Norms & Nobility: A Panel Discussion

Summary

Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education Podcast

Episode Title: Norms & Nobility
Date: March 16, 2026
Duration: 20 minutes
Host: Scott Bertram
Panelists: Dr. John Peterson, Dr. Jonathan Gregg, Dr. Kevin Gary, Ryan Hamill

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Episode Overview

This episode features a recorded panel discussion on David Hicks’s influential book, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education. The panel—comprised of Hillsdale College faculty and the Executive Director of the Ancient Language Institute—explores the central themes of the book, specifically how classical education engages with democracy, virtue, formation vs. empowerment, the modern challenges to logic and rhetoric, and the continuing relevance of classical ideals. The conversation intertwines philosophical arguments with practical considerations for educators and school leaders in the classical tradition.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Power and Character of Norms and Nobility

Speaker: Dr. John Peterson
Timestamp: 01:34 – 09:23

• Norms and Nobility is considered a foundational and serious contemporary work on classical education.
• The title’s use of an ampersand (&) is intentional, indicating a tension between ancient ideals and modern concerns. Hicks emphasizes not just the content of ancient education but how its ideals stand in contrast to the methods and goals of modern schooling.
• Hicks critiques the elitism of Victorian-era classical schools, focusing instead on how education can become universal while maintaining excellence.
• Panelists note that, according to Hicks, classical education is fundamentally human and accessible, relying on common human faculties like curiosity and inquiry rather than solely on expertise or rigid methods.
• Emphasis on education as an imaginative inquiry process, not just a scientific or dialectical method:
  • “The classical approach is fundamentally human. It’s ordinary and human. It rests on ordinary human activity… It doesn’t rest on accepting expertise from somebody or a method which is not intuitive to a normal, average human being.” (C, 07:00)

2. Formation vs. Empowerment: The Purpose of Schooling

Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Gregg
Timestamp: 09:23 – 19:16

• Hicks identifies two competing visions of education: formation (shaping students according to virtue and ideals) vs. empowerment (helping students realize an inherent potential, often unchallenged).
• Gregg uses the image of Lennie from Of Mice and Men to illustrate the danger of holding an ideal too tightly—overprotecting or “empowering” students without real formation can ironically stifle growth:
  • “When you’re an empowerment school, you sacrifice everything on the altar of the personality of the student… by sacrificing everything on that altar, you actually choke the life out of the personality of the student.” (D, 15:24)
• Inspirational quote from Hicks:
  • “Childhood as a period of becoming rather than a state of being.” (D, 12:00)
• Gregg contrasts mission statements: formation-oriented schools emphasize virtue, tradition, and character, while empowerment-focused schools prioritize choice, creativity, and self-direction—often resulting in self-absorption rather than growth.
• Recounts Hicks’ critique:
  • “His child-centered education produces the exact opposite of an educated person, a self-centered adult.” (D, 15:45; quoting Hicks)
• The episode concludes this section with the metaphor of the student as a questing hero:
  • “The quest demands something of them… The past instructs us that man has only understood himself and mastered himself in pursuit of a self-transcendent ideal—a golden fleece, a promised land, a holy grail…” (D, 18:20; quoting Hicks)

3. The Necessity of Dogma and the Beauty of Norms

Speaker: Dr. Kevin Gary
Timestamp: 19:16 – 26:21

• Gary praises Hicks for writing such a profound book at a young age, attributing it to his classical formation.
• Hicks argues for the necessity of dogma in education, especially in early years, aligning with Dorothy Sayers’s “Lost Tools of Learning.”
• Dogmatic foundations (stories, examples, traditions) lay the groundwork for later dialectical engagement:
  • “The aim in the early years of education is to provide a rich heritage of examples that embody the ideal type, most especially in parents and teachers who don’t just preach the dogma but live it.” (E, 21:40)
• Critiques the non-normativity of modern science and utilitarian education, asserting that education should aim for contemplation and appreciation of intrinsic beauty, rather than just technical skill and utility.
• Shares personal anecdotes about authority, dogma, and the necessity of tradition—trusting the process, even if students don’t yet see the value:
  • “You may not see the beauty now, but if you trust, eventually it’ll come and you’ll see it.” (E, 24:44)
• Highlights the difference between learning for use (“you’ll need this in a job”) versus learning for the good, the true, and the beautiful:
  • “Because it’s beautiful, because it’s good, because it’s true. And the hard work of teaching is to guide students into seeing that.” (E, 25:50)
• Memorable quote on enchantment:
  • “Teaching in a way so that students expect enchantment, which is to say they expect to appreciate and see the intrinsic beauty of the world.” (E, 25:30; quoting Francis Hsu)

