CHAPTER EIGHT
Waypoints encourages careful study and learning that “sticks” by focusing on primary source materials, which includes the writings and speeches of original thinkers, insightful philosophers, and history-changing statesmen.
When students engage primary sources, they are thinking with—and sometimes questioning, or challenging—the individuals who have to a large extent shaped the world in which we live today.
There is a genuine thrill when a student begins to glean from great books and history-altering essays that not only are there grand philosophic conversations regarding the highest human questions spanning hundreds and even thousands of years, but more: A student, today, can participate in those conversations.
When a student confronts the ideas and arguments of, say, Plato, Machiavelli, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, or Winston Churchill, it inspires confidence in the student. The student, after all, is understanding at least part of what some of the greatest minds in history have understood. This kind of learning experience elevates and enlarges a student’s perspective.
Preparing to Study and Teach Primary Source Materials
Many of those thinkers, philosophers, and statesmen employed esoteric writing; they practiced the arts of esotericism.
They communicated esoterically because they understood that persuading doesn’t always require others to abandon deeply-held beliefs or prejudices. There are limits to what can be accomplished through persuasion. Often, it isn’t necessary for others to renounce bad ideas or erroneous opinions; it’s only necessary for them to consider a good idea, or agree with something true.
When there is a conflict between popular beliefs and truth, one way to approach that problem is to challenge people directly, to point out that their opinions are mistaken and what they believe is untrue, maybe even to denounce them for being ignorant or stupid. Many people actually do that, and then quickly learn that it is not a very effective way to be persuasive.
The great minds who author great books, however, are more subtle. They will often write (or say) something that vaguely aligns with the untrue beliefs and harmful prejudices that are widespread, and then gently or indirectly suggest an unpopular but important truth. This method of communicating subtly or indirectly is called esotericism and it is important to understand when approaching primary source materials written by authors who actively engaged in esoteric writing (or speaking).
Understanding the etymology of “esoteric” and “exoteric”, as well as the distinction between the prefixes “eso-” and “exo-“, provides deeper insight into their meanings and usages. Below is a comprehensive explanation:
Etymology
The Greek prefix “eso” means “within” or “inner.” The word “esoteric” originates from the Greek term esōterikos, which means “belonging to an inner circle” or “intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with specialized knowledge or interest.”
Esoteric is the opposite of “exoteric.” The Greek prefix “exo” means “outside” or “external.” The word “exoteric” comes from the Greek term exōterikos meaning “that which is suitable for outside, open, public discussions,” that which is “external.”
The terms “esoteric” and “exoteric” are distinguished primarily by their intended audience, level of complexity, and degree of openness. Esoteric content is tailored for a select, knowledgeable group, often requiring specialized understanding or initiation, while exoteric content is designed for general accessibility, aiming to communicate ideas clearly and widely.
Throughout history, when important thinkers want to communicate truths that are both important and controversial among a popular, public audience, they often write or speak esoterically—subtly pointing to those truths while leaving popular prejudices undisturbed—or sometimes even supporting popular prejudices, and thus appearing to contradict themselves.
Understanding the nuances of esoteric writing enhances the comprehension for both teacher and student of how knowledge has been communicated within some of the most famous primary source materials in history.
Here, we offer two brief examples of esotericism, one from a famous book of classical philosophy, the other from a famous speech in American history.
Aristotle
The classical work to which we refer is the The Politics, written by the Greek philosopher Aristotle around 350 BC. In that book, Aristotle is explaining the different kinds of ruling that one finds within political communities, including kingly or political rule over citizens, and the rule of parents over their children.
It is in the context of this discussion that Aristotle approaches the controversial subject of various equalities and inequalities between men and women. Aristotle wants to argue that certain intellectual and moral virtues (or excellences), such as practical wisdom (prudence) and courage, can be demonstrated by both men and women.
And, Aristotle is right about that. Prudence, for example, is not a virtue reserved only for men. Anyone—man or woman—who thinks well, who is patient, who applies timeless wisdom to a timely, changing situation, can be prudent.
Keep in mind that Aristotle lived most of his live in ancient Athens. He was born 384 BC and he died in 322 BC. If Aristotle stated the truth bluntly, openly, that both men and women are equally capable of being wise, and courageous, he would have been directly rejecting the rigid social and political norms of his day—that women were inferior to men in these capacities.
