Really, this is part 2 of Newsletter 1. In that one I was saying that the traditional university system is “facing challenges” so to speak. Not least from high quality online education and various other new institutions springing up who might be - shall we say - stealing away some of the best and brightest from the old sandstone and Ivy League tertiary centres of learning. There might come a time where university really becomes the place you go when you have no other options. It could be the second rate place. Now I say this as a person who of course aspired to and spent a lot of time at university. But if I was 17 now - would I? Or would I have commenced a YouTube channel, a podcast and a blog while still in school? Would I then have entrepreneurs, start ups or some other learning institution offering to pay me to study rather than the other way around? It’s moving that way. But I don’t imagine this evolution will be easy, especially if there comes something like a phase change moment (which in political science terms we might call a revolution) of sorts. The avalanche starts with small stones as we know - and I have spoken to young people already turning off university who are fully capable of university. Or getting a year or two in and doing something else. So something is happening. It’s been happening for a long time of course and many know the stories of the tech wizards who avoided uni altogether or got out quick once they found the problem with which they fell in love. Until now they have been the exception. Might they one day be the rule? I don’t know. The universities have long been heavily politicised but this is not that problem. That only makes things worse. The underlying problem is their failure to adapt more quickly. I think there must always be a role for universities - but it might be more in the form of research institutions rather than in teaching. Or insofar as it remains focussed on teaching - not so much of teaching what have been (traditionally) undergraduate-aged people. Maybe that kind of learning can be done elsewhere in some other way? Maybe you only need a university to learn from when you are a “postgraduate” of a kind. I don’t know. We’re not quite there yet and the university system is of course highly profitable and will remain so for the foreseeable immediate future. But that can be assured because there is an unending stream of students - all one needs to do in the university finance department is ensure that the standards (or the requirements for entry) are broad enough as to allow - well in the limit - anyone at all to attend so long as they can pay the fees. If that is the standard, you can be a viable business for a long time, I imagine. But I can also imagine there will be teachers, parents, professors and politicians ready to pour scorn on the young intellects who eschew formal university education.
They will complain they (the “drop-outs”) have not been properly inculturated or socialised - they lack the “good manners” (in so many words) of broader society and so on. And that’s my topic here today once more: manners (in a manner of speaking). And in preparing this here and now as with newsletter 1, I wanted to refer to a quote I have often used and which is attributed to Socrates. It goes
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
—Socrates as Written by Aristophanes
The quote also appears in precisely the same form on a University website - on a page produced by their school of philosophy here: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/blogs/sdgi222/take-chill-pill-its-not-end-world
And it also appears in slightly altered versions in many places and of course on all those “quotable quotes” websites (eg: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-love-luxury-they-have-bad-manners-contempt )
It’s a great quote. Sounds great, anyways - echoing through the millennia as it seems to. I use it because it makes a perfect point: even 2500 years ago adults had the same attitude towards the youth as they do today. Nothing has changed. That may well be true but the quote is a misattribution at best and fabrication at worst. It took a little effort to get to the heart of the matter - but it is interesting. Now it seems to me that there is no other source out there right now that offers a more complete story than I am about to tell about the origins of this quote. There are some that know it’s a misattribution and tell you a little of the tale - but I decided to go diving in the deep end. So here it is. The story of that quote. The quote is made up (but not out of whole cloth) and comes in a form resembling the familiar one from an obscure book on the schooling system of Ancient Greece by a Kenneth John Freeman.
Kenneth John Freeman was a student at Cambridge University in their Bachelor of Arts program at the beginning of last century (i.e: in the early 1900s). Upon graduation he wanted to take up a Fellowship at Trinity College and to gain that position needed to produce “some original work”. So that meant an essay. He wrote an essay on the topic of ancient Greek education. Sadly, Mr. K. J. Freeman died in 1906 three months before he would have taken up his position at Trinity.
Now whether it was the case that the academics at Trinity were so very impressed by his work, or just reasonably well impressed but moved by how tragic his early death was - I don’t know. But whatever the case his essay was (rather remarkably one would presume) turned into a book by them - the academics at Trinity - and published by the publishing house Macmillan and Co (no less) in 1907.
