3 ms·

The Lost Tools of Learning: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric (1947)

21 points by benhoyt 17y ago

benhoyt 17y ago
My wife and I are thinking about how to educate our daughter, so I've been doing some reading. I found this essay by Sayers very compelling: use a child's built-in stages of learning for what they're worth. Our daughter is only 2.5, but she's a top-notch "Poll-Parrot" already. Cram in the knowledge when they're good at memorizing, then teach them how to use it and what it means later, when they're better at thinking.
cpr 17y ago
These thoughts have long been a serious inspiration for us as we home-educate our eight children. (25 (long done) down to 8.) Sayers is also one of the world's best crime novelists (the Lord Peter Whimsey series), the first woman PhD from Oxbridge, and made one of the most compelling translations of Dante. Brilliant woman.
- benhoyt 17y ago
  Wow, I bet you're one of very few eight-child fathers on HN -- good going! I'm one of eight, but father of two. I haven't read any other Sayers, but intend to now.
- 321abc 17y ago
  Are you white supremacists or christian fanatics? I've heard that, in the US, they are the most likely to homeschool their children. Do you think that's true?
jerf 17y ago
A counterargument to the idea that we have regressed terribly and now uniquely subject to the vicissitudes of propaganda in a new way, presented not because I 100% believe it but because I think it worth considering: Perhaps we are so vulnerable to audio and visual input not because our generation is so terribly degenerate, but because it is a new thing that there are no social mechanisms to prevent. If this is true, one would expect vulnerability to propaganda in those forms to be going down over time, all things kept equal. Despite the cynical answer, I think that's actually true. Propaganda from, say, 1950 seems laughably crude. Some of that may be cultural messages that signal that of course propagandizing against the Nazis is silly, but some of that is, I believe, the fact that we are more hardened against that stuff both individually and as a society than we used to be. Of course, messages have coevolved with the media, so it can be hard to see the progress, but I contend that it is at least plausible that we have made progress. Similarly, it is fashionable to believe that our education level has gone monotonically downhill for decades, but I would contend that it is likely that there are just as many idiots (proportionally) in 1909 as there are in 2009, it is just that the only surviving cultural material from 1909 are virtually by definition from the upper, educated class, whereas in 2009 the media is much more egalitarian. This has the effect of making the past look much more educated, but this can be a selection-bias induced illusion. I think these two ideas are worth considering. I am actually very harsh on the modern educational system and broadly agree with this essay in most ways, but it is still important to separate the real problems from imagined problems, and to find the real causes and not the bias-feeding, cognitively-convenient ones. There are things that argue against these points, too, but they are worth considering.
- 321abc 17y ago
  According to Jacques Ellul (the favorite author of the Unabomber, and one that, ironically, almost led to his arrest) it is education that makes us vulnerable to propaganda. From the introduction to Ellul's book "Propaganda": A related point, central in Ellul's thesis, is that modern propaganda cannot work without 'education'; he thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. On the contrary, he says, education, or what usually goes by that word in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda. In fact, education is largely identical with what Ellul call 'pre-propaganda' ... [Ellul designates] intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable of all to modern propaganda, for three reasons: (1) they absorb the largest amount of secondhand, unverifiable information; (2) they feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information; (3) they consider themselves capable of 'judging for themselves'. Ellul's book on propaganda is well worth reading, as is his classic "The Technological Society".
  - jerf 17y ago
    In a way, that sort of relates to my point. We have ignorant people, and people susceptible to propaganda due to education. It would be expected to take yet more time to develop a population of educated people resistant to propaganda. On the other hand, I find that sources such as the Unabomber tend to define "resistant to propaganda" as "believing what I believe" (similar to the way many people use the word "smart" to mean "believes what I believe", especially in political contexts), which, for lack of a better word, I can only call an immature point of view. Anyhow, it hardly seems fair to refer to someone as "propaganda resistant" when the reason they are resistant is that they literally can't perceive it. That's like crediting my dog for not falling for [your favorite obviously false ideology here]; that's not really a plus in her column.
balding_n_tired 17y ago
1. Is mathematics a sub-department of logic? One might call "distinguo" here. 2. Is it possible that advertising and propaganda are simply not worth the trouble in a society that has little disposable income and where the opinion of the greatest number of its members has no effect? @-321abc: If you are trying to illustrate Ms. Sayers' assertions about modern education, congratulations.