4. Democracy, Elitism, and the Family: Who is Classical Education For?

Speaker: Ryan Hamill
Timestamp: 26:21 – 37:03

• The final chapters of Norms and Nobility address whether classical education is inherently elitist or fundamentally democratic.
• Hicks asserts classical education is meant to be universal. True paideia belongs to all men, not just an elite, and it found full expression in Christian culture.
• Liberal learning is for everyone; the freedom offered by democracy enables all to cultivate virtue.
• Problematic history: democracy disappeared after classical Athens, only re-emerging in the Enlightenment, often in radical or destructive forms (Robespierre’s Reign of Terror).
• Hicks argues: Classical education should relativize democracy—seeing it as a means to greater ends (the good, virtue), not as an end itself. Sometimes, as with Socrates, the very act of forming true virtue can be seen as undemocratic.
  • “Hicks says classical education in a modern democracy teaches a person to value the aims of government more than its forms. In other words, democracy is only a means, not an end.” (Hamill, 31:50)
• Family is identified as the principal channel of cultural transmission. Yet, frustration can arise for educators when families don’t share or support classical ideals.
• Final challenge for schools: balancing the vision of cultural renewal and transmission of virtue/democracy, while reckoning with the varied realities of families.
  • “In the classical education movement, we want to renew culture and preserve democracy. But as school leaders, we are always playing second fiddle to families.” (Hamill, 33:10)
• Ultimate question for educators:
  • “Who is the child’s first educator? … What can a classical school reasonably hope to accomplish in this grand vision of renewing culture and preserving democracy?” (Hamill, 36:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the title:
  “It’s Norms ampersand ability and Norms ampersand nobility. Why? … Is it meant to indicate that there’s, in addition to the ancient focus, also a concern with the unleisurely punctuated and modern in it?”
  — Dr. John Peterson (03:00)

• On the danger of self-centered education:
  “Consequently, this child-centered education produces the exact opposite of an educated person—a self-centered adult.”
  — Dr. Jonathan Gregg, quoting Hicks (15:45)

• On the foundation of education:
  “The aim in the early years of education is to provide a rich heritage of examples that embody the ideal type, most especially in parents and teachers who don’t just preach the dogma but live it.”
  — Dr. Kevin Gary (21:40)

• On enchantment in learning:
  “Teaching in a way so that students expect enchantment, which is to say they expect to appreciate and see the intrinsic beauty of the world.”
  — Dr. Kevin Gary, quoting Francis Hsu (25:30)

• On democracy and the classical tradition:
  “Classical education in a modern democracy teaches a person to value the aims of government more than its forms. In other words, democracy is only a means, not an end.”
  — Ryan Hamill (31:50)

• The educator’s challenge:
  “In the classical education movement, we want to renew culture and preserve democracy. But as school leaders, we are always playing second fiddle to families.”
  — Ryan Hamill (33:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:34 – 09:23] — Peterson: Introduction & Chapters 1–2, tensions between norms, nobility, democracy
• [09:23 – 19:16] — Gregg: Chapters 3–4, formation vs. empowerment, the danger of unchecked “student-centered” education
• [19:16 – 26:21] — Gary: Chapters 5–6, necessity of dogma, the groundwork for dialectic, learning and beauty
• [26:21 – 37:03] — Hamill: Chapters 7–8, democracy vs. elitism, family’s role, universal vs. exclusive classical education

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rigorous, wide-ranging discussion of Norms and Nobility and its implications for modern classical educators. It explores the philosophical and practical tensions inherent in aiming for universal, virtue-based education within democratic societies while maintaining high standards and respect for tradition. Listeners are left with compelling questions regarding the proper aims of schooling and the intertwined roles of schools, families, and society in nurturing the next generation.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program, we talk with Mary Kathryn Hamm, host of the Getting Hammered and Normally podcast. You see her writing at Fox News and Outkick and elsewhere. We talk about her career in journalism and the changing landscape of media all across America. And Benjamin Byer, Chairman and Associate professor of Education here at Hillsdale College, will tell you all about the brand new Hillsdale Online course Classical Logic and Rhetoric. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you get your audio.

