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I could fill volumes with descriptions of temples and palaces, paintings, sculptures, tapestry, porcelain, etc., etc., etc.—if I could have time. But I could no
by empath-nirvana 3y ago
I could fill volumes with descriptions of temples and palaces, paintings, sculptures, tapestry, porcelain, etc., etc., etc.—if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty. The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences: the art of legislation and administration and negotiation, ought to take place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other arts. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-- John Adams
- HPsquared 3y agoCould just as well argue that the poetry, architecture etc is the foundation of politics. It defines a culture around which these political groupings are formed in the first place. Things aren't so neatly divided.
- resource_waste 3y agoYeah I'll take Plato over John Adams. Not really sure why we are going out of our way to corrupt our children with fables and poems. They can learn that stuff on their own time. Why codify it? Why does a child need to learn about Box Car Children rather than a biography of an actual person who lived such a life? Anyway, seems normal to get push back for removing entertainment classes in K12. People are more conservative than they let on.
- empath-nirvana 3y agoPlato put all writing in the same category as poetry and believed that only person to person dialogue could transmit truth. He didn't have a special animosity toward poetry. He would say that a biography was as useless and dead as a novel.
- kragen 3y agoplato is a bit slippery, but as i understand it, he was opposed to his students learning skills that would make them useful to others; he believed that the liberal arts, those befitting a free citizen rather than a slave, were things like music and literature
- resource_waste 3y agoYou do not understand it. He specifically disdains these entertainments because they pretend to be what is real, obscuring what reality is. Anyway, so you read something online and repeat it, and you think its going to contradict someone who actually read Plato. I just don't get it.
- kragen 2y agoi'm not sure you're right, but i'd be interested to find out. i've found a lot of stuff in plato that contradicts what you're saying, although you're partly correct. did you want to refer to any particular passage in support of your point?