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LETTERSfrom
St. John's College-Santa Fe, New Mexico
Falt 1992
TEACHING ETHICS
I NS IDE
DIRECTIVE MORAL
EDUCATION
page2
TEACHING INTEGRITY:
THE BOUNDARIES
OF MORAL
EDUCATION
page3
STORYTELLING
AND VIRTUE
page 7
TEACHING THE
VIRTUES
page 12
LEARNING
GOODNESS
page 18
The teaching of ethics has lately fallen on hard times. What schools
once took for granted-that students would learn to be better people as well
as develop sharper minds-is no longer very evident. Maybe it happened
when we started calling virtues "values," shifting from the value of morality
to the view that ethical judgments are simply one's own "value judgments."
Maybe it happened when we reduced the great American principle of
individual liberty to the notion that all ways of life are equally valid, that
liberty is only intolerant of judgmentalism. Maybe it happened when people
confused teaching with indoctrination, somehow thinking that the questioning
of conventional ethics was the mark of a teacher and the teaching of ethics
the mark of a thug. Maybe it happened when the idea of cultural relativity
took hold, with the corollary that ethics is both culturally determined and all
moral views, therefore, of equal worth and stature. (Sometimes this has
another corollary-that all cultures are equal, except ours, which is bad.)
Maybe it happened when the teaching of old-fashioned ethics was seen as
exactly that, old-fashioned, superseded by a new morality, one more enlightened
and progressive. In response to the scorn-laden question "And whose morality
will you teach?" the answer always is, beneath it all, theirs, those more
advanced, those less "old-fashioned."
In this issue I have reprinted a number of essays all attempting to
understand and improve the current situation. Two themes seem to me to be
constant: First, the simple necessity of public moral education, and second,
the efficacy of indirect instruction, primarily through the use of stories and
literature. This last theme has the advantage of not only raising the level of
goodness, but of encouraging good reading. Yes, I will be the first to admit
that not all literature is edifying. But it surely would be an advance to hear
students and teachers talk about the nature of Iago's treachery or the meaning of
Jim's friendship with Huck and not just the shape of the Globe theater or the
symbolism of the river.
This last point is a topic we will come back to in a subsequent newsletter
on literature, but my guess is that using stories to help teach character might
well be a real advance both for moral education and for literature, too.
Sincerely,
John Agresto
�The followin g, an excerpt of an
essay that first appeared in The Public
Interest in 1981, is the beginning of a
seminal piece by Andrew Oldenquist of
Ohio State University. Much of what
has been written since on the teaching
of ethics draws on these notions of cultural preservation and the inadequacy
of quandary or dilemma ethics .
If we were anthropologists
observing members of a tribe it
would be the most natural thing in
the world to expect them to teach
their morality and culture to their
children, and moreover, to think
that they had a perfect right to do
so on the ground that cultural
integrity and perpetuation depended on it. Indeed, if we found that
they had ceased to teach the moral
and other values of their culture,
we would take them to be on the
way to cultural suicide: We would
think them ruined, pitiable, alienated from their own values and on
the way out. Most of us have similar attitudes toward the educational
policies of nation states other than
our own. We expect Japanese and
Nigerian children to be educated to
be, among other things, good
Japanese and Nigerians . We find
this to be a natural and reasonable
expression of societal self-interest.
Some of the very people who
would be the first to accept all of
this regarding other cultures are the
first to deny it regarding their own.
They are inconsistent, of course,
unless they desire the death of their
own culture for reasons that do not
also apply to other cultures.
Private institutions, such as
families and churches, have a right
to engage in moral education, but
public institutions, such as public
schools, have an obligation to do so,
because they are the instruments
non-suicidal societies create to perpetuate what is essential to the continued existence, and therefore the
continued benefits, of the society.
We need to distinguish the
basic moral core that sustains a
moral community from the controversial issues and exceptional cases
which bewilder adults. In our own
society the moral core consists of
principles of social morality such as
honesty, fairness, willingness to
work, disavowal of criminal violence, respect for the democratic
political process, together with personal virtues such as courage, diligence and self-respect. It is essential that young people actually
acquire these attitudes and not simply talk about them. Several points
need to be made in elaboration of
the distinction between a basic core
and moral controversies.
First, teenagers and adults can
benefit from reasoning about dilemmas and hard cases only if they
have already accepted and internalized a basic core of principles. For
example, one has to accept and take
very seriously a principle about
honesty before one can agonize
over exceptions to it. If students are
taught dilemmas before or in place
of principles, they will think that
morality is nothing but dilemmas;
and if they discuss exceptions to
principles without first having
internalized the principles themselves, the exceptions, meeting no
resistance, will come all too easily.
Second, the inculcation of civilized moral habits not only logically
precedes the study of dilemmas, it
page t wo
L E TT ER S from S an t a F e
DIRECTIVE MORAL
EDUCATION
by Andrew Oldenquist
is essential to any society even minimally safe and satisfying. A society is a moral community, which
means that it has a shared morality
that predictably regulates interpersonal conduct. Habitual, principled
behavior is simply more important
than reasoning about controversies,
though both are important. But
people do not become principled by
magic or by heredity, nor is it possible to transmit moral principles to
children by the use of non-directive
methods. They must be made so by
the society' s institutionalized civilizing agencies-families, churches,
public opinion and schools.
Third, acquiring a principle of
social morality is not just a matter
of coming to know something or to
reason in a certain way. A wellbrought-up person feels badly at the
thought of breaking a promise or
stealing and has to have an awfully
good reason, or very strong temptation, before he will go ahead and do
it. Aristotle made the point by saying that a morally educated person
finds virtue to be (relatively) pleasant and vice (relatively) disagreeable. In general, American moral
educators stay as far away as possible from the emotional components
of moral principles and the emotional aspects of moral education.
This enables them to feign a dispassionate
moral
neutrality.
Consequently, moral educators
intellectualize morality and the
process of moral education, which
also is paradoxical since many of
these same moral educators are ethical relativists and do not believe in
the efficacy of intellect in matters of
morality.
F all
1 992
�TEACHING INTEGRITY:
THE BOUNDARIES OF
MORAL EDUCATION
by Edwin J. Delattre
A
recent Wall Street Journal
article on education bore the headline, "Schoolteachers Say It' s
Wrong h ea ded to Try to Teach
Students What's Right." This view
is not new. Fou r years ago,
Newsweek magazine described
"morals education" as a "minefield"
and asked "whose values" are to be
taught.
Teach ers and administrators
w h o object to moral edu cation
express fear of stirring unwanted
controversy within diverse student
populations and families. Some
refuse, as a matter of principle, to
teach values--on the grounds that
moral education d estroys separation of church and state. Others
insist that "it would be dangerou s,
sad, and boring to have one view of
morality imposed on our people."
No one familiar with programs
that h ave bee n foisted upon
sch ools, teachers a nd stude nts
und er the b a nner of "values" o r
"moral" education can be entirely
unsympathetic to these fears and
concerns.
Some programs, su ch as "valu es clarification," are based on a
mindless reduction of morality to a
matter of personal and arbitrary
t aste . Students are taught tha t
whether you like genocide or bigotry is roughly the same as whether
you like broccoli. Schools are clearF a ll 1 99 2
...
ly better off avoiding such dangerous folly, especially because these
programs teach students nothing
about the real nature of principled'
judgment and conduct.
Other programs are imposition~
al, in the sense that they make pronouncements about morality that
are ill-informed, dogmatic and
highly questionable. I have seen
students told that there are clear litmus tests for ide ntifying decent
people- including where they
stand on the rightness of abortion,
of homosexuality or of specific U. S.
foreign policies.
Such pronouncements thwart
students' learning the undeniable
fact that d ecent and conscientious
people can disagree about complex
questions of conduct and policy .
They are the refore a n affront to
intellectua l honesty and do not
belong in schools. Programs with
this tone mislead in another way:
Students deserve to learn that no
matter what views individuals hold
o n complex questions, they may
still be d eplorable people in their
habits of d aily life a nd therefore
unworthy of resp ect and admiratio n . After all, a person w h o
betrays the trust of others through
insider trading is contemptible no
matter where he or she stands on
abortion.
What this array of harmful and
L ET T E R S f r o m S a nta Fe
pa g e thr ee
�SOME PROGRAMS,
SUCH AS "VALUES
CLARIFICATION," ARE
BASED ON A MINDLESS
REDUCTION OF
MORALITY TO A
MATTER OF
PERSONAL AND
ARBITRARY TASTE.
pa ge f o u r
benighted programs shows is that
"moral education" can be and frequently has been done badly. But
since virtually everyone knew that
already, this was never one of the
fundamental questions about moral
education.
The fundamental questions for
centuries have been these:
• What is morality?
• Can morality be taught?
• Can morality be learned?
