Self-Taught Classical Education? - or is it possible to give yourself an education worth having?

[Lemmingwise]

To the OP, if you can't get the time to read then listen instead. Audio books are just as valuable as book reading. The book "how to read a book" has an embarrassing title to be seen in public with but the information is great. There's an audio book as well.

Embarrassing? It's funny. Especially if you get one with a removable outer cover and you put it upside down.

 

[UselessPieceOfShit]

I don't know if OP only wanted to study classics, or just learn useful things in general, but I will give a few suggestions about what is important to learn:
- Basic medical care and first aid. It's also good to learn about pharmaceutical drugs.
- Finances and basic economy knowledge. I don't know why this is not taught in schools.
- History. And not school textbook history about "x guy went to y place and did z". Learn about underlying mechanisms of what happened and why, you will be surprised how stuff that happened 1000 years ago still affects us today.
- Don't train your mind only, train your body too. The ancients knew that. You should know it too.
- Sewing. Why? Because everybody needs to now how to fix their clothes imho
- Learn about (((the enemy))) and their sleazy schemes

 

[Fek]

What texts and topics should you read? What should you avoid?

I think this immediately imposes restrictions on yourself. How do you know if something is to be avoided until you've come to your own conclusion on it? The only thing holding you back from educating yourself in any way you please is you, sir. Just start digging in, fuck up a hundred times along the way, and eventually become a polymath. Nothing to it, right?

This is one of those thing's that absolutely lovely when someone manages to pull it off, but for like every one person who is capable of doing this there are a hundred, if not hundreds more who are too egotistical to be educated the regular way, let alone self-taught.

Yeah. Ego has its purpose, but man does it get in the way of an awful lot of personal growth if allowed to do so.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

Read The Western Canon. The (((usual suspects))) get really butthurt that this collection of books is still taken seriously at an academic level and not loaded up with poz but it’s a great starting point.

Just start there. Most people don’t have the time to do more but it’s enough good reading (or audiobooks) for a few months at least.

 

[MarcellaM]

I think that no. Of course, for example, if we're talking about basic skills like reading and writing, then yes, of course, you don't have to spend years in educational institutions to do that.
But if you want to become a specialist in a law sphere or economics, then I think that it's not possible to get them yourself. I study sociology, and there is no chance that I would manage to self-taught myself. Somethimes I even use the help of sources like https://artscolumbia.org/free-essays/sociological-imagination/ because I have writing troubles or don't understand something. Even with all the info I received during my studies, I need help somethimes, and I can't imagine studying myself.
The educational system is not perfect, but I think that university is the only place that can develop a person in professional and personal spheres.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Self-education is easier than ever, but the system won't reward that unless you're an entrepreneur--and you can't be one without money, which you need a traditional education to make.

Welcome to slavery.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Why do you want a classical education, for its own sake/merits, or because it sounds good?

If the former, go for it. If the latter, there are better things to do with your time (whatever naturally interests you). A classical education is constraining in the same way a formal education is constraining. There's nothing inherently valuable about muh dead language or muh old book that makes it more worthwhile than learning other things, like Spanish vs Latin, Sengoku Jidai versus the late Republic, "classical music" vs jazz, "literature" versus novels in general, etc.

Just study what you want to study, regardless of if it matches up with some program. But make a point to actively study. I try to read about 60 pages of nonfiction a day, and rotate through three books. It's pretty lopsided because it's almost always history, I don't read much science or other stuff, but I do play an instrument (saxophone) and am learning another one (fiddle/violin). I plan to try to get into painting. It's self-cultivation, but it's not tied to what a university hundreds of years ago would have thought was important. I don't really study anything practical (besides cooking), but learning practical skills would be even better, like picking up shit like gardening or beekeeping or chickens or whatever. To me, the big thing is to make an effort to be a well-rounded person. Classical education has an element of that, but in some ways it sounds awful constraining.

I would suggest adding economics to your self-education (doesn't have to be to a real advanced level), and I don't know what mathematics is considered part of a classical education, but set theory is more important than anything else (all modern mathematics is built out of set theory) and game theory has lots of interesting applications, especially to politics. World religions, too.



This is getting off maybe into “this is important because I personally like it,” but other topics of interest are:
- Non-Euclidean geometries
- The mathematics of complex/imaginary numbers
- Astronomy, specifically big picture stuff like how the universe formed, how it will die, life cycles of stars
- Basic anatomy
- Knowledge of animals
- Knowledge of agriculture
- Traditional lifestyles/folk culture
- Any history that isn’t just the same worn out European/US history: Middle East, Africa, Asia, Native Americans and Mesoamericans/Incas