<p>why is college students today so unknowledgeable? could this be the result of modern age’s worship of rapidity? most students are impatient and they go online for info and dislike books.</p>
<p>where are u great ones??? there was a time when men read in greek and latin and read the classical works like livy, tacitus, pliny, homer, plato, plutarch… and even those useless allegories and plangynics of roman empire. liberal arts, or “letters”, is completely defiled by modern languages. the old languages are difficult and so much more vaster than english and makes u THINK.</p>
<p>He’s trapped in his little world of pretention. Let us all pull out some random classical music titles and the great philosophical works of the past and pretend to be intellectuals.</p>
<p>i apologize for the grammatical errors of my previous post. only two causes can i offer as excuse: my usual haste for deliberations (i must thank here the modern society for shaping me to such impatient fellow); the present cluttering of various thoughts that for a moment confused my mind.</p>
<p>i was merely inquiring into the state of modern SCHOLARSHIP AND the daily lives of students of higher educations. why do i raise this useless enquiry? because i have been recently amazed by a work done by Gibbon, a 18th century english historian. his Decline and Fall (of which i only read a third) showed me the dexterity, the patience, the intellectual vastness, the profuse study of the students of those days. footnotes of Decline and Fall show the multi-lingualness of Gibbon: French, Greek, Latin; the amazing amount of sources (of ancient authors and contemporary). today, if a student is asked to write an essay (which is less than 10 pages for the most part), he dreads it with amazing degree of impatience and feroscious anger. compare the typical modern student to one several hundred years ago. Gibbon literally embarasses modern scholarship with his thirteen years of research that produced a work that is STILL USED BY HISTORIANS TODAY. why are we digressing??? it appears that modern technology and science is a mere illusion. cuz the truth is…we are stupid and lazy. </p>
<p>by the way, just to cheer u guys up, i didn’t even mention the ancient thinkers because they are MUCH MORE intelligent than even those of couple hundred years ago.</p>
<p>That’s not a fair comparison. You’re comparing the work of lazy students to the work of an 18th century academic. There are plenty of very intelligent scientists, philosophers, writers, and engineers in the world today, who speak multiple difficult languages and write essays with many sources (is this really the criteria for “smart?” seriously?).</p>
<p>i don’t think an exhaustive “classical” education makes a person more knowledgeable. i think there are few real excuses for it today, one being genuine interest, the other being law. everything else to me is pretentiousness and a fixation on the outdated paradigm that knowledge in the classics equates to more general knowledge. and i think the use of older language forms is just a matter of formality…i don’t think its much more artful and definitely not any clearer.</p>
<p>and this argument is largely in ignorance of the sciences. unless you’ve taken a math course with an emphasis on proofs (instead of engineering math), you don’t even have the slightest idea of the art and intellect of math or science. and inductive mathematics and math based on logical structures (like the math that does not require extensive training in calculus or the sort) doesn’t count since it falls back more on logic and philosophy instead of actual critical computation.</p>
<p>and your style of writing doesn’t make you seem any more intelligent, just compensatory. and no, no piece is “in adagio,” you fail.</p>
<p>First off, I can’t comprehend how someone who so reveres Livy and Plato (even in the English translations) can live with themselves for the typing job exhibited by the first post. I cringed when I read such phrases as “so much more vaster” and “why is college students”. </p>
<p>While many posters on CC eschew capitalization and punctuation (like apostrophes, commas and question marks) for lack of care or for sake of time, I have not seen one who forgets subject-verb agreements.</p>
<p>Disregarding all of that, I have several questions:
1)Does speaking Latin and/or Greek intrinsically make one smarter?
2)How can you compare ancient academics (teachers) with all students? I am sure that there were quite insipid individuals in that age.
3)In the same light, do you think Livy, Plato and Homer trump such intellectuals as Einstein, Newton or Schrodinger? If so, on what basis?