21 points by benhoyt 17y ago

My wife and I are thinking about how to educate our daughter, so I've been doing some reading. I found this essay by Sayers very compelling: use a child's built-in stages of learning for what they're worth. Our daughter is only 2.5, but she's a top-notch "Poll-Parrot" already. Cram in the knowledge when they're good at memorizing, then teach them how to use it and what it means later, when they're better at thinking.

cpr 17y ago

These thoughts have long been a serious inspiration for us as we home-educate our eight children. (25 (long done) down to 8.) Sayers is also one of the world's best crime novelists (the Lord Peter Whimsey series), the first woman PhD from Oxbridge, and made one of the most compelling translations of Dante. Brilliant woman.

benhoyt 17y ago
Wow, I bet you're one of very few eight-child fathers on HN -- good going! I'm one of eight, but father of two. I haven't read any other Sayers, but intend to now.
321abc 17y ago
Are you white supremacists or christian fanatics? I've heard that, in the US, they are the most likely to homeschool their children. Do you think that's true?

jerf 17y ago

A counterargument to the idea that we have regressed terribly and now uniquely subject to the vicissitudes of propaganda in a new way, presented not because I 100% believe it but because I think it worth considering: Perhaps we are so vulnerable to audio and visual input not because our generation is so terribly degenerate, but because it is a new thing that there are no social mechanisms to prevent. If this is true, one would expect vulnerability to propaganda in those forms to be going down over time, all things kept equal. Despite the cynical answer, I think that's actually true. Propaganda from, say, 1950 seems laughably crude. Some of that may be cultural messages that signal that of course propagandizing against the Nazis is silly, but some of that is, I believe, the fact that we are more hardened against that stuff both individually and as a society than we used to be. Of course, messages have coevolved with the media, so it can be hard to see the progress, but I contend that it is at least plausible that we have made progress. Similarly, it is fashionable to believe that our education level has gone monotonically downhill for decades, but I would contend that it is likely that there are just as many idiots (proportionally) in 1909 as there are in 2009, it is just that the only surviving cultural material from 1909 are virtually by definition from the upper, educated class, whereas in 2009 the media is much more egalitarian. This has the effect of making the past look much more educated, but this can be a selection-bias induced illusion. I think these two ideas are worth considering. I am actually very harsh on the modern educational system and broadly agree with this essay in most ways, but it is still important to separate the real problems from imagined problems, and to find the real causes and not the bias-feeding, cognitively-convenient ones. There are things that argue against these points, too, but they are worth considering.

321abc 17y ago
According to Jacques Ellul (the favorite author of the Unabomber, and one that, ironically, almost led to his arrest) it is education that makes us vulnerable to propaganda. From the introduction to Ellul's book "Propaganda": A related point, central in Ellul's thesis, is that modern propaganda cannot work without 'education'; he thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. On the contrary, he says, education, or what usually goes by that word in the modern world, is the absolute prerequisite for propaganda. In fact, education is largely identical with what Ellul call 'pre-propaganda' ... [Ellul designates] intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable of all to modern propaganda, for three reasons: (1) they absorb the largest amount of secondhand, unverifiable information; (2) they feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information; (3) they consider themselves capable of 'judging for themselves'. Ellul's book on propaganda is well worth reading, as is his classic "The Technological Society".
- jerf 17y ago
  In a way, that sort of relates to my point. We have ignorant people, and people susceptible to propaganda due to education. It would be expected to take yet more time to develop a population of educated people resistant to propaganda. On the other hand, I find that sources such as the Unabomber tend to define "resistant to propaganda" as "believing what I believe" (similar to the way many people use the word "smart" to mean "believes what I believe", especially in political contexts), which, for lack of a better word, I can only call an immature point of view. Anyhow, it hardly seems fair to refer to someone as "propaganda resistant" when the reason they are resistant is that they literally can't perceive it. That's like crediting my dog for not falling for [your favorite obviously false ideology here]; that's not really a plus in her column.

balding_n_tired 17y ago

1. Is mathematics a sub-department of logic? One might call "distinguo" here. 2. Is it possible that advertising and propaganda are simply not worth the trouble in a society that has little disposable income and where the opinion of the greatest number of its members has no effect? @-321abc: If you are trying to illustrate Ms. Sayers' assertions about modern education, congratulations.