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Liberal education is for the man of leisure: Either a gentleman engaged in politics, or a philosopher engaged in contemplation. What role, then, can liberal learning have in a mass democracy? In the lecture "Liberal Education and Responsibility," the political theorist Leo Strauss defends his statement that "Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant. Liberal education is the necessary endavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society." Along the way, he also discusses religious education, the distinction between the gentleman and the philosopher, and the insufficiency of the great books movement. Wyoming Catholic College professor Pavlos Papadopoulos rejoins the podcast for another dive into Strauss.

Leo Strauss's Liberal Education and Responsibility: https://archive.org/details/LeoStraussOnLiberalEducation/Strauss-LiberalEducationResponsibility/

NH episode on Leo Strauss's What Is Liberal Education?: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/18277048-big-bad-leo-strauss-feat-pavlos-papadopoulos-episode-ci

Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781451683202

Jonathan Swift's The Battle of the Books: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781507890530

Mark A. Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780802882042

Greg Lukianoff's and Jonathan Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780735224919

Pete Hegseth's and David Goodwin's Battle for the American Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780063215054

Robert R. Reilly's The Closing of the Muslim Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781610170024

Allan Bloom's translation of The Republic of Plato: https://amzn.to/49ZMPIs

Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America (trans. Harvey Mansfield): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226805368

Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/4buKd7W

C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

Josef Pieper's Leisure The Basis of Culture: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781586172565

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
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What do you think of laryngeals? How should we refer to the Anatolian languages? Where do you stand on Gimbutas and Renfrew? In this episode of New Humanists, Dr. Colin Gorrie helps guide us through the Indo-European family tree. We follow the various branches as they spread out across Europe and Asia: Anatolian, Tocharian, Celtic, Germanic, Italic, and more. This episode covers the second half of Laura Spinney's introduction to the field of Indo-European studies, Proto.

Laura Spinney's Proto: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781639732586

Colin Gorrie's YouTube interview with Laura Spinney: https://youtu.be/_nVIV-qaHHY

M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199558919

Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226458120

Colin Gorrie's "Dead Language Society" Substack: https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/

Calvert Watkins' How to Kill a Dragon: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780195085952

Ekho, the ancient language audiobook app, is coming soon. Check here for more details: https://ancientlanguage.com/ekho

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Supposedly, about half of the world population speaks languages that all come from one root language: Proto-Indo-European. How do we know, and where did "PIE" come from? Ukraine, Anatolia, or somewhere else? Did the Indo-Europeans spread out in a massive, peaceful migration of farmers? Or as small bands of shepherds, stealing livestock and killing anyone standing in the way? How do we even know what a prehistoric language sounded like if we don't have any record of their language? In this episode, Colin Gorrie joins us to discuss the opening chapters of Laura Spinney's Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, a fascinating and enjoyable survey of the current state of research into Proto-Indo-European, and a useful introduction to the fields of historical linguistics, archaeology, and paleogenetics, and how they relate to the question of Indo-European origins.

Laura Spinney's Proto: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781639732586

Colin Gorrie's YouTube interview with Laura Spinney: https://youtu.be/_nVIV-qaHHY

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Erwin Rohde's Psyche: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780415225632

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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The classical education revival movement began in the 1980s as a DIY, grassroots attempt to recover the medieval liberal arts, most notably the Trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. However, the classical ed movement also frequently drapes itself in the garb of Plato: leading students out of the cave, employing Socratic techniques in the classroom, and ensuring its students do not lead unexamined lives. But what if classical education, both in its love for the Trivium (and Quadrivium) as well as its institutional character, borrows more from the great enemy and rival of Socrates - sophistry? In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan read H.I. Marrou's chapter from A History of Education in Antiquity on the sophists and the birth of classical education proper.

Henri-Irénée Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149

Plato's Symposium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521682985

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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What is liberal education? It's the prompt that has launched one thousand essays, and in a 1959 lecture at the University of Chicago, the (in)famous Leo Strauss gave his answer. Despite fleeing Nazi Germany and coming to the United States, Strauss wasn't afraid of criticizing the positivism, historicism, and relativism of the American academy. And as is evident in reading his lecture "What is Liberal Education?" neither was he afraid of calling into question the value and feasibility of modern democracy. Wyoming Catholic College professor Pavlos Papadopoulos joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss Strauss, his relation to the Great Books movement, and his views on the relation between liberal education and mass democratic society.

Leo Strauss's What Is Liberal Education? https://archive.org/details/LeoStraussOnLiberalEducation/Strauss-WhatIsLiberalEducation/

Josef Pieper's Leisure, The Basis of Culture: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781586172565

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com