How To Become Cultured (Renaissance Man/Polymath)

[The Mystical Man]

I want to create a thread with resources on how to become more cultured. Please share your ideas, insights, and resources on what it means to be cultured and how to become more cultured.

Here's my attempt (These lists merely serve as a starting point. Many works of art that you love might not show up on any of these lists):

Step One: Consume culture:

Movies/Shows to watch:

• Top 250 Movies - IMDb
• 101 Greatest Screenplays
• 101 Best Written TV Series

Books to read:

• One Million Ratings! Goodreads.

• 100 must-read classics

• The ten best Shakespeare plays of all time

Music to listen to:

• The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
• 100 Greatest Classical Music Works

Games to play:

• Best Video Games of All Time

Paintings you should know:

• Most Famous Paintings in Art History Of All Time Ranked
• Top 101 Greatest Paintings of All Time

Sculptures you should know:

• 26 Top Famous Sculptures of All Time

Buildings you should know:

• 50 Iconic Buildings Around the World You Need to See Before You Die

Step Two: Create your own lists.

What do you like? Refine your taste. 

Step Three: Contribute.

A cultured person isn't just a consumer. He's also a creator.

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The goal is to become a Renaissance man, a polymath:

"Humans are limitless in their capacity for development. This is expressed in the term Renaissance man: people who seek to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, physical, and spiritual."

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A cultured person carries himself well:

• Great at the art of conversation
• Great social skills
• Great communication skills
• High emotional intelligence

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Examples of cultured people: 

• Leonardo da Vinci

• George Lucas

• J.K. Rowling

• Joseph Campbell

• Terence McKenna

• Alan Watts

• Carl Jung

• Adyashanti

When you find a work of art that you love, find out more about how it was created. Study the creator and his body of work.

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Edited August 10, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[Yarco]

Skip Step 1 and 2 entirely and stop consoooming. You'll waste thousands of hours of your life. Being a video game buff or knowing everything about the Marvel movies or having 1,000 Funko Pops or having the music knowledge of Anthony Fantano doesn't make you a renaissance man, it makes you a bugman.

Quote

A consequence of a perilously overpopulated, brutally capitalistic, shamelessly hedonistic, morally decaying society, the humble bugman has come to define an age of technological dystopia in which everyone has everything — their gadgets, their fast foods, their fashion accessories — but somehow everyone also has nothing — no community, no natural spirit, no substance of mind. He is a zombified consumer, an emasculated wage slave, a vessel emptied of meaning and refilled with plastic, pixels and silicone.

He is what a sterile corporate wasteland spews out. Millions of him, almost exact replicas who are relentlessly told they are unique by clever marketers, and who believe it. He is a personality defined by brands, a blue-checkmarked Twitter user. Bugmen are what we get when a culture is infantilized, watered down and stripped of the very intellectual, philosophical and honourable fibre that once made it great. Totally dependent on the compromised support of his nanny state and high-tech devices, the bugman has been reduced to the status of a domestic animal. A 200-pound child.

- From On the Infestation of Small-Souled Bugmen

Instead of being a polymath and accumulating tons of useless knowledge to impress people, I suggest instead jumping straight to becoming a Jack-of-all-trades. Actually do stuff and put knowledge into practice.

Who's the more interesting person to talk to at a party?

• The person who knows the top 500 songs of all time, or the person who makes their own music?
• The person who's played all of the top 100 video games, or the person who makes their own video game?
• The person who's read 1,000 books, or the person who's written one book?

I find the creative process and those who engage in it exponentially more interesting than passive consooomers.

What is a respectable and interesting man? The one who can fix his own car, maintain his own home, iron his own shirts, cook like a chef, grow his own vegetables, build his own furniture, sail a boat, sing and play an instrument, bench press 250 lbs, roast his own coffee, scuba dive, take great photos, fly a plane, speak a foreign language, and fish.

Don't fall into the trap of passively consuming and thinking it will make you interesting. Most people will never make it to Step 3. Go out and actually DO STUFF. Then tell people stories about it. You'll naturally become more knowledgeable and cultured through your adventures.

4 hours ago, The Mystical Man said:

A cultured person carries himself well:

• Great at the art of conversation
• Great social skills
• Great communication skills
• High emotional intelligence

Most people who obsessively consume movies, books, etc have terrible social and communication skills. You can't build up social skills and EQ through media, only by actually being around people.

