Self-Reliance & the Trivium

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One of the first ways that we can become more self-reliant is honing our critical thinking skills & ability to decipher others ideas while communicating our own clearly. Self-reliant individuals are autodidacts who never give up the love of learning. Learning remains our best skill, and we must constantly strive to learn better & faster. The Internet provides so many paths to learning. I’ve used YouTube.com to learn how to do many of the repairs that I’ve done myself on my home. It’s amazing, & I’ve been able to save money by doing it myself, besides the sense of confidence that I’ve gained once I know how to make repairs that would cost a fortune if I hired a contractor to complete them. As an educator, I’ve spent my career trying to teach students to develop the skills necessary to be life-time learners with varying degrees of success. I’ve developed several skill sets that they need to learn & apply in order to become autodidactic. Self-reliance demands that we practice learning throughout our lives, & I want to share some of the skills & methods that I’ve assembled from a variety of sources to help people learn adeptly. 

  

"Blooms rose" by K. Aainsqatsi - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

First, let’s understand the path of learning through what’s known in education as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning. This taxonomy portrays a hierarchy of learning from the most basic to the most complex. The path begins with basic ‘knowledge’ followed by ‘comprehension’, ‘application’, ‘analysis’, ‘synthesis’, & ‘evaluation’. This stair-step progression helps to develop a process of learning that should be applied to any learning endeavor. Going from terminology & information to utilizing the information, analyzing the information then creating an interpretation of that information & finally evaluating the information & your interpretation. Educators strive to apply each of these levels of cognition to their lessons & longer plans. It is a process that self-reliant individuals should constantly apply to their learning. If we aren’t learning & evaluating our learning, we aren’t progressing. Self-reliant individuals don’t become complacent with their position, they constantly seek progress (Does that make us progressives?). This is how I interpret Nietzsche’s call for overcoming. We must overcome what we are in order to become what we can be. Humanity must overcome its limitations by a constant effort to progress & not retard that progress. I digress.

While Bloom’s taxonomy has a Wikipedia page that explains it more fully, I want to direct your attention to another method of learning that has been developed quite fully by Gene Odening & Jan Irvin on a website called gnosticmedia. This method is called the Trivium, & it places Bloom’s taxonomy into three categories that autodidacts can use to hone & apply their learning skills. The Trivium applies three levels of thinking: Grammar, Logic, & Rhetoric. Tying these levels to Bloom’s taxonomy means that Grammar represents the knowledge & comprehension levels, Logic is the application & analysis levels, & rhetoric is the synthesis & evaluation levels.
 

Grammar isn’t your English teacher correcting your syntax & usage. Grammar in the concept of the Trivium refers to the first four words of the age-old comprehension questions that teachers use: the "5w’s & h". Grammar focuses on the who, the what, the when, & the where. In the Trivium, we cannot progress until we know & comprehend these. Grammar is the terminology, the facts, the details & the quotes that we are studying. This is the first two levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.

 Logic refers to the next two levels of the taxonomy: application & analysis. Here the learner takes the Grammar & applies that next "w" question, Why? by applying the knowledge to experience & analyzing its value. Why do we need this knowledge? Why does the source put this knowledge out there? 

Rhetoric applies the next two levels through the how question. How doe this compare to my experience? How can I use this knowledge? How does the source use this knowledge? How well or accurately am I portraying the knowledge? How accurately does the source apply this knowledge? This is the highest levels of learning, & where we actually build our learning into wisdom. I created a chart for my students to help them analyze literature, although I use different terms for Grammar, Logic & Rhetoric:

Proficiency Chart by J K Van Nort is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Another way of seeing the Trivium is to think of the Grammar as absorbing information verbatim, then Logic as analyzing that information for accuracy, fallacious thoughts, & utility, then Rhetoric as evaluating & communicating that information to others. As we say in the education profession: the best way to learn something is to have to teach it to others. A self-reliant individual isn’t afraid to communicate their learning to others. This is why ultimately self-reliant individuals cooperate readily & successfully. How can I make such a bold assumption. Well let’s put the Trivium to work on this rhetoric:

A self-reliant individual isn’t afraid to communicate their learning to others. This is why ultimately self-reliant individuals cooperate readily & successfully. 

