Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => General Discussion => Topic started by: Matthew on April 12, 2011, 09:06:25 AM
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
I couldn't agree more. Also see ch. 12 - entitled "The Barbarism of Specialization" - of Ortega y Gassett's The Revolt of the Masses.
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
Let's see which ones I have down --
Diaper? Check. Throw in "give baby a bath" for good measure.
Invasion? insufficient data :)
Sonnet? Check.
Balance accounts? Check.
Build a wall? (What kind?) I'll put down "Maybe"
Comfort the dying? I could do that.
Take orders/Give orders: Check
Cooperate/Act alone: Check
Equations? (Again, what kind?) Maybe.
Analyze problem? Check.
Pitch manure? Check.
Write program? Check.
Cook? Check.
Fight efficiently? Don't know about that one...
Die valiantly? Untested/insufficient data.
I like this quote because I like the idea of the "Renaissance Man". I think that, to a certain extent, we SHOULD have a 12-year-old's knowledge of ALL sciences and disciplines. We can't be a PROFESSIONAL or EXPERT at everything -- but we can know the basics.
Mathematicians are experts; but EVERYONE should be able to solve X + 13 = 20.
Botanists are experts, but everyone should know how fruit is formed on a tree/vine (pollination).
Not everyone is a construction worker, but everyone (even women) should know how to use a shovel, in case they ever NEEDED to.
Astronomers are experts; but everyone should know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and that the sun takes a lower arc during the Winter months.
Chefs/Cooks are experts; but everyone should know the basics, like Tomatoes are acidic and so they bring flavor out of herbs, leach iron out of iron pots, and are easier to preserve because they are acidic.
And so on.
If it takes you a few minutes to learn, why not learn it? EVEN IF it is far, far outside your normal profession.
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
Wow....i mean wow, i was looking up specialization and compartmentalization of knowledge in google last night and the next day you post this. Funny how things work.
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I tell you what --
The more specialized you are, the more dependent you are on others.
Obviously we're all dependent on others for many, many things.
But do you want to have ZERO knowledge of health, so that you have to visit the doctor for every ache and pain? That wouldn't be practical. You need to know WHEN stomach pain is serious, and when you just need to chew your food more thoroughly or eat less. You need to know when to visit the proctologist, and when you just need to eat more fiber.
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
I couldn't agree more. Also see ch. 12 - entitled "The Barbarism of Specialization" - of Ortega y Gassett's The Revolt of the Masses.
You couldn't agree more? I bet you could :wink:
You could click the little "Thumbs up" at the top of my post...
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One should be able to also understand and follow the market.
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Yes, I'd love to add to that list. I think I could manage to put lots of good things on it -- things I can do, and things I *can't* do.
I a pretty bad at medical skills, for example.
On the other hand, I am probably better at "investing" than most mainstream professionals.
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I'd say I could do about 3/4 of the stuff on the list.
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And for the single guys --
I also think that any young lady worth marrying would be attracted to a guy who is reasonably capable of doing various things.
Young ladies want to look UP to their man -- the fewer times she has to be ashamed of his incompetence, the better. On a related note, most women will pick a man that is smarter than she is. I don't think I've seen any exceptions to this rule! So the smarter you are (or seem), the smarter the woman you end up with.
What woman wants a guy who plants cold-sensitive plants on the north side of the house, or puts solar screens on the north side of the house first, even though "we can only afford 4 of them this year, honey."
Isn't it pathetic when a guy can't make Hamburger Helper? Come on, guys! It's not going to make your body produce estrogen. If you can dig a ditch, kill a bear with your bear hands, or throw a football 2,000 yards, I think you can prepare a boxed dinner!
:chef:
We should all have "bucket lists" of things we want to learn how to do before we kick the bucket.
I never learned how to drive a manual transmission. However, I have since learned how to drive a diesel tractor, which is manual. (It's still different from a car or truck. I can't cross that one off my list yet)
Besides, it makes you feel better about yourself to know that you removed a large tree, stump and all, with nothing but manual tools. I'd say it's better than being able to say you beat "Halo" (a recent video game, for the older crowd).
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You could click the little "Thumbs up" at the top of my post...
:whistleblower:...shamelessly soliciting thumb action... :whistleblower:
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It's been said that Goethe was the last comprehensive man. I forget who said it. It's also been said that to be a comprehensive man today would require the energies of seven men of old. Something like that. I forget who said that too.
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Things I want to do this summer (and learn):
-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
-Build a trebuchet
-try out an ebay business
-play the stock market via paper money (or real money depending on how well the above goes)
-throw random objects at people with trebuchet :dwarf:
-maybe some other projects if i get bored of trebuchet's :scratchchin:
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Learning elementary building principles, physics, etc. would seem to be quite a useful skill. You never know when those principles/experience would come in handy.
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You could click the little "Thumbs up" at the top of my post...