• Can adults possibly avoid
influencing the moral habits and
attitudes of the children and youths
who keep company with them?
Despite popular prejudices and
confusions, these are not unanswerable questions. Broadly put, morality is the achievement of good character and of the aspiration to be the
best person you can be. But what is
good character and w h at kind of
person s hould one as pire to
become?
The answers are that a good
person is one who has integrity and
that a ll of u s should aspire to
achieve integrity as fully as we can.
Literally, integrity means wholeness-bein g on e person in public
and private, living in faithfulness to
one set of principles whether or not
anyone is watching. Integrity is to a
person as homogenization is to
milk- a single consistency throughout.
But this a n swer remains too
general, beca use a p e rso n can,
unfortunately, have bad character in
both public and private; a person
can be rotten in dealing with
str a n ge rs and fa mily a like. So,
what kind of w holeness is genuine
integrity and thus worth y of
respect and emulation?
First, it is the habit of treating
other people fairly-givi ng them
equ al initial consideration- jus t
because they are people, and without regard to race or ethnicity or
gender. The habit of recognizing
other people as important in themselves-and not as objects to be
used merely for our own gratification-is called justice. It means
being able to see things from inside
the skin of other people, and no one
can do that who hates others
because of their skin. It also means
making decisions from the principle that everyone deserves to be
treated fairly by our daily conduct.
Where the habit of justice becomes
second nature, it inspires the habit
of compassion-the habit of real
sensitivity to the pain or suffering
of others.
Second, it is the habit of controlling ourselves amid promises of
pleasure, and of confining ourselves to healthful pleasures that
are not selfishly sought at the
expense of others. This habit is
called temperance.
Third, it is the habit of controlling ourselves amid threats of pain
or loss- facing up to clear duties
even when doing so risks ad verse
peer pressure or loss of some other
kind. This is the habit of courage,
and it must be distinguished from
cowardice and also from the recklessness to which the young are frequently inclined.
Fourth, it is the habit of gathering evidence con scientiou sly a nd
rely ing on it in reaching conclusions and decisions, and the habit
of not u sing d eception to manipulate other people for ulterior purposes. These are the habits of intellectual and moral honesty.
N ow, suppose that a person
achieves such habits, achieves a
substantial degree of integrit y .
Where w ill tha t person stand on
abortion? Is it right? Is it wrong?
L ETTE R S from S a nt a F e
Fa II 19 9 2
�Should it be illegal? Where will the
person stand on affirmative
action-on the ascription of rights
to individuals and of rights to
groups?
We cannot know where the person
will stand. We can know only that
the person will take such questions
seriously and seek to answer them
conscientiously and with rigorous,
logical reasoning and deliberation.
We can know that the person will
extend humility toward others who
are likewise decent enough to be
serious. We can know that a person
of integrity will understand that
morality is above all a matter of
taking life and its conduct seriously
and will feel kinship toward others
who show such seriousness in their
lives. This, students should have a
chance to witness and to grasp.
Can morality be taught? Can it
be learned? Since achieving integrity or character excellence is a matter of forming habits, and since
both good and bad habits can be
formed only by repeating actions
over and over again, morality cannot be taught. But because people
can become habituated by repeated
behavior under responsible and
loving training and supervision, the
habits of morality can be learned.
Moreover, it is only when such
habits have been learned, when the
habit of giving consideration to
other people has become second
nature, that anyone can recognize
moral problems worthy of attention
and reflection. For a person who
has achieved no habits of justice or
temperance or courage, questions
of whether to take unfair advantage
of others, where to stand on abortion, whether to use illegal drugs,
whether to go along with the prevailing fashion of peer pressure and
so on, are not questions at all. At
Fall 1992
most, conversation about them will
be only a word game-perhaps a
contest to see who can be most
clever-insubstantial and without
meaning or consequence.
It is for this reason that putative
moral education consisting of classroom discussion of controversial
issues and putative dilemmas begs
all questions of moral decency and
moral motivation. Real moral
deliberation presupposes learning
habits of integrity; what can be
taught is the principles of intellectual rigor and reliable thought as they
are applied to questions of all
kinds-in philosophy, the sciences,
history, literature, theology and all
the other disciplines of inquiry and
discovery. This, surely, no administrator, teacher, or school worthy
of the name would ever seek to
evade. Neither would any responsible educator shirk teaching that
respect for pluralism and disagreement does not embrace mindless
tolerance of behavior and attitudes
that are transparently unjust (such
as racist supremacism of any kind)
or selfishly intemperate (such as
violent criminality against others)
or manipulatively dishonest (such as
cover-ups of corruption) and so on.
Finally, is it possible for adults
to be value neutral, to avoid all
influence in the formation of the
moral and intellectual habits and
attitudes of the young? The answer
is obviously no. As the great classicist and teacher, Gilbert Highet, put
the point, "It is impossible to have
children without teaching them .
Beat them, coddle them, ignore
them, force-feed them, shun them
or worry about them, love them or
hate them, you are still teaching
them something, all the time."
Most teachers know that they
teach about right and wrong by the
LETTERS from S anta F e
TEACHERS WHO BEHAVE
AS IF THEY WERE VALUE
NEUTRAL IN THE
PRESENCE OF THE
YOUNG SUCCEED ONLY
IN TEACHING THEIR
STUDENTS THAT THEY
ARE BEING DECEPTIVE,
PROBABLY MANIPULATIVE.
pa ge fi ve
�way they behave. Teachers who behave as if they were value neutral in the
presence of the young succeed only in teaching their students that they are
being deceptive, probably manipulative. Some students will infer, perhaps
unjustly, that their teachers are both liars and cowards. And the most astute
students will soon see that attempting to convey value neutrality as an
appropriate way to believe and behave condemns life to triviality and education to insignificance, thereby becoming as thoroughly impositional as any
other uncritical dogmatism.
It is, after all, possible to train and habituate the young with respect,
generosity of spirit and intellectual honesty. It is possible to help the young
learn habits of integrity without "imposition" and it is possible to teach them
and help them learn to think with real acumen and rigor.
If their teachers, who are supposed· to care about them, and their parents, who are supposed to love them, do not take life that seriously, then the
young will learn their habits from the streets, from demagogues, and from
entertainment and commercial media that neither care about them nor love
them. That is a consequence no adult of integrity can be willing to tolerate.
From Education Week, September 5, 1990. Edwin
J. Delattre was president of St. John's
College, Annapolis and Santa Fe, from 1980-85. He is now adjunct scholar at the A merican
Enterprise Institute and the Olin Scholar in Applied Ethics at Boston University's School of
Education.
p age s i x
LETTE R S f r om S an ta Fe
F a l/ 199 2
�STORYTELLING AND
VIRTUE
by William Kirk Kilpatrick
In After Virtue Alasdair
Macintyre observes that in all classical and heroic societies, "the chief
means of moral education is the
telling of stories." In a real sense the
heroes of The Iliad and The Odyssey
were the moral tutors of the Greeks.
Likewise, Aeneas was the model of
heroic piety on which young
Romans were nurtured. Icelandic
and Irish children were suckled on
sagas . And the Christian world,
which reaped the inheritance of
both classical and heroic societies,
carried on this tradition of moral
education with Bible stories, stories
from the lives of saints and stories
of chivalry. To be educated properly was to know of Achilles and
Odysseus, Hector and Aeneas, and
later to know of Beowulf and
Arthur and Percival and the
Christian story of salvation.
The telling of stories does not
seem to hold a place of much
importance in contemporary
attempts at moral education. The
closest approximation to a story is
the presentation of a moral dilemma: a man contemplates stealing a
drug for his dying wife; passengers
on a foundering lifeboat decide
whether to toss their fellows overboard and who should be sacrificed; survivors in a fallout shelter
debate whether to admit outsiders
to their sanctuary.
It will be apparent at once that
there are important differences
between these modern "fables" and
Fall 19 92
the old ones. And the differences
give us, in turn, a clue to the differences in thinking that animate the
modern as opposed to the classical
and Christian approaches to moral
education. The first difference is
that no attempt is made to delineate
character in the moral dilemma,
whereas character is everything in
the heroic story. In the saga or epic
everything revolves around the
character of the hero - whether he
exercises or fails to exercise the
virtues. But the characters in the
dilemmas have no characters, only
decisions to make. Both Heinz (the
man in the purloined drug dilemma) and Ulysses must aid their
wives, but there the comparison ends. Heinz is no
Ulysses. He is a blank, a
cipher. He is there
because he is needed
to present a dilemma.
We have no interest
in him, only in his
case. One cannot
imagine parents passing down to their children the saga of Heinz
and the stolen drug.
The second difference is
this: The actors in the dilemmas are
not tied to any social particularities
- traditions, loyalties, locations, or
histories. True, Heinz is attached to
his wife, but there is no indication
why he should be. We know why
Ulysses is loyal to Penelope, since
her virtues are carefully enumerated. As in all the old stories, the
hero's deeds are rooted in loyalty
not only to homeland and tribe but
also to hearth - essential details
that are absent from the dilemmas.