4)What is so bad about languages English or other western languages? You do realize there were definitely colloquial forms of Latin? As a strong Latin student (got a 4 on AP Latin Lit), there is definitely a difference in written and spoken Latin amongst the senators and the plebes, just as there is a difference between me talking with my track dudes or conversing with my economics professor while conducting research.</p>
<p>wow, why is it that every time i post people rain insults on me without even thinking about what i put.</p>
<p>old languages are artful. what are u talking about? if u’ve read robynson’s translation of more’s utopia, u will know how far english falls short compared to latin. the tranlsations tries to emulate the grace, sohpistication and varied language of latin into english, but all he does is confuse readers with too complicated words (often a direct french cognates). </p>
<p>modern languages are so simple that when people talk, they have nothing to talk about…i mean nothing of real substance. just sit and listen to some college kids and u will see what i mean. to add SUBSTANCE to our speech, we need to either memorize the english dictionary OR learn some classical languages. i mean, if u know arabic, u have access to wealth of books (not to mention a world that reaches from senegal to indonesia)</p>
<p>1)No one is insulting your comments without merit. For the most part, you elicit these responses.
2)I agree the classic languages are beautiful. I intensively studied Latin for 4 years. But do you consider foreign translations of English texts? How would a Latin translation of an English text read? From first hand experience: much differently and less directly than the original.
3)Modern languages are not “so simple”. Sure, Latin has a complex grammar system. But, English has a comparably complex structure. Just because you were possibly taught the language from birth and never had the chance to fully experience its complexities does not make it base. If you want to experience the brilliance of the language read authors like Joyce or for a modern author-Lahiri.
4)Your categorical assertions about college kids are very flawed. Many students conduct intellectual conversations on a daily basis, but maybe not with friends often.
5)What is of real substance? Are Homer’s works true substance? If so, then you must hold Harry Potter in the same light. And what of the Lord of the Rings series. Not to debase those works, but either is not held as the epitome of English literary brilliance.
6)By claiming that substance can be derived from “either [memorizing] the english dictionary OR [learning] some classical languages]” you intrinsically suggest that substance is merely rhetoric. Does the content of conversations not seem relevant?</p>
<p>well, u just brought up a good point. harry potter is not for advanced readers at all. compare them to hawthorne. u will realize that hawthorne’s writing is much more intricate and thoughtful. and also note that epic poetry has died out. the last great one was Milton’s Paradise Lost which is WAY TOO advanced (and milton merely wanted to emulate homer and the greek heroic poetry which are superior in intelligence and elegance). so poetry, art, the branch of learning “letters” in general is degenerating quickly. this is why, classics should be promoted in every majors in the schools of letters and science (les lettres) to re-invigorate learning and passion!!!</p>
<p>Yes, I have that work by Gibbon. I think you’ve been reading it for too long though as you are starting to sound and write about as clearly as he does. It is only common courtesy to lay off the lofty intellectual acting and speak to everyone normally. I doubt you speak that way to your mother.</p>
<p>sauronvoldemort, everything you say is based on a skewed vision of reality. You think Milton never had an un-scholarly conversation or thought such as “Gee, I could eat a horse” or “I want to kick that guy in the balls” or “I’d love to have sex right now” or WHATEVER?? You think that to be a philosopher means that that’s what you do every minute of ever day? And you don’t know what kind of crap was written in the time periods of whoever you revere so much—it is the great work that has endured and history filters out the useless, unimportant stuff. Most likely writers like Toni Morrison will live on from our era as the great literary masters, and all of the rest of the millions of books published throughout the decades won’t be remembered. </p>
<p>Culture is not declining. Society may shift in different aspects throughout the years, but people are essentially the same. Some are smart, some are dumb, some are academics, some are carpenters, some are mothers, some are murderers. WHATEVER. It remains consistent. </p>
<p>You only make yourself crazy by living in the glory of the past. The present can have its own glory if actually see it.</p>
<p>here i think i must make a deviation from my former argument:</p>
<p>it is better to appreciate than to emulate past greatness. like being learned in classical literature. wouldn’t life be so much more meaningful and exciting if we started sharing our experiences with the illiad or republic, etc.? in church, u share ur experience with God. let’s do the same in college.</p>
<p>i don’t admire donuts in true sense. it’s more like an admiration for its FUNCTION (to fill my belly). it’s sort of like women. u admire feminine beauty, but only as a function (to gratify ur sexual urges). but in reality, u admire men because of their true beauty (but this pleasure is downgraded by its lack of functional gratification (yes, we’re THAT selfish and animalistic))… let me see…how did i get here…i must thank u charizard for making me wander far from the original subject…damn…i got nothing to say…</p>
<p>let me just reaffirm my admiration for the great thinkers of history. they did well to keep alexander the great in their heart. every college student should nurture his ego and always centre ur self-worship cult around alexander.</p>