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By Joseph Lawrence, associate professor of philosophy
 The
uniqueness of Holy Cross
We can begin with the obvious. Holy Cross is a "Jesuit" (and
thus "Catholic") college. But in a time when there are fewer
Jesuits on the teaching faculty, one wonders what this really
means. Similarly, we know that Holy Cross is a "liberal arts" college.
It is not a business school or a research university. Yet,
once again, we are left wondering. Contemporary academics
pride themselves on being "professionals." They see themselves
as engaged in a career rather than a vocation. While claiming
expert knowledge about very specific areas, they do not claim
any kind of privileged insight or life wisdom. How then are
they to deliver on the liberal arts promise to prepare students
not so much for a career as for life itself?
It is the secular research university
(designed to serve the needs of what President Eisenhower
referred to critically as the "military-industrial complex")
that sets the standard for all institutions of higher education.
Not only are professors trained in such universities, but
important procedures, such as those that govern the award
of tenure and promotion, were originally constituted with
the needs of the research university in mind. As has often
been observed, "publish or perish" is a peculiar edict for
a teaching college!
The difficulty, then, is that the
research university, with its focus on expert and highly
specialized forms of knowledge, was designed to accomplish
aims that only partly correspond with the aims of a Jesuit
liberal arts college. These aims are generally directed towards
servicing the needs of corporate America. The knowledge it
seeks is knowledge of what is reducible to mechanical models.
It is the knowledge required for the development of technology.
While such knowledge clearly means power, it is not so clear
that it is knowledge of what reality is "in truth." Nor is
this deemed a decisive question. Metaphysics, the inquiry
into the nature of reality, has been all but excluded from
the modern curriculum.
Again, we are left wondering. If
knowledge is pursued for the sake of power, what is the purpose
of power? If it enables us to remake the world, what kind
of world do we want? For that matter, which world is likely
to be better, the one made by God (or nature) or the one
we ourselves make? And what do we do if the old adage turns
out to be true - and power corrupts? If power enables us
to gain possession of the entire world, but at the cost of
losing our souls, what have we really gained?
These are philosophical and religious
questions, of course. But they by no means lead us astray.
For the pursuit of precisely these kinds of questions is
the special task of a Jesuit liberal arts college. To understand
and evaluate what is going on in the world requires a standpoint
that is free, one that hovers somewhere outside the current
economic and political order. While this is clearly "anti-establishment," it
is so in the best of the liberal arts tradition. To educate
in this tradition means to "liberate," to free young people
into their humanity. Marching dependably off to work is an
ideal appropriate to ants or bees. Human beings, however,
have a higher calling, one that emanates not from material
need, but from the free and sublimely unpredictable life
of the spirit.
What could it mean for a college
to be Jesuit?
The Jesuit tradition is a highly complex one. "Staunch defenders
of the faith," Jesuits have simultaneously cultivated the
spirit of independent inquiry. Unusually concerned (for a
Catholic order) with achieving power in the world, Jesuits
have nonetheless kept alive the deeply mystical tradition
of Spiritual Exercises. Jesuit discipline is supposed to
create good citizens. But, even more, it is supposed to create
spiritual warriors, men and women who have the strength and
courage to break through the conventions of the day, serving
humanity not by following but by leading.
This very ambiguity of purpose can serve a positive role
for Jesuit institutions of higher education. In evaluating
Jesuit spirituality, one may very well agree, for instance,
with the forceful critique developed by Dostoevsky in The
Brothers Karamazov (in the chapter called "The Grand
Inquisitor"). In Dostoevsky's opinion, Jesuits had become
too entangled with the secular order. They had debased spiritual
freedom by seeking pragmatic solutions to the problems of
human injustice. From a strictly religious point of view,
this critique has to be taken seriously. At the same time,
it would be almost impossible to imagine a college or university
that simply turns its back on the problems of the world.
Jesuit pragmatism corresponds well to the deeply ingrained
pragmatism of the world in which we live.