Certainly few or no fellow Athenians would have read his books had he been so openly hostile to Athenian customs and cultural norms. The results might have been worse: Like they did to Socrates, the Athenian Assembly might have charged Aristotle with crimes against the city of Athens, the laws of Athens, and the gods that (allegedly) authorized fundamental Athenian law.
Aristotle, therefore, presents the idea of women equality esoterically. In Book I, Chapter 13 of The Politics, Aristotle quotes approvingly from Ajax, written by the Greek poet Sophocles. Within the play, the lead character Ajax says to his wife: “To a woman, silence is an ornament!” With that quoted line, Aristotle appeals to the common Athenian prejudice that women are inferior to men and it is best if they keep quiet.
Upon closer investigation, however, the quote from Sophocles that Aristotle presents in Book I, Chapter 13 of The Politics actually demonstrates the opposite: When Ajax tells his wife to be quiet—“To a woman, silence is an ornament!”—Ajax himself is about to act rashly, foolishly, in ways that will ultimately destroy Ajax.
His wife, Tecmessa, is pleading with her husband to set aside his anger and resentment, to think calmly and well, to act in ways that will bring honor and not dishonor to Ajax and his family. That’s when Ajax tells Tecmessa to be silent. Within the context and tragedy of the play, the wife—the woman—Tecmessa—is the one who is wise, careful, thoughtful, and prudent, not her husband. Ajax ends up being a rash fool who acts out in fits of rage and insult. After bringing shame upon himself and his family, Ajax commits suicide.
On the surface, therefore—the exoteric teaching of Aristotle—it appears that Aristotle agrees with the cultural prejudices of his day that women are inferior to men in terms of intellectual and moral virtue. The subtle, esoteric teaching offered by Aristotle seems to be strikingly different: The one quoted example he offers is an example in which a wife demonstrates superior prudence over her husband.
The esoteric teaching is that the virtue of wisdom is both important and good; that both men and women can be wise; that either a man or a woman can be foolish; that wisdom is a quality of the soul and the mind, and therefore wisdom does not belong to one sex or the other.
Only a careful reader, however, who looked up the full context of the line attributed to Ajax by Sophocles that Aristotle quotes, would know what Aristotle is meaning to communicate esoterically.
Lincoln
In 1854, anti-slavery activists in the United States formed a new political party—the Republican Party—which had one primary purpose: To stop slavery from spreading into the Western territories.
In 1858, the Republican Party of Illinois chose Abraham Lincoln to be the Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in the November general election, challenging the incumbent and Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas.
During the late Summer and early Fall of 1858, the two candidates met for seven public debates, what have become known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Prior to the debates, Douglas and his fellow Democrats were accusing Republicans of opposing slavery simply because they were infatuated with black women, wanting to sleep with and marry them, and extend all civil liberties and rights to black people, including voting and sitting on juries to judge the rights of white people.
These were the ugly, racially-charged accusations Democrats were making, and Lincoln could not let those charges stick if he wanted to win the election for U.S. Senate or any other election.
At the same time, Lincoln certainly believed that black human beings possess all the same natural rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the free pursuit of happiness—that people of all colors, everywhere, possess. In the context of American politics, Lincoln knew that meant, eventually, not only that slavery had to be abolished, but that the full panoply of civil liberties and civil rights should be offered to black Americans who had been enslaved, and their children.
Lincoln was in a difficult position. Many white people in the free state of Illinois did not like black people. Many assumed that blacks were inferior to whites. Lincoln’s immediate agenda—which was the agenda of the Republican Party—was to prevent slavery from spreading into the Western territories that would later become Kansas, Nebraska, and other states. Yet, Democrats were accusing Lincoln of wanting to sleep with black women.
If Lincoln spoke openly not only about the evils and injustices of slavery, but also about his view of the future—which included full civil rights for former slaves—Lincoln would drive voters away.
At the same time, he could not ignore the Democratic accusations that Republican Lincoln didn’t really care about slavery, that he really only wanted to jump into bed with black women. Lincoln’s solution to this predicament was to speak esoterically.
During the fourth joint debate—held September 18, 1858, in Charleston, Illinois—Lincoln opened with the following statement:
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
When many people in the audience heard these words at first, they assumed Lincoln shared their prejudices against black people. But upon closer investigation, Lincoln was actually disagreeing, subtly.