[B]

Welcome to The Hillsdale College K12 classical education podcast, bringing you insight into classical education and its unique emphasis on human virtue and moral character, responsible citizenship, content, rich curricula and teacher led classrooms. Now your host, Scott Bertram.

[A]

Thanks for listening. The Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast is part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at Podcast, Hillsdale Edition or wherever you get your audio. You also can find more information on topics and ideas discussed on this show at our website k12 hillsdale.edu.

[C]

hello, I'm Dr. John Peterson, Assistant Director of Curriculum for K12 Education and Lecturer in Education and Politics at Hillsdale College. The following is a panel that was held during the Forum, a small program held before the Classical Education Job Fair held Hillsdale in February. This panel was a discussion of David Hicks's Norms and A Treatise of Classical Education, a work first published in 1981 at the Advent of the modern classical education movement and recently republished. The panel features myself, Dr. Jonathan Gregg, Assistant professor of Education Dr. Kevin Gary, Associate professor of Education, both at Hillsdale College, and Ryan Hamill, Executive Director of the Ancient Language Institute. The questions we considered on this panel included the degree to which classical education is consistent with democracy, the focus on forming students instead of empowering them, the challenges modernity poses to classical logic and rhetoric, and in general, why we think classical school leaders and teachers should read this book. We hope you enjoy our discussion. This is a panel on norms and ability, subtitled A Treatise on Education, which sounds grandiose because it's a treatise, but maybe it's humble because it's a treatise. I would say that this is the best and most serious book in this field, the small field of contemporary works on classical education. He said more than once, in prefaces to later editions and elsewhere, that this is a youthful book. He spoke too strongly in it than he later would have. But I think this is what gives it its enduring power. It's what any zealous young person who's fired with a love of ancient ideals, but faced with the prospect of stultifying modern institutions, would have wanted to have written, and thus speaks more directly to the classical educator of today than a more accommodating work would have been, despite, or perhaps because of its many erudite references and at times enigmatic arguments. Now I'm charged. I charge myself with reading with the first two, talking about the first two chapters, which are called Virtue Is the Fruit of Learning and the Word of Truth. So, I mean, I'll just raise a couple of big questions and tensions that come up in those. The first, as I already alluded to, the book, is called Norms and Nobility. It has an ampersand in it. This is the issue that I want to raise in my short time. It's Norm's ampersand ability and Norm's ampersand nobility. Why? I mean, it's clearly a deliberate choice. I mean, it's been republished multiple times. It's maintaining the emperor's sand. Why is it not spelled out? Is it meant to indicate that there's. In addition to the ancient focus, there's also a concern with the unleisurely punctuated and modern in it. As he writes in the Preface to the 1990 edition, this is not a book about ancient education. It's about an ancient ideal expressed as classical education against which the modern schools weighed and found wanting. And the first chapter begins with a criticism of the elitism of the classical schools of Victorian England, where he writes that these schools perverted classical education by teaching in precept and an example, a hereditary aristocratic ideal intended to serve the ambitions of empire and to preserve the status quo. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? That would be my response. That's not his main concern in the work. Rather, he's concerned with what the progressives did in education afterward and the modern assumptions that go into modern education. But what was so wrong with the hereditary aristocratic ideal? What are norms and ability other than ideals of what is better, which you hope will rule? In other words, aristocratic. So I raise this question because he is concerned with the possible, the modern context, the possible democratic character of authentic, what he would consider authentic classical education? It's not thematic here. It's taken up in the last two chapters, which are Ryan's scope, but it hangs out in the background when he gives an account of classical education which contrasts with the modern. And it's not just Victorian classical education that was aristocratic. You have to consider it was Renaissance classical education. Ancient classical education Always aristocratic. But Hicks wants to emphasize its universality. He says it's not all preeminently of a specific time or place. We have to take into account the context in which it can take place, but it is inherently universal. And that's what he wants to contrast with the modern approach. The modern approach, both the classical and the modern approach have a high and a low, or they have a kind of level of expertise and an ordinary mass level of understanding. And his basic point in these first two chapters, I mean, there's a lot of references, a lot of arguments about mutos and logos and dialectic versus rhetoric and these kinds of things. But the basic point is that the classical approach is fundamentally human. It's ordinary and human. It rests on ordinary human activity. It doesn't rest on accepting expertise from somebody or a method which is not intuitive to a normal, average human being. So what's the model that's going to be given to ordinary education? And he lays this out, and he says, well, it's essentially inquiry. You start with curiosity. You establish an imaginative hypothesis to explain something, and then you test that hypothesis through ad hoc methods, whatever seems to be appropriate. It could be a logical method, but it could also be a religious account to be tested. And he contrasts that with the method of Baconian natural science or Cartesian dialectic, which requires something dehumanizing that is not inherently intuitive and not inherently understandable, and ultimately destroys norms and nobility for both the high and the low. So I could ask this question. Does. Doesn't classical education need something like a lead at institutions in order to be perpetuated? And doesn't it lose its character when popularized? For Hicks, is the democratic character of modernity inherently desirable? Or is it something that classical education accommodates itself to as the spirit of the time? And he would answer that question by something like saying that you need to maintain a tension between these things, between a dogmatic account, a logical account, between story and dialectic, which is developed in later chapters like the ones that Dr. Gary will be covering. But you need to start, at any rate, with the forming of opinion, with a baseline, a forming of opinion, forming of belief, what some people today would call the moral imagination. This is a necessary condition for a later development of higher thought, critical thought, dialectical thought. And you can achieve a lot in, through dogma and through muthos, in forming a democratic people. And in this sense, classical education is democratic even while maintaining a distinction between high culture and mass culture. There's no reason that mass culture has to be the lowest of the low. And so that's what Hicks is concerned with. And, I mean, I have more thoughts, I could say, about norms and nobility. What's the difference between them? How are these things related? But I'll just start there as a sort of basic account of the questions that inform the beginning of the book. And I will turn to Dr. Greg.