[The Mystical Man]

6 hours ago, Yarco said:

Don't fall into the trap of passively consuming and thinking it will make you interesting.

I used to think that way. I fell into the trap of thinking that I mustn't waste my time with consuming stuff. I desperately wanted to be a creator, not a consumer. It took me a while until I realized that I can't create anything good if I don't even know what "good" means, if I don't even know what already exists. How do you want to write a great screenplay, if you've never even watched the greatest movies of all time? George Lucas didn't create Star Wars out of thin air. This is from Lucas's biography:

"For nearly three years he would agonize over plots and characters, plumbing science fiction novels, folklore, comic books, and movies for inspiration." 

How did Campbell write a book like The Hero with a Thousand Faces? First, he read a ton of books. Therefore, step one and two cannot be skipped, if the intention is to create something significant. 

This is not about becoming a consumer. It's about refining your taste:

"The more you read superior writers and watch excellent films, screen series, and theatre, the more you widen and deepen your taste." - Robert McKee 

[Nilsi]

7 hours ago, Yarco said:

Instead of being a polymath and accumulating tons of useless knowledge to impress people, I suggest instead jumping straight to becoming a Jack-of-all-trades. Actually do stuff and put knowledge into practice.

So you're saying become a dispassionate pragmatist instead of educating yourself and creating a badass mind? Of course knowing how to do shit and putting your knowledge to use is important, but there is such a thing as curiosity and understanding for its own sake; not to mention, that having a broad and deep education will make you extremely effective at navigating life and making good decisions. You may be more practically inclined, but don't dismiss all theory as "useless knowledge to impress people," that's a rather lazy and myopic take.

[Tyler Robinson]

1 minute ago, Nilsi said:

So you're saying become a dispassionate pragmatist instead of educating yourself and creating a badass mind? Of course knowing how to do shit and putting your knowledge to use is important, but there is such a thing as curiosity and understanding for its own sake; not to mention, that having a broad and deep education will make you extremely effective at navigating life and making good decisions. You may be more practically inclined, but don't dismiss all theory as "useless knowledge to impress people," that's a rather lazy and myopic take.

Very much agree with you. Nothing better than learning more and broadening ones horizon. Never saw that as a waste of time, if anything at all, it was perhaps the most fruitful use of time. 

[The Mystical Man]

Story Education:

• Story by Robert McKee
• The Anatomy of Story by John Truby
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

Music Education:

• Music Composition 1 & 2 by Jonathan Peters

• Music Theory by Jonathan Peters

Art Education:

• Art Fundamentals by 3dtotal Publishing
• The Illustrated Story of Art by DK

Edited August 14, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[The Mystical Man]

That's what I call cultured.

[Leo Gura]

There is a role for consumption, but the key is quality or quantity. Consume high quality stuff and really dissect how it works. Then create your own from that.

Also, a lot of the most popular works are overrated and not actually the highest quality. Many classics are especially overrated. I've found it much better to pursue and model more modern stuff. Pursue the stuff that genuinely excites you, not just classics for the sake of classics.

The biggest problem with consuming all the standard classics and popular stuff is that then your mind will think just like everyone else. You want to feed your mind with unique source material so that you can get a more unique output. Watching the top 50 movies will make you a very generic sort of film director. You'd be better off watching 10 great films that few have watched.

When I was young I used to be obsessed about this idea of being a Renaissance Man, well versed in all the classics. Then I discovered that it's much better to go my own way and be deeply myself. You won't go wrong following your highest passions and loves vs what society considers important.

[Thittato]

Thanks for having this very interesting discussion! :-)

Edited August 15, 2022 by Thittato

[Vido]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

There is a role for consumption, but the key is quality or quantity. Consume high quality stuff and really dissect how it works. Then create your own from that.

Also, a lot of the most popular works are overrated and not actually the highest quality. Many classics are especially overrated. I've found it much better to pursue and more modern stuff. Pursue the stuff that genuinely excites you, not just classics for the sake of classics.

The biggest problem with consuming all the standard classics and popular stuff is that then your mind will think just like everyone else. You want to feed your mind with unique source material so that you can get a more unique output. Watching the top 50 movies will make you a very generic sort of film director. You'd be better off watching 10 great films that few have watched.

When I was young I used to be obsessed about this idea of being a Renaissance Man, well versed in all the classics. Then I discovered that it's much better to go my own way and be deeply myself. You won't go wrong following your highest passions and loves vs what society considers important.

man this should be a blg post

[Ulax]

@Vido Agreed!