More importantly, the mystical moment in Jesuit spirituality
offsets the danger that Jesuit institutions might become "too
secular." Emphasizing such spirituality draws out one of
the most exciting aspects of Jesuit and Catholic education:
its tremendous potential for delivering fundamental critique.
In consumerist America, the spiritual option has become radically "other." As
a recent issue of The New York Times Magazine puts
it, Catholic priests have become the "last counterculture."
While conservatives and liberals do battle over the question
of what shape our political and social order should take,
Jesuit spirituality reminds us that the highest purpose of
humanity may in fact be achievable only when we elevate our
gaze beyond the empirical order. In a world in which everyone seems
to assume that solving the problem of life is tantamount
to solving the problem of producing and distributing material
goods, the assertion that our real goal is "union with God" can
become the basis for a thoroughgoing re-evaluation of contemporary
life. From the spiritual standpoint, it is largely irrelevant
whether we want to celebrate the virtues of "American values" and "free
enterprise" or of "multiculturalism" and "economic justice." In
both instances, we remain bound to the presupposition that
the only real world is the material world.
If to think is to question even our most deeply entrenched
assumptions, entertaining the boldest alternatives we can
come up with, then a strong dose of Jesuit spirituality clearly
serves the cause of thinking. At the same time, there remains
the possibility that faith could degenerate into just another
ideological certitude. Were this ever to happen, it too would
pose a serious challenge to the possibility of real thinking.
For this reason, maintaining the Jesuit tradition of independent
inquiry remains essential to the College of the future. What
underlies this tradition is the realization that true faith
can never stand in opposition to thought. Blindly to close
one's eyes to further possibilities is a sign not of faith,
but of the degeneration of faith into fanaticism. Faith is
what makes possible the open mind, not the closed one.
Attaining such faith is not, however, an easy task. For
to be open to reality requires the courage to face even life's
horrors. While faith may require a gift of grace, the real
sense of Jesuit education is that there is something we can
do to prepare ourselves for receiving that gift. The idea
of spiritual discipline, ultimately directed towards unity
with God, is an old one. It can be found in a wide range
of Christian thinkers and saints. It can also be found in
Plato's Republic and the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali,
in Aristotle's Ethics and The Gateless Barrier of
Zen Buddhism.
I include the Oriental texts for two important reasons.
First of all, they denote traditions to which the Society
of Jesus has had strong historical connections. Secondly,
they serve as reminders that it is not solely Western culture
that is "hierarchical" in its conception. In fact, the rejection
of hierarchy, the notion that all modes of life are to be
celebrated "just as they are" is itself a peculiarly Western
innovation, the product of free market economics and the
democratization of culture. Where culture has thus been leveled,
we are invited to pick and choose as we please. The idea
of a spiritual path gives way to the contemporary idea of
a spiritual supermarket, where we are invited to shop as
long as we feel the need or the inclination.
Against these tendencies, the strong sense of discipline
that lies at the core of Jesuit spirituality is itself an
expression of that sublime hope which has given life to all
human culture: the hope that human beings are educable. Education
is spiritual formation, not the subjugation of the spirit
to external rules and models, but an internal formation that,
through exercise, liberates our slumbering capacities until
we are able to step forth as adults, cleansed of fear, ready
to take on whatever challenges come our way.
What is a liberal arts education?
The ideal of a liberal arts education is based on the notion
that knowledge can be pursued (and enjoyed) "for its own
sake." Instead of asking what we can "do" with our education,
we should remain focused on the fact that it is better to
have a clear mind than a confused one. If education can serve
to clear the mind of its confusions, then it requires no
further justification.
It is Aristotle who (in the Metaphysics and the Ethics)
gave this ideal its classic formulation. He recognized, of
course, that we have to eat. He insisted, however, that after
taking care of our basic needs, we should restrain the impulse
to chase recklessly after a "more and more" that we can never
get to the end of. Cultivating desires, convincing ourselves
that we need things we don't need, leads to a life of insatiable
appetite. Such a life can lead only to frustration and unhappiness.
Aristotle's critique of capitalism (like that of Aquinas)
is far more radical than the one later advanced by Karl Marx.
