Carlson
Until the end of the 19th century, many of our nation’s best colleges and universities put the study and discussion of the moral life at the center of every student’s work, no matter the student’s academic major.
All students, not just those majoring in philosophy or religious studies, read and wrote papers centered on Laozi, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, Averroes, Maimonides, Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin, Theresa of Avila, Kierkegaard and others up to contemporary times.
It is hard now to find students outside small philosophy or religious studies departments who can converse intelligently about these heavyweight thinkers. The question worth asking is, “What have current students lost by missing an encounter with these writers?”
The biggest loss is that students are no longer invited to wrestle with these timeless writers. I use the word “wrestle” deliberately, as these thinkers are not easy to understand. In addition, these timeless thinkers don’t all agree on what leads to a moral life. What these writers have in common is that they offer hard and diverse insights and questions about good, evil, honor, duty, empathy, honesty and the life of the mind.
Once students wrestle with these thinkers, they realize that the secret of living a moral life will never be found on a poster or bumper sticker. Investigating the moral life takes time and effort, and then committing to live morally is the work of a lifetime.
Focusing on the moral life — what is it and one lives it — would seem to be an important part of education, and yet these thinkers aren’t at the heart of most college and university reading lists.
Part of the reason for the disappearance of the thinkers listed above is that most of them are European males. In other words, morality and wisdom was investigated too narrowly. I understand this objection, but that would seem to be an argument for adding thinkers from other cultures, not removing the European contributors.
A more significant reason for the absence of campus-wide discussions of morality and wisdom is that the nature of higher education has changed significantly over the past decades. The word “education” comes from a Latin word that means to “lead forth.” Education is meant to lead a student forth from ignorance to truth, from irrational to rational deliberation, from sloppy thinking to balanced thought. Not that long ago, to say that someone was truly educated was to say that she had developed good character.
Over the past decades, the focus of college and university curricula has increasingly shifted from graduating people of good character to graduating people with the skills necessary to advance in their careers. Career success, rather than becoming a person of good moral character, is the current proof that the high cost of college or university is money well spent.
Some colleges and universities, especially liberal arts colleges, try to balance discussions of the moral life with acquiring skills beneficial to future careers. But the number of colleges and universities with liberal arts programs is shrinking, while skill-based programs are proliferating.
There are people who are just fine with this trend. Some of them worry about the biases of professors and think that discussions of morality should be left to families.
My worry lies elsewhere. As I survey current American culture, I believe the evidence suggests that we are suffering from a lack of nationwide conversations and debates about issues of character and morality. Our leaders don’t have to be reasonable; they just have to be loud. They don’t have to offer viable visions of the future; they just have to stoke our fears. They don’t have to make sense to their opponents; they just have to make sense to their base.
To read the great works of Laozi to Kierkegaard will not make a student a Democrat or Republican. What reading and wrestling with the great thinkers does offer is far more important. The great thinkers give our society a common language to discuss meaningfully the major issues we face.
Without this common language, we’re just talking to those who already agree with us. With that common language, true dialogue is possible. From true dialogue can come understanding, and from understanding, compromise, if not agreement, is within reach.
David Carlson of Franklin is a professor emeritus of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].