At the beginning of the book there is an editors’ statement that begins (quote) “It has fallen to my lot to edit this essay…” which seems rather like it was a task among many on the editors’ desk that he was not entirely enthused about! Either that or it’s just a sign of the times - which I think it was - just a turn of phrase used in writing at the time as the editor does go on to praise Mr. Freeman listing a remarkable catalogue of academic achievements given his short life. So it seems he - the late Mr. Freeman - was very highly regarded. A reason I am bothering with any of this is that Kenneth John Freeman did indeed have very high standards of scholarship and wrote himself (- and was quoted in the editors introduction) on the topic of studying ancient texts (though these sentiment might apply to any book at all). He is remarked to have said “I have confined my attention very largely for several years to original texts and eschewed the aid of commentaries. As to accepted interpretations, I have, purposely and on principle neither read nor heard much of them since I wished, in pursuance of the bidding of Plato himself, not to receive unquestioningly the authority of those whom to heard is to believe, but to develop views and interpretations of my own. For I have always believed that education suffers immensely from the study of books about books in preference to the study of the books themselves.” - K. J. Freeman.
Now that is a remarkable thing. So it is all the more a travesty that one of his very own quotes is misattributed. Yes: indeed that quote I’ve quoted so often apparently from Socrates is as I say, from the work of Kenneth John Freeman.
But I want to linger on what Mr. Freeman says just there. I cannot agree more with the broad sentiments when it comes to discussing books, authors or philosophers (as distinct from philosophies, ideas and theories). When it comes to topics we know it is so often the case commentators get things wrong. Journalists always seems to make errors in areas where we ourselves claim some degree of expertise or knowledge. So imagine how well they are faring in all those other areas where we do not know as much. No better of course.
Whenever I read some philosopher’s reflections on the work of Karl Popper I am now unsurprised to read a completely mangled misinterpretation or misattribution. I think this is a function of an error both fans and foes of Popper alike make. They want to try to explain what he *really* meant - and usually without quoting him broadly enough. They’ll take things out of context or not realise he clarified things in later writings (that in earlier ones he did not quite express as he wanted to). Often it’s all about what Popper “actually meant” (or thought) about “falsification” (say) and the commentator will say this or that which is entirely inconsistent when you read the man in his own words in the context of some entire chapter of a particular book.
And this is why, I hope, when I speak about the work of either David Deutsch, Karl Popper or anyone else I continue to go to some length to say “these are my words. I am not speaking for these people. When I quote them, I’ll quote them. Otherwise errors are entirely my own.”
But academic critiques unfortunately rather too often are not of this kind - especially in philosophy. You read some philosopher holding some important chair at some prestigious Ivy League institution say or write in some blog, actual media article or even a refereed paper that (more or less) “Popper was a naive falsificationist”. And well, that’s that. You rarely get quotes - or at least substantial quotes in context - and rarely does one ever bother with trying to explain what conjectural knowledge is - an epistemology that denies the possibility of strictly logical falsificationism of that naive kind. But never mind that because you’re claiming to represent the mind of someone else. But even fans of Popper get caught up in debates over what he really meant by what he wrote. They go down a justificationist and essentialist path. Better, to my mind, just to explain your own thoughts and reflections on the matter at hand and then take responsibility for just what you say without playing the “he-said-she-said” game. I like to think that I’m explaining a philosophy or a worldview or a theory - scientific or otherwise. It does not matter what David Deutsch or Karl Popper actually said therefore.