Lincoln clarified what he had never proposed in the past and what he was not proposing in 1858, namely, “the social and political equality of the white and black races,” which included “making voters or jurors of negroes . . . qualifying them to hold office . . . [and allowing them to] intermarry with white people.”
He opened his statement by reminding the audience, “I am not nor ever have been in favor” of these policies, which was true: he had never in the past endorsed policies to make jurors or voters or officeholders of black people, or to make them eligible for marriage with white people, and he was proposing no such policies right then in 1858.
In the context of his many other statements insisting on the equality of whites and blacks, it seems likely that his refusal to advocate such policies was more a matter of strategy than principle on his part: Lincoln knew that there was no possibility at all of getting such policies enacted into law, so why destroy his political career by proposing those policies to an audience that wanted nothing to do with them?
Nowhere did Lincoln suggest that such policies would be wrong. Nor did he deny that he might support such policies in the future, perhaps when the American mind had cleansed itself of some of its racial prejudice and was better prepared to entertain the full implications of human equality.
Before any of these necessary moral and political implications could be argued publicly, however, a voting majority of Americans first had to recognize the equal basic natural rights of black people, which meant affirming their equal humanity—that a black person owned his person and property. This was no small task, especially when the science of the day proclaimed that black inferiority was a result of biological human evolution.
Immediately after this odd statement of what he was not at the moment proposing and what he had never proposed in the past, here is what Lincoln said in that same speech:
I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes.
On another occasion, Lincoln spoke thus:
Now, I protest against the counterfeit logic which concludes that because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking leave of anyone else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.
Consider the implications of Lincoln’s qualification of his position, that “in some respects” a black woman is certainly not the equal of Abraham Lincoln, implying obvious differences such as sex, skin color, and probably height. But, Lincoln insists, “in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking leave of anyone else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.”
If Lincoln can move public opinion to grant this basic precept of political right—that a black woman has the equal natural right to own and acquire property, to keeo what her earns with her own hands—then the other precepts of civil society and civil liberties can be argued. Here we finally see the purpose of Lincoln’s esotericism: He appeals to the racial prejudices of the audience just enough so that they will listen to him, and then he communicates to them an idea that will bloom sooner or later into full social and political equality under the laws.
Explaining the Subtleties Found In Primary Sources
Waypoints features scholarly explanations of the esoteric, unclear features of many primary sources within our curated collection, which prepares teachers to help students unpack the subtleties within these documents that authors did not intend to make obvious for careless readers.
As students discover the rewards of carefully studying important primary sources, they will be more confident as they expand the scope of their studies and analyze other important documents, thus preparing them to become lifelong learners and to form their own opinions about the great works that shape our world.
Indeed, encouraging teachers and their students to engage in careful, close readings of the great books of the Western philosophic tradition (and some key non-Western books, too) is one of the main goals of Waypoints learning system.
We have prepared these materials for teachers who want to encourage students to question what second- and third- and fourth-rate scholars and textbook writers say about great books and the great minds who wrote them. We want students to approach the great works of philosophy, history, economics, and other key human subjects, as best they can, with fresh eyes and no assumptions.
When a student reads Aristotle, for example, he should not assume that modern scholars had already said all there is to say about Aristotle. When a student reads the Lincoln-Douglas debates, we want to equip that student to be able to judge well whether modern historians understand those debates, or not.
In sum, we want students to read Aristotle as if no one had ever read Aristotle before. We want students to read the Lincoln-Douglas debates as if no one has ever heard of those debates.
Many modern scholars discuss the great books and the people who wrote them with the nihilistic assumption that there is no objective moral or political truth, that there is no meaning or purpose to human life. Yet, that is not how the great minds who produced the great books viewed the world. Modern scholars might be nihilists, but most of the classical and early modern thinkers, philosophers, and statesmen were not.
In this way, often, modern scholarship does not illuminate the great treatises and tomes from the past; modern scholarship often shrouds those books with a dark cloud of nihilism. This does not help us in the modern world understand better; it does the opposite. That is why we want to encourage teachers and their students to confront the great works of great minds directly, work that is greatly assisted by an awareness of what esotericism is and how to analyze it.
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING:
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (University of Chicago Press, 1988).
Arthur M. Melzer, Philosophy Between The Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (University of Chicago Press, 2014).