Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 9

. . . "Posidonius divides the arts into four classes: first we have those which are common and low, then those which serve for amusement, then those which refer to the education of boys, and, finally, the liberal arts.

"The common sort belong to workmen and are mere hand-work; they are concerned with equipping life; there is in them no pretense to beauty or honor.

The arts of amusement are those which aim to please the eye and the ear. To this class you may assign the stage-machinists, who invent scaffolding that goes aloft of its own accord, or floors that rise silently into the air, and many other surprising devices, as when objects that fit together then fall apart, or objects which are separate then join together automatically, or objects which stand erect then gradually collapse.

"The eye of the inexperienced is struck with amazement by these things; for such persons marvel at everything that takes place without warning, because they do not know the causes.

"The arts which belong to the education of boys, and are somewhat similar to the liberal arts, are those which the Greeks call the 'cycle of studies,' but which we Romans call 'liberal.'

"However, those alone are really liberal – or rather, to give them a truer name, 'free' – whose concern is virtue." . . .

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

Seneca refers to Posidonius' division of the arts, those that are useful, those that are pleasing and gratifying, those intended to prepare the young for the study of the liberal arts, and finally the liberal arts themselves, which are concerned with a virtuous life.

I still need to remind myself that Seneca's language, perhaps disturbing to our modern sensibilities, isn't condemning the lower arts. They can, with great skill, produce precisely what they are intended to produce. A well-made tool can make the work of life so much easier. A beautiful painting or poem can deeply move our passions. A fine education, in grammar, mathematics, history, or the natural sciences is quite a sight to behold. But all of these lower things are only of the highest and most perfect use when they help us to live with true human excellence.

I am reminded of an obituary, from about a decade ago, for a fellow from my old neighborhood. I would see him regularly at our local smoke shop, and over the years I came to know him fairly well. He would smoke his cigar, I would smoke my pipe, and our conversations would touch on any conceivable topic. I was very fond of him, because he was a gentleman of the old school, and I still miss him.

The obituary said that he was "a good lawyer and a good man." Both of these were certainly true, but I can clearly picture what he himself would have said, had he been able to read those words. He would have grinned from ear to ear, and observed that they were certainly not the same thing.

"There's lots of really smart people up at your college, I suppose?" he once asked me.

I agreed that there were.

"Now how many of them are really good people?"

He understood, I think, exactly what Posidonius and Seneca meant. Being skilled, clever, or smart won't make you be what he called a 'mensch.'

I had grown up in a time when the whiz-bang of modern special effects, of big budget spectacles, became more prominent in cinema. I was once bemoaning that everything was now just about impressive appearances. The gentleman asked me what I'd prefer in its place.

"Good story, good screenwriting, good directing," I replied.

"But isn't that just another kind of spectacle? It's still about using words and images to affect you. Maybe what you mean is you want more films that are philosophical?"

I sometimes hated it when he was right.

Seneca will shortly return to the fact that only the life of philosophy is the truly good life, and that all other arts are only lesser or greater tools toward that end. I need to remember how many of us, professionals, politicians, and scholars alike, forget this very important distinction.

Written 1/2010