It is more "radical" because it attacks capitalism at its
very root. Capitalism assumes that desires should be stimulated
and encouraged, since this will lead to ever-spiraling productivity.
Aristotle and Aquinas, on the other hand, assumed that desires
should be limited to what is genuinely desirable. Education,
the "pruning" and right ordering of desire, can thereby be
understood as the utter antithesis of "advertising."
Aristotle's point was remarkably simple. Once we are clothed
and well fed, we can allow ourselves the luxury of turning
away from our practical pursuits in order to enjoy moments
of leisure, moments in which we can give ourselves
over to the pure sense of wonder. Why, after all,
are we alive in the first place? Why is there a world? What
is the purpose and meaning of it all? When posing such questions
we experience moments of liberation from the practical concerns
that generally consume and even overwhelm us. Satisfying
our most elemental sense of wonder in the act of knowing,
coming to realize why we are alive and appreciating the simple
act of existence, is as close as we human beings can come
to true happiness. The purpose of liberal arts education
is to facilitate precisely the "liberation from practical
concerns" that is the key to the good and happy life.
It would be a mistake to represent this philosophical vision
as negating our duties to our fellow human beings. Any program
of reform has to be guided by a clear conception of what
it is we live for. To assert that happiness can be found
in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is to recognize
that human beings must ultimately be regarded as ends in
themselves, rather than as means to something else. To define
education in terms of career and political action is to instrumentalize
the conception of what it is to be human. Preparing young
people for a life of serving the economic or political "system" is
to forget that the only value of these systems is their ability
to serve human beings.
The final goal of history is not to achieve economic or
political justice, for justice itself has a higher purpose:
the liberation of the human spirit. Once liberated, spirit
begins its multi-voiced song of praise and joy. It rejoins
that stream of creative energy that is the origin of all
that is. Its creative outpouring yields the rich (and infinitely
diverse) forms of culture. Political, economic, and technological
systems are of value only to the degree that they provide
a foundation for unimpeded cultural expression. Our obsession
with work, the need to transform the world, is a sign that
we have lost faith in the goodness of reality as it pours
forth from the unfathomable center we call God. A true liberal
arts education should prepare us for the free play of spirit,
not for the drudgery of serving machines that should in fact
be serving us.
This describes the college not of the past, but of the
future. In Aristotle's time, leisure was bought at the terrible
price of slavery. We, on the other hand, now have machines
in place that could do a fully adequate job of meeting our
basic needs. The only thing that stands in our way is our
blind addiction to the unattainable "more and more." Instead
of deifying and emulating corporate superstars, we have to
learn to see in them the sign of our collective sickness.
Once this lesson is learned, we will be ready to cross the
threshold into the future. Wealth is ours to share. Its purpose
is the satisfaction of human need, not of human desire. True
productivity is productivity in the spirit. The College of
the 21st Century should set the stage for a new Awakening.
A call for curricular reform
Once these general goals are articulated, it becomes easy
to see the inadequacy of the current college curriculum.
Holy Cross can be proud of the level of sophistication of
work pursued in its various disciplines. But like any other
school in America, it needs constantly to reorganize its
curriculum in accordance to clearly articulated principles
of integration. The strength of the contemporary academy
is the specialized work it facilitates; its weakness is the "general
education" it only half delivers.
A starting point for reform can be found within the contention
(advanced in the College Mission Statement) that "critical
examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions" forms
the center of liberal arts education. What is interesting
in this statement is that there is nothing dogmatic about
it. We do not need to tell students "what it all means," if
we can only awaken in them the courage to raise the question
of meaning for themselves.
True integration is a spiritual process that arises from
the heart of each individual. The most effective way to kill
this process is to bury it beneath a mountain of dead facts.
Expressing wonder by asking "why?" is the privilege of a
mind that knows its own ignorance. It becomes increasingly
difficult as the voice of expertise and technical command
displaces the voice of simple astonishment. Information technology
becomes a barrier rather than an asset. So too television,
with its power to convey the sense that one has "seen it
all."
