May we (try to) create a global canon, more complete than ‘western’?

Given the interesting post by u/Molly-Dolly that sparked discussion on the latent racism in euro-centric classical liberal arts education, could we, as a very large/global community vested in education, try to compile/curate a reading list that honors all contributions? A truer representation of the body of human knowledge?

Skippable context :

I’m posting this before googling, so if I miss any obvious existing attempts at this, please chastise my ignorance, but reading the comments, I screenshot (screenshotted? screenshote? screenshat?) examples of works I’d never heard of.

I went to st. Johns, and briefly taught math at a charter school with a similar model. While the school staff was devoted, respectful (not (explicitly) imposing religious views), and skilled, the higher administration was explicitly/intentionally oblivious to the notion that what we choose to teach is a statement of values, and that leaving something out states that is less valuable. I tried very hard to address non-greek mathematicians, eg list recorded knowledge of “pythagorean” theorem pre-pythagoras, but all that knowledge came from independent studies, which is a damn shame; my education in the history of math/science is severely lacking, and yet it’s my major.

I’m not really interested in discussing Project 2025, we all know it’s bad, I’m not here to fight trolls about whether racism exists; I want to compile a great books list that honors all contributions. This wouldnt be oriented towards a 4 year college, because there is just too much. This is just to have the list.

Logistics :

If you know of existing lists, post them with the heading List:, please and thank you.

If you got recommendations for the list post em here (until we get a secure forum for it) with the heading Books [subject]:

If you know of good textbooks facilitating language studies, please post. Maybe w the heading Textbook [subject]: but idk, cuz euclid is a textbook… more specifically language textbooks, I guess. Not so sure about this one. Maybe just fold it into Books.

This list is for examining human knowledge/emotion/whatever else falls into ‘humanity.’ Astronomy, agriculture, literally anything.

Religion and fiction? Bring it tf on.

If you are tech savvy and know a good way to compile this information (that is troll resistant), please speak up. Heading Tech: My first thought was google docs …. soooo …… maybe a reddit community?

For organization/curation advice, heading Logistics:

Curation is going to be difficult, maybe the notion of curating this list is stupid/impractical/wrong-headed, but I’d rather have a list that’s too long with some inane books rather than a violently discriminatory list. An oligarchy of curators has obvious pitfalls, so I’m pro open source.

Idk, who’s in? (Cue fat list of lists that already exist that im just completely oblivious to)

Submitted July 04, 2024 at 11:00AM by 9thdoctor https://ift.tt/xur98Jj