I cannot tell you how many times, after telling someone that I am a history major, I get a puzzling look following by the same query: “So what are you going to do with that? Teach?” There are two assumptions here; 1) Historical knowledge is mainly useful for teaching (presumably American history so that the eternal glories/damnable failures of America can be elucidated) and has no other real “practical” value and 2) a college education is primarily good for getting a job. I usually grit my teeth and answer that I plan on grad school and then either an academic or government career (which usually soothes their utilitarian spirit). Why do I get so vexed you might ask? The reason is that it represents the death of excellence in American society. Excellence is never pursued for its own sake, rather it is pursued only in as so much as it gets you a good job and makes you money. This in turn reveals the consequence (or maybe motivation?) for the death of excellence; shallow consumerism.
Education has been largely abandoned for its own sake. I see this every day. Students are annoyed with general education classes. They spend lecture playing games or surfing the Internet and then contenting themselves with an average grade in the class. What matters to them is that they pass college and get a degree that will enable them to get a job. “When will I ever have to know this?” they lament. It grieves me tremendously that this is at a Christian college! Evangelicals, I think, need to do everything in their power to improve their intellectual life these days (but more on that later). The reason that history, literature, theology, or other humanities classes seem useless to students is that their entire focus for college is their job. When will you have to know about the French Revolution, The Wasteland, the nature of God, the big bang, or existentialism in your career? Well, never. But that is only because you view college as a vocational school. That education is meant primarily to get you a good job is a very modern idea. Prior to the 20th century, and especially to the post-World War II era, education was not so much about vocation as about excellence. Education made you a better person.
Today, people are completely uninterested in being a better person – unless it gets you something in return. Think of all the books on the spiritual life, for instance. So many books tell you that cultivating a spiritual life will get you rich or make you healthy and happy. They hardly ever say (at least the best selling ones) that closeness to God is something good in and of itself. In the realm of “secular” education (the inappropriateness of this term will be discussed later) this is no different. The contemporary American is inert. “Betterment” involves a better car, a better computer, a better house, a better paycheck, or a better yard. In a recent class, my professor lamented how more than half of the students in the 1960s majored in the humanities. Today it is less than 10%. Students simply do not see the benefits of the humanities because their value system is materialistic, not intellectual or spiritual. Yet education is valuable. It is indispensable to the pursuit of excellence. Indeed, can we truly say that there has been any widespread betterment in society because of this switch from the humanities to “practical” subjects? I’d be prepared to argue that any societal changes since the 1960s (apart from the Civil Rights movement, which began before then) have not generally improved society.
Firstly, the humanities help you to understand humanity. History enables a person to understand the complexity of human society in the past and present. The present is nothing more than the product of the past and without a proper understanding of what made the present, you will never understand it. I like to use the analogy of a boyfriend and a girlfriend. Imagine a boyfriend who decided one day that remembering anything about his girlfriend’s past was useless and he would from now on concentrate solely on the present. Can you honestly imagine that this person would be able to understand and interact with his significant other? He would forget how to make her happy, the nature of their present relationship, their anniversaries, how to please her, what to buy her for her birthday or Christmas, how to get along with her parents, etc. Essentially, their relationship would deteriorate. They would have no idea how to get along or fulfill each other’s needs. There would be hostility. The same is true if we forget our history. We cannot interact in any meaningful way with the present no matter how well we try to understand the here and now because it involves a long history.
The same is true for literature. Literature has been the primary way that humans have expressed their ideas and meaning throughout history. This is also true of art and music. In my political philosophy class we have discussed how modern society has de-humanized humanity. The primary passions of humanity are things material. The neglect of ideas and meaning has bred alienation and existential crisis in modern man. This is because meaning (something that has nothing to do with survival value or success) is an intrinsic part of man. This is damnably vexing to the modernists who argue for a pragmatic philosophy and insist that humanity is nothing more and economics or rational self-interest. Understanding the ideal aspect of humanity will not get a six-figure job but it will breed beauty, peace, and joy. It will also give a deeper understanding of humanity and help the way humans interact with one another as a result.
The modern American has also forsaken the joys of contemplation. He or she rarely stops to ponder life in all its depth. Americans are far too concerned with getting ahead in life to opt for a life of reflection. People are too busy climbing the corporate ladder, hauling their kids off to soccer practice, or engaging in banal entertainment to stop and contemplate. Self-reflection is essential to excellence and is mainly engendered by making people think, something that the liberal arts and humanities have a habit of doing. Reflection will yield great insight both into humanity in general and yourself specifically. I would argue that reflection is critical to the Christian because he or she is required by their faith to either contemplate God and their own moral lives. Self-reflection, like learning about literature, art, or music, has intrinsic value. I cannot explain in words the simple joy of finding a quiet, beautiful place and simply engaging in reflection and contemplation. While I am no advocate of monasticism upon serious theological grounds, I have to imagine that the time for reflection afforded by the monastery is one of its most attractive characteristics. To be truly successful in reflection and the pursuit of excellence, however, one needs this next critical skill.
Education instills critical thinking – a characteristic that is woefully lacking among most Americans. Critical thinking has to do with disseminating information, understanding it, and then making judgments about it. It means not uncritically accepting a proposition. It means thinking for yourself and not just thinking whatever the media, talk radio, Hollywood, advertisements, or pastors on TV tell you to think. Modernity has been most detrimental to critical thinking since it has introduced mass media, a psychology of propaganda, and advertisements. However, it is impossible to excel without critical thinking. As Socrates said long ago, the unexamined life is not worth living. Critical thinking is essential to any coherent world view because it refines and corrects thinking. There are no simple answers and only critical thinking enables an individual to navigate through the complexities of existence. Perhaps aversion to critical thinking among Americans, especially conservative Americans, is its confusion with cynicism. The difference is that critical thinking seeks to build up and pursue excellence while cynicism is usually aimed only at tearing down. Cynics are often nihilistic and get pleasure from the act of criticizing rather than its goal.
Finally, on a very practical level, education and the pursuit of excellence is necessary to be a good citizen. The American system of government is related to the traditional English system with its emphasis on common law. The common law approach to government gives importance to judicial precedent and tradition. In the British system, the constitution is not written but the accumulation of tradition whereas in the American system we have a written constitution that provides a very general basis of law. However, many of the rights in the Constitution have their base in the English common law tradition (property rights, a right to a jury by your peers, limitations on the executive/king). Therefore, the American system is inherently a historical system. One cannot fully comprehend the American system of government without understanding how it evolved historically. Equally important is an understanding of general political philosophy. Most Americans are ignorant of the political and moral assumptions that undergird policy. I am completely vexed by the belief by many Americans that what we need is more “common sense” that works toward the “common good.” Politicians are endlessly trashed for putting their political ideologies above the “good of the nation.” What most Americans do not understand is that political ideologies and ideas cannot be divorced from the “common good” of the nation. The very idea that governments are the creation of the people to protect their rights (life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness) is an assumption/pre-supposition formed by Locke and was completely foreign to anybody living prior to the sixteenth century. Yet we are told endlessly that the consent of the governed is a “self-evident” right. Whether or not Lockean Social Contract Theory is right or wrong is not the point here. What I am emphasizing is that what we believe to be “common sense” is really creations of political philosophers. History has shown that there are very few characteristics of government that have been “self-evident” to all people. We cannot appeal to “common sense” for the common good but instead need to traverse the winding trail of pre-suppositions and political theory, which can only be properly introduced by education. On a final note, it would not hurt for most Americans to have a general understanding of the mechanics of American government and constitutional history if they plan on taking part in American democracy. Unfortunately, few Americans do and their voting patterns have reflected such ignorance.
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