It might be objected here that
the modern dilemmas are intended
not to tell stories but to embody
principles or, more properly, the
LETTERS f r o m S anta Fe
page seve n
�A PERVASIVE MENTALITY
OF NONDIRECTIVENESS
AND SUBJECTIVENESS
DICTATES THAT WE DON'T
HAVE THE RIGHT TO
IMPOSE OUR VALUES ON
OUR CHILDREN. AND
CONSEQUENTLY, WE ARE
FORCED TO CREATE THE
FICTION THAT EACH CHILD
IS IN HIS OWN RIGHT A
MINIATURE SOCRATES.
pa ge e i g h t
-
clash of principles: property rights,
for example, versus the value of a
human life, with the nod presumably going to the more universal
value. But this is precisely the point
I wish to make, for what is implied
in this approach is that particular
loves and loyalties - the kind that
make for a good story - are largely
irrelevant to moral issues. One can
somehow dispense with the prelude of moral particularities and
leap right into the arena of universal principles. The assumption is
that the kernel of good moral judgment lies in abstract devotion to
abstract principles. Moreover, there
is the suggestion that devotion to
father and mother or attachment
between wife and husband may
have nothing to do with the pursuit
of justice. As in so much contemporary psychology, the central concern is with the autonomous individual.
The third difference between
the old stories and the new dilemmas is that the new stories, properly speaking, d o not have endings.
They are open-ended, unfinished.
They await your judgment. What
should the shelter survivors do
next? You decide. Was Heinz right
to steal the drug? You decide. There
is, in short, no sense that the story is
ever complete or definitive. It's up
for grabs and will be again n ext
year with the next class. You can do
what you want with these stories;
you cannot with The Odyssey. There
is no sense of a life fully lived or a
mission completed. All of w hich
amounts to saying that they are not
stories after all. The old storytelling
approach to moral education has
been replaced with something new.
The new approach is one from
which the concepts of character and
virtue are entirely missing. From its
point of view, the life of a man is
envisioned not as a personal story
in which accumulated habits and
actions may eventually harden into
virtue or vice, but as a disconnected
series of ethical and other dilemmas
- all amenable to rational solution.
If we return to the heroic, classical,
and Christian stories, we can see
how stark this contrast is and how
radically novel the new approach
is. And although the current techniques of moral education are
largely the offspring of psychologists, we may note that the ancients
had a more profound grasp of the
psychology underlying moral education.
The telling of stories - as
opposed to the presentation of
open-ended dilemmas - implies
first of all that adults have something to pass on to children, a valuable inheritance that children might
not come by on their own. This is
easy enough to accept about other
cultures... but when it comes to
our own, a certain inhibition
against cultural transmission sets
in. A pervasive mentality of nondirectiveness and subjectiveness dictates that we don't have the right to
impose our values on our children.
And consequently, we are forced to
create the fiction that each child is
in his own right a miniature
Socrates.
The traditional view is tha t
adults do possess a moral treasure,
and that to deprive children of it
would in itself show a lack of
virtue. We do not, to draw a rough
analogy, wait until o ur children
h ave reached the age of reason
before suggesting that they brush
their teeth. But sooner or later children will be able to figure out for
themselves that brushing is a prudent practice. This is not necessarily
L E TTER S f rom Sa n ta F e
Fa ll 1992
�true of moral practices. The moral
treasure can be acquired only in a
certain way . And if it is not
obtained in that way, it is not possessed at all. This is why Aristotle
said that only those who have been
well brought up can usefully study
ethics. And why Plato maintained
that the well-bred youth is nurtured
from his earliest days to love the
Good and the Beautiful "so that
when Reason at length comes to
him, then bred as he has been, he
will hold out his hands in welcome
and recognize her because of the
affinity he bears to her."
Just Sentiments
There is little chance that one
who does not learn proper affections and just sentiments as a child
will ever fully comprehend them.
His knowledge, in short, will
always be limited. What he can
know will be determined by his
sentiments, by dispositions and
inclinations learned in childhood. A
person who is not well habituated
to virtue may come upon the fundamental ·principles of ethics, but he
may never be able to grasp them
properly. He comes upon them like
an anthropologist stumbling upon
tribal customs . He can describe
them, write about them, analyze
them, but he does not know them
as an initiate knows them - even
though the things he observes are
his own cultural values. One cannot
begin to understand the moral life
until one begins to live it.
Consequently, the autonomous
moral explorer, because of his
detached stance, is in no position to
appreciate the practice of virtue, let
alone practice it himself.
What, then, is the proper form
of education in regard to morality?
It is, necessarily, an initiation, "men
Fall 1 9 9 2
transmitting manhood to men," as
C. S. Lewis puts it. And this is best
accomplished not by direct moral
exhortation but indirectly through
example and practice. One cannot
have classes in moral education. It
is, rather, more like an apprentice
learning from a master. "Lewis, like
Aristotle," writes Gilbert Meilander,
"believes that moral principles are
learned indirectly from others
around us, who serve as exemplars.
And he, again like Aristotle, suggests that it will be extremely difficult to develop virtuous individuals
apart from a virtuous society."
Yet, even in the most virtuous
of societies, adults, recognizing
their own shortcomings, have seen
the need to point to examples of
moral wisdom and moral courage
beyond themselves . Hence the
reliance on heroic stories as the
embodiment of cultural ideals.
When virtues have fallen into
desuetude, the need for stories
about virtuous and courageous
men, women, and children becomes
more acute. A ware of this, Lewis
created in The Chronicles of Narnia a
literature of virtue of the type that
can be considered both exemplar of
and preparation for a mature
morality. The Narnia Chonicles cerLETTERS from Santa F e
pa g e nin e
�FOR CLASSICAL AND
HEROIC SOCIETIES AND
FOR THOSE THAT SUSTAIN
THOSE TRADITIONS,
MORALITY IS NOT A
MATTER OF FOLLOWING
RULES OR MAKING RULES;
IT HAS TO DO WITH
ACQUIRING VIRTUE.
p age t en
--
tainly seem to embody Aristotle's
dictum that the aim of education is
to make the pupil like and dislike
what he ought.
But if heroic stories provide
examples, we need to ask examples
of what? It would be a mistake to
look upon the heroes of myth and
epic as examples of autonomous
moral agents or inventors of new
moralities (as Nietzsche did), just as
it would be a mistake to look upon
them as stoic rule-abiders. The
heroes of such stories are not moral
philosophers, nor are they stoic.
They are virtuous, or they strive to
be virtuous. For classical and heroic
societies and for those that sustain
those traditions, morality is not a
matter of following rules or making
rules; it has to do with acquiring
virtue. The virtues displayed by
Achilles are what hold our attention, not any set of maxims he may
expound. It is his loyalty to his
friends that matters, not his loyalty
to principle. Virtues are displayed
in his actions, not only in what he
says. The heroic man is not a moral
pioneer who charts new ethics;
rather, he is someone who does
what ought to be done.
Even in the Gospel stories, the
heroic theme is predominant. As I
have written elsewhere, "there is
nothing in Christ's attitude about
himself to suggest that he saw himself mainly as a teacher. There is a
strong suggestion that Jesus looked
upon himself as someone who had
a job to do. And the quality of that
task was not unlike the quest of a
Greek or Roman hero." Christ does
what is required. He comes to do
the will of him by whom he was
sent. He lays down his life for his
friends, not for the sake of a principle.
Indeed, in the heroic literature
there is usually very little question
A Vision of Life
Stories of virtue, courage and
justice can and should play a central part in the formation of good
habit, that is, in the formation of
character. Stories provide a way of
habitua ting children to virtue.
They h elp to instill proper sentiments. They reinforce indirectly
the more explicit moral teaching of
family, church and school. They
provide also a defense against the
relentless process of desensitization
tha t goes on in modern societies.
And they provide a standard
against which erosion of standards
can be measured.
In addition, stories expand the
imagination. Moral development is
not simply a m atter of becoming
L E TT E R S fro m Sa n t a Fe
F a/1 1992
about what has to be done (most of
the moral dilemmas in the Gospels
are posed by the Pharisees); the
question is whether the hero can
resist temptation and do what he
ought to do. Will his training in the
virtues see him through?
What is revealed in heroic
stories is a profoundly realistic
appraisal of behavior under conditions of combat when it is dangerous to act as one ought or a price
will have to be paid. When the hero
is weary, outnumbered or alone,
when his resources are depleted or
temptation is overwhelming, he
does better to rely on his acquired
virtue than on his knack for moral
philosophy. Likewise, most of us
are thrown into situations where
there is little time to weigh the
moral pros and cons. Then, the best
question we can ask is, what do
good men and women do in such
situations? We are more likely to
find an answer to that question if
our training includes a thorough
exposure to stories of virtue.