I’d begin by ensuring that I understand completely all the terms in the statement. Words that need agreement on the definition should be comprehended first. The autodidact would probably identify ‘self-reliant’, ‘individual’, & ‘cooperate’ as words that might be defined differently by different people. So self-reliance - The capacity to rely on one's own capabilities, and to manage one's own affairs; independence not to be dependent; cooperate - Association for mutual benefit, such as for purposes of production or purchase; & individual - A person considered alone, rather than as belonging to a group of people

The basic argument that I comprehend is that independent people (who?) don’t fear sharing their learning (what?) with others which implies that independent people associate for mutual benefit better (when? & where?). So I’ve done my Grammar, I’ve ensured that I have completely comprehended the ‘knowledge’ & ‘information’ in the statement.

Next I’m going to apply logic to the argument. Why does the statement make the claim that self-reliant individuals cooperate better? The author attempts to demonstrate that independence & autonomy lead to cooperation. His agenda is to convince others that self-reliance produces opportunities for cooperation. Why does he think this? First he sees someone with self-reliance as independent & capable, who won’t be harmed by cooperation significantly. Why is he making this argument? He’s making the argument to convince others that cooperation is possible between independent people, & in fact he’s arguing that self-reliant individuals make the best individuals in associations for mutual benefit. Why can he make that claim? He claims that self-reliance makes one less susceptible to being violated, & he also claims that independent people tend to cooperate more frequently & successfully. Why would I disagree with this statement? Well, I know that independent people can still be fooled or harmed by others. I also know that just because one is independent, it doesn’t mean that they will be willing to cooperate. They may very well seek to remain alone & without involving themselves in any associations with others. This doesn’t negate the statement; the statement remains possible & even probable when we consider that self-reliant individuals would likely have the confidence to associate with other self-reliant individuals to accomplish what they cannot accomplish alone.

The third step of the Trivium is rhetoric, where we ask the question how? How does this relate to the world around me? I know that cooperation is not an easy process, & that if I were personally going to create associations for mutual benefit, I would want to pick the people with whom I associated rather than just associate with anyone. How would this work? Well, let’s say that I wanted to develop a business to repair & re-purpose items that I’ve found. I might start the business by myself, then slowly adding individuals who want to do the same thing, build a cooperative that works together for mutual benefit. The association could determine how one becomes a member of the cooperative, & how the mutually shared tools & supplies are maintained & replaced or expanded. How would the cooperative remove members who didn’t fulfill or didn’t participate according to cooperative guidelines? The cooperative would have to establish rules for membership that must be fulfilled or the membership could be revoked. If a member didn’t participate according to the rules but made it difficult to remove him, then the whole association could be disbanded & the shared items distributed according to who provided them or in an equitable manner. Then a new cooperative could be established that didn’t include the non-cooperative member. How valuable is associating with other self-reliant individuals for mutual benefit? I’d value it highly because it offers ways to accomplish more than I could by myself. How should I go about engaging in cooperative associations? Carefully & with the full knowledge that I have to be actively engaged in the process at all levels to ensure that my concerns & interests are protected. That active engagement is what makes me a self-reliant individual, & if I associate with other self-reliant individuals, I am less likely to be abused by cooperating.

As you can see, this process is simply to gain mastery of the information that has been studied. The purpose of the Trivium isn’t to provide a fool-proof method for learning as much as a process for learning that increases the ability of the individual to determine the value & utility of information. The Trivium method can be applied to any learning effort. If I want to learn how to program computers, I’d follow the same procedure. This means that when I’m learning something new, I need to always follow the same procedure. The consistency of applying the Trivium process will make the process more natural for the individual & increase the ability of the individual to learn assuredly & efficiently. The Trivium should be applied to anything we decide to add to our understanding of the world. If we are shopping for siding for our house, we should apply the Trivium process to establish the best siding, the best contractor to install the siding, whether siding is our best option, whether we could install the siding ourselves, how much value would siding provide to our house, how much will it insulate our home? If we are going to answer these questions, we must use every level of the Trivium to learn about siding & make an informed & educated decision. This is the value & utility of the Trivium: to provide the self-reliant individual with the means to educate themselves on whatever area they deem necessary to function as a self-reliant individual. Self-reliance demands that we continuously educate ourselves on the world around us, & the Trivium is an excellent tool to accomplish that demand.

Non-aggression & Cooperation (Anethema to the Collectivist)

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A system of cooperation needs to follow the ways that people already cooperate, Saul Alinsky’s meeting people where they are. Any system of cooperation must find ways to incorporate cooperation into everyday life without making it into a doctrine. There is no doctrine in cooperation, there is only process. The process is not fixed as doctrine is fixed. Process is organic & malleable. 

