Teach me to care and not to care.
“It is probably safe to assume that every classical Christian school in the country sees itself as the rival of some better funded, more liberal Christian school across town.”
Too Catholic: A Classical Odyssey is now available on the CiRCE website. This piece originally appeared in an issue of FORMA several years ago, but this is the first time it has been available digitally.
Of all the essays I’ve ever written, I’m most proud of this one.
Tomorrow I will be speaking at the CiRCE regional conference in Sterling, Virginia. It’s not too late to sign up for Saturday’s block of lectures, if you would like. I will be giving a lecture which reflects on what I’ve learned about human nature from teaching short fiction workshops to high school students.
Boys in 8th grade Latin classes: “When are we actually going to use this in the real world?
Boys in 12th grade: “I wrote my thesis on why travel soccer players should be paid in cryptocurrency.”
Readers, if you teach at a private Christian school where seniors are required to write a thesis, I am curious to know what sort of subjects your seniors are presenting on. If you are willing to share them, I would love to look over a list of senior thesis statements/subjects from the last several years. Feel free to redact all the names before sending them.
For what it’s worth, I am trying to get a sense of what level of sophistication the seniors at most classical schools are capable of arguing. You can email me personally or email me through Gibbs Classical.
Tom: What do you take in your coffee?
Harry: I’m allergic to cow’s milk. What else do you have?
Tom: I’ve got oat milk.
Harry: I don’t like the taste.
Tom: I’ve got goat milk.
Harry: It’s so expensive.
Tom: I’ve got boat milk.
Harry: Boat milk? What’s that?
Tom: It’s part of Lockheed Martin’s new line of mecha-milks. They take old boats, planes, and cars, grind them up very fine, add water and some other stuff, and presto! Boat milk is available in regular, vanilla, and extra creamy. I’ve also got some plane milk, if you’d like to try it.
Harry: Wow, what’s it taste like?
Tom: It’s got a delicious metallic flavor I can’t get enough of. Besides it’s good for the planet. Recycling old forms of transportation is about as eco-friendly as it gets!
Michel Houellebecq’s Submission (2015) is the story of a secularist college professor named François who must figure out what he actually stands for after France is (mostly) peacefully, democratically overtaken by Islamists and something like Sharia law is imposed. His university gives him a generous severance package, but offers him even more money if he will convert and come back to teach. Most of his colleagues convert. François becomes more amenable to the idea of conversion when he discovers that he can keep drinking and smoking after he converts, and that the new university provost might even help him find a wife or two.
Someone really needs to write the American version of this story. Everything is the same, except it’s a Christian at a Christian college that is becoming increasingly woke.
Student: I’m worried that our class just isn’t moving fast enough through the material. We’re not getting much done.
Teacher: Well, a classical education isn’t about covering material. It’s about cultivating virtue.
Student: No one is cultivating virtue in your class. That’s the problem. You spend so much time every day lecturing the boys on why they shouldn’t talk out of turn, why they shouldn’t distract you, shouldn’t distract each other… We never accomplish anything. It’s just a lot of pointless scolding.
Teacher: Well, your class can be quite unruly.
Student: Actually, your class is unruly. Those boys don’t mess around in our other classes.
Teacher: Really?
Student: No. They sit quietly and listen for Mr. Boone and Mrs. Sanders.
Teacher: Why do you think that is?
Student: Because they’re sort of afraid of Mr. Boone.
Teacher: Well, I don’t want students to be afraid of me. As someone who cares about the cultivation of virtue, I am going after the hearts of my students.
Student: That’s not working either. The boys in my class despise you. They call you “Mr. Twinkie Talk” behind your back. They love Mr. Boone, though.
-from my latest for CiRCE
Remember back in 2020 when everybody wanted to use the word “pivot”? Journalists, critiques, commentators, everyone really, loved an excuse to use the word “pivot.” It was so modern, so edgy, and sounded so informed and zeitgeisty.
Now everyone wants to say “adjacent.”
“This coffee isn’t fruity, but it’s fruit-adjacent.”
“This movie isn’t horror, but it’s horror-adjacent.”
“You don’t sound like an idiot, you’re just idiot-adjacent.”
Were adults always so much like teenagers?
I am surrounded by teenagers all day, every day, and they similarly cycle through words which make them feel important, words by which they identify themselves as being sophisticated, contemporary, and in-the-know.
With teenagers, it’s amusing. With adults, it’s pathetic.
This is Steve Coogan being funny by repeating two words over and over.
“Yet many school leaders misunderstand the basis of culture, seeing it as something produced more by a shared vision than by shared behavior. In other words, they emphasize the ends while giving insufficient attention to the means. In the classical sphere, many leaders commit this error because they are more comfortable in the world of ideas than in the world of people. People are messy and complicated and require structures and disciplines. They require organizing principles and accountability. To lead and manage them is difficult work that often feels removed from the transcendental beauty classical education is meant to seek.”
-from Erik Twist’s Classical Education Needs Discipline and Vision, an absolute must read
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.