�more rational or acquiring decisionmaking skills. It has to do with
vision, the way one looks at life.
Indeed, moral evil and sin are
sometimes described by theologians as an inability to see rightly.
Conversely, moral improvement is
often described (by very ordinary
people as well as theologians) as
the result of seeing things in a different light or seeing them for the
first time. "I was blind but now I
see" is more than a line from an old
hymn; it is the way a great many
people look at their moral growth.
It is therefore entirely inadequate to
explain morality in terms of developmental stages. The transformation of the moral life is rarely effected without a transformation of
imagination. It follows that one of
the central tasks of moral education
is to nourish the imagination with
rich and powerful images of the
kind found in stories, myths,
poems, biography, and drama. If
we wish our children to grow up
with a deep and adequate vision of
life, we must provide a rich fund
for them to draw on.
old epics the superheros' qualities
do not end with raw power.
Moral literature need not be of
epic proportions. There is also a
place for stories of manners and
duty, decency and virtue, loyalty
and friendship on a less epic
scale-stories that say, in effect:
However ordinary people actually
behave toward one another, this is
how they ought to behave. The
Little House on the Prairie, The Wind
in the Willows, and The Hobbit (a
combination of heroism and horniness) come to mind as examples of
this type of literature. Younger
children need stories that are similar but much shorter and can be told
orally.
It might be a mistake to inundate a child with too many stories.
But it is important that the right
kind of stories be repeated over and
over until they are nearly learned
by heart. After all, if repetition
were not such an effective technique in the education of habits, we
can be certain that the advertisers
would long since have ceased to
employ it.
Pure Hearts and Kindly Kings
Not just any stories will do,
however. Though realistic stories
about boys and girls just like oneself probably do no harm, they fail
to enlarge the imagination in the
way that heroic stories do. But we
must also be clear about what we
mean by a hero. Heroic stories link
strength or cunning or resourcefulness with virtue.
Galahad's
strength is as the strength of ten
because his heart is pure. Beowulf,
who has the strength of thirty men
in his grip, is also renowned as the
"kindest of worldly kings." The
cunning of Ulysses is used in the
service of loyalty to his men. In the
William Kilpatrick is professor of
education at Boston College. His latest
book, Why Tohnny Can't Tell Right
from Wrong (Simon & Schuster, 1992)
may well be one of the most powerful,
and depressing, books of this decade.
This is an excerpt of an article printed
in Policy Review.
Fall 1 992
LETTERS from Santa F e
STORIES PROVIDE A WAY
OF HABITUATING
CHILDREN TO VIRTUE.
page elev e n
�TEACHING THE VIRTUES
by Christina Hoff Sommers
SOCIAL MORALITY IS
ONLY HALF OF THE MORAL
LIFE; THE OTHER HALF IS
PRIVATE MORALITY
Not very long ago, I published an article called "Ethics without
Virtue" in which I criticized the way ethics is being taught in American colleges. I pointed out that there is an overemphasis on social policy questions,
with little or no attention being paid to private morality. I noted that students taking college ethics are debating abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, DNA research, and the ethics of transplant surgery while they learn
almost nothing about private decency, honesty, personal responsibility, or
honor. Topics such as hypocrisy, self-deception, cruelty or selfishness rarely
came up. I argued that the current style of ethics teaching which concentrated so much on social policy was giving students the wrong ideas about
ethics. Social morality is only half of the moral life; the other half is private
morality. I urged that we attend to both.
A colleague of mine did not like what I said. She told me that in her
classroom she would continue to focus on issues of social injustice. She
taught about women's oppression, corruption in big business, multinational
corporations and their transgressions in the Third World-that sort of thing.
She said to me, "You are not going to have moral people until you have
moral institutions. You will not have moral citizens until you have a moral
government." She made it clear that I was wasting time and even doing
harm by promoting bourgeois morality and the bourgeois virtues instead of
awakening the social conscience of my students.
At the end of the semester, she came into my office carrying a stack of
exams and looking very upset.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"They cheated on their social justice take-home finals. They plagiarized!" More than half of the students in her ethics class had copied long
passages from the secondary literature. "What are you going to do?" I asked
her. She gave me a self-mocking smile and said, "I'd like to borrow a copy of
that article you wrote on ethics without virtue."
A Hole in the Moral Ozone
There have been major cheating scandals at many of our best universities. A recent survey reported in the Boston Globe says that 75 percent of all
high school students admit to cheating; for college students the figure is 50
percent. A U.S. News and World Report survey asked college-age students if
they would steal from an employer. Thirty-four percent said they would.
Of people forty-five and over, six percent responded in the affirmative.
Part of the problem is that so many students come to college dogmatically committed to a moral relativism that offers them no grounds to think that
cheating is just wrong. I sometimes play a macabre game with first-year students, trying to find some act they will condemn as morally wrong:
Torturing a child. Starving someone to death. Humiliating an invalid in a
page tw e lve
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Fall 1992
�nursing home. The reply is often: "Torture, starvation and humiliation may
be bad for you or me, but who are we to say they are bad for someone else?"
Not all students are dogmatic relativists; nor are they all cheaters and
liars. Even so, it is impossible to deny that there is a great deal of moral
drift. The students' ability to arrive at reasonable moral judgments is severely, even bizarrely, affected. A Harvard University professor annually offers
a large history class on the Second World War and the rise of the Nazis.
Some years back, he was stunned to learn from his teaching assistant that
the majority of students in the class did not believe that anyone was really to
blame for the Holocaust. The graduate assistant asserted that if these
Harvard students were sitting in judgment at Nuremberg they would have
let everyone off. No one was to blame. In the students ' minds, the
Holocaust was like a natural cataclysm: It was inevitable and unavoidable.
The professor refers to his students' attitude about the past as "no-fault history."
How Ethics Courses Have Changed
First, a bit of history. Let me remind you of how ethics was once taught
in American colleges. In the nineteenth century, the ethics course was a high
point of college life. It was taken in the senior year, and was usually taught
by the president of the college who would uninhibitedly urge the students to
become morally better and
stronger. The senior ethics course
was in fact the culmination of the
students' college experience. But
as the social sciences began to
flourish in the early twentieth
century, ethics courses gradually
lost prominence until they
became just one of several electives offered by philosophy
departments. By the mid-1960s, enrollment in courses on moral philosophy
reached an all-time low and, as one historian of higher education put it, "college ethics was in deep trouble".
At the end of the '60s, there was a rapid turnaround. To the surprise of
many a department chair, applied ethics courses suddenly proved to be very
popular. Philosophy departments began to attract unprecedented numbers
of students to courses in medical ethics, business ethics, ethics for everyday
life, ethics for lawyers, for social workers, for nurses, for journalists. More
recently, the dubious behavior of some politicians and financiers has added
to public concern over ethical standards which in turn has contributed to the
feeling that college ethics is needed. Today American colleges and universities are offering thousands of well-attended courses in applied ethics.
I too have been teaching applied ethics courses for several years, but my
enthusiasm for them tapered off when I saw how the students reacted. I was
especially disturbed by comments students made again and again on the
course evaluation forms, "I learned there was no such thing as right or
wrong, just good or bad arguments." Or, "I learned there is no such thing as
morality." I asked myself what it was about these classes that was fostering
this sort of moral agnosticism and skepticism. Perhaps the students themFall 1992
r
LETTERS from Santa F e
IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF
A COURSE DEALING
WITH HARD AND
CONTROVERSIAL CASES,
THE CONTEMPORARY
STUDENT MAY EASILY
FIND THE VERY IDEA OF A
STABLE MORAL TRADITION
TO BE AN ARCHAIC
ILLUSION.
pag e thirte e n
�--selves were part of the problem. Perhaps it was the high school experience
that led them to become moral agnostics. Even so, I felt that my classes were
doing nothing to change them.
The course I had been giving was altogether typical. At the beginning
of the semester we studied a bit of moral theory, going over the strengths
and weaknesses of Kantianism, utilitarianism, social contract theory and relativism. We then took up topical moral issues such as abortion, censorship,
capital punishment, world hunger, and affirmative action. Naturally, I felt it
my job to present careful and well-argued positions on all sides of these
popular issues. But this atmosphere of argument and counterargument was
reinforcing the idea that all moral questions have at least two sides, i.e., that
all of ethics is controversial.
Perhaps this reaction is to be expected in any ethics course primarily
devoted to issues on which it is natural to have a wide range of disagreement. In a course specifically devoted to dilemmas and hard cases, it is
almost impossible not to give the student the impression that ethics itself has
no solid foundation.