When I study systems by their organization, I find that organic systems come closest to portraying human cooperation. Bear with my analogy here: A plant sends out feelers & branches in multiple directions. When those feelers find sunlight or space or whatever the plant seeks, the feeler prospers & grows. When it finds an impediment or an obstacle, it either stops movement or changes direction. Either result is based on the needs of the plant. Now before this starts to look like collectivism, the organic structure is a model of cooperation based on a consensus, so the root & main trunk of the plant in the organic structure represent the consensus. The feelers are individuals or small groups who push the consensus to where it needs to go. If the consensus is that we need to have better security, then each feeler is seeking the places that need to be protected. If the consensus is to build a barter system that provides needs to individuals, then the feelers are attempts to create needed commodities for the consensus to barter & exchange. The idea or the consensus must be continuously part of all the members of the organic cooperative, their actions are determined by the consensus. Anything they do outside the consensus is based on the self-reliant individual’s volition. It doesn’t reflect on the consensus unless it violates or goes against the consensus. 

So for instance in the case of the bartering cooperative, individual volunteers can barter within the cooperative but also sell or trade outside the cooperative as well. They cannot be coerced into bartering only with the cooperative. They can volunteer to do so, but they can not be compelled. If coercion is used, cooperation has vanished. 

This is the gist: cooperation only exists voluntarily between self-reliant individuals. Cooperation cannot be coerced. That would be turning cooperation into collectivism. That is not the nature of cooperation. Cooperation is a natural human function that negates the need for coercion & force. When people speak of eliminating the state, they shouldn’t envision a new hierarchy. Instead, anarchists envision cooperation. The building of cooperation comes through consensus. A consensus is only as large as its constituency. If consensus is only between two people, that is the extent of its constituency. No coercion can force another person to join the consensus in good faith. Anytime someone attempts to claim the authority to coerce another, they have committed a crime against humanity (I don't use that term lightly. The claim of authority has always been at the center of the worst crimes against humanity, & those crimes would not have been committed without the claim to authority). As equals, we cannot claim authority over another. Because the moment that we claim that authority, we have to use coercion & force to hold that authority. This violates the basic premise that we all have equal rights to life & liberty. 

What seems like a given - this basic premise of equal right to life & liberty - is not a consensus. Those who promote collectivism do not concede this basic premise. They are always willing to use force to compel others to their beliefs. This isn’t cooperation. Cooperation isn’t an ideology, it is a process. Cooperation is a human action that requires empathy, imagination, communication & shared values. Consensus develops the shared values. Only the values that have consensus can be part of any cooperative effort. The empathy required for cooperation is the ability to see one’s self in others. By doing so, an individual can imagine opportunities to share work, play, creation, anything, once they can empathize with another individual. Without empathy, cooperation is a non-starter & collectivism finds the ground to purchase. Let me phrase that another way: without empathy, it is easy to seek collectivist means to achieve one’s ends. When we don’t feel empathy for others, we can do some really horrendous acts in the name of doing good. This is why Jesus’ command to love your enemy as yourself is a cooperative statement & not a collectivist statement. With empathy, we can find ways to work together in cooperation rather than coercion.

We need imagination in cooperation because imagination leads to the new ideas that can become the advances that benefit all. Imagination comes in many guises & generally creates both innovative & mundane ideas. Some make life better, some simply provide entertainment. Some imagination leads to collectivism, which inherently leads to violence, once the individual has determined that their imagined idea should be put into place by force.

Individuals have violent imaginations. What needs to occur for those within proximity of that individual is to not build consensus with this violence except the consensus that violent imagination must remain in the abstract & never become actionable. With empathy & imagination, cooperative individuals may find ways to build consensus with even someone who has violent tendencies & channel those tendencies into other arenas. Violence has a source. At the heart of violence is the nature of the world we inhabit. Violence is perpetrated by larger creatures onto smaller creatures to fulfill dietary needs. There is no end to violence. There is only purposing of violence. How do we purpose violence into positive needs? Hunting for food is one. Sports is another. Video games could be an outlet for violence, but an outlet isn’t necessarily a positive outcome. Violence is not self-defense, but violence can be channeled toward self-defense through martial arts that practice the martial art in non-aggressive methods. So there are ways to channel violence into self-defense & non-aggression. Do I need to explain here that non-aggression is not pacifism. Non-aggression incorporates self-defense. Self-defense is not violence. Collectivists always blur the lines between violence & self-defense to perpetrate war. The real issue is preventing violence from being a means to accomplish agendas that demand coercion & compulsory acceptance. Cooperatives have agendas (by consensus only), but these agendas focus on the needs of the volunteers of the cooperative & never seek to force these agendas on anyone, especially people who don’t share the consensus of the cooperative volunteers. In the collective mentality, the agenda is always to promote those at the top & enforce their ideas on the rest. In opposition to the collectivist, cooperation requires a non-aggression stance.

