Chapter 10: Summary of what I wanted to write about, Part 2

Further to part 1, I would like to summarize what I wanted to write.

(As with part 1, it's a bit longer than the other chapters.)

At the end of Part 1, I wrote, "There is an overwhelming lack of human resources in the humanities study due to disregard for the humanities study over the years."

Among them, the one that we Japanese should pay attention to is the most neglected philosophy.

Speaking of which, I mentioned "liberal arts" in the "The preface of the original Japanese version," but I'll write more about it here.

"Liberal arts" education is the traditional academic program in Western higher education.

The term "liberal arts" comes from the Greek and Roman times "septem artes liberales (the seven liberal arts)."

Those subjects were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music.

In ancient Greece, they classified into free people (liberalis) and slaves, and the study of "liberal arts" was born for educating the free people to become more liberal and cultured.

So, conversely, slaves would be a people in a state of bondage and unfreedom, bound by labor, status, etc.

But the goal was for a free people already free from that state to become even more liberty (=Acquire the knowledge and power to free themselves from other bondage) by learning the "liberal arts."

If this is the case, we are talking about learning the "liberal arts" to free ourselves from every other bondage, even though free people are already free by their status.

(Was bondage so bad?

That's a simple question I had.)

Besides, "Philosophy" is located above the seven subjects of "septem artes liberales (the seven liberal arts)," in other words, "Philosophy" was thought to govern the "liberal arts."

Let me tell you more about this.

In ancient Greece, "Philosophy" was born first, then "liberal arts" was born, and later in the late Roman period, it officially defined as "septem arts liberales (the seven liberal arts)."

And still later, when the universities were established in Europe in the thirteenth century, the "septem artes liberales (the seven liberal arts)" was formally established as a required subject before proceeding to specialized faculties such as theology or law.

(Some say it eventually lasted until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that said to be dependent on the country and the university.)

There was also the Reformation, in which Protestants believed that "labor was not a bad thing, and that it was good to be hardworking."

But this did not diminish the status of "septem artes liberales (the seven liberal arts)."

By the way, Harvard University was established as the oldest institution of higher education in the United States under British rule at the time, and it was a small liberal arts college.

Right now, there are about 600 liberal arts colleges in the United States.

Of all the things I have written so far, the one I wanted to say the most was "Educated, and wealthy people in the West would usually think that way."

Because to sell high-end goods to rich people, we need to "put ourselves in their shoes."

The reason why they are getting richer is that they had money to receive higher education.

Up until then, higher education was a costly and natural thing.

(In Japan, during the Edo period, even ordinary people were able to get a good education at a terakoya, but this was very rare in the world. Terakoya is a Japanese temple school.)

It may seem strange to people in the West, but there has never been an academic discipline called "liberal arts" in Japan.

If I have to say, It often considered similar to the university's general education programs, but they are still very different.

The difference is that a university's general education programs are considered "a preliminary to a specialized course and not an independent discipline."

On the other hand, the "liberal arts" are considered to be an academic discipline in and of themselves and include a specialized course of study.

In such a country as Japan, why has this "liberal arts" gained so much attention now?

As an example, let me quote part of "The Need for a Liberal Arts Education" from the official J. F. Oberlin University Web site.

Today's society has to deal with a greater variety of issues than in the past, sometimes at the same time.

In this modern society, human resources with a wide range of comprehensive knowledge, advanced expertise, and appropriate judgment and execution required.

For this reason, single-track specialized education, which focuses on learning one thing in a relatively narrow area, cannot be applied.

That requires a liberal arts education.

In summary, it's "Single-track specialized education, in which students learn one thing in a narrow area, is not suitable for the times to come."

Indeed, the conventional type of education that pursues a single-specialty subject in a single track will produce many people who are knowledgeable about specialty subjects but know almost nothing about other things.

Then, what happens in this case?

With a workforce that only knows such a narrow area of things, that person is more likely to fail to meet the needs of his or her diversified customer base.

And if that narrow area is not necessary any more by the times, then that person may lose the skills to do the job and may not be able to make a living.

In other words, to deal with these difficult times, I believe that the "liberal arts," which is the study of broad and comprehensive knowledge, is necessary.

Now I would like to share my thoughts on this.

Quite frankly, I think Japan today has problems that predate the "liberal arts."

The reason for this goes back to the time of the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece.

That even before the birth of "liberal arts."

There was a philosopher in ancient Greece named Thales who advocated that "Arche (=The source, origin or root of things that exist.) is water."

Thales is the oldest philosopher on record, and he is also called the "Father of Philosophy."

Why is Thales called the "Father of Philosophy"?

Until Thales came on the scene, the answer to the question was the following in all.

"Because God created it."

"Because that's the will of God."

In other words, all the answers people had given before Thales was "God (The cause is God.)" and they were in a state of suspended thinking.

Now, let's replace "God" with "always been that way" and "what everyone says."

"Because it's always been that way."

"Because that's what everyone says."

And as a result, they say, everyone is stuck in a state of suspended thinking.

That is what Japan is all about today?

If we want to avoid this state of thought, what should we do?

First of all, don't use this kind of "always been that way" and "what everyone says" to do, "We blame others' ideas, which are not morally problematic but not common, unnecessarily."

Our time in need of a variety of things, we naturally need to think differently.

To do so, you need to be tolerant of ideas that deviate somewhat from the conventional wisdom (As long as there are no issues of morality, public order, etc.).

Another thing I wanted to write about was how important "liberation from bondage" is.

In Part 1, I wrote the following.

In other words, what's excellent about Chanel's suits is that they incorporate the concept of "liberate women from the compulsion of beauty as seen by men."

Again, In other words, "liberating women from the compulsion of beauty as seen by men" becomes "liberating women from the bondage of men's image of a beautiful woman."

To sell high-end goods to the educated and wealthy, this "liberation from bondage" and the study of the "liberal arts," which intended to for this purpose, is essential, I would say.

So what is essential for free people to become freer is the abstraction of concepts and ideas for further "liberation from bondage."

Furthermore, the concrete form of this is things.

(It is right for the Japanese to take care of things, but they make too little of people.

But in the West, there is also the problem of "being limited to some people.")

And one last thing, this method can apply to live as well.

In this e-book, I quote a lot from my e-book, that is an example of how to "take an abstract idea, once established, and apply it concretely and think further."

That is also a specific example of the "And, once the abstract thing is well-established, it becomes very comfortable afterward." in "Preface of the original Japanese version."

With this kind of "take an abstract idea, once established, and apply it concretely and think further" and then "dealing with various issues" in life.

Isn't this similar to the way we try to deal with the difficult times by studying the broad and comprehensive academic discipline of "liberal arts"?