The "Plain Moral Facts"
It will, I think, be granted that the average student today does not come
to college steeped in a religious or ethical tradition in which he or she has
uncritical confidence. In the atmosphere of a course dealing with hard and
controversial cases, the contemporary student may easily find the very idea
of a stable moral tradition to be an archaic illusion. I am suggesting that we
may have some responsibility here for providing the student with what the
philosopher Henry Sidgwick called "moral common sense." (Sometimes he
spoke of "established morality" as it is commonly understood and accepted.)
More generally, I am suggesting that we should assess some of the courses
we teach for their edificatory effect. Our responsibility as teachers goes
beyond purveying information about the leading ethical theories and in
developing dialectical skill in moral casuistry.
The Philosophy of Virtue
If one accepts the idea that moral edification is not an improper desideratum in the teaching of ethics, then the question arises: What sort of course in
ethics is effective? What ethical teachings are naturally edificatory? My own
experience leads me to recommend a course on the philosophy of virtue.
Here, Aristotle is the best place to begin. Philosophers as diverse as Plato,
Augustine, Kant and even Mill wrote about vice and virtue. And there is an
impressive contemporary literature on the subject. But the locus classicus is
Aristotle.
Students find a great deal of plausibility in Aristotle's theory of moral
education, as well as personal relevance in what he says about courage, generosity, temperance and other virtues. I have found that an exposure to
Aristotle makes an immediate inroad on dogmatic relativism, indeed the
tendency to dismiss morality as relative to taste or social fashion rapidly
diminishes and may vanish altogether. Most students find the idea of
developing virtuous character traits naturally .appealing.
Once the student becomes engaged with the problem of what kind of
pa ge fou r t e en
L E TTERS from Santa F e
Fall 1992
�person to be, and how to become that kind of person, the problems of ethics
become concrete and practical and, for many a student, morality itself is
thereafter looked on as a natural and even inescapable personal undertaking. I have not come across students who have taken a course in the philosophy of virtue saying that they have learned there is no such thing as morality. The writings of Aristotle and of other philosophers of virtue are full of
argument and controversy, but students who read them with care are not
tempted to say they learned "there is no right or wrong, only good or bad
arguments."
Is There Moral Knowledge?
Is there really such a thing as moral knowledge? The reply to that is an
emphatic "Yes." Have we not learned a thing or two over the past several
thousand years of civilization? To pretend we know nothing about basic
decency, about human rights, about vice and virtue, is fatuous or disingenuous.
Of course we know that gratuitous cruelty and political repression are
wrong, that kindness and political freedom are rightand good. Why should
we be the first society in history that finds itself hamstrung in the vital task
of passing along its moral tradition to the next generation?
Some opponents of directive moraFeducation argue that it could be a
form of brainwashing. That is a pernicious confusion. To brainwash is to
diminish someone's capacity for reasoned judgment It is perversely misleading to say that helping children to develop habits of truth telling or fair
play threatens their ability to make reasoned choices. Quite the contrary:
Good moral habits enhance one's capacity for ration.al judgments.
The paralyzing fear of indoctrinating children is even greater in high
schools than it is in elementary schools. One favored teaching technique,
allegedly avoiding indoctrination, is dilemma ethics. Children are presented
with abstract moral dilemmas: Seven people are in a lifeboat with provisions
for four-what should they do? Or Lawrence Kohlberg's famous case of
Heinz and the stolen drug. Should the indigent Heinz, whose dying wife
WHY SHOULD WE BE THE FIRST SOCIETY IN
HISTORY THAT FINDS ITSELF HAMSTRUNG IN THE VITAL
TASK OF PASSING ALONG ITS MORAL TRADITIONS TO
THE NEXT GENERATION?
needs medicine, steal it? When high school students study ethics at all, it is
usually in the form of pondering such dilemmas or in the form of debates on
social issues: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and the like.
Directive moral education is out of favor. Storytelling is out of fashion.
Fall 1992
LETTERS from S a nta Fe
pag e f ift e en
�THE BEST MORAL
TEACHING INSPIRES
STUDENTS BY MAKING
THEM KEENLY AWARE
THAT THEIR OWN
CHARACTER IS AT
STAKE.
p age s i x t e e n
Let's consider for a moment just how the current fashion in dilemmas
differs from the older approach to moral education which often used moral
tales and parables to instill moral principles in students in the primary
grades. Saul Bellow asserts that the survival of Jewish culture would be
inconceivable without the stories that gave point and meaning to the Jewish
moral tradition. One such story, included in a collection of traditional
Jewish tales that Bellow edited, is called "If Not Higher." I sketch it here to
contrast the story-approach with the dilemma-approach in primary and secondary education, but the moral of the contrast also applies to the teaching
of ethics at the college level as well:
There was once a rabbi in a small Jewish village in Russia who vanished
every Friday morning for several hours. The devoted villagers boasted that
during these hours their rabbi ascended to Heaven to talk with God. A
skeptical newcomer arrived in town, determined to discover where the rabbi
really was.
One Friday morning the newcomer hid near the rabbi's house, watched
him rise, say his prayers and put on the clothes of a peasant. He saw him
take an ax and go into the forest, chop down a tree and gather a large bundle
of wood. Next the rabbi proceeded to a shack in the poorest section of the
village in which lived an old woman and her sick son. He left them the
wood which was enough for the week. The rabbi then quietly returned to
his own house. The story concludes that the newcomer stayed on in the village and became a disciple of the rabbi. And w henever he hears one of his
fellow villagers say, "On Friday morning our rabbi ascends all the way to
Heaven," the newcomer quietly adds, "If not higher."
In a moral dilemma such as Kohlberg's Heinz stealing the drug, or the
lifeboat case, there are no obvious heroes or villains. Not only do the characters lack moral personality, but they exist in a vacuum outside of traditions
and social arrangements that shape their conduct in the problematic situations confronting them . In a dilemma there is no obvious right and wrong,
no clear vice and virtue. The dilemma may engage the students' minds; it
only marginally engages their emotions, their moral sensibilities. The issues
are finely balanced, listeners are on their own and they individually decide
for themselves. As one critic of dilemma ethics has observed, one cannot
imagine parents p assing down to their children the tale of Heinz and the
stolen drug. By contrast, in the story of the rabbi and the skeptical outsider,
it is not up to the listener to decide w hether or not the rabbi did the right
thing. The moral message is clear: "Here is a good man-merciful, compassionate and actively helping someone weak and vulnerable. Be like that person." The message is contagiou s. Even the skeptic gets the point.
Stories and parables are not always appropriate for high school or college
ethics courses, but the literary classics certainly are. To understand King
Lear, Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn or Middlemarch requires that the reader
have some understanding of (and sympathy with) what the author is saying
about the moral ties that bind the characters and that hold in place the social
fabric in which they play their roles. Take something like filial obligation.
One moral of King Lear is that society cannot survive w hen filial contempt
becomes the norm. Literary figures can thus provide students w ith the
moral p aradigms that Aristotle thought were essential to moral education.
L E TTERS fro m S a n t a Fe
F a ll 1992
�I am not suggesting that moral
puzzles and dilemmas have no
place in the ethics curriculum. To
teach something about the logic of
moral discourse and the practice of
moral reasoning in resolving conflicts of principles is clearly important. But casuistry is not the place
to start, and, taken by itself, dilemma ethics tends to give the student
the impression that ethical thinking
is a lawyer's game.
Three Steps Towards Virtue
What I am recommending is
not new, it has worked before, and
it is simple:
1. Schools should have behavior codes that emphasize civility,
kindness and honesty.
2. Teachers should not be
accused of brainwashing children
when they insist on basic civility,
decency, honesty and fairness.
3. Children should be told stories that reinforce goodness. In ,
high school and college, students should be reading, studying and discussing
the moral classics.
I am suggesting that teachers must help children become acquainted with
their moral heritage in literature, in religion and in philosophy. I am suggesting that virtue can be taught, and that effective moral education appeals to the
emotions as well as to the mind. The best moral teaching inspires students by
making them keenly aware that their own character is at stake.
Christina Hoff Sommers is Associate Professor of Philosophy , Clark University.
This article is taken from Imprimis, November 1991 .
Fa ll 1992
LETT ERS f r om San t a Fe
page sevent e e n
�LEARNING GOODNESS
by James Bond Stockdale
I KNEW THAT CIVIC
VIRTUE, THE PLACING OF
THE VALUE OF THAT
SOCIETY ABOVE ONE'S
PERSONAL INTERESTS,
WAS NOT ONLY
ADMIRABLE, IT WAS
CRUCIAL TO SELFRESPECT.
pa ge e i g h t ee n
The best education, the best
preparation for a full and successful life surely entails a proper blend
of classical and contemporary studies. While we pursue the keys to
the kingdom of modernity-studies
in political science and economics
and high technology-we need to
understand the importance of a
broad background in the readings
of antiquity, those readings that
form the basis of our civilization.
