Someone had to say it. And it was Michael Harriot. In his intellectual Twitter thread, he destroys classical education once and for all, he strikes a definitive blow at the overrated intellectual fathers of Western civilization, and he does it probably sitting on a sofa, eating a huge hamburger, and stroking a cat, or stroking a hamburger and eating a cat, as Alf would do: “All those people are dumb. All those philosophers from Greece and Rome … were wrong. They thought the sun revolved around the earth. They thought the moon was a star. They didn’t know things.” Absolutely right. They were such morons that they didn’t even know how to tweet.
But there’s a bigger reason why Classical Education is a sham:
2. ALL THOSE PEOPLE ARE DUMB.
All those philosophers from Greece and Rome and Cowboyland were wrong. They thought the sun revolved around the earth. They thought the moon was a star. They didn’t know things.
— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) April 18, 2023
It is urgent to stop studying Plato and Aristotle in schools and to start teaching whatever fits into the enlightened thought process of Harriot, whose self-confessed scientific specialty is Wypipology. It is unforgivable that the scientists of classical Greece did not have the knowledge that even an unassuming wypipologist like Harriot has today, and yet we continue to hold them on a pedestal. Where is the merit, what did they do, construct huge buildings? They’ve all gone to hell. Haven’t you noticed that they’re in ruins? Those guys couldn’t even build.
If Harriot had done it, the theater at the Ruins of Delphi would be perfectly functional today, and not a pile of broken stones in which not even heavy metal bands can perform and in which spectators are left to sit flat on their asses.
“If your goal is to ensure that white people are smart, then Classical Education works great,” adds our hero, and perhaps in this he is wrong: our goal is for wypipologists to have enough material to make witty Twitter threads; in that sense, from Heraclitus to Pythagoras, from Cicero to Seneca, they all provide endless stupid musings that any myth-buster can refute without getting up from his couch, with his hamburger and his cat.
Don’t tell me he’s not right! Even Socrates himself agreed with Harriot. I deceive you not, I can prove it to you. Do you remember his most famous quote? Indeed: “I only know that I know nothing.” Do you dare now to contradict the wypipologist tweeter?
But there is more. Ephesus also said something silly: “Who is born mortal, walks towards death.” And it’s a lie: Harriot is being driven in a car. “To suffice oneself is also a form of happiness,” sentenced Aristotle, in an openly fascist proclamation, contrary to any political initiative of the Democratic Party. Democritus, for his part, proclaimed that “There are men who work as if they were going to live forever” and it is impossible that he reached that conclusion, because Joe Biden had not even been born yet. Cicero insisted that “Man has no worse enemy than himself,” and Harriot will consider this a crock, too, because he is his own best friend.
Another immense ignoramus was Euripides, who said, “Man does not live on bread, but on truth”; Harriot will be thinking: who on earth could feed on truth? And how do you cook it, bake it, fry it, and eat it raw? Although for our wypipologist, a single historical quote is enough to prove that the classical authors are ignorant in any scientific aspect. It was Heraclitus of Ephesus who coined it: “The sun is new every day.” And an egg! Really, Heraclitus? Are you serious? That there’s a damned sun factory in the basements of the Milky Way? That’s absurd.
After reading the thread, Mark Hemingway published in the Federalist an article refuting each tweet. Commendable and strenuous effort. I don’t have that much patience. All I think is that Harriot should have read Plato sometime, at least that famous thing he famously said, “Listen, you will be wise. The beginning of wisdom is silence.” Now I’m left wondering if he understood it.
Translated by Joel Dalmau.