This is the challenge for the college of the future. How
do we live with these technologies without being entrapped
by them? As more and more books and articles are written,
as the computer web of information becomes more and more
complex, it becomes tempting to abandon altogether the philosophical
quest for unity (or its religious correlate, the theological
quest for God). According to common opinion, we now know "too
much" about the world ever to be able to integrate our knowledge.
If so, we find ourselves in a peculiar position, for true
knowledge must be grounded. Knowledge becomes mere opinion
where it hovers in midair. If we truly know too much to bother
with making connections, then we know too much to know anything
at all. The very absurdity of this conclusion shows the truth
of its opposite: our most fundamental quest remains, as always,
a quest for unity and coherence.
The current obsession with "diversity" has by no means
rendered the quest for unity obsolete. We are diverse not
where we march in step to political demands that we achieve
more diversity. We are diverse only where we gain the courage
to think for ourselves. The oppressed mind is the mind that
has been walled in by layer after layer of a reality it has
no hope of understanding. The liberated mind, on the other
hand, is the mind that understands the whole. True education
in diversity is the liberation that young people experience
when they grow into a vision of the whole. For beyond the
whole there are no walls whatsoever.
The second step we must take is to acknowledge
that education implies a strict hierarchy of knowledge. The
hierarchy arises insofar as knowledge itself is quite simply "better" than
ignorance. No one would trade peace of mind for the insanity
of deep confusion. The identification in recent years of
the hierarchy of knowledge with a hierarchy of power is not
only an intellectually exasperating error, but also a dangerous
one. For the only defense we have against the brutal struggle
for power is the recognition that the very heart of reality
is love. If we refuse to bend our knee in the face of truth
and beauty, then we refuse to bend it in the face of anything.
When we lose respect for the world and one another, the only
goal left is to maximize our own power. The tyranny that
the Market currently exerts over the world (so severe that
corporate structures have infiltrated even the ivory tower
of the university) is the flip side of the intellectual denial
of hierarchy (or of God).
In structuring a college curriculum, we need boldly to
reaffirm the hierarchical principle that has engendered every
human culture. Education has different levels. The exercise
and development of practical reason lies at the bottom of
the hierarchy. To master the skills that enable one to earn
a living, one hardly needs four years of sheltered learning.
On the job is where one learns to do a job.
The next level in the hierarchy is civic education. To
live together in harmony, we need to cultivate our social
reason. A college has to accommodate political concerns,
but it should never enshrine them by pretending that they
constitute the guiding purpose of all education. If we ever
solved the problem of justice, we would still have to discover
what it is that renders life meaningful. No one will live
life "for others" until they grasp meaning that goes beyond
the self.
The highest forms of culture - music and theater, art and
poetry - are what first set us free from base and utilitarian
concerns. We contemplate works of beauty because they are
beautiful, not because we can use them to accomplish our
own ends. Where the contemplation itself suffices, we know
what it means to be happy. This is why the measure of a healthy
state is the vibrancy - and sanity - of the culture it sustains.
Even here, however, we are not at the final goal. Education's
ultimate aim must be the revelation of what we call God,
the answer to the question, "why is there something and not
just nothing?" Communion with the Divine, the full and complete
unfolding of our humanity, is the ultimate purpose of education.
Understanding this hierarchy would enable the thoroughgoing
reform of the college curriculum. This idea will, I fear,
meet with fierce opposition. Even so, there is no cause for
alarm. Books that proclaim the "death of the liberal arts
tradition" abound - and can all be safely ignored. For regardless
of how deep the instinct might be to escape reality by burying
one's head in the sand, reality itself comes to the rescue,
simply by being the reality it is. There are ten thousand
ways of distracting our attention from the truth. But it
is impossible to make the truth disappear. Its elusive dance
is a seductive and highly effective one: ever again are we
drawn into the eternal quest. The spirit that gave birth
to the College is the spirit from which it will renew itself.
Ever young, it is the spirit not of the past, but of the
future.
Professor Lawrence, who received his Ph.D. from
the University of Tubingen, West Germany, has been a member of the Holy
Cross faculty since
1986.
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