In times of duress, in war especially, is that classical background
important.
The Stoics said that "Character
is fate." In my life, education has
been fate. I became what I learned,
or maybe I should say I became the
distillation of what fascinated me
most as I learned it. Only three
years after I left graduate school, I
participated in the refounding of
my own civilization after doomsday, when the giant doors of an
Old World dungeon had slammed
shut and locked me and a couple
hundred other Americans in-in
total silence, in solitary confinement, in leg irons, in blindfolds for
w eeks at a time, in antiquity, in a
political prison.
That refounded civilization
became our salvation. Stripped to
nothing, nothing but the instincts
and intelligence of the ancients, we
improvised a communication system dredged up from inklings of a
distant past (actually the tap code
of Polybius , a second-ce ntury
Gree k historian with a fl air for
cryptography), and lived on comradeship in a polity tha t would
L E TTERS fro m San ta Fe
have been a credit to Polybius'
Athens. The spiritual power (not
necessarily religious) that seeped
into us as we surreptitiously joined
forces against our common enemy
came as a surprise.
In my solitude the impact of
this unexpected spiritual power
sometimes caused me to wonder.
Does modernity deaden our noblest
impulses? Does it smother or atrophy the power of the human spirit,
the power of human nature? Do
the readings of ancient times, the
classics, serve merely to give us
insight into the events of the past?
Or do not the texts of those self-contained cultures of antiquity portray
human power in all its vibrant
potential? Do they not contain evidence of a more imaginative and
fundamental grasp of the essence of
being human than can be found
even in 20th century texts that have
since joined the classics on the
humanities shelves?
In Homer's immortal epic, The
Iliad, as Hector is about to leave the
gates of Troy to fight Achillesknowing, as he must have known,
that he would lose and he would
die-he says goodbye to his wife
and baby son at the gates, and the
baby starts to cry, frightened by the
nodding of the plumes on his
father' s shining helmet. Some
would think the tale of the GreekTrojan War to be an irrelevant relic
of bygone days. Some would think
it should be stricken from the reading list because it glamorizes war.
Some would think that now at last,
with rea son to guide us, we can
scoff at a warrior's suicidal obligations. But others of us react quite
differently, seeing in that scen e a
snapshot of the a geless huma n
predicament: Hector's duty, his
wife's tragedy, Troy's necessity, the
Fa /1 199 2
�baby's cry ....
My reaction, of course, is the
latter, not only because I am a
romantic by nature, but because by
the time I first read The Iliad I had
lived in antiquity (and I am not
referring to the lack of electricity or
plumbing). I had lived in a selfcontained culture, a prison culture I
watched grow among men of goodwill under pressure. I knew what it
was to be a human being who
could be squashed like a bug without recourse to law, and I knew
that the culture, the society, that
preserved me had to be preserved
or nobody had anything to cling to.
I knew that civic virtue, the placing
of the value of that society above
one's personal interests, was not
only admirable, it was crucial to
self-respect. And I knew that to
preserve that culture, symbolic battles had to be fought before real
battles could start. I knew that
obligations, particularly love and
self-sacrifice, were the glue that
made a man whole in this primitive
element, and I knew that under the
demands of these obligations being
"reasonable" was a luxury that
often could not be afforded.
I also knew during this prison
existence that I was being shown
something good-that life can have
a spiritual content one can almost
reach out and touch. I suppose it
can always have that, but I was
used to the idea of it being fuzzed
up, powdered, fluffed, and often
ridiculed here in man made modernity, where changing the world
takes precedence over understanding it, understanding man himself.
The same message comes
through in the writings of Fyodor
Dostoyevski, Arthur Koestler, and
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. They' ve
been where I've been. So had
Miguel Cervantes. This future
author of Don Quixote was a young
officer in the Spanish army taken
prisoner after the Battle of Lepanto
in the 16th century. He spent seven
years in an Algiers political prison.
Same story: "Confess your crimes,"
"Discredit yourself," "Disavow your
roots." He was tortured to disavow
Christianity and would get
amnesty and go home if he would
disavow it. I was made much the
same offer. I was to disavow
"American Imperialism." Good boy,
Cervantes, you hung in too. You
knew how this age-old game is
played. Political prisons are not
just sources of fables of the past.
They could just as easily inspire the
literature of the future. Unable to
tolerate dissent, totalitarian governments must have them. How else
to suppress and discredit their enemies within?
You know, the life of the mind
is a wonder-the life of the mind in
solitude, the life of the mind in
extremis, the life of the mind when
the body's nervous system is under
attack. If you want to break a
man's spirit, and if your victim's
will is strong, you've got to get
physical. Sometimes you might
think that you can unhinge strong
people with psychological mumbo
jumbo. Sorry, there is no such
thing as brainwashing. But even
physical hammering will not alone
change all hard-set attitudes. The
real method to jellify those attitudes, that is, to extract those seemingly heartfelt "confessions," is the
artful and long-term imposition of
fear and guilt. Solitary confinement
and tourniquet-tight rope bindings
are mere catalysts for the fear and
guilt conditioning. Remember, I'm
talking about strong-willed victims.
They're going to make you hurt
F a /119 92
LETT E RS f rom Sant a Fe
pa ge n int ee n
�them. They know from experience
that the compliance extracted by
brute force is in no way so spiritually damaging as that given away
on a mere threat. And they have
learned from experience that in the
end it is a spiritual battle. The leak
in the dike always starts from within.
How does the mind of the victim respond to these challenges?
First, regarding the loneliness,
the solitude: It's not as bad as you
think. Don't forget, the time factor
is stretched out way beyond most
three to four weeks. It ends when it
suddenly dawns on him that he'll
have no such luck; he's stuck with
himself. Almost everybody then
sets himself up in a ritualistic life.
Something deep-seated in human
nature likes, feels safe with, repetition-a time for this, and a time for
that, repeated regularly every day.
You get to thinking about how
liturgies of worship must have gotten started in some prehistoric clan.
Your mind drifts to many
anthropological questions. How do
institutions and governments get
"THE CHALLENGE OF EDUCATION IS NOT TO
PREPARE A PERSON FOR SUCCESS, BUT TO
PREPARE HIM FOR FAILURE." IT IS IN
DISASTER, NOT SUCCESS, THAT THE HEROES AND
THE BUMS REALLY GET SORTED OUT
page t we n t y
psychological experiments. There
was a professor at Stanford who
got national attention several years
ago for locking some students in
the basement of a library for a few
days, and then writing a book
about his observations of their
behavior. I laughed when I read it.
You don't know the first thing
about a person until he has been in
the cooler for a couple of months.
He has to first go through the stage
when he is preoccupied with going
insane. That's a normal prelude
without lasting significance. Figure
on that phase lasting for the first
started? Are they the product of a
man on a white horse? Does some
powerful person impose rule: "We
gotta get organized; here are the
tribe's rules; break'em and I'll cave
your skull in." I doubt it. When
you're scared, you don't feel the
urge to take charge. And when
you 're expected to, by virtue of
heredity in clan or tribe, or seniority, for sure, among military prisoners, on first contact you seem compelled to say something becoming a
well-brought-up American boy,
like: "In these circumstances when
you are being threatened or tor-
LETTERS f r o m S a n ta F e
F a ll 1 9 92
�tured to do things that offend your
very being, I can't bring myself to
order you to do this or that.
Everyone must have the autonomy
to choose the best alternatives facing him. Do the best you can and
God bless you."
How civilized and compassionate! But it will never sell. Those
fine young people in trouble won't
let you get away with that. Their
response is sure to be something
like this: "You have no right to
piously tell us each to seek out the
good, and then back out of the picture . You are in charge here, and
it's your duty to tell us what the
good is. We deserve to sleep at
night, feeling that at least we're
doing something right in all hewing
to what our leader says . We
deserve the self-respect that comes
with knowing we are resisting in an
organized manner. We expect you
to tell us to take torture before we
comply with any of their demands.
Give us the list!" There's nothing
rational about such a reaction.
Anybody could see that we probably weren't going to win the battle.
But on the other hand, as the veteran prisoner Fyodor Dostoyevski
aptly noted, "Man's most deep
desires in life under pressure are
not for a rationally advantageous
choice, but for an independent
choice."
But believe it or not, as time
wears on in solitary you get better
at dealing with these matters. The
ultimate accommodation with them
comes from focusing intensely on
leading a very, very clean and honest life, mentally and otherwiseand you find yourself being consumed in a strange, lasting and
unexpected highmindedness. By
this, I don't mean "joyfulness," and I
particularly don't mean "optimism."
