Note: a more thorough review of Esolen’s book is coming very soon.
Thanks to Ben Franklin, it has always been possible to home-school yourself to a college education. Libraries let you walk right in, take any book (or nearly so) off the shelf, and read it. And you can do this over and over. What an astonishing privilege! And they don’t charge for it!
Alas, the weakness in this system is all too apparent. Rather, there are two weaknesses. One, reading is increasingly passé; or, rather, reading is returning to its more historic status of being an unusual activity. Two, and more important, it’s hard to discover what to read.
Imagine walking into a well appointed university library and pulling down a journal, any journal. Daniel Lattier reminds us you might be horrified to find yourself reading “Brides and Blemishes: Queering Women’s Disability in Rabbinic Marriage Law” or “Misfit Messengers: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Climate Change”. Not only would you not learn anything, you’d come away damaged.
Or you might find “Lensing substructure quantification in RXJ1131-1231: A 2 keV lower bound on dark matter thermal relict mass“, a fine entry in astrophysics but a paper which is sure to be opaque to all but a handful of men. Still, since there is truth here, even the most untutored reader will take something away from an earnest attempt at reading; at least the appreciation that some are reaching for the stars. Though this would not be the place to begin learning about the heavens.
Or, worse, you discover a textbook, a book written—nay: designed—with the purpose of teaching students (see the late Kenneth Minogue’s The Concept of a University for a cutting critique of textbooks). Books with lots of colors, cartoons, bullet points, and words drained of all beauty aimed at the lower range of intellectual abilities. As if this “dumbing down” is helpful. Incidentally, if this principle were applied to art, it would be the same as if we showed students who couldn’t paint only hand-drawn cartoons instead of showing them the Mona Lisa on the theory that since these unable students can’t produce such works, and can’t understand the whole of them, they wouldn’t understand a part of them.
Now it used to be that “the basics” were known by, if not most, then by a fair number. One knew who to query. “What books should I read in history?” asked of the, say, bank manager or even middle school teacher would brings answers like, “You can’t go far wrong starting with Thucydides” or “A boy your age would love Plutarch’s Lives.” Try it now and you’ll hear, “Why don’t you Google it” or you’ll be recommended a list where the demographic characteristics of the authors has the utmost political correctness, a list chosen by some obscure national committee, itself demographically balanced and ideologically correct, and containing works nobody reads, or should.
The meager point made here (to be expanded greatly in time), to amplify the much greater point made by Fr Schall in the video above, is that, except in rare instances, we can no longer count on colleges and universities to guide students toward the Truth. Esolen: “Whorehouses and mental wards would be much cheaper. They might well be healthier, too.”
“The great books contradict each other,” says Schall. Which is why mere reading of the Great Books is not enough. A philosophical grounding is a necessity. That grounding requires a guide, an authority, and that authority must rely on Truth. Reading on one’s own without direction might work, but it won’t be easy. Which is, of course, why colleges were created, to provide the guides and the direction required. But what do we do when colleges have given up Truth?
This has ties to the matters roiling the Church, incidentally. For years, sinners like myself relied on our on consciences to decide how to act. But since everything, at least is the moment, seems like a good, nothing ever seems wrong. You therefore can’t let people decide for themselves what is right, because you’re apt to arrive at as many definitions of “right” as there are people. Which is why it is so strange that many Church leaders are refusing their duty to uphold Truth.
Schall says that his title, How to Get an Education Even While in College, “implies that hundreds of thousands of highly degreed people are nonetheless mostly uneducated in the highest things even if they are degreed from the best and most expensive institutes of higher learning. It is quite possible to attend, what I call, the resumé university or the highest tuition college, to acquire there a straight-A GPA on all of the 128 credits that guarantee a student a liberal education; and yet, most still come away with an empty soul; to become what CS Lewis called them, ‘Men Without Chests.'”
The partial solution to this is to follow men like Schall, at universities that still house them, or elsewhere if not.
April 26, 2017 at 8:38 am
…reading is increasingly passé; or, rather, reading is returning to its more historic status of being an unusual activity.
Possibly. But vinyl records are making a comeback. Sales last year passed $1B. Still small compared to streaming, but maybe an indicator of that yearning for the past so earnestly expressed by the James Earl Jones character near the end of the movie, Field of Dreams. (“It’s money they’ve got; It’s memories they want.” OTOH, the rising numbers of self-publishing authors shows reading might remain more than a niche hobby.
… and more important, it’s hard to discover what to read.
Bingo.
April 26, 2017 at 10:31 am
Briggs says:
“…we can no longer count on colleges and universities to guide students toward the Truth.”
— and when could we count on colleges and universities to guide students toward the Truth? Since those institutions came into being what constitutes “Truth” has ever shifted.
RE: ““The great books contradict each other,” says Schall.”
— always have, always will. The likes of Bart Ehrman have made a fortune pointing out just the contradictions in the Bible. Lesser known include Alan Dundes (cozy up with your Bible and his “Holy Writ as Oral Lit,” its a thin book and see for yourself — Dundes is using the Bible as the entirety of his focus).
CONTINUING: “Which is why mere reading of the Great Books is not enough. A philosophical grounding is a necessity. That grounding requires a guide, an authority, and that authority must rely on Truth.”
— Which “Truth”???
That is itself a profound question Briggs and many others keep sidestepping.
Consider Roman Catholicism vs most Protestant religions — “Christians” one & all citing the same, or mostly the same reference (exactly what constitutes the “Bible” itself is a point of disagreement between Catholics and pretty much all other “Christians). Setting aside the fact that what is and isn’t in the Bible itself, where they do agree they reach profound points of basic disagreement:
– Catholics accept evolution; many/most Protestants cannot
– Catholics accept a multi-billion year Earth & universe; many/most Protestants assert 6000 yrs (and no more) while others go to 10,000 yrs (and no more) — and of this ilk (30-40 percent of the U.S. population by varying estimates) there is not only no room for debate, but insistence that sciences like geology, biology, and so forth, be force-fit to their conception of reality.
Just those two seemingly non-theological/-philosophical themes have significant impact on what is, and is not, taught in elementary schools, which elementary school texts are used, and what the curriculum will be. The non-Catholic outlook on reality has been held in check by the courts, somewhat, since the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Never mind that some “Christian” denominations (e.g. some Episcopalians) have interpreted the Bible to accommodate gay clergy…
And those three (evolution, age of the Earth/universe/humanity, and gay clergy) are just the major topics seen in the press, there are many other lesser issues of irreconcilable disagreement (e.g. baptism must be by immersion, or not; faith must be accompanied by works, or not; and, so on and so on).
So when Briggs & Fr Schall say we need a Truth-based philosophical foundation, the obvious question — since they both mean a “Christian” philosophy & “Truth” — is which “Truth”?
Which “Christian” doctrine?
Which “Christian” reality?
Which resulting “Christian” philosophy?
All these “Truths” are points of disagreement with significant implications.
All these “Truths” are based on nearly the same but not quite Bible
And just those “Truths” are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable.
That establishes beyond any doubt that many/most of those “Truths” are falsehoods.
All of them may be false.
Briggs tells us his meager discussion today is “to be expanded greatly in time”.
One can hardly wait. But does anyone think the elephant in the room … which doctrine, which “Truth” is truly true … is going to even be addressed, much less resolved. Of course not. And until that is settled, there can be no settlement based on a proper philosophical grounding. Briggs, Fr Schall, and many others fail to recognize this, for example:
“You therefore can’t let people decide for themselves what is right, because you’re apt to arrive at as many definitions of “right” as there are people. Which is why it is so strange that many Church leaders are refusing their duty to uphold Truth.”
The problem isn’t that “Church leaders are refusing their duty to uphold Truth” the problem is that so many Church leaders have concocted too many mutually irreconcilable “Truths” they ARE upholding.
April 26, 2017 at 11:30 am
Ken might enjoy St. John Paul II’s “Memory and Identity” (or possibly wouldn’t enjoy it at all – likely one or the other rather than some middle ground), which addresses just the issue of the appearance of “many irreconcilable ‘Truths'” and the consequences of the same.
April 26, 2017 at 11:49 am
@Ken
Ah! The usual fallacy: “Since people have different opinions, there is no Truth, the Truth is not knowable or there can be no settlement based on a proper philosophical grounding”. Of course, it is self-refuting but beyond that…
It’s curious that it is only used when it comes to Christianity. People have different opinions all the time in all aspects of life. Nobody says: “Since people have different opinion about clitoral ablation (Muslim hadiths recognize the practice), let’s not ban this ancestral practice. Since there is different opinion about different matters, we cannot have laws. Since there are a lot of people that think taxes are not good, let’s not have compulsory taxing.
It is Cafeteria relativism: your opinion is relative but my opinion is absolute. ¿Catholicism or Protestantism? Everything is relative ¿Do you have a bakery? You must bake a cake for a “gay wedding” because gay rights are absolute.
You magnify the differences between churches with bombastic sentences as: “just those “Truths” are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable”. But Christian churches agree more than disagree. They agree about the most important things:
– Truth exists
– Truth is knowable.
– God exists.
– There is an objective moral law exists distinguishing good actions from sins.
– The list of good actions and sins: the same in all churches.
– The human being is fallen, that is, he is a sinner.
– Jesus Christ is God.
– Jesus Christ is the saviour for our sins.
– You must have faith in Jesus Christ, pray, study the Bible, confess your sins to God (whether directly or indirectly), try to do good actions.
(I am a Catholic but I would be glad to send my son to a Calvinist university that teaches that. But commonalities between Catholicism and other churches are much more than that. For example, the content of the Nicene Creed, the role of the Holy Spirit, etc.)
The different churches disagree about secondary things, such as the role of Virgin Mary (as a Catholic, the role of Virgin Mary in Catholicism is completely optional). The role of good actions in salvation: Catholics say that they have a role, Protestants say that they don’t have a role. But everyone strives to do good actions and behave well. So the difference is mostly theoretical. I don’t think these differences matter anything when it comes to college education. I don’t think a Catholic college and a Luteran college will have diferent teaching when it comes to Philosophy, Antropology, History and so on and so forth.
About creationism vs theistic evolution, it is a tertiary thing and not a dogma of faith in any Church, whether Catholic or Protestant. In fact, it’s only matter of opinion: the differences are not between Catholic and Protestants, as you say, but between members of the same Church. I am a theistic evolutionist but I would send my son to a Calvinist college teaching young earth creationist if I know a Christian approach is guaranteed.
At the end, there will be Christian colleges managed by Catholics, Christian colleges managed by Luterans and so on and so forth. Everyone of them grounded on the Truth.
Do you think Christianity is not the truth? Great, then go to a college that teaches that. But don’t say that other colleges cannot teach Christianity because we have some disagreements. This is a double standard. Secular colleges also have disagreements (for example, in Philosophy) and different approaches.
(About the commonalities and differences between Christian churches, this a series for the people that know Spanish language. Only two posts have been published so far:
http://www.thetruthcounts.com/blogtraducciones/2017/03/05/para-eliza-1-que-es-el-cristianismo/
http://www.thetruthcounts.com/blogtraducciones/2017/04/19/para-eliza-2-las-divisiones-del-cristianismo/
)
April 26, 2017 at 12:01 pm
Ken, we both know the Bible, specifically the book of Genesis, doesn’t speak to the age of the universe in anywhere near a rigorous numerical accounting. Speculations by the various branches of religious practice called Christianity are extrapolations way beyond the data by people not interested in establishing a fact, but rather creating “evidence” for a political purpose.
So the point is that there are not versions of ultimate Truth; only versions of context that may or may not use Truth in their arguments. Until we agree on the definition, we’re talking past each other.