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The Spiked Guns of Scholars Militant
Ah, the liberal arts. The artes liberales. The trivium and quadrivium. The education of free citizens; the accumulated learning of antiquity preserved in the medieval university and passed on to the modern age. Grammar, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry and music: the disciplines that turn a man into a gentleman. The liberal arts, the very foundation of our shared humanity, the eternal truths that unite us all regardless of culture or creed. With them, life itself is sweetness and light; without them, hopelessly philistine.
Well, that’s the theory at any rate. In reality, the liberal arts date from a time when “free citizen” meant “heavy infantry”. Back in ancient Athens, Socrates served with distinction as a hoplite in battles at Delium, Potidaea and Amphipolis. His student Xenophon was the cavalryman who led the “ten thousand” home from Persia. An even more accomplished student of the liberal arts was Alexander of Macedon, who conquered the world…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins