Most of us know the word ‘trivia’ and its related words from our love of games like Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy or Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, which are based on the knowledge of largely unconnected facts and information that may have a thematic connection but that lack any sort of analysis or large context, and which are answered in a very short fashion. We therefore might be led to believe that ‘trivia’ is something that is so basic as to be obvious and easy to understand. As is often the case in life, though, that which is considered to be trivial matters a great deal on our own education, and that which we might think to be trivial is not often very trivial at all upon deeper reflection.

Throughout most of history in the West, basic education was based, whether openly acknowledged or not, on a three-stage series of education known as the trivium. In stark contrast to the curriculum of modern education, which is largely based on the acquisition of often unconnected knowledge in various fields, this sort of knowledge was designed to be foundational in nature, allowing someone who possessed it to apply the same sorts of approaches to any field of knowledge. The concern of education was not content so much as it was approach, a sort of education that allowed someone who was so disciplined in mind to become well-educated about any sort of field that the set their attention to, provided it was interesting enough and that they had the resources in time and material to become familiar with it.

The three stages of education din the trivium are grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and each of them is based on basic mental inclinations and capacities for people of a certain age. To put it extremely basically, grammar was the acquisition of endless facts about different subjects, at the stage of life where the acquisition of facts about the three parts of Gaul, the mating habits of penguins, and other facts is enjoyable for its own sake, apart from any sort of larger plan and goal. At a certain stage of mental development, one moves to the next stage, where the connections between knowledge becomes the subject of study. Logic is about implications, causes and effects, and it is necessary to have an understanding of logic in order to make sense of the nature of knowledge, whatever the field. Finally, around the beginning of adolescence one enters the stage of rhetoric, where the concern is being able to frame one’s knowledge in such a way that one seeks to appeal to others. Although rhetoric is certainly a skill that can be abused, it is also necessary in many aspects of life to be able to negotiate with others and to come to terms with others of very different perspectives for one’s own well-being and success as well as the larger well-being of others.

It ought to be clear from even a superficial understanding of these matters that they are not trivial or not able to be taken for granted. Indeed, it is very easy to see that many of our problems in life from an intellectual perspective often revolve around failures to acquire a necessary and accurate factual foundation, a failure to understand implications and causality, and a further failure to successfully persuade others to act in ways (or to retrain from acting in ways) that benefit us and society as a whole. Far from being a superficial sort of education, this is education of the deepest order, providing an approach to life that can be replicated over and over again in many areas of study, where it is necessary to acquire the foundational knowledge of terms and concepts and theories, then to understand their implications and connections, and finally to critique and analyze and to engage in serious discussion about the field. This is true whatever field is dealing with, for even if the specific content is different between fields, the way we go about dealing with fields is the same, even if the specific amount of dues that we must pay, and for how long, and to what extent, is different.

Why do we think that such studies are trivial when they are beyond the capabilities of most aspects of our education system? For one, this particular type of education has not been en vogue in the United States for about a century or so, and when one does not know a lot about the high level of education from past times, it is easy to make fun of the past and assume that others were less intellectually sophisticated than we are when that was not the case. For those of us who are aware of the historical record, we are not so dismissive of the capacity of the people of the past. A few examples should suffice. The wit and wordplay of a popular radio show like Fibber McGee and Molly is far beyond most popularly accessible entertainment in the present time, which ought to indicate that we have regressed rather than advanced in terms of the intellectual capabilities of the ordinary person. Likewise, in the late 1850’s ordinary people from humble backgrounds were willing to and able to listen to debates lasting several hours involving complicated political and historical arguments (like the justly famous Lincoln-Douglas debates), a task that is beyond all but the most serious-minded of our own contemporaries. Even further back, the articles of the Federalist papers were written in the equivalent of our editorials, although of a vastly more high-toned and intellectual fashion than that which we can find today in our contemporary newspapers. All of these cases demonstrate that even in popular culture, we have noticed a great decline in the ability of people to understand and make sophisticated arguments in our political and intellectual discourse over the past couple of centuries. Far from being wiser than our forefathers, we are immensely less so.

For those of us who are concerned about such matters, and who have sought to educate ourselves in such a fashion as to overcome any miseducation in our formal education [1], such matters are matters of deep reflection. While I am certainly appreciative of the gains that have been made in recent decades in matters such as standard of living and the length and comfort of life, something has been lost as well as gained in our devotion to trivial concerns as opposed to a disciplined mind that is able to tackle a variety of fields with success because we have the right approach to knowledge and the ability to combine insights from a variety of fields to make life more comprehensible and coherent. There is a sense of accomplishment in being able to enjoy the best of our present world without losing the best part of the education of the past, a sense of the wholeness and interconnectedness of the world and our knowledge of it, which is far from a trivial matter.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/the-miseducation-of-elizabeth-bennet/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/the-miseducation-of-nathan-albright/