Fa ll 1992
What I mean by the setting in of
highmindedness is the gradual erosion of natural selfishness among
people of goodwill facing a common danger over time. The more
intense the common danger, the
quicker the "me-first" selfishness
melts. In our situation, at about the
two-year point, I believe most of us
were thinking of that faceless friend
next door-the sole point of contact
we had with our civilization, that
lovely intricate human thing we
had never seen-in terms of love in
the highest sense. By later comparing notes with others, I found I was
not alone in becoming so noble and
righteous in that solitude that I
could hardly stand myself. People
would willingly absorb physical
punishment rather than let it fall to
their comrades; questions arose in
my mind about the validity of the
much-talked about instinct of selfpreservation. Solzhenitsyn describes
his feelings of high-mindedness in
his Gulag writings in words like
these:
It was only when I lay there
on the rotting prison straw
that I sensed within myself
the first stirrings of good.
Gradually it was disclosed
to me that the line separating good and evil passes
not between states nor
between classes
nor
between political parties
but right through every
human heart, through all
human hearts. And that is
why I turn back to the
years of my imprisonment
and say, sometimes to the
astonishment of those
about me, "Thank you,
prison, for having been in
my life."
LETTERS from Santa Fe
pa ge twe nty- one
�Was I a victim? Not when I
became fully engaged, got into the
life of unity with comrades, helping
others, and being encouraged by
them. So, many times, I would find
myself whispering to myself after
an exhilarating wall-tap message
exchange: "I am right where I
belong; I am right where I was
meant to be." In all honesty, I say to
myself, "What a wonderful life I
have led." No two of us are the
same, but to me the wonder of my
life is in escaping the life Captain
McWhirr had programmed for
himself in Joseph Conrad's
typhoon: "to go skimming over the
years of existence to sink gently
into a placid grave, ignorant of life
to the last, without ever having
been made to see all it may contain
of perfidy, of violence, of terror."
And the author adds, "There are on
sea and land such men thus fortunate-or thus disdained-by destiny .. ."
Phil Rhinelander, my philosophy mentor at Stanford, died a
short time ago. We were preparing
a book together, and consequently I
was with him almost every day at
the last. One of the last things we
talked about was our agreement on
a point we had each separately stated publicly: "The challenge of edupage t wen t y- t w o
LETTERS from San t a Fe
cation is not to prepare a person for
success, but to prepare him for failure." It is in disaster, not success,
that the heroes and the bums really
get sorted out.
Always striving for true education is the best insurance against
losing your bearings, your perspective, in the fact of disaster, in the
face of failure. I came home from
prison to discover something I had
forgotten; in my old Webster's collegiate dictionary I had pasted a
quotation
from
Aristotle:
"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity." I
had lived in the truth of that for all
those years.
Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale
served for 34 years as a Navy officer.
Shot down over North Vietnam, he was
the senior Navy prisoner of war in
Hanoi for eight years. He is a former
president of the Naval War College and
currently a Senior Research Fellow at
The Hoover Institution. Recently a
candidate for the Vice President of the
U. S., Adm. Stockdale was on the St.
John's College Board of Visitors and
Governors from 1981 to 1987. This is
an excerpt of a speech he gave in 1987.
Fall 1 992
�ANNOUNCEMENTS
Institute for the Study of Eastern Classics
at
St. John's College
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The institute offers a one-year, graduate level, certificate
program in the classic texts of India and China. Among the
many works to be read are: Rgveda, Mahabharata,
Upani~ads, Bhagavadglta, Analects of Confucius, I Ching,
Tao-te Ching, Writings of Mo Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Han
Pei Tzu. Participants will also choose a language tutorial in
Classical Chinese or Sanskirt. All classes will be conducted
by discussion and are scheduled twice weekly in the late
afternoon and evening. Tuition is $1,500 for each semester.
For further information write to:
Institute for the Study of Eastern Classics
St. John's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501-4599
"Zr 505/988-4361, Fax 505/989-9269
What college has
produced two Rhodes
Scholars in three years
from a student body of
less than 1000?
We are proud
to
announce that St. John's
College senior Jeffrey
Seidman has been awarded
a Rhodes Scholarship. Mr.
Seidman is the second
Rhodes Scholar selected
from the college in the past
three years. Mr. Seidman
will study philosophy, economics and politics at
Oxford and intends eventually to teach philosophy
at the college level.
We are very grateful to the Laurel Foundation for their generous support of LETTERS from Santa Fe.
r---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------,
To our readers,
If you know someone who might be interested in receiving information regarding the programs offered at St.
John's College please fill out this form and return it to St. John's College, 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe,
New Mexico 87501-4599.
Name of interested person (s)
Address
Possible area(s) of interest- D Undergraduate
D Graduate
D Eastern Studies
Thank you,
f}L f~ /
John Agresto
President, Santa Fe
F al l 1 99 2
LETT E R S fro m Santa Fe
pa g e t we nt y - three
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
�PROFILE
St. John's College:
Is an independent, non-sectarian, four-year liberal arts college
Founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St. John's College.
Great Books Program adopted 1937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
Curriculum:
An integrated, four-year, all-required liberal arts and science program based on reading and discussing, in loosely
chronological order, the great books of Western civilization. The program requires four years of foreign language,
four years of mathematics, three years of laboratory science, and one year of music.
Approach:
Tutorials, laboratories, and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures. Classes are
very small.
Student/Faculty ratio is 8:1.
Degrees Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts. Master of Arts in Liberal Studies.
Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 students on each campus. Current freshman class made up of 55% men and 45 %
women, from 30 states and several foreign countries. Sixty-five percent receive financial aid. Students may transfer
between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
Alumni Careers:
Education - 21 %, Business - 20 %, Law - 10%, Visual and Performing Arts - 9%, Medicine - 7%, Science and
Engineering - 7%, Computer Science - 6%, Writing and Publishing - 5%.
Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary master's degree program based on the same principles as the undergraduate program. Offered on both campuses year-round. Readers of the newsletter may be especially interested in applying for our summer session. For more information please contact the Graduate Institute in
Santa Fe (505) 982-3691 ext. 249 or in Annapolis (301) 263 - 2371.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
St. John's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501-4599
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
Bulk Rate
U.S. Postage
PAID
Non-Profit
Organization
Permit No. 231
Santa Fe, NM
�
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LETTERSJrom Santa Fe
St. John's College-Santa Fe. New Mexico
Summer 1992
ONENESS AND
OTHERNESS
h e problem with sending out a free newsletter is that nobody writes and
complains when we skip an issue. Maybe nobody noticed . ...
In any event, it's true. We have been so caught up with day-to-day activities at
the college that we've been hard pressed to find the time to get out a spring issue.
So, unless we squeeze in an extra over the summer, all faithful readers this year
will have to bear with one less copy.
In this issue I wanted to return to a topic that has been something of a theme,
a thread, throughout many of these Letters. I've e ntitled it, somewhat awkwardly,
"Oneness and Otherness" in higher education.
Traditional liberal education is always being called to task for something. We
have, historically, been accused of being insufficiently vocational, insufficiently
"relevant," insufficiently research driven. Today, as everyone who cares about the
issue knows, traditional liberal education is judged insufficiently diverse, insufficiently multicultural. Unlike some of the earlier attacks on the liberal arts, this criticism grows mainly from within; it rarely comes from the public. (The phrase
"dead, white, European males" is not one that comes readily to the lips of the man
on the street, but it's all the rage in the halls of ivy.)
Despite the overall wrongheadedness of the criticism and the political ends for
which it is being used, there is a grain of truth in the critique, one that has to be
understood. The truth seems to be this: A liberal education should have two great
goals--to teach us something about ourselves and our own and, additionally, to
teach us things not our own, things other, things strange, but things nonetheless
potentially true or beautiful. On one hand, we need to have a better understanding of who we are and why we might be that way - we need to know something about the Greeks, the Bibl.e, the principles of democratic government. But,
above that, we also need to know what ·we are not, have never experienced, have
never thought of. All decent highe r education is both an education in identity, in
oneness; and, at the same time, an inquiry into things strange, things diverse,
things other.
Errors happen on both sides of the equation. On the side of sameness, we can
spend too long looking at o urselves unquestioningly; learning about o ur civiliza-
...
�tion, nation or self uncritically; seeing
what we are without asking why we
are or what we might be. Today,
however, the real danger stems from
the other side. The mad rush to
"diversify" rarely means the thoughtful
incorporation of new material as much
as the trashing of the old for no better
reason than that it's old, or "European."
It rarely means the addition of new
insights as often as it means the "representative" inclusion of the work of different groups, as if real education
means not knowing the best but looking at the samples. And, contrary to its
own standard, "diversity" is rarely
diverse. Most often it is simply a way
of tearing down the culture not with
radical new ideas but with ideas comfortable to the radicals.
The truth is that traditional liberal
education is still the most radical
endeavor around. To be sure, it teaches us some things about ourselves,
about w ho we are and the reasons we
might have for being that way. It also
offers us the opportunity to see the
world differently, to see it w ith other
eyes, and from the perspective of other
times. Not only through literature and
history but also through science, mathematics and languages, do we learn to
see the world anew. As an example,
in the center of this newsletter I have
reprinted the course of study here at
St. John's. If one wants to learn about
one's own, and things not one's own,
I'm not sure those works could be
improved upon.