There is epistemology and there is physics and it doesn’t matter what Popper, Deutsch, Einstein, Socrates or Feynman or anyone else said because there is not Einstein’s physics strictly. There is physics. And there is not Popper’s epistemology: there is epistemology. And it’s not clear to me that Popper always was the most clear when it comes to explaining some of this because like any genius who gets to some place first he has the most muck and mud and nonsense to clear out of the way before making a path through for the rest of us who have a much easier time seeing the road ahead. So it’s not Popper’s fault he wasn’t always clear. You try being the very first person to figure out a precise epistemology that describes conjectural knowledge in detail when everyone around you is a Platonist who is dogmatically committed to justified true belief. We should be careful when we are saying Popper meant “so and so” not merely to quote him but quote some substantial part of what he said in context and provide the context. The same is true of any philosopher or any one whatsoever who has written substantially on any topic. And even then it might all be pointless because what we’re actually interested in are the ideas. Not who said what. Unless the issue is “who said what?”
And all of that is on a continuum with this here and now. A fabrication and misattribution. What appears in Mr. Freeman’s book which is titled “Schools of Hellas” - with a subtitle “An essay on the practise and theory of ancient Greek Education” is something very close to the quotation that gets passed around and wrongly attributed to Socrates. I have not read the whole book “Schools of Hellas” - but I did spend a couple of days reading the first two chapters, in order to locate the exact quote and determine its context. I do think the book is an impressive and interesting work (so far!) because - well, how interesting this whole subject is. School in ancient Greece! Freeman has a wonderfully evocative way of writing. In the introduction he says that Hellas-ancient Greece in other words- was basically the teacher of nations. And therefore that a study of how the teacher of nations “teach her own sons and daughters” might be informative. And in so wondering: are there lessons for the modern world? He asks the reader to consider.
Now this book was published in 1907. So by any metric I can find is out of copyright. In Australia copyright on books is 75 years and in the US it is 95 years and the UK has something more complicated but the longest duration is 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. So in this case the author died in 1906 and so for all the places that matter to me for the purpose of this we can provide the book online. So it’s there on my website as a pdf right here: https://www.bretthall.org/schools-of-hellas.html If someone in authority or with expert knowledge contacts me to say: remove that link to that pdf or else we’ll take you to court: I’ll do it. But until then, I think I’ve got the law right. If it’s not there, you’ll know what’s happened!
Let’s get to the meat of the matter. If we go to to page 71 which is in chapter 2, Freeman writes about how as Athens matured there began what he calls a period of “juvenile emancipation” - so the children no longer had to till the fields and work quite so hard as they had. They were expected to go to school and study (at worst) and they experienced “luxury and indulgence” in the closing decades of the fifth century BC. This, says Freeman, caused “conservative thinkers to look back with longing and no doubt idealising eyes to “good old times””. He goes on to say “The sixth and early fifth centuries came, probably unjustly to be regarded as the ideal age of education when children learned obedience and morality and were not pampered and depraved; when they were beautiful and healthy, not pale-faced, stunted and over-educated.” Freeman goes through a number of people including quotes from Aristophanes who pines for the times when children were seen and not heard. Indeed for 3 or 4 pages Freeman speaks about ancient Greeks pining for the good old days when children were better behaved with in present day young boys cavorting with ballet girls and flute girls - both of whom seem to be disreputable types, apparently. Plato gets a mention because he complains that students are not sufficiently afraid of their school masters and instead the teacher flatters their students. Finally on page 74 in chapter 2 we come to it. Where Freeman writes and I quote “The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders and a love for chatter in place of exercise.” he goes on to claim that “Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at the table and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes such as crossing their legs.” And there it is. There is that quote: by Freeman himself summarising what he read not attributing it to a single author but rather an anonymous conglomeration of ancient writers. And Freeman writes on in the same vein.
But it is that specific paragraph that was taken and attributed wrongly to Socrates himself and worse: embellished - fabricated in part. So the original simply does not exist and is instead a “massaging” of the words of Freeman himself when summarising what he was taking away from reading these ancient Greeks complaining in various places about the youth.
So an important thing to notice here is that the point does stand. The substance is accurate. And so it is true that these attitudes towards children remain today and “kids today” are the same as they essentially always have been in Enlightened societies and the reaction of elders towards them similarly predictable in a way.