:whistleblower:...shamelessly soliciting thumb action... :whistleblower:
Hahaha I don't normally do that, but when someone says "I can't agree more" but I have 0 "thumbs-up" I legitimately think the guy hasn't gotten into that new feature at all yet.
Maybe it's permissible, for a few months, to get a few dozen sidelined people habituated to using the feature?
Matthew
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Things I want to do this summer (and learn):
-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
-Build a trebuchet
-try out an ebay business
-play the stock market via paper money (or real money depending on how well the above goes)
-throw random objects at people with trebuchet :dwarf:
-maybe some other projects if i get bored of trebuchet's :scratchchin:
A great way to get started:
From a Monastery Kitchen (http://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Kitchen-Classic-Natural-Cookbook/dp/0764808508/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1302630905&sr=8-2)
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-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
I think Katara could help you with that one.
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One more year and Katara will have to avoid Ohio unless she wants to end up the bride of Telesphorus.
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One more year and Katara will have to avoid Ohio unless she wants to end up the bride of Telesphorus.
:laugh1:
Hey, leave my sweet little vaquera sister out of this, or else... Im calling the Familia out! :cowboy:
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Things I want to do this summer (and learn):
-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
-Build a trebuchet
-try out an ebay business
-play the stock market via paper money (or real money depending on how well the above goes)
-throw random objects at people with trebuchet :dwarf:
-maybe some other projects if i get bored of trebuchet's :scratchchin:
Could you add "brush up on spelling and punctuation" to your list? :wink:
Only teasing!
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One more year and Katara will have to avoid Ohio unless she wants to end up the bride of Telesphorus.
Two ribs at Tele in the same day is just not nice. :stare:
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I'd say I could do about 3/4 of the stuff on the list.
Perhaps we are answering the question, "what is a gentleman"?
He must be a scholar and a budding saint, and know how to treat a lady also.
What the heck is trebuchet? Martial arts?
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What the heck is trebuchet? Martial arts?
It's a large catapult, but better!
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I'd say I could do about 3/4 of the stuff on the list.
What the heck is trebuchet? Martial arts?
Trebuchet launching a lawnmower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kkwfqlDvZ4
I can't make one to that scale, I don't have enough land to launch it on. Still, those things are incredible and it will be an amazing project if I get to do it this summer.
I c4n sp34k5 f1n3 ty v3ry moch3 MatterDominiininici!
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A great way to get started:
From a Monastery Kitchen (http://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Kitchen-Classic-Natural-Cookbook/dp/0764808508/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1302630905&sr=8-2)
I'm hoping to take it one at a time; learn how to make one thing, then move on to another thing. Vegetable variety is something I'm probably most in need of, as my family is a crazy meat eating family (my dad gets up at 4 in the morning to smoke ribs and waits 15 hours for it to cook, for an example). Thanks for the link, I'll look into it.
Yes, from what i hear, your sister is quite a cook, CS. Wouldn't mind learning a few simple recipes for, say, meals with rice and such.
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That's another thing a guy needs to know how to do, use a grill and BBQ. My dad and I are the BBQers, but Katara's more of a kitchen cooker.
I always use wood for my grilling. Keep that propane away from my baby!
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I grew up with a charcoal grill, so that's what I use.
I have hundreds of pounds of mesquite wood, but none of it's split.
It's three massive pieces, one of which I can barely move. I need to have someone pick it up (preferably BUY IT from me...)
I just learned how to cook chicken breasts last Sunday. They turned out great -- smoke flavor, tender, not burnt -- just like a restaurant! I was quite satisfied with my efforts. The kids liked the results too -- they must have been tender.
It's always satisfying to learn something useful.
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we have two smokers, a charcoal grill and a propane grill at home. I know how to use the propane grill, but not the other things.
I should have my dad get me ready for a 15 hour rib smoke....
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Also wonderful:
Twelve Months of Monastery Soups (http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Months-Monastery-Victor-DAvila-Latourrette/dp/0767901800/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302648218&sr=8-1)
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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
That's what I can do so far, the parts in bold. I could probably butcher a hog too but it wouldn't be pretty. I can cook at a very crude level, it's tasty for me but I don't know about anyone else.
I actually think I might have a latent talent for cooking since I used to be a foodie, I have refined taste, but as a Catholic I'm afraid to indulge my epicurean side too much.
Anyway, I think this list is a macho Nietzschean fantasy. Apparently males should be war heroes, chefs, poets, doctors, architects, house-husbands, sea captains, mathematicians and computer programmers all at once... Kinda dumb.
Isn't Robert Heinlein the guy who wrote Starship Troopers, the sort of prophet of neo-con American might? He was probably a nerdlinger who couldn't do anything in that list, ha ha. The guy he's describing doesn't exist except in Ayn Rand's fantasies ( and his as well, probably for different reasons, idealization of a potential mate in her case, idealization of himself in his ).
