In Pursuit of Cultural Literacy

As a former homeschooler who grew up under a classical curriculum written by my mother, an accomplished public and private school teacher, I’ve been told I fit right into the most common demographic of a Christian liberal arts college student. Even before I officially enrolled at Grove City College, my conversations with students and faculty confirmed this suspicion, and I entered my freshman year with full confidence that the upcoming four years would consist of constant competition with my peers to be the first to make obscure references to lengthy works, all written before the year 1900. As I soon learned, much to my chagrin, this is not how conversation works.

It took me a rather embarrassingly long amount of time to finally realize that what allows you to write an extraordinary essay is not necessarily what makes you a good conversationalist. The dactylic hexameter that remained on the tip of my tongue all through that first year could make me look studious in an essay, but I found it only made me appear pretentious when I forced it into a conversation over coffee or lunch.

What resulted was a significant paradigm shift and a new set of beliefs on what constitutes holistic education. I needed to evaluate what exactly I was trying to accomplish by shoving ten-dollar references into a conversation that only takes coins. Evaluation certainly did not lead me to the conclusion that conversations on complex subjects are unimportant. Rather, I concluded that the reasons I had for endeavoring to turn every discussion into a Platonic dialogue were deeply flawed. I concluded that while I had been desperate to showcase my classical education, I had only displayed my cultural ignorance.

Life, whether we like it or not, depends on how well we can interact with others and make them feel welcome. Moments when the ability to fall back on the words of the Bard are crucial, but they are not numerous. Instances abound, however, when it is equally essential to quickly be able to reference “The Office” as a way to build report with peers, to quietly listen to another’s ideas with no aim but admiration, or to poke fun at an established part of the literary canon to ease anxiety over a paper or test.

In fact, many more brilliant than I could ever dream to be, have also allowed their respective areas of expertise to take a backseat to communicating their joy and passion for sharing. Take Marie Curie’s Nobel Banquet speech or Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury—some of the best-educated people of their time spoke not to impress, but to inspire. They did not view their established positions as an opportunity to intimidate or make themselves appear superior. What they did was refuse to waste time proving that they were someone important enough to listen to and instead simple speak. This, I believe, is the real brilliance. To be able to engage in complex discussions in a way that is charitable and that causes others to feel welcome and valued is, to my mind, a higher rhetorical achievement than being able to speak every sentence with as much pathos, ethos, and logos as you can cram in.

Take it from someone who had Beowulf read to them as a bedtime story: there is a place for high literature and philosophy in conversation, but first there is a desperate need for good conversation. 

A good conversation does not arise out of one party’s need to establish themselves as someone worthy of speaking. It comes from a desire to make the other party feel heard and worth hearing. The old maxim that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, though trite, should not be disregarded. 

Listen and appreciate. When the situation arises where you are required to recite 14 lines of Virgil, the opportunity to share will be all the sweeter.