Apr
27
The Cranky Communicator: Tips on Being Learned or at Least Giving the Impression of Being So
Posted by Jack Lilienthal at 11:52 am | Filed In Smart
I am occasionally asked by those seeking to have their visages added to a revised version of Raphael’s “School of Athens” in the Vatican’s Stanza della Sagnatura: What should I read (or at least be familiar with) to take my place among Sophocles, Pythagorus, Euclid and the other luminaries depicted therein? Having had the benefits of a classical education, including Greek and Latin language studies, I offer the following suggestions to you unlettered and untutored slugs.
Start with the Greeks… and you can probably end there as well. First, the dramatists. You must read something from the Big Three: Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound; The Orestian Trilogy) Sophocles (Antigone; Oedipus Rex) and Euripides (Trojan Women; Medea). Then proceed to the philosophers: Socrates as revealed by Plato in The Apology, The Crito and The Phaedo); Plato (The Republic); and, of course, Aristotle (Poetics; Politics) who, by the way, was the personal teacher of Alexander the Great. When it comes to history, you must read Herodotus’s account of the Persian Wars (you know, The 300, Xerxes, Themopylae and all that) and Thucydides’ account of the Pelopennesian War. Then there is Homer - or is there? The Illiad tells the story of the Trojan War including a highly aggravated Agamemnon, problems related with Achilles heel injuries and, of course, looking a gift horse in the mouth. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, nymphs, sirens and lotus-eaters. The jury is hung as to whether there really was a guy named Homer.
This essay is already getting too long, so let me summarize the other materials you should consume:
- Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
- Thomas Aquinas (the religious counterpart to Aristotle) - Summa Theologica
- Niccolo Machiavelli (Mafia guidebook) - The Prince
- John Locke (plagiarized by Tommy Jefferson et al.) - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Rene Descartes (I think, therefore I am) - Discourse on Method
- Immanuel Kant (”founder of modern philosophy”) - Critique of Pure Reason
- Soren Kierkegaard (”founder of modern existentialism”) - although Heraclitus with his “slippery pole” was the inspiration) - Fear and Trembling
Before leaving philosophy, you should know and be able to discuss the five areas of logic, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics. Oh, and cosmology, too.
That’s it for today. But I’d love to share with you my “must reads” on economics, literature, etc. Have you ever heard of “The Education of Henry Adams?” It’s the best American biography every written. Sorry, I couldn’t share more with you, but I didn’t realize how much time and space the Greeks would consume. I guess you could say they are the Alpha and the Omega. That’s a joke - get it? (No, I didn’t think so.) Besides if you want to be immortalized by Raphael, you’ve got to know these guys intimately.
Let me know if you have any interest in my extending this list. If not, it will certainly affirm my suspicion that you’d rather remain ignorant and intellectually unwashed than enlightened and inspired.
