.

What a fucking time to be alive. We’ve got an existential threat bearing down on us that makes nuclear weapons seem quaint while also struggling with those resurgent demons of humanity some thought squarely vanquished. Wise people recognize those demons only require the necessary conditions and the right words of summoning for them to come howling back. Or the deeper truth, they never really got vanquished at all – they just traded one set of clothes for another, and waited. I’m lucky that this particular evil is so blatant, so forthright and frank, that anyone who takes the slightest bother to engage cannot call it for anything than what it is: an attempt to let the worst demons of human nature burn everything to ash. When things get that black and white, there is no grey to hide in. I use words with religious connotations on purpose; not because I believe in demons or evil of the biblical sort, but because I believe in demons of the human sort perpetrating all too human evil. We don’t need eschatological devils of the religious variety when we’re quite capable of producing eschatological devils of the merely human variety. In an age where too many people believe in angels rather than in evolution, the use of religious language needs to be appropriated and used as a bridge to bring the religious in.

I’m lucky one of the gifts of my birth in both time and place is that great treasure known as the Western Tradition. It’s fashionable nowadays to kick that tradition while it is down but I am unconcerned inasmuch as all traditions need a good kicking from time to time. The western tradition has much one can criticize about it – despite its ideals it has managed to fail a great many people who find themselves in it. This is both undeniable and I would argue a price we all pay along that path as the price of progress. This is neither an abdication of responsibility for past injustices nor as an excuse in continuing to turn a blind uncaring eye. However, the failure lies in our society and the way we go about education not the best ideals we’ve discovered so far. Those ideals are built on the best that human minds have reasoned, painstakingly reasoned through millenia of blood, suffering, and sacrifice. Powerful in both sentiment and application, it is the reason the best part of America has been so good for so many. We just have to resist that all too human tendency, summed up by the unofficial but operating motto of the modern conservative and or libertarian: “I got mine, you can go fuck yourself.”

I’m fortunate in the life I find myself living. My spouse’s profession is one of those few that finds itself in the sweet spot of a Venn diagram consisting of the spheres lucrative, respected, and noble. It is because of this that I find myself living the life that matches most closely my inherent tendencies. I tend to avoid crowds, although I love to watch them go by. Most of the day to day annoyances and stress that most of my fellow citizens, including my spouse have to endure: I find myself mostly free. I have time to myself. Time I never find boring. I like people. I like them even more when the choice of interaction is largely up to me. If I am honest, and as I get older the value of honesty only becomes more apparent, I admit I love humanity as a species and I desperately care about our survival as well as the conditions survival takes place in. That said… we’re exhausting. Disappointing. Frustrating. Sometimes dangerous. When I see what is happening to the rest of the life on this planet, I am tempted towards misanthropy. I made the conscious decision to love us all anyway. Because we’re worth it. It’s a decision I find myself lucky for the opportunity to make.

When I started submitting things here I mentioned that I was fond of quotes – then rarely used any since. I’m going to make up for that today with something I read recently:

“…We are as concerned as anybody else about the headlong plunge into the abyss that Western Civilization seems to be taking. We believe the voices that may recall the West to sanity are those which have taken part in the Great Conversation. We want them to be heard again – not because we want to go back to antiquity, or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or the Eighteenth Century. We are quite aware that we do not live in any time but the present, and, distressing as the present is, we would not care to live in any other time if we could. We want the voices of the Great Conversation to be heard again because we think they may help us to learn how to live better now.

…We believe that the reduction of the citizen to an object of propaganda, private and public, is one of the greatest dangers to democracy. A prevalent notion is that the great mass of the people cannot understand and cannot form an independent judgment upon any matter; they cannot be educated, in the sense of developing their intellectual powers, but they can be bamboozled. The reiteration of slogans, the distortion of the news, the great storm of propaganda that beats upon the citizen twenty-four hours a day all his life long mean either that democracy must fall a prey to the loudest and most persistent propagandists or that the people must save themselves by strengthening their minds so that they can appraise the issues for themselves.

Great books alone will not do the trick; for the people must have the information on which to base a judgment as well as the ability to make one. In order to understand inflation, for example, and to have an intelligent opinion on what can be done about it, the economic facts of a given country at a given time have to be available. Great books cannot help us there. But they can help us to that grasp of history, politics, morals, and economics and to that habit of mind which are needed to form a valid judgment on the issue. Great books may even help us to know what information we should demand. If we knew what information to demand we might have a better chance of getting it.

…the idea that liberal education is the education that everybody ought to have, and that the best way to a liberal education in the West is through the greatest works the West has produced, is still, in our view, the best educational idea there is.”
Preface to Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World, “The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education – Robert M. Hutchins, December 1, 1951.

It would appear that we’ve done little better than bail water for nearly 70 years – while the water in our collective boat has steadily risen. What is this great conversation that offers salvation? In its most simplistic terms the great conversation is nothing more than western history’s ongoing dialogue with the present about what is and what should be. Hutchins describes the tradition of the West as:

“…embodied in the great conversation which began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day. …The goal towards which Western society moves is the Civilization of the Dialogue. The spirit of Western civilization is the spirit of inquiry. …Nothing is to remain undiscussed. Everybody is to speak his mind. No proposition is to be left unexamined. The exchange of ideas is held to be the path of the realization of the potentialities of the race.”

