During college, I spent a semester studying abroad in Florence, Italy. Wine lies deep in the strata of Tuscany, and as I desired to embed myself in the culture as much as I could, this meant becoming a wino. There was only one problem— I didn’t like wine.
That semester, I attended a Food and Culture course, and the class took a wine-tasting field trip. As twenty students crammed into a local wine shop, a large man with red cheeks explained that we were about to discover the magnificence of Tuscany’s most prolific grape, Sangiovese. To me, this man was Bacchus in the flesh. He wore an apron, laughed loudly, and combed his wall of wines as Ollivander rummaged through several shelves to select a wand for Harry Potter.
Sangiovese is a powerful grape that produces a ruddy, robust red. Our Bacchus provided water and crackers to cleanse the palate and showed us how to oxidize by slurping and sloshing the wine around like it was mouthwash. With a true oxidation, flavors exploded into my mouth: dry red cherry, leather, and was that chocolate? The third taste was his grand finale. An ancient, dusty bottle was drawn, and it was clear that this bottle meant something to our guide. So far, he had been sharing his knowledge with us; now, he shared his love.
The previous three flavors were there as before, but deeper and smoother in this sip as pepper and earth joined the symphony of taste. Sediment filled the bottom of the glass, and as the tannins gripped my mouth, all I could think was: I am drinking Italy. This was the first and still my most powerful association with terroir, or the taste imparted into the wine from the land itself.
That night, I reflected on the day and knew something profound had occurred. All the biblical symbolism of wine meant something now, for I had tasted and seen. In a single hour, I had become a different person than I was before, and I could feel it in real time. This is education. It molds and alters you by taking your hand and leading you to the real.
Classical education consists of the seven liberal arts: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Physics. A science was considered a body of knowledge from the Latin scire, “to know.” An art, however, is the production of something. An authentic liberal arts education produces a free man. Practice in virtue, reason, and harmony grants men liberty not only from external propaganda but also provides him a means to battle personal vices which would otherwise enslave him.
If, while reading this, a sense of dread is creeping up that you are a product of a different and perhaps more sinister “education,” take heart. You are a human being, and your nature will recover quicker than you expect when it is fed the proper nutrients. I offer two types of food.
The first is easier to attain, and little effort yields exponential dividends. Engage the Great Tradition. From Socrates to our current day, a long conversation occurred across time and culture. If school kept this conversation a secret from you, by all means, join in now!
Begin by googling a synopsis of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” then watch “The Lion King” with that plot in mind. Next, read 1 Samuel chapters 16 and 17 from the Bible and pair it with Joseph Jacob’s “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
What do the giants in each story have in common? Where does the giant metaphor emerge in other fields of study? (This is called weaving.) In economics, the giant is a monopoly, feasting on men’s lives and taking their gold. In philosophy, the ogre is narcissism using others as a means instead of an end in themselves.
If you like romance, read Petrarch’s “Sonnet 90” alongside Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130.” Learn the importance of poetic form and try to develop an ear for language. How do meter, euphonics, and structure affect a poem? Next, consider the content. Shakespeare is mocking Petrarch by contrasting the fantasy of a woman to the real thing. Women are people too, says Shakespeare, not angels as Petrarch makes them out to be. Shakespeare justifies his claim on the grounds that, unlike Petrarch, he actually got a woman to marry him.
Weave the entire jest back into literature, starting with Perrault’s “Cinderella.” At first, the prince is entranced with the memory of the girl staring at her slipper for two straight days. But this man pushes through the glass into the real culminating in marriage. Follow that thread to Helen of Troy, Goethe’s “Faust,” and finally the book of Proverbs.
Read “Gilgamesh” alongside the Gospel of Mark and compare Ancient Middle-Eastern views on divinity, mortality, and meaning. Try a few of Plato’s “Dialogues.” Now that you’ve acquired some stamina, tackle Homer’s “Iliad.” Don’t neglect poetry, visual art, and music; they are as important as math and literature. By this point, you are well on your way.
The second is a more difficult process that I will call Elasticity. While the content of modern education isn’t good, worse yet is the mode. Elasticity is when something squeezed into a tight place returns to its original form. After being chained to a desk for over a decade, you need a different mode of being. I do not have a curriculum as clear and beautiful as the Great Tradition to insert here. My best guess is to try a bunch of things and see what sticks. Try a new restaurant, choose a new dish, touch grass, swim more. If you’ve never been to the mountains — go, dance corporately, sing, attend a religious service, kneel, and be silent in that position for at least 5 minutes.
Taste and see, and you will begin to tune yourself like an eolian harp as life flows through you. By opening up and letting experience sift through the strings of your being, you will gain an authentic education. Cheers.