[D]

Thank you for that raucous applause. You guys may be better people than me, probably are. But when I read great texts, it's rarely kind of the happy images that stay with me. Mostly it's the haunting ones that you kind of can't get out of your mind. And I think that's one of the reasons why some of these texts are enduring. And for my money, one of the most haunting images in all of literature is the figure of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. I don't know if any of you have read this. It's pretty short, so would recommend it to you. But Lenny is this behemoth of a man, works very good worker, but not quite right in the head. Definitely slower at the very least. And he loves these small, furry, soft animals. His one goal is to live. To live where he can take care of rabbits. And this is the kind of idyllic, peaceful life that he's interested in. But what happens is he's this incredibly strong, powerful man, and whenever he gets a small, soft animal, he. He will kind of stroke it and squeeze it until it actually dies. So it's this genuinely haunting image of where you can love something so much that you can literally hold it too tightly and destroy the very thing that you love. And it's a. I mean, this type of image or these types of things are throughout all of literature. It's even know, scriptural, right? I'm thinking of the Parable of the Talents, where if there's a haunting parable that Jesus tells, that's one, right? Where you kind of the figure of the man who buries his talent in a hole and. And then it gets taken away and given. Given to. Given to someone else. I'm not claiming to understand the Parable of the Talents. I'm not going to do exegesis here, but. But it's a haunting image for us, right? As a parent, that is incredibly haunting. How do I love my children in such a way that I don't kind of choke the life out of. Out of them? And I think this is one of the brilliance in my minds of norms and nobility is exactly that type of a portrayal of contemporary education. Where I think in chapters three and Four, he sets up this major dichotomy, which was, you know, was true when he wrote it, still true Now. I think if we're looking at our educational landscape, there are two real types of visions for schooling where you can call it the a vision of formation versus a vision of empowerment. Okay? And you're either a school that believes in formation along where you want your students to be conformed to some sort of ideal. This is, you know, his title of chapter four here, some ideal image that you want your students to become, or you believe that your students are already what they should be and the goal is kind of to help them be whatever they want to be a little bit better. And so this is, I think when I look at school mission statements on websites, I immediately am putting schools into one or the other. And I think as classical educators, we. There are not a ton of things that unite all of us, but all of us, I think, believe in the formation side of things, that there is some set of virtues or ideals that we want our students to conform to. And so Hicks, the line that struck me as I was reading this again, he says childhood as a period of becoming rather than a state of being. And so this is, I think, a nice dichotomy for us. And I think one of the enduring legacies of norms and nobility is this kind of main division that he's making teleologically. And so what does it mean to be a classical educator? Well, you believe in formation rather than empowerment. And so this isn't just. I was pulling up some school mission statements and there's one that says, you know, this is the mission statement of the school. We believe that every child is on a unique educational journey and it is our job to facilitate them in becoming who they were, always want to be. So it's something like this. And that's their mission statement. And so now you start to think about some of the practices that are associated with these things where, you know, you might have a ton of electives for students to choose whatever classes they want. You might have a lot of project based learning where students can take a topic that is interesting to them and run with it. You might have a lot of, you might not have a lot of discipline or some restorative discipline practices that are, you can never say no to students, right? And Hicks is trying to think about some of the practices here, whereas over here you might be actually concerned with