[Razard86]

Everyone in this thread made this too complicated....a man of culture is a perception. If you notice in this thread everyone has their own opinion of what that means. I'll simplify it for you. If you are rare, in that you have depth in topics that most people in your era of time in history find interesting then you will be named a man of culture. 

The depth can come from the creator, or the consumer it doesn't have to be either or it can be both. The problem is it depends on your audience. If you go to deep you will lose some people, and if you are too shallow you won't inspire or intrigue most.

So the key is....understand the zeitgeist ( the period of your time) and have the ability to speak on all levels from shallow to deep about the topics that people of the zeitgeist find interesting then you become a man of culture. 

I would argue the zeitgeist currently is focused on freedom of expression and financial freedom. So topics you could present that will make you a man of culture is teaching people how to be more creative through art, technology. Teaching people unique ways to problem solve and create solutions out of problems. Teach people how to save and invest. Teach people about cheap ways to grow their own food and plan and execute a budget. Inspire people to believe themselves and to be less judgmental of themselves and the world around them.

Pay attention to the complaints of those in your peer group and find ways to offer solutions while focusing on what is coming down the pipeline and you will be a man of culture. 

Man of culture= Understands the concerns of the people of his era while able to communicate solutions, and inspirations, in a way that anyone on any level can understand while making contributions to increase engagement and participation.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Razard86

[The Mystical Man]

I found a website called The Great Courses. But I don't know if those courses are actually great. MasterClass, for example, looks great, but it's not great at all. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, The Mystical Man said:

I found a website called The Great Courses. But I don't know if those courses are actually great. MasterClass, for example, looks great, but it's not great at all. 

Many of them are great.

[Girzo]

@The Mystical Man the Great Courses are better, but many courses suck. Socialism vs Capitalism one was so bad it was funny.

[Superfluo]

@The Mystical Man

If you want to experience every piece of art and creative outlet made by people in history, go for it. But you have to ask yourself why you're doing it? Is it because you like it? Or because you feel left behind? Or because you want to learn many more perspectives and boost your mental growth and speed up your self-actualization? Why do you do it, really?

Also, don't forget this concept I'm going to illustrate with an psychology example: Freud, Adler, Jung, Rogers were all great psychologist and psychiatrists who formulated new ways of thinking. But after them many people tried to summarize and put everything together in some book or theory, more general and more comprehensive. So you might as well go study books which summarize and put together all previous findings about a domain instead of consuming every book made by single people which provide a single perspective. As for the example, you could read a book which covers all the main psychology concepts throught history. However this adds the problem of the bias of the author who summarizes the previous works.

 

Also, you could go for stuff that teaches you concepts and principles rather than singular and limited perspectives. Then the perspective you will find will become applications of those principles. For example, if you want to learn to make great films you could go for a course focused on that instead of watching hundreds of films.

[Nilsi]

10 minutes ago, Superfluo said:

@The Mystical Man

Also, don't forget this concept I'm going to illustrate with an psychology example: Freud, Adler, Jung, Rogers were all great psychologist and psychiatrists who formulated new ways of thinking. But after them many people tried to summarize and put everything together in some book or theory, more general and more comprehensive. So you might as well go study books which summarize and put together all previous findings about a domain instead of consuming every book made by single people which provide a single perspective. As for the example, you could read a book which covers all the main psychology concepts throught history. However this adds the problem of the bias of the author who summarizes the previous works.

That's just pure pragmatism. All the beauty and depth of these works will be lost on you, if you just read a summary.

This is the equivalent of just accepting a mathematical formula at face value, without doing the derivation yourself. You may be able to use the formula, but you won't understand mathematics this way.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Nilsi

[Superfluo]

@Nilsi Depends on the goal. If the goal is to learn something, then this pragmatic approach is useful. If your goal is to experience the beauty of perspectives, then no, it's not useful.

[The Mystical Man]

3 hours ago, Superfluo said:

For example, if you want to learn to make great films you could go for a course focused on that instead of watching hundreds of films.

"The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film - whether it's history, psychology, economics, or architecture - so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn't going to help you unless you have something to say." - George Lucas

"It’s more important you learn what to make movies about than how to make movies." - J.J. Abrams

[Leo Gura]

One of the reasons I started studying psychology was because I wanted to write compelling evil characters for science fiction.

15 years later I basically understand all of human psychology. Lol. Writing a realistic evil character has lost its mystery and magic.