I want to be able to do what, say, St. Francis could do, develop some basic, handy menial skills, learn a little bit about gardening, about cooking, about building.
This list strikes me as the typical fantasy of the American male to think they're Superman, to start out trying so hard that very soon they give up and plant themselves in front of the TV for the rest of their lives. Slow and steady wins the race.
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Learning elementary building principles, physics, etc. would seem to be quite a useful skill. You never know when those principles/experience would come in handy.
Kingdom of Heaven.. what a good movie. Yes physics is vital!!
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Learning elementary building principles, physics, etc. would seem to be quite a useful skill. You never know when those principles/experience would come in handy.
Kingdom of Heaven.. what a good movie. Yes physics is vital!!
I thought that movie gave a very bad outlook on Christianity? Doesn't it also promote religious freedom? There is one scene where the main character, or lord, gives a speech in Jerusalem about how the Muslims and the Christians each have a claim to the holy land and earlier in the movie, he talks about how the Muslim's prayers aren't much different from ours.
I just remembered another thing I wanted to try this summer: Make my own electricity efficiently for under 20 bucks (this will probably involve a bike and some serious pedaling). Can it be done!?
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I just remembered another thing I wanted to try this summer: Make my own electricity efficiently for under 20 bucks (this will probably involve a bike and some serious pedaling). Can it be done!?
Only one way to find out! :smile:
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Kingdom of Heaven.. what a good movie.
Kingdom of Heaven was $###. Besides a crappy anti-catholic story line it had lousy visual effects in it's battle scenes. I've seen MUCH better.
Even the old movie The Crusades with it's somewhat distorted history and bit of ecuмinical mush at the end and zero-blood fight scenes, was better than Kingdom of Heaven.
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Learning elementary building principles, physics, etc. would seem to be quite a useful skill. You never know when those principles/experience would come in handy.
Kingdom of Heaven.. what a good movie. Yes physics is vital!!
I don't get it -- you act as if I brought up "Kingdom of Heaven" in the post you quoted ... I didn't.
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Are there trebuchet's or catapults in that movie? i don't remember.
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Are there trebuchet's or catapults in that movie? i don't remember.
Yeah there are. That's actually one of the only neat things about that movie.
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My understanding is that Kingdom of Heaven is a rabidly anti-Catholic and hence disgusting movie.
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You may well be right Jitpring!
I mixed up the title of The Keys of the Kingdom with Gregory Peck (1944).
I looked up the other title and have not seen it, but wouldn't be surprised if it is bad.
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See:
http://decentfilms.com/reviews/kingdomofheaven.html
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BAH! Well I just thought about the trebuchet attack in that movie when they KILLED THE MUSLIMS ATTACKING JERUSALEM.
We all understand its not just the Jєωs to watch out for, its Muslims too, right?
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See:
http://decentfilms.com/reviews/kingdomofheaven.html
And good review. I never doubted there was anti-Catholic sentiment in there, just that the trebuchet scene was good. For some people in this world, that may be the only glimpse they have of anything religious. If they even start to look into the Crusades after following that movie, isnt there a possibility of conversion ? Don't want to sound like an ecuмenical modernist, but sometimes I see (very rarely!) that conversion can occur through means (books, movies, etc) that seem uncharitable to the Faith upon deep analysis by those already of the Faith.
For instance, someone sees some exorcist movie, they never knew of the word "exorcism". They look it up, and are just amazed by the Catholic Church and their battle against a supposed invisible army of evil out to get their soul. They pray one day, and convert after seeing the goodness of God and receiving grace to believe... AKA that was my conversion, in one way. :cowboy:
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"I am the conscientious man of the spirit," answered he who was asked, "and in matters of the spirit it is difficult for anyone to take it more sternly, more strictly, and more severely than I, except him from whom I learnt it, Zarathustra himself. Better to know nothing than half-know many things! Better be a fool on your own account, than a wise man on other people's account! I - go to the root of things: - What matter if it be great or small? If it be called swamp or sky? A handbreadth of ground is enough for me, if it be actually ground! - A handbreadth of ground: from it can one stand. In the truly conscientious knowledge there is nothing great and nothing small”. "Then you are perhaps an expert on the leech”? asked Zarathustra; "and you investigate the leech to its ultimate roots, you conscientious one”? "O Zarathustra," answered the trodden man, "that would be something immense; how could I presume to do so! That, however, of which I am master and knower, is the brain of the leech: - that is my world! And that too is also a world! Forgive it, however, that my pride here finds expression, for here I have not my equal. Therefore said I: 'here am I at home. ' How long have I investigated this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that here the slippery truth might no longer slip from me! Here is my domain! - For the sake of this did I cast everything else aside, for the sake of this did everything else become indifferent to me; and close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.
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The only thing Kingdom of Heaven probably did was offend decent Catholics and rouse Neo-Con idiots to call for more war against cavemen in the East. There was absolutely nothing "inspiring" about it.