developing virtue. You're taking those opportunities to shape character. You believe in a set of curricula that is time tested and that you want to, want to expose students to, et cetera, et cetera. So there's, I think this is. And when we see chapters three and four, Hicks is starting to sort his way through what practices are associated with these two types of schooling. But I think the real brilliance of this, the brilliance of this, chapters 3 and 4 is this image I alluded to at the beginning where Hicks is going to say, look, when you're an empowerment school, you sacrifice everything on the altar of the personality of the student, right? And yet by sacrificing everything on that altar, you actually choke the life out of the personality of the student. He has this, this great line, a couple great lines here. Consequently, his child centered education produces the exact opposite of an educated person, a self centered adult, right? And this is I think, a really brilliant thing where you do everything you can to let the student become whoever they want to be. And what they become is actually this self centered, self absorbed adult, right? It's this kind of squeezing the animal so tightly that it actually has, has no life. He quotes John Stuart Milli says a pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded, which he cannot do, never does all he can. Great line here, right? That if you're going to never challenge someone or never demand anything of them that they're not ready for or can't do, they're never actually going to fulfill your potential, right? You've done everything you can to center the potential of the student. And then you've literally destroyed, you've created the conditions in which they're not going to live up to that potential. And then he flips it on his head on the other side as well. Where if you have this formation telos, that's where actually you start to get some of these practices that end up being kind of student centered, affirming the dignity of the student, right? He talks about the teacher as risk taker. This isn't just teachers dogmatizing in front of their students. This is them taking risks. It's a humane thing. He talks about a myth and story which he's leading into, as is leading into chapters five and six. Here he talks about the appearance, the appearances actually get redeemed. And even one of the, one of the great lines is, he says, now the student's head is filled with the sound of voices. The impassioned debate of many great figures of myth and history concerning what is beautiful, excellent and good in man.

[E]

The.

[D]

This is the real conditions out of which we write poetry and feel creative when we have these voices from the past. In our head, we've actually empowered the student to be as creative as they possibly can by filling their head with these voices from the past. It's this beautiful notion. And even the way he ends chapter four, he ends chapter four with this, with the profound image of a quest where what classical education with this formation student for Mason, the schooling does for the student is it launches them on this quest. The quest demands something of them, right? It's not just do whatever you want. It's like you have a very clear purpose and lots of difficulties thrown in your way and there's challenging moments. But it is in some ways the most student centered thing we can do is this formation side of things, right? He ends us this way. He says the past instructs us that man has only understood himself and mastered himself in pursuit of a self transcendent ideal. A golden fleece, a promised land, a Holy grail, a numinous windmill. He defines himself in the quest, not on Calypso's unblown isle, where he's only judged against himself, where all obstacles are removed, where the question of human significance seems insignificant, and where there are no moral restraints or binding ideals. Only Odysseus knowledge of the past, his longing for Ithaca, Penelope and Telemachus keeps him alive. And only the responsibility that he takes for that knowledge rescues him from Calypso's pointless life of pleasure. The beauty of norms and nobility is it creates not just the dichotomy that describes our current educational system, but it shows how in pursuing this ideal, you actually all the other things, the student centered things get added onto it. Whereas if you just pursue the student centered thing, even that which you are pursuing is lost. Please welcome Dr. Gary.