Now I’ll end on this with a related observation which is why I wanted to use the quote in the first place about committing offences against taste - in other words being rude. I think there’s a place for courtesy especially in academia because I think it’s a matter of efficiency and progress. Rudeness is inefficient. And it’s not the first time I’ve said that but I noticed today that a quote from Naval Ravikant cropped up in my feed fortuitously which read “Unhappiness is inefficient” - which is very much in tune with my sentiments here. Unhappiness, rudeness - “negative energy” if you like or just “personal unpleasantness” or “not being sufficiently socially adaptive” -it all just gets in the way of getting things done much of the time. There are exceptions. But if you want to solve the problem and it involves other people - then being happy, being energetic and being polite so that all involved get along means you’re more likely NOT quickly sidetracked because someone gets their nose out of joint.
“But surely that’s their problem” you might think. Well: not anymore it’s not. Now it’s your problem because you have to deal with it if you want this thing to work. And if you’re rude, expect them not to make things as easy for you as they might otherwise have been. Indeed they might decide to avoid you altogether in which case the problem goes unresolved - from your perspective. Problems are parochial - so many of the problems you have are - literally - just problems you have. And even if you think it’s a crucial matter of science or philosophy or an objective “out-there” learned academic matter - if the person with whom you disagree is no longer willing to engage with you because they’ve just been insulted or taken offence - more fool you. And I’m seeing all this in academia (as expressed online) increasingly.
If two people have different views and we suspect that one of them might have something closer to the truth it is good when they can put their cases quickly and efficiently and “nut it out” so to speak - have the encounter and see where the truth is. Sadly though these days (especially with social media) one side begins to put the case but puts the case so terribly - so rudely and discourteously - that the other person simply never engages. And possibly quite rightly too. Who wants to experience personal unpleasantness? Even if they do engage it won’t be on substance but style and the topic gets derailed into competing claims about professionalism and so on. I see this in - once again - astrophysics rather too often. But you can see it almost everywhere. And it means there exist out there on social media monologues where there should be dialogues. Take downs and “destroyeds!” where there should be collegial discussion of the details.
I’ll just end this with an example. I wouldn’t normally personalise things but as I’m quoting I have to mention some names here. Like many others interested in science I find some of what the most famous astrophysicist on earth at this moment - Neil deGrasse Tyson has to say at times fascinating and very good for the culture of science. At other times I find it wrong or misguided or filled with misconception. Very well. But I hope I’ve always tried to focus on the ideas. I don’t think Neil Tyson is a crank or an ignoramus. I think perhaps, like anyone who gets to that level of fame, he might sometimes find it difficult to sift the good and worthwhile signal of valid criticism from the noise of critical insults. Whatever the case, I just do not understand the point of an overtly hostile tone. For example I found this article - blog post really - from a historian of science - admittedly not a university academic but this is supposed to be illustrative only and it was simply the last in the mental list of “prickly take-downs” of Neil Tyson I had read recently. Perhaps this historian does wonderful work in other areas. I don’t know and am disinclined to read anything else he has written just because, well, it’s a put off to read that Dr Tyson (quote) “knows nothing” and is “spouting total crap” and he is (quote!) “supposedly intelligent” and to top it all off “He’s just doing in for the money” (sic). I like that one: in a short sentence he is attacking “doing things just for money” and as if that was Tyson’s motivation in that case (so some psychological analysis - which is what many such takedowns include) and - in criticising Tyson, does not quite avoid the typo which undermines the supposedly erudite point being made about a “lesser intellect”. Perhaps he meant to say he was “in it for the money” but vacillated with “doing it for the money”.
I do not understand aspects of modern academic culture or perhaps some modern academics. I admit, I have a public facing ToKCast appearance and then I have the way I am with my friends when we hang out when perhaps one tends not to use language that’s quite so formal. I would be an absolute pain in the neck if I was this guy 24/7. So I’m not. I don’t think I’m being dishonest in switching between mildly different versions of public and private personas. I think I’m doing what a human does - adapting to situations as needed. It’s why we have the phrase “behind closed doors”.
