Keeping Education Alive High Above the Plain of Thessaly

I've just finished reading, The Love of Learning, Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts, by Margarita A. Mooney. In Prof. Mooney's book she conducted seven dialogues with passionate educators from the institutions of Princeton, Stanford, Baylor, University of Notre Dame, City University of New York, University of St. Thomas, and Columbia University regarding the importance of teaching liberal arts in colleges and universities. It is a tremendous read for anyone who may have lost faith that America's universities have any impact on teaching students how to think.

At the beginning of each dialog, Professor Mooney asks her colleagues to share how their individual educations took shape? All seven had unique stories of how they wondered into the dusty wisdom-seeking departments of their respective alma maters. I particularly enjoyed George Harne, from the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Houston’s discussion on integrating the Great Books with musicology. For my money, there is no greater pursuit than the study of human life and its ability to recognize and create beauty.

I must say, after witnessing the onslaught of relativistic teachings in my children's academic institutions I had all but given up that there were professors still willing and able to teach students the joy and pain of learning. In this day and age, where institutions of "higher learning" treat their Humanities Departments, not as studies of humans' greatest achievements of strength, wisdom and beauty, but as a regurgitation of societies' most base and degenerate desires, to learn that Deistic moral teaching of the liberal arts still has a foothold in the above-mentioned institutions is indeed, a breath of fresh air!

Reading these dialogues brought me back to my own academic experience at a small liberal arts school in Minnesota. In the mid-80s, I too had become disheartened by the lack of any real moral or academic learning at my institution. I threw in the towel on pursuing a Business Major and almost gave up on my four-year degree all together. An abrupt change to a philosophy major my junior year, much to the bewilderment of my father, saved my academic career and set me on a course for a lifetime of learning. Prof. Mooney's dialogues reminds me of conversations I had with my professor, academic advisor and friend, the late Dr. Joseph Uemura. Those conversations delved deep into what is Truth and how do we know It when we see It. On only one occasion did we discussed voting and Dr. Uemura confessed he never voted for anyone in the party of my choice. The beauty our student teacher relationship was that politics never mattered. Politics was not the highest calling and never will be for individuals looking to live a good life.

There is a reason why the pursuit of wisdom and beauty is not emphasized in today's academics. Wisdom and beauty reside at a higher plane than politics. They reside at the same level as God. In fact, this appears the greatest problem with modern academics is a misguided understanding of this hierarchy. The proper hierarchy for understanding and operating a good and healthy life is:

1. God

2. Family

3. Work

4. Politics

Sadly, too many people, and most definitely too many learning institutions, completely invert this simple hierarchical order. When institutions lead with politics being the most important, there can be no room for learning nor can any real wisdom be gained. Many will ask how do I know the above stated hierarchy is the correct order? The answer is simple, forgiveness.

Let's apply forgiveness to those four hierarchical concepts. Is there any greater forgiver than God? His only son was sent to us and died for us in the ultimate expression of forgiveness. Secondly, is the forgiveness offered by family. I, as a recovering alcoholic and a divorced father with three children, have experienced family level forgiveness and am extremely humbled by its redeeming and rejuvenating effects. Third on the list is work. Those of us who have spent a lifetime in industry have experienced multiple bouts of forgiveness in the workplace as well, especially when we learn from our mistakes. But is there any forgiveness in politics? If there is, I have not witnessed it. Forgiveness is entirely absent in our heavily woke universities as well. As it turns out, the institutions most trusted with instilling a healthy understanding of conscience to our county’s youth are themselves entirely bereft of moral rectitude.

So, I say again, if a religious, academic, or corporate institution is leading with politics, they have placed at the pinnacle of their raison d’etra the very concept for which there is no forgiveness. I am experiencing this sad reality with my own urban house of worship at this very moment, and it is disheartening. Truly, if institutions operate with the reverse order of:

1. Politics

2. Work

3. Family

4. God

What are their chances of getting to the wisdom and beauty that come with Ultimate Forgiveness?

To illiterate my point regarding my own church, several years back I delivered a laymen sermon from my church’s pulpit about the plight and persecution of Coptic Christians in the Middle East. It was a hard-hitting address meant to weigh on the congregation’s conscience. The congregation response was to form a “Truth and Justice” committee to discuss outwardly social issues. The very act of the committee creation, in my view, was to avoid the pain of conscience and replace it with an individual feel-good emotional response of “doing something.” Instead of aiding a persecuted peoples escape tyranny, the Coptic Christians suffering served as a mere catalyst to make people at a distance urban church feel emotional good about themselves. As an aside to my readers, I am fighting every urge to insert a Life of Brian quote here!  

With regard to education, I think the pertinent question should be, what is better for society, a citizen rigidly instructed on what is acceptable to say or a citizen sculpted in the seven liberal arts and sciences? If  society is bettered by wrote memorization of accepted questions and answers, then we are training a nation of tax auditors, nothing more. For the minds of our youth will be fully occupied memorizing a 2000 page "citizen code" of conduct and the appropriate institutionally accepted responses. If, however, society is best served by a citizenship trained in the seven liberal arts and sciences, citizens will be prepared to address any situation that comes their way simply by applying the knowledge gained through studies of the quadrivium and trivium.

Truth dies in darkness. Once an individual knows a truth, ignoring it is a choice that weighs upon their conscience. Maybe modern education is attempting to remove the potentially painful weight of a burdened conscience, but as a recovering alcoholic, I can assure you that once the truth of my condition was known, no amount of alcohol could wash it away. It is far more efficient to teach the virtues of the seven liberal arts and sciences then to attempt to train students to catalog and recite an endless and ever-changing list of societal norms.

I am very grateful for the work Margarita Mooney and her seven colleagues put forth in her book, The Love of Learning, Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts. There is hope that Alan Bloom's dire prediction of the "Closing of the American Mind" may finally have a foot in the door! For what Dr. Bloom warned the academic world of in 1987 is that a well developed human conscience is critical to a free and healthy society. As it turns out, multigenerational educating away from the pain of a conscience towards the feel-good emotional wellness, is precisely the mechanism that “closes the American mind.” The greatest trick the devil ever preformed was not convincing the world he did not exist; it was convincing individuals that their consciences did not exist.

Right now, Prof. Mooney's work is akin to the monasteries that Medeora, keeping knowledge alive high above the “cannon shots” of the marauding secularists of modern universities. Colleges and universities adopting Margarita Mooney’s tenants on how to produce beautiful minds are bucking the trends of history, a history that sees powerful individuals and institutions take advantage of people woefully ignorant to the human pitfalls of teaching relativistic “truth.” I applaud Prof. Mooney and her colleagues for their work on teaching the liberal arts. May they soon descend from their protective and respective perches and walk safely among us on the plain of mainstream academia.