[E]

Good morning. It's wonderful to see you all in reading this book, I just want to say that I think it's a lovely book. And it's also remarkable that he wrote this when he was 27 years old, which is a testimony to his own classical education that he could write such a book. He was tasked with doing kind of a social scientific report on education, working for a think tank, and thankfully, because he was classically educated, he couldn't help but notice norms and think about nobility. And I think we are indebted to that. In reading this book, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my son when he was 10. It was a Sunday morning and he was questioning the existence of God, which meant that he probably shouldn't go to church that day. You can imagine my response. Get in the car. The necessity of dogma is chapter six. And I think Hicks is saying that dogma is necessary and it's something that we rely on as parents and as educators. I want to just offer a brief overview of each chapter and then I want to get into what I think is, I think the animating question for the whole work, which actually was somewhat articulated by my son that morning. Chapter 5 Saving the appearances his major concern in this chapter is what he sees as the non normativity of modern science. With modern science we accrue technical know how and power. We are living out Francis Bacon's dream in the novum organum, or new instrument, which rejects Aristotle's logic as an old instrument. In this new world, nature, including human nature, is simply material to be controlled and manipulated. Norms, however, are inescapable. We have them. There is no non normative space. In place of the noble ideal type, we latch onto bogus and vague substitutes. Progress, dynamism, post humanism, immortality via some techne. Much like the conditioners that C.S. lewis describes in the Abolition of Man and depicts in his space trilogy. The third part, especially that hideous strength. Echoing what others have noted already, Hicks again in this chapter, is pushing against a reductive utilitarian bent that is modern education. Instead of power and efficiency as the ultimate justification, especially for science and math, the true aim should be contemplation or coming to appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the world. So that's chapter five. He does a lot in these chapters, but I think that's what really stands out in my view. Chapter six on the Necessity of Dogma this chapter, I think, maps neatly onto Dorothy Sayers essay the Lost Tools of Learning, especially her first two stages, the poll parrot and the pert. The poll parrot is simply given a dogma through good stories, virtuous role models and loving parents. The aim in the early years of education is to provide a rich heritage of examples that embody the ideal type, most especially in parents and teachers who don't just preach the dogma but live it. But it also aims to illustrate how transgressions of this ideal type have moral and spiritual consequences. Gallum comes to mind. This dogma is the necessary foundation for good education. The dialectical or pert stage, usually emerging in the teenage years, begins to interrogate and question, question this dogma. A well formed soul, according to Aristotle, who's been brought up in this rich dogma, will already have an intuitive sense that there's something right and true about this dogma. But in these teenage years they want a why, they know the what These are the books we read. But why do we read these books? And why are they good? And why are they true? And why are they beautiful? Hicks major concern with the dialectical approach is how it's been taken over by Descartes and Bacon. And its project is one of deconstruction. And in the end it leads to skepticism rather than a rich theoretical grasp of the ideal type. I think the question I mentioned that Hicks is engaging with is the question that teenagers ask especially, which is why do we have to learn this? And we can think of several answers to that question. One answer would be because I said so. Perhaps not the best answer. And that's an answer that modern educators kind of recoil from. So instead of saying because I said so, we might say because it's in the book. I'm reminded of that episode of the Simpsons when Lisa stole all the teachers editions of the books and the school had to shut down. The other answer might be because it's required by state standards. Each of those is a variation of authority. Because I said so, because the government says so, because someone says so. Modern educators again are uncomfortable with that answer. But classical educators, Hicks says no, we can actually live into that answer. Our answer to why do I have to learn this? I'm reminded of Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof. Why do I have to learn this tradition? Our elders, we're passing on wisdom. It's tried and true, to quote my colleague Dr. Copland, and there's a weight and gravitas to that, which is substantial. But nevertheless the Perth stage will come along and ask why? Why? But that's not enough. And of course that's appropriate. And this is where Socrates comes in and wants to help us interrogate and get at a rich, deeper why. The modern educator recoils from authority, but nevertheless has to claim some authority. The classical educator embraces it. That day when my son said, I don't want to go to church, I'm questioning the existence of God. Get in the car is a dogma. And our hope is that in being habituated in these practices that they'll come to acquire the sentiments and a taste for it and a love for it. So that's what we're doing in the early years. But the pert. The dialectical will come up and we must engage that. The other answer to that question, why do we have to learn this is the question that the modern educator holds up, is the ideal. It will be useful, it will lead to a job. You will make money. And those are answers that are Important. But can you imagine telling a five year old, you'll need this in the real world, or even a high schooler or a middle schooler. It's a remote answer. It doesn't speak to what is most of value in what we're learning. Here in chapter five, I think Hicks is getting at why do we have to learn this? The answer is because it's beautiful, because it's good, because it's true. And the hard work of teaching is to guide students into seeing that. And part of that involves us building a relationship where they trust us. You may not see the beauty now, but if you trust, eventually it'll come and you'll see it. I just want to conclude with a quote. I heard the other day we had an educator, Francis Hsu, he has a book, Mathematics for Human Flourishing, and he talks about teaching in a way so that students expect enchantment, which is to say they expect to appreciate and see the intrinsic beauty of the world. Modern education is educating us to make money, to have leisure. Classical education is actually helping us to understand what true leisure is. And true leisure consists of beholding and seeing and enjoying the beautiful. Thank you.