And so I think an academic engaging another academic - and yes even on a personal blog - if it’s going to be out there and public should at least have some minimal level of courtesy and not least because it’s more efficient. You’re not down the pub with your mates. You’re not at home with your partner complaining about the crazy thing you just read in a journal article that contradicts what you know to be true from your own research. You are, blog or not, ostensibly engaging with another “intellect”. That’s professionalism. I admit - Neil Tyson gets stuff wrong. I can agree with this historian of science on every factual matter (a minor issue though it is - so why he’s getting his nose so terribly out of joint, I do not know). But all it comes off as is: “Tall Poppy Syndrome” we say in Australia. In other words the historian is upset that Neil Tyson has great fame and success and so hold him to a different standard - a standard that says he is now fair game for being insulted. Which is a strange standard when you think about it.
I think “writing as if your mother, partner or in this case subject is reading along” is a reasonable heuristic. But academic culture is rapidly becoming what journalistic culture became some decades ago: politicised and then downright hostile to anyone who fails to meet the moral standards set by “your side”.
I know what it does. What effect it has. Because I hear it - I hear from these young people. It very much fails to impress the youth. They get enough of that in their own social groups - the sniping and pettiness - well in fact they get less of it at times. Many of the younger people today who make noises suggesting they aspire to a life in academia are already in mature social groups that navigate disagreement well so what is sometimes on display between duelling PhDs (or sometimes not duelling - sometimes as I say the monologue tirade from one intellect all about another) is a real turn off.
As I say, it’s just an example but it does speak to that broader phenomenon I write about in my blog post “Astronomical Disdain”. My appeal is for perhaps a little more good humoured courtesy to be shown when some disagreement arises even if that disagreement is for another scientist. Or celebrity. Or celebrity scientist. Or a billionaire. Or a celebrity billionaire. We have to expect that people are fallible not matter how famous or wealthy they are (and error is the natural state of the world) what logically follows is that people will disagree. If academia and the intelligentsia is going to be anything to the rest of culture shouldn’t it be an example of how to navigate disagreement? If the ladies and gentlemen (and what does Disney apparently say now? '“Dreamers of All Ages”) of Academia and the Expert Class cannot show - well let’s say it - some class - then what hope is there for the rest of civilisation? Well perhaps quite a bit It might just be a generational thing. The Gen Y and Z academics might be putting on a bit of a show - but it could well be enough to show the millennial and those younger still - those who are yet to even leave school - how not to behave online.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. If it’s acceptable for Academy Award winners to commit violence live on camera against comedians telling jokes - perhaps the tolerance for unpleasantness in social situations is high enough now we should expect our highly qualified doctors and professors to be slinging insults at each other. Perhaps it has always been so. There was that “Poker incident” between Popper and Wittgenstein. But even if it has always been this way, there should be something better for us now to aspire to.
Before I finish up:
This has once more been released into my usual feed as a podcast as well. But it will be the last of these newsletters that is. The rest will be much shorter - I do promise. So if you are hearing this in the podcast feed or watching on YouTube - note the link for signing up in the description to this video or podcast.
And as I said last time as well:
I would rather everything I create (or almost everything) to remain entirely free and available to all.
Four reasons
The people I admire most have always done exactly this.
There is a long tradition of this in “knowledge creation” specifically science that I do not think is obviously improved upon by a paid model
Much of my material I credit the vast bulk to, to David Deutsch and others. It feels wrong to charge for exclusive access to what I regard in essence as the ideas of others.
The work I do in spreading the ideas of Deutsch, Popper, Feynman and others from physics and philosophy is something I want to go as far and wide as possible so I don’t want to limit anything to being paid.
All of that said I accept donations for the same reason anyone accepts payment ever: one has bills to pay and may need to upgrade technology at times so that some of those videos can have the fancy visuals. So I do have means of donation for those who would like to support me. Just go to www.bretthall.org and there on the front page are links to Patreon and Paypal and I should let you know for those who do contribute I have been happy to engage with many over the last few months in asynchronous voice messaging on WhatsApp. My supporters are small in number which makes that kind of thing feasible for now, anyways.
Until next time.
Manners and Misattributions