Hutchins adumbrates our time with this sentence:

“…To put an end to the spirit of inquiry that has characterized the West it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is leave them unread for a few generations. On the other hand, the revival of interest in these books from time to time throughout history has provided the West with new drive and creativeness. Great books have salvaged, preserved, and transmitted the tradition on many occasions similar to our own.”

If there was ever a time to salvage, preserve, and transmit, now is that time.

So what exactly am I trying to say here?

I suppose all of this is leading up to some sort of prescription. We find ourselves in a desperate situation. Never has the need for an informed citizenry been higher while our dialogue so far from civil. Conservatives will read the words “liberal education” and in their minds translate that into “doctrination into being liberal” when what is being referred to is hardly that. Liberal education in this sense means nonvocational, nonspecializing education in the Western tradition. Hutchens describes liberal arts students as liberal artists, able to learn how to:

“…read, write, speak, listen, understand, and think. He learns to reckon, measure, and manipulate matter, quantity, and motion in order to predict, produce, and exchange. As we live in the tradition, whether we know it or not, so we are all liberal artists, whether we know it or not. We all practice the liberal arts, well or badly, all the time every day.

…The liberal arts are not merely indispensable; they are unavoidable. Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant, undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining. The question, in short, is whether he will be a poor liberal artist or a good one.”

A liberal education spans the history of western thought: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here you will find St. Thomas Aquinas wrapping his arm around Aristotle and Newton hungrily accepting the work of Kepler even as Ptolemy lifts a head no less proud for his error. A good liberal education acquaints one with the universal questions and troubles of all mankind and a great liberal education seeks to develop minds not only capable, but eager to form independent judgments in service to the true and good. A liberal education allows one to know, as much as possible, just what is true and good. Or failing that, at least what is false and bad.

The lamentation of the death of a liberal education has been echoing off the stone walls of the American educational system for at least as long as 1951. I know this because I can still hear Mr Hutchins’ wail in the pages of his preface of a collection of works which provides just such an education. Fortunately, we live in a time when it’s even easier to obtain a liberal education, material wise, than it was in 1951. The complete set of Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World spans over 2500 years of western civilization, with great care taken to select titles that were, in the Advisory board’s mind, indispensable to the Great Conversation.

I was gifted this set recently and it is a wonderful spotlight into the cracks and chasms of my own education. Not only that, it offers a guide to tackling these works, meant to be read without synopsis or preface excepting the one which precedes the collection itself. The reader is encouraged, indeed, must, read these authors for herself, without an intermediary telling her what to think. As later authors respond to, contradict, supplant, or deny their predecessors’ view on a particular subject, the reader is provided a string of thought which winds through the centuries, leaving her to ponder just where she is now.

Up until this point, I’ve danced around prescribing everyone engage in their own course of self improvement, to become, as Hutchins put it, a good liberal artist. But of course that’s exactly what I’m saying. Few of us tread so high we avoid all the sludge. It is unfashionable nowadays to prescribe a canonical list of dead white men that everyone “ought” to read.

Too fucking bad:

Homer

Aeschylus

Sophocles

Euripides

Aristophanes

Herodotus

Thucydides

Plato

Aristotle

Hippocrates

Galen

Euclid

Archimedes

Apollonius

Nicomachus

Lucretius

Epictetus

Marcus Aurelius

Virgil

Plutarch

Tacitus

Ptolemy

Copernicus

Kepler

Plotinus

Augustine

Thomas Aquinas

Dante

Chaucer

Machiavelli

Hobbes

Rabelais

Montaigne

Shakespeare

Gilbert

Galileo

Harvey

Cervantes

Francis Bacon

Descartes

Spinoza

Milton

Pascal

Newton

Huygens

Locke

Berkeley

Hume

Swift

Sterne

Fielding

Montesquieu

Rousseau

Adam Smith

Gibbon

Kant

American State Papers

The Federalist

J.S. Mill

Boswell

Lavoisier

Fourier

Faraday

Hegel

Goethe

Melville

Darwin

Marx

Engels

Tolstoy

Dostoevsky

William James

Freud

The set ends with Freud even as we understand that the conversation continued and does so until today.

It is by no means an exhaustive list and interested readers are encouraged to add their own recommendations.

As a final note of encouragement, be undaunted by the scope and number of these authors. They were merely men seeking to understand the world around them, attempting to put forth their ideas in a way that everyone ought to be able to engage with. Getting through all of these authors is not easy, even when accounting for the inevitable skipping of interminably dry stretches that exist in many of these works. But even the discretionary exercise of skipping is part of what makes up the skill set of a liberal artist. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a necessary part of reaping the harvest.

In this age of specialization and special interests the future needs as many generalist liberal artists as we can get. Try and learn something new everyday and don’t let anyone tell you the ancients have nothing to contribute.

Frankly, we need all the help we can get.