Otium

[barca]

Otium, or leisured scholarship was one of the things that distinguished roman aristocrats from barbarians and the lower classes. Such scholarship included literature, philosophy, history, and to a limited extent science. conservatives held on to this notion in the late empire, but it was eventually replaced by religious studies of Christianity. The early Christians did borrow a lot of ideas from Greco-Roman philosophy, but eventually Christians tended to move away from traditional Classical scholarship. There was the dream where Jerome was admonished for studying too much Cicero.

 

So where are we now. In the western world modern conservatives tend to be Christian. To many of them studying the classics would seem like a waste of time. They tend to study busyness, marketing, or other disciplines that are more work-related. On the other hand individuals who study the Classics tend to be more liberal in their inclination. Studying Ovid for example would seem liberating for someone brought up in a repressed environment.

 

So here is my question. what is the modern day equivalent of otium? What sort of learning identifies contemporary individuals as part of the established higher order in modern western society?

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

I would say that no such learning exist anymore, in the sense that you don't have one elite anymore. Sure, things like Opera still ring as cultivated and places to be seen enjoying a certain type of music, but that would be it. In all other things there are so many possibilities (contemporary art or old masters ? what kind of litterature, ancient or one of the modern genre ?, ...) that no single element seems to be able to encompass what being part of the establishment means.

[GhostOfClayton]

It's a massive sweeping generalisation, but I can broadly split my clients into 2 camps . . . and this is where language fails me a little, so bear with me at this point . . . there are those who are 'Interested' and those who are 'Intellectually Curious'. The Interesteds listen to what you tell them, and are happy to know it, but there it ends. No obvious desire to know more and few clarification questions. If I take them to a museum, they look round the place, report back that they enjoyed it, but never report that there wasn't enough time, or they plan to go back another day.

 

The Intellectually Curiouses, show that extra interest, ask questions, chat to the Guide about the subject of the tour, rather than general conversation, that kind of thing. The more of them I see, the more I seem to be able to pigeonhole them into one camp or the other. As an experiment, have a think about the people you interact with, can they be similarly pigeonholed?

 

Now here