Online Great Books Podcast

In the spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau borrowed an ax, walked into the woods, and started cutting down trees to make a shack to live in. Walden is the result of this endeavor. Through this process, Thoreau spells out his distinctly American project — simple living with as few compromises as possible. Karl says, “The book is not a guide to your life, the book is a challenge to your life.” In the woods, Thoreau makes precise, scientific observations of nature, writing his thoughts down in pastoral poetry. He wishes to drive life into a corner, to experience a sense of wonder, but also oneness, with nature.   When you are feeling uncoupled from your life, how might you come to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life?” Tune in to this week's episode to hear more about Thoreau's experiment and what can happen when you pick up an ax. 

Scott and Karl are back at it again, this time with Tom Wolfe and his book, The Painted Word. Wolfe is a mid-century American writer and the inventor of New Journalism. He’s known for straddling multiple genres at once, reporting back to his readers on a world we ultimately couldn't see without him.  In The Painted Word, Wolfe provides a critique of modern art and the world that surrounds it. In a way only Tom Wolfe can, he's able to describe how the art world of the 1970s was controlled by an insular circle of rich collectors, museums, and critics with outsized influence.  For Wolfe, modern art has become completely literary— the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text. To understand modern art, one must know the words of current criticism. In other words, can you know if modern art is any good unless someone tells you? Tune in to hear an enlightening conversation on the history of taste-making, "Cultureburg," and the project of modern art. In the process, Scott and Karl reveal their criteria for good art. Do you agree?

This week, Scott and Karl dive into The Gulag Archipelago by Russian writer and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  Published in 1973, the title refers to a series of disconnected prisons in the Soviet Union that, nevertheless, all shared the same culture. The manuscript had to be hidden, originally published by the underground Samizdat press which reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This work of literature, and countless others like it, were essential in ultimately undoing the Soviet Union.  Solzhenitsyn has his own theory on the vast importance of literature. He believes this beauty will save the world. How does that work?  Scott says, “Beauty transcends language, it transcends rationality— it’s such a visceral thing that everyone can recognize. We might have trouble recognizing truth, we might have trouble recognizing goodness, those things might be hidden from us, but you just can’t hide the beautiful. The lowest among us and the most poisonous among us can see it a mile away. It’s probably the most powerful of those three lights." This novel also works as a powerful warning. What can happen when the dignity of the individual doesn't matter? What measures could be taken if thoughts can be crimes? Tune in to hear reflections on the nature of art, ethics, and a literary investigation Solzhenitsyn came to look upon as his inescapable moral duty.

In this week’s episode, Scott and Karl talk with Michelle Hawkins, music professor and Online Great Book’s member. The trio listen and discuss Beethoven’s Third Symphony and read The Heiligenstadt Testament, a heartbreaking letter written by Beethoven to his brothers.  Beethoven's Third Symphony is regarded as a turning point in musical history, the ideas for which began during his tumultuous "Heiligenstadt Testament" period. Why is it that so few of us are listening to this landmark symphony? In today's music climate, understanding and enjoying classical music may seem far-fetched for some. Michelle has a theory: “We’re living in a post-musical culture now… people are not growing up in the same musical atmosphere that used to be the case. It is harder to listen to these pieces of music because you do need to have a little bit of context. They are complex, it may be hard to enjoy something so complex when you have no context and no exposure.” What if you want to explore classical music, but you’re not sure where to begin? We approach great music the way we approach great books— you don’t have to be an expert before going out and encountering the thing.  If you are interested in starting your journey with the Great Books, use the discount OGBPODCAST to save 25% on enrollment at Online Great Books.

We’re switching up our normal routine to answer your Online Great Books questions. In this episode, Scott and Karl address everything from membership, seminar, accountability, and our mission. What will reading the books on this list do for you, anyway? Scott says, “If you read them in earnest and you take them seriously and actually go to the seminar, they will make you address the bedrock questions behind so many of your opinions.” In short, “it'll ruin the life you’ve got but you’ll get a different one.” Tune in to hear answers like these plus the reasons behind some of the decisions we make. Even if you’re a member with us already, you’re bound to learn something new.

This week, Scott and Karl read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, author unknown. This narrative poem is considered to be one of the jewels of English Literature and a crowning achievement of Middle English poetry. Filled with chivalric knights, seductive sirens, and plenty of temptation and testing, this Arthurian legend lives up to the name. This poem was lost for a while, from a region that didn’t win the language war. Karl remarks, “It’s a pattern of language that still works, even if it lost the lottery.” When you take on one of these lost pieces of literature that really hasn't been a part of the conversation, what's the interest? Why would you want to read it? Scott says, “This poem gives me a better understanding of English, of English history, and doggonit, it’s fun!” Go read Sir Gawain and the Green Night, then tune in for an adventure-packed conversation!  As a reminder, if you are interested in starting your own adventure with the Great Books, use the discount OGBPODCAST to save 25% on enrollment at Online Great Books.

The medium is the… massage? In 1967, Marshall McLuhan teamed up with graphic designer Quentin Fiore to write The Medium is the Massage, a short 160-page picture book that offers us a glimpse as to how the medium "shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action,” of work and leisure. Karl points out, “to say the media is the massage means the medium, this conceptional world, is massaging you— it’s rhetoric." Have societies always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which we communicate or by the content of the communication? This nonconventional book is a nice companion piece to Bernays’ Propaganda and part of our “Modern Sophists” podcast series. Tune in to this week’s episode and discover how media can touch our character formation, our public and private lives, even our sentimentality versus hard-head clarity.

“I would prefer not to.” In their simplicity and politeness, these five words illustrate a story of passive resistance that will both move you and leave you searching for answers. You may have even uttered the line yourself at work. "Bartleby, the Scrivener, A Story of Wall-Street," was published in Putnam's magazine in November and December 1853 by Herman Melville. It is centered around the dehumanization of Bartleby the scrivener, the nineteenth-century equivalent of a photocopy machine.  Sound intriguing? If you’ve ever read Moby Dick, you’ll know the more profound Melville gets, the more elusive the solutions he arrives at.  Tune in to this week’s episode for a fascinating discussion on this eerily aching short story and one of the most enigmatic sentences in American literature.

In this week’s episode, Scott and Karl discuss Edward Bernays’ 1928 book Propaganda. Referred to as “the father of public relations,” and “the Machiavelli of the 20th century,” Bernays pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” His seminal work, Propaganda, is a look behind the veil of the most powerful and influential institutions orchestrating the unseen mechanisms of society. In Karl’s own words, “It’s a very good book you want to throw across the room.” Tune in to hear a fascinating discussion about the methods, uses, and ideas behind Bernays' influencers to regiment the collective mind.

When you begin reading the Great Books, family and friends may be puzzled. They will see you toting around huge books, taking notes, and gazing off thoughtfully into the void. Greg, one of our members, was questioned by a coworker. “Why are you reading Thucydides at lunch?” He restated this question on our OGB Slack channel. We have an active community of readers, friends who help each other work through the texts.  In this week's episode, Scott and Karl dive into the many reasons why we decide to travel through two-and-a-half millennia of the greatest of the Western tradition.  If you are interested in starting your journey with the Great Books, use the discount OGBPODCAST to save 25% on enrollment at Online Great Books.