[B]

Hello everybody. I'll be talking a little bit about the last two chapters, seven and eight in part one to give you a taste of what they're about. Titles of the chapters are the Ennobling of the Masses, Ennobling of the Masses and the Promise of Christian Paideia. These last two chapters are concerned with one big problem. American culture and American democracy are degraded and utilitarian. But we want to reform American culture and American democracy into something better and into something higher. The problem then is really a question. Is classical education elitist? Now, given this book's title, Norms and Nobility, you might think that it is. However, in chapter one, as John Read, Hicks writes that the classical schools of 19th century Victorian England perverted classical education by making it elitist. According to Hicks, to speak of classical education for the few is a contradiction in terms, for paideia is the inheritance of all men as individuals. Should we be surprised that classical education was born in the greatest democracy of antiquity? Classical Athens, the city of Pericles, of Socrates, of Plato. Liberal learning is for all men. Self government is for all men. The two go hand in hand. If you want a stirring account of the moral superiority of democracy, you have to read Pericles funeral oration for the Athenians who died in the war against Sparta. Pericles contrasts the open, free and democratic Athens against Sparta. Sealed off totalitarian eugenicist Hicks argues rightly in my View that even if democracy was born among the Greeks, it reached its fulfillment in Christianity. Hicks quotes Erasmus, who says that to be a philosopher and to be a Christian is synonymous. Whereas even in democratic Athens, only a small elite of aristocratic men took up the life of philosophy. After the coming of Christ, whole churches of unlearned men and women did so. As the church Father Athanasius, put it, these simple men and women learned to despise death and think rather of things immortal. The education that forms the whole person, that renews the culture, and that preserves democracy must be universal education. Further, as Hicks says, it is only democracy that provides the freedom necessary for all people to develop their full human potentials. So far, so good. The answer to the opening question is simply no. Classical education is not elitist. Rather, it's universal, and in fact, it is democratic education par excellence. The utilitarian job training in our public schools, like Dr. Gary said, is to train workers for GDP growth. But classical education forms humans for lives of virtue. It is here, though, that we encounter a problem. In order to explain the problem, I need to take you on a little historical tangent about the word democracy, which, of course, we get from Greek now. Pericles funeral oration occurred during a war with Sparta. That war, the Peloponnesian War, did not end up going very well for Athens. Pericles died of a plague, the Spartans conquered Athens, and Sparta installed a murderous regime of oligarchs, the 30 tyrants to rule the conquered Athenians. Shortly afterward, for all practical purposes, democracy vanished not only from Athens, but really from the Western world. And in the centuries that followed, the Christian revolution transformed the world. Elitism was defeated. Ordinary people were, according to Athanasius and Erasmus, like we just said, living like philosophers. So where did democracy go after Pericles funeral oration, this praise for democracy? It really took about 2,000 years for another great speech to be delivered to explicitly defend the moral superiority of democracy. Let me read you a few lines from it. Only one form of government can make better and happier human beings. Democratic or republican government. These two words are synonymous, despite the abuse of popular language. For aristocracy is no more the republic than monarchy is. Democracy is the only form of state in which all the individuals composing it can truly call their own country. Now, this speech is not from the American Revolution, whose leaders generally avoided using the word democratic and democracy. This is rather the speech that Maximilien Robespierre delivered to the French national convention in 1794. Robespierre was offering a philosophical justification for the Reign of Terror, explaining why democratic government must be protected Using a guillotine against elitists. So why doesn't democracy reappear once Christianity sweeps through the world? And why does it reappear during the murderous atheistic French Revolution when the Jacobins kill the king, launch a sexual revolution against the family and try to re engineer French cultural and social life altogether? Nowadays we take for granted what Robespierre then had to argue, that the only morally legitimate form of government is a democratic republic. So are we Jacobins, are we the heirs of Robespierre? Well, let's turn back to Hicks. He is no Robespierre. He argues that it is the duty of classical education to relativize democracy. He says classical education in a modern democracy teaches