Animals and Gods

Paideia, for one and many

Paideia, the Greek educational ideal, is usually spoken of as pertaining to a collective of individuals, a state. That is, in terms of politics. How to give form to the perfect citizen, so the perfect state can exist? The topic of paideia can not be seen as an individual thing, and always already pertains to a people. Yet, not all individuals can be formed in the same way. Different ways of life have different ends, and different ways of life require a different ‘paideia’. And it is not wrong to speak of different ‘paideias' for different types of people. The Pythagorean way of life is entirely different from the way of life of the man of politics. And in certain epochs, one can and must only rely on one’s own individual ‘paideia’, or the education of a small group of people, separated from the way in which the larger demos is formed. One has to become an ‘idiotēs’ in a way. This has been my greatest concern. What is evil in certain times and for certain people, is absolute necessity in others. And what is good in certain times and for certain people, is harmful in others.

When Aristotle shows his disdain for individual men who seek to live outside of society, for the ‘idiotēs’, you have to ask, is there not a certain point at which one would be an idiot if one didn’t do so? Do not necessarily equate this with living by oneself in the woods, totally out of touch with the world. It is not about space but about what actually separates people —the way in which they are formed. It is a question of how and by what one allows oneself to be formed and educated. It is not good to be an idiotēs, says Aristotle, because one would not be formed by the ideals of the city and become like a wild animal. Or like a god, but most likely like an animal. But the question is first and foremost about the ideals and the question of formation. One should not be an idiotēs because one would not be formed. But what is better, formed by oneself (or not at all), or misformed by others? Even those who go on and on about the importance of the social paideia today, about re-establishing classical educational ideals, only have the mind necessary to do so because they first took the responsibility to take care of their own paideia. And so classical political dualisms lead to ruin when applied in the wrong conditions. I see many point to Greek educational ideals to show how the state should take it upon itself to take children away from parents and have them formed by the state.  But would you consider pushing this idea out today? The chances of your child living in accordance with ancient ideals are much higher if educated away from state schools. 

Liberal democracy, if you believe this exists, is a field of potentiality in which you throw ideas which then get fed by however many people flock to it and how well the patterns of mimesis accord with this ideal. So, be careful with what you throw out. 

Often, the less rigid education is, the more tyrannical it ends up being. Not the tyranny of human-made law or whatever, but of pure circumstance. In English class; children have to read a book. No longer one classic ordained by the teacher, but everyone can choose a book for themselves. Freedom? Or everyone being a pure slave to whatever it is that they are exposed to on the internet and elsewhere. The freedom to not have to read Shakespeare, but a slave to whatever mind-numbing nonsense the market wants you to read. 

The discipline, the law, is there precisely to save the child from the tyranny of circumstance, to allow the child a chance at not just being a pure victim of circumstance. In this way, a person can be judged pretty well on the basis of what they think about education and how to make schools better and so on. They start talking about how to make everything more entertaining and engaging and so on? Be careful. 

An important role in education is played by imitation. There are heroes and other exemplary figures to be imitated, an entire canon worth of them. Far from making education stale and an affair of mere copying, imitation ensures that education is a living process in which the adept is transformed. No bland transmission of knowledge, but an imperative to make one’s body and thought the same as the object to be learned. To become as what one has to learn, this is imitation. The real teacher does not say: “think this”, he says: “think like me.” The teacher of gymnastics does not say: “you should move like this”, he says: “move with me.” There is this cliché; “you should not learn people what to think, but how to think.” I would not disagree. But still, if taught by idiots, it is much easier to remove faulty ideas, and much harder to change wrong and destructive ways of thinking.

But before the child is educated by imitating Achilles or Heracles, Achilles was educated by Cheiron, and Heracles by all sorts of gods and creatures. The social paideia is proceeded by an entirely different and more individual paideia, one given by all sorts of strange creatures, and gods. Aristotle says when one is outside of politics, supposedly self-sufficient, an idiotēs, one is either an animal or a god. But it is also here that one is talked to by gods and animals. The Indian sage in the woods educated by animals, Moses on the mountain, this too is paideia. Nature is a great teacher, so is God, and so is silence.

Is the Idiotēs free from paideia, and is this what makes him a non-political being? Hardly. One can not be free from being formed, the question is by whom, what, and with what form as an end. And the absence of paideia which the Greeks refer to as barbarian, is much more formed in such a way that does not align with Greek ideals. Once can be formed to pursue pleasure at the cost of everything else, one can be formed to desire ugliness, self-loathing, and misery. Whatever one wishes, all can be the object of education.

Plato’s broader thoughts on imitation say nothing less than that reality = a paideia. A most violent one. And in a way the political paideia is to protect us from it, or to guide it along safe roads. A society can only bear so many idiotēs: lawgivers and madmen. You can not leave things entirely up to nature, for there will only be gods and animals. Mostly animals. 

When we think about philosophers like Locke or Descartes, really any modern philosopher who we think to be overly ‘individualistic’, believing in man’s capacity to think for himself and educate himself, we should think about it in this way. It is not a matter of anyone ever not believing in the importance of this social and political paideia. It is only a question of necessity. Wants and wishes explain nothing in the history of philosophy. Why did the modern thinkers need this individualism? It’s the ends from which we can judge the thought, the ideals that lie underneath it, the methods are secondary. If one judges everything starting from a method or a concrete instantiation of ideas, you set yourself up for disaster. It can not be repeated, history does not allow it. You can not exactly pursue the methods which you see represented by some period, for this period will require different means to bring about those ideals. Unless you are ready to throw away everything else that has ever been done. But still, I do not think Aristotle was wrong, that to be an idiotēs is to either be an animal or a God. And that too many of these types are destructive to society. The question is whether or not this is even a problem, at times. The sole duty is paideia, whether it leads to the creation or destruction of a world is secondary. 

In many ways, the need for paideia only occurs when men are dis-formed and in need of form. A god does not need to be formed, for he is always already entirely form. Paideia is for men that are not fully men, yet. Something one can read in Nietzsche is this idea that when external realities that give form and guidance to men —religion, myth, and so on—, perish, it becomes man’s own responsibility to give form to his life. And here, natural differences become visible more violently than before. When we all believe in the same God, we are one under the church and made one by following the same rules. When there is no common belief, only those who have the power to set and follow their own rules, and only those who have direct intuition of God, are granted salvation. Still in such anarchical and generally chaotic circumstances, there is one thing that can not be taken away —paideia—, in its most simple sense: as the imperative to give form to our lives, both as individuals and as peoples. But when there is no broader societal paradigm or paideia to give form to our lives, there is still one thing that saves us from being pure idiots, a social relation that is immune to the problems known to broader society, and also protective against the risks of great-spirited individualism. Friendship.