So say Brent and Kate McKay at The Art of Manliness. They offer eight reasons “Why Every Man Should Study Classical Culture.” Here’s a bit:
Our educational system has become increasingly specialized. We’ve created artificial barriers between different fields of study. When you’re in history, you largely just focus on history. When you’re studying physics, you mostly focus on physics. Historian Richard Weaver referred to this as the “fragmentation” of knowledge.
But when you read the classics, those walls disappear. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, all knowledge was interconnected. When you read The Histories by Herodotus, you’ll see him connect historical events to political theory, anthropology, and even geography. Plato doesn’t just muse about Truth, Justice, and Beauty, but also math and physics. The Roman Stoics weren’t just interested in learning how to live in alignment with Nature, but also how to govern empires and interact with people you don’t get along with.