a person to value the aims of government more than its forms. In other words, democracy is only a means, not an end. That is what in part, Socrates was doing in democratic Athens. In Hicks words, the classical school must offer a sort of dialectical negation of democratic society, educating aristocrats rather than democrats. Now we are inclined to scoff at the charges Athens convicted Socrates of impiety and corrupting the youth. But perhaps educating aristocrats instead of democrats was what he was doing. So did Socrates go too far? The Athenians killed him. But it seems absurd to execute someone for crimes like this. But consider his students. Lots of people know the names Plato and Xenophon. They were both later students of Socrates. But Socrates had two famous early students as well, Critias and Alcibiades, both of whom died before Socrates. Now neither Critias nor Alcibiades exactly covered themselves in glory. Both became collaborators with Sparta. Alcibiades as advisors to the Spartans in the war against Athens, and Critias as the head of the 30 tyrants that murderous oligarchy Sparta installed. And like Robespierre, Critias led a reign of terror to re engineer Athenian society. But rather than doing so in the name of democracy and liberty, he did so in the name of purging foreign blood from Athens and perfecting its biological stock. As one scholar of Plato writes Critias, Socrates student was the Hitler of the ancient Greek world. He and his friends established a regime based on atheistic biologism, so to speak, on Sparta radicalized a eugenic antinomian dictatorship. Now, if you were the teacher of the man who championed an insane Spartan death cult ruling Athens and the teacher of a traitor who joined the Spartans, then perhaps the charge of corrupting the youth makes at least a little sense. 50 years after Socrates was killed, his name pops up again in a speech by Aeschines and Eschenes remembers Socrates as a sophist who was put to death because he was the teacher of Critias. That's how the Athenians remembered Socrates immediately afterwards. But it seems like Socrates did better with his later students, Plato and Xenophon, who, even if only by watching their teacher die, learned some moderation and prudence. But we can tell from their writings that Socrates never stopped training aristocrats. Xenophon sent his sons away from Athens to be educated in Sparta and wrote a glowing homage to the enemy city. And in The Republic, which Dr. O' Toole rightly called one of the greatest books ever written, Plato puts in Socrates mouth plans for an ideal city that practiced a level of radical biological experimentation that would have made the Spartans blush. Xenophon, too, for what it's worth, seemed really interested in biological experimentation, writing about breeding horses and hunting dogs. So why were the greatest of Socrates students so enamored of Sparta? And why were they so interested in re engineering families and experimental breeding, these things that Sparta was so well known for? Part of the answer must be family. The great T.S. eliot, in notes Toward the Definition of Culture, writes, the primary channel of transmission of culture is family. In the classical education movement, we want to renew culture and preserve democracy. But as school leaders, we are always playing second fiddle to families. Now, you might have heard the saying, parents are the first educators of their children. It's a bit of a cliche in classical education circles. And my question for you, do you really believe that when you think of the parents at your school who simply don't get it, who complain about everything, whose kids are ill behaved and frankly not super smart or very talented, does it ever pop into your mind, you know, in this case it would be better if the parents were not the first educators. And that's the question I want to leave you with as you read Norms and Nobility, especially as you read chapters seven and eight, who is the child's first educator? And what can a classical school reasonably hope to accomplish in this grand vision of renewing culture and preserving democracy? Because in our attempts at doing all that, we will inevitably come up against the question of family. In chapter one, Hicks says that the narrow and elitist schools of Victorian England perverted classical education by teaching, in precept and in example, a hereditary aristocratic ideal intended to serve the ambitions of empire and to preserve the status quo. And so my final question for you to ponder as you read this book, which I hope you do, is the same one that Dr. Peterson raised. Was that really a Perversion. Thanks.

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I'm Scott Bertrand. We invite you to like us on Facebook Search for Hillsdale College K12 classical education. You also can follow us on Instagram hillsdalek12. That's hillsdalek12 on Instagram. Thank you for listening to The Hillsdale College K12 classical education podcast, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More at Podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you get your audio.