I should deem your games of logic to be of some avail in relieving men's burdens, if you could first show me what part of these burdens they will relieve. What among these games of yours banishes lust? Or controls it?
Would that I could say that they were merely of no profit! They are positively harmful. I can make it perfectly clear to you whenever you wish, that a noble spirit when involved in such subtleties is impaired and weakened.
I am ashamed to say what weapons they supply to men who are destined to go to war with fortune, and how poorly they equip them! Is this the path to the greatest good? Is philosophy to proceed by such claptrap and by quibbles which would be a disgrace and a reproach even for expounders of the law?
For what else is it that you men are doing, when you deliberately ensnare the person to whom you are putting questions, than making it appear that the man has lost his case on a technical error? But just as the judge can reinstate those who have lost a suit in this way, so philosophy has reinstated these victims of quibbling to their former condition.
Why do you men abandon your mighty promises, and, after having assured me in high-sounding language that you will permit the glitter of gold to dazzle my eyesight no more than the gleam of the sword, and that I shall, with mighty steadfastness, spurn both that which all men crave and that which all men fear, why do you descend to the ABC's of scholastic pedants? What is your answer?
Would that I could say that they were merely of no profit! They are positively harmful. I can make it perfectly clear to you whenever you wish, that a noble spirit when involved in such subtleties is impaired and weakened.
I am ashamed to say what weapons they supply to men who are destined to go to war with fortune, and how poorly they equip them! Is this the path to the greatest good? Is philosophy to proceed by such claptrap and by quibbles which would be a disgrace and a reproach even for expounders of the law?
For what else is it that you men are doing, when you deliberately ensnare the person to whom you are putting questions, than making it appear that the man has lost his case on a technical error? But just as the judge can reinstate those who have lost a suit in this way, so philosophy has reinstated these victims of quibbling to their former condition.
Why do you men abandon your mighty promises, and, after having assured me in high-sounding language that you will permit the glitter of gold to dazzle my eyesight no more than the gleam of the sword, and that I shall, with mighty steadfastness, spurn both that which all men crave and that which all men fear, why do you descend to the ABC's of scholastic pedants? What is your answer?
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 48
If the pedants just kept their quibbling in their ivory towers, then they would only be hurting themselves, but they feel the need to be heard around the world, so they drag along so many young and impressionable minds.
Those of us who have had even the slightest exposure to higher education are familiar with the intense cynicism that pervades academia, a crippling disquiet about the possibility of any redeeming truth. Claims of fact are met with ridicule, moral callings are considered hopelessly naïve, and appeals to beauty are treated with contempt.
A murky skepticism inevitably leads to an unintelligible relativism, and all we are left with is a cold and calculating sophistication, where one man makes his career by writing a footnote to another man’s footnote. The topics are entirely technical, revolving around pure abstractions, and we are now far removed from the human need to cope in the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my dusty books as much as the next egghead, but there needs to be more to this life than dusty books. What happened to the ardent love? What happened to the valiant convictions?
The malaise is downright infectious, such that crowds of young people enter into a purely professional life, lacking any of the tools required to live with character. As a consequence, they deprive themselves of the abiding joy that springs from the virtues.
I find myself returning over and over to the challenges Seneca submits. Has my book-learning helped me to tame my desires, to be at peace with what Nature has provided, to whistle my way past the trials of Fortune? There is no point to any scholarly efforts if I do not thereby become a kinder and more decent human being.
I think of the many heroes of the post-modern intelligentsia, who may have grappled with complex details of logic or produced profoundly moving verses, and yet their personal lives were riddled with chronic duplicity, adultery, or debauchery. I feel great compassion for the man who blows off his own head in despair, but I do not take that to be an example worthy of following.
Seneca knew, as all men and women of good will know, that we will recover our sanity when we reunite our thinking to our living.
If the pedants just kept their quibbling in their ivory towers, then they would only be hurting themselves, but they feel the need to be heard around the world, so they drag along so many young and impressionable minds.
Those of us who have had even the slightest exposure to higher education are familiar with the intense cynicism that pervades academia, a crippling disquiet about the possibility of any redeeming truth. Claims of fact are met with ridicule, moral callings are considered hopelessly naïve, and appeals to beauty are treated with contempt.
A murky skepticism inevitably leads to an unintelligible relativism, and all we are left with is a cold and calculating sophistication, where one man makes his career by writing a footnote to another man’s footnote. The topics are entirely technical, revolving around pure abstractions, and we are now far removed from the human need to cope in the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my dusty books as much as the next egghead, but there needs to be more to this life than dusty books. What happened to the ardent love? What happened to the valiant convictions?
The malaise is downright infectious, such that crowds of young people enter into a purely professional life, lacking any of the tools required to live with character. As a consequence, they deprive themselves of the abiding joy that springs from the virtues.
I find myself returning over and over to the challenges Seneca submits. Has my book-learning helped me to tame my desires, to be at peace with what Nature has provided, to whistle my way past the trials of Fortune? There is no point to any scholarly efforts if I do not thereby become a kinder and more decent human being.
I think of the many heroes of the post-modern intelligentsia, who may have grappled with complex details of logic or produced profoundly moving verses, and yet their personal lives were riddled with chronic duplicity, adultery, or debauchery. I feel great compassion for the man who blows off his own head in despair, but I do not take that to be an example worthy of following.
Seneca knew, as all men and women of good will know, that we will recover our sanity when we reunite our thinking to our living.
—Reflection written in 3/2013
IMAGE: Thomas Rowlandson, The Pedant (c. 1800)
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