The United States has fought multiple wars claiming to fight for democracy & freedom. As these wars clearly demonstrate, violence & force will never bring democracy or freedom to others. War will continue to provide the excuses for limiting our freedoms. War will continue to degrade the limited democracy we now have. Aggression will never lead to democratic societies & will never extend freedom. Only through non-aggression can society become democratic & free.

The War on Imagination

This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

“The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. All other wars are subsumed in it” Diane di Prima.

The relationship between cooperation & imagination runs deep. Imagination creates possibility allowing humans to hope & dream. Imagination introduces empathy, allowing humans to recognize themselves in others. Imagination produces innovation which gives humans the ability to work their way out of their problems. Imagination enlivens communication that builds connections between individual dreams & hopes. Imagination visualizes communities in positive, productive networks that share responsibilities & cooperative actions. Imagination allows self-reliance in the individual without compromising their membership in the family of man. Without imagination, man is an island, alone in a sea of indifference.

So when Ms. di Prima says that the war on imagination is the most important war, I have to agree. I have this quote posted front & center of my classroom because I fight this war daily. The imagination is under attack by the system-in-place that controls the majority. The system-in-place sees imagination as uniquely under its control & doesn’t want imagination cropping up in places that where it might question or deny the systems authority to control. This system must weed out the imagination where it sprouts in the orderly garden. If the system can’t eliminate alternative imagination, the system must co-opt it, corrupting it before it can flower into revolution.

Who comprises this system-in-place? Everyone & no one. This system continues because the imagination to see an alternative system or process being possible doesn't have mass exposure. When imagination envisions alternate ways of interacting as humans, the herd criminalizes those ideas. Nietzsche says in Thus Spake Zarathustra, that “He who seeks may easily become lost himself. It is a crime to go apart & be alone. Thus speaks the herd.” That quote has always meant for me that the herd denounces anything that doesn’t compute in the herd mind. The herd will always seek to denounce those who find ways to travel outside the herd. Fear & complacency, two potent weapons against the imagination, reign in the herd, acting as sheep dogs to keep the flock together. Yet, even for those who do attempt to think outside the box, Nietzsche also points out that the herd’s voice still rings in their ears, & they must be constantly on guard themselves of these weapons in the war on imagination: what if I’m not accepted? what if people denounce me? what if I’m wrong? what if I’m exiled from humanity by my thoughts?

Plato’s analogy of the cave offers an image of that individual who ‘seeks to go apart’ when the individual who has been in the cave watching the images on the wall finds his way out of the cave & into the sunlight. In the sunlight, he finds a whole new world, one which isn’t simply flickering shadows across a darkened wall. He must ask himself: do I stay here & enjoy this new found place? or do I go back & bring others with me? Plato’s character returns & like the herd, those whom he seeks to enlighten, rebuke & eventually kill him. This is not a positive way to think about imagination being shared with others.

However, Socrates, who is often equated as the lonely seeker of the sunlight & was executed by the Athenians for misguiding the youth, created beyond himself & inseminated the Greek philosophy that is a benchmark of western civilization. We are all part of the herd, living in the world of humanity. We must be willing to risk imagining alternative ways of living together in peace & cooperation. We must accept the “slings & arrows of outrageous fortune” by empathizing with our fellow humans & seeking to communicate alternatives that don’t attempt to coerce others to accept. We must strive to be self-reliant without being misanthropes. We must imagine that others seek this self-reliance & peaceful cooperation as much as we do. We need to nurture collaboration between other self-reliant individuals. We need to recognize failure to communicate as merely a lesson in how to improve that communication so that we can build an alternative to the competitive, materialistic & nihilistic system that currently controls the way humans interact. Instead of pointing fingers at those whom we believe control the system, we need to point to those who find alternative ways to be productive & self-reliant without harming those around them. We need to model self-reliance by constantly seeking to be more self-reliant, & we need to model cooperation by not being afraid to cooperate with others to produce what we cannot produce alone. The fear of being cheated or disadvantaged by our cooperation must be overcome by attempts to develop ways to minimize those risks rather than denying that self-reliant voluntary cooperation can be benevolent & equitable. Possibly devolving into sloganeering, I reference the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine” where he simply asks people to imagine something other than what is. If enough imagine a better way to live together in peace, we stand a chance of getting out from under the system-in-place.

The war on imagination seeks to maintain the status quo. We must be the forces of change that imagine the possible & work to make it the probable until it can be the reality.