A Thread - If my 48 year old self could talk to my 20 year old self I would say:
- No one's born knowing anything - we all learn. Never stop learning.
- You can do anything you set your mind to. Don't limit yourself, set your own goals, don't listen to naysayers.
- Love you /1

-Set your goals, have a plan, focus, focus, focus.
- Life will be there when you achieve your goals
- Trust your gut, especially with people. If you feel funny about a person, trust it.
- Keep your circle small and tight
- Create healthy habits
- Be spiritual - stay centered. /2
- Don't enter into any long term commitments if you have reservations, especially marriage.
- Never compare yourself to others. It is a recipe for unhappiness.
- It is okay to fail, I have learned more from failing than succeeding.
- Be kind.
- Be curious
- Forgive yourself. /3
- Learn to accept criticism, especially from those who truly love you.
- Perfection is a myth - we all make mistakes, try to learn from them
- Choose a life partner whom you are compatible with, have same interests, goals, respect and love
- Don't forget to have fun /4

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x