THE TRUTH SEEMS TO BE
THIS : A LIBERAL EDUCATION SHOULD HAVE TWO
GREAT GOALS-TO TEACH
US SOMETHING ABOUT
OURSELVES AND OUR
OWN AND, ADDITIONALLY,
TO TEACH US THINGS NOT
OUR OWN, THINGS
Sincerely,
OTHER, THINGS STRANGE,
BUT THINGS NONETHELESS POTENT/ALLY TRUE
John Agresto
page t wo
OR BEAUTIFUL.
L ETTERS fro m Santa F e
S u mm er 1 99 2
�THE MARRIAGE OF
PC AND DIVERSITY
by John Agresto
President
St. John's College, Santa Fe
/ said last time that "political correctness" is a dangerous but still limited problem at most institutions of
higher learning. Yet, every time I
open the papers it seems that another university has capitulated. Like
the Great Plague, it destroys the
high as well as the low, the
renowned as easily as the most
humble. Today, I offer you the
University of Toronto.
It appears clear from the
Toronto example that what makes
political correctness a potent force
in higher e ducation is not a universal belief in some type of economic
theory or political structure but,
rather, in the simple correctness of
the academy's new-found belief in
diversity and multicultura lism.
Political correctness has very little to
do with politics and everything to
do with culture.
The beliefs
demanded are, to be certain, new
be liefs - who thought, five years
ago, that multiculturalism would be
seen as the essential principle of
e ducation? Yet, institutions have
embraced it with all the fanaticism
of new converts. Now, as with all
new waves of orthodoxy, the skeptical might well b e advised to be
careful rather than critical.
As I have argued in previous
Letters, this new rage for diversity as
a defining principle of e ducation
Summer 1992
has already undermined the traditional belief that important knowledge is necessarily transcultural and
transracial. For instance, Mozart and
Plato, dead white men though they
be, might nonetheless be fitting for
all students, white or black, male or
female, to know.
The rage for diversity and multiculturalism has also seriously eroded
the old principle that a curriculum
should be built around a selection of
works and authors that are compelling, perceptive or informative.
Often, now, it is not the best or
most challenging that must be
taught, but the contrary - the most
representative and the most culturally comfortable.
But, in addition to its rejection of
the traditional principles of liberal
education, the rage for multiculturalism has now become the reason, the
warrant, to enforce codes of political
correctness. For, if the celebration
of diversity becomes the aim of education, then those professors whose
courses are challenges to the easy
belief in the equal value and dignity
of all notions, cultures and lifestyles
are the ones who, bluntly, are in the
way.
Now, to the University of
Toronto. The newest draft of the
university's Statement on Human
Rights has some items that are, at
best, peculiar and, at worst, truly
dangerous. It declares, for instance,
that it is "a central element of its
mission" to educate individuals prepared to work to remove "barriers
and inequities" faced by "members
of marginalized groups of any sort. "
It modifies its commitment to academic freedom with the condition that
the university must nonetheless act
"to prevent or remedy" discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation ... marital status, family status,
LETTERS from Santa Fe
receipt of public assistance or record
of offense." Most ominously, however, it declares its aspiration to be a
community that "embraces teaching,
research and other activities in a
manner that acknowledges as their
context a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic
and multi-racial society that is represented in its teachers and learners
and that informs the subject-matter
of many of its disciplines."
As Thomas Pangle, professor of
political economy at Toronto, wrote
in objection to this document, "[i]t
allows for the view that the university is to be seen as not merely an
extension, but as an indoctrinating
tool, of the reigning intellectual and
social dogmas and the currrently
fashionable crusade of multiculturalism. " Moreover, the document
"limit[s] and confin[es] academic freedom, not on the basis of scientific or
scholarly merit but on the basis of
conformity to what somebody thinks
is a 'manner' that 'acknowledges '
(and the term in context clearly
means 'legitimates') a certain type of
political society .... "
Academics may teach what they
will about the causes of war, the
structure of sentences, the irrelevance of religion, whatever. But if
their courses fail to support and
affirm the latest craving for multiculturalism , if their subjects are not
"informed" by multiculturalism, and
if their teachers and students do not
themselves "represent" multiculturalism, then, in the words of the current Secretary of Education, they will
soon be met by the universities '
diversity police.
No matter how ridiculed, derided
and maligned political corr~ctness
may be in the public press and public eye, so long as it claims diversity
as its ally it will continue to capture,
say, five colleges a week.
page three
�EXCERPTS FROMGIANTS AND DWARFS
by Allan Bloom
Since I first addressed the
issue of relativism , I ha ve learned
with what moral fervor it is protected and its opposite, ethnocentrism,
attacked. This fervor does not propose an investigation but a crusade.
The very idea that we ought to look
for standards by which to judge ourselves is scandalous. You simply
h a v e to beli eve in the current
understanding of openness if you
are to believe in democracy and be
a dec ent person. Carrying this
thought furthe r, however, one discovers that if there are no transcultural values, our reaction is ethnocentric. And the one thing we know
absolutely is that ethnocentrism is
bad. So we have painted ourselves
into a corner. And it is impo rtant to
unde rstand this.
When little childre n speak
o f h ow bad e thnocentrism is , I
know that they have been propagandized . It is too complicated a
thin g for them to understand .
Condemning ethnocentrism is frequ e ntl y a s ign o f inte llectual,
altho ug h n ot n ecessarily moral ,
progress. But it is only a first step.
To recognize that some of the things
o ur c ulture believes are not true
imposes o n us the duty of finding
out which are true and w hich are
not, a business altogether mo re diffipag e f o ur
THE FERVOR AGAINST
ETHNOCENTRISM
DOES NOT PROPOSE
AN INVESTIGATION
BUT A CRUSADE.
cult than the wholesale jettisoning
of all that one thought o ne knew.
Su ch je ttisoning always e nds up
w ith the selective and thoughtless
return to old ethnocentric ideas o n
the basis of what one needs rig ht
now, of w hat pleases one, of pure
feeling. But to tra vel one must
sp e nd a little time thinking a bo ut
one's compass as we ll as the land
one wishes to reach.
This problem was ni ce ly
illustrate d by the case of Salma n
Rushdie , a uthor o f The Satanic
Verse, w hich insulted the Muslim
faith and occasioned the Ayatollah
Kh o m e ini 's comma nd to h ave
Rushdie killed in England, o r w he rever he is to be found. There was
genera l s h ock throughout the
Western world at this, and writers,
whose ox was being gored, rushed
LETTERS f r o m Santa F e
before the TV cameras to denounce
this blatant attack on the inviolable
principle of freedom of sp eech. All
well and good.
But the kicker is that most
of these very same writers have for
many years been teaching that we
must respect the integrity of other
cultures and that it is arrogant ethnocentrism to judge other cultures
according to our standards, which
are themselves merely products of
our culture. In this case, however,
all such reasoning were forgotten,
and freedom of speech was treated
as though its claims to transcultural
status, its claims to be valid eve rywhere and always, are true . A few
days earlier such claims were treated as instruments of American imperialis m ; miraculously they were
transformed into absolutes.
Leaving aside the intellectua I incohere nce he re , this floating
means to say we do not know from
moment to moment what we w ill do
whe n there are conflic ts, whic h
the re inevitably will be, b etween
human rights and the imperatives of
the culturally sacred. You may have
noticed that the re has recently been
silence about the case; this is partially because it is an embarrassment,
and our convictions are weak . The
serious argume nts tha t established
the right of freedom of speech were
m ade b y philosop he rs- most
n o tably Locke, Milton, and Milland o ur contemporaries d o n o t
return to them to refresh their memo ries and to see whether the argume nts are really good. And this is
due not only to laziness but also to
the current attack o n the very idea
of such study.
Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs, (New
York; Simon and Schuster, 1990).
Su m rn re r 1 992
�EDUCATION AND
HUMAN COMMONNESS
by Nancy Buchenauer
Director, Graduate Institute
St. John's College, Santa Fe
5
t. John's College is not a community of learning exactly like other
academic institutions. Here we are
confident e nough to say that there
are certain books which we think
every educated person should read,
and we suppose that these books
can be read together fruitfully by
people of w idely different ages and
backgrounds. This makes us a community, an institution believing in
what people have in common in a
more radical way. Nevertheless, we
should be thinking about the bases
of our confidence in human commonness, about why we think we
can learn from one another.
The most obvious area of commonness that we share is reason.
When we read one of Euclid's geometrical theorems, we are all convinced by it in the same way, follow ing the same chain of arguments.
At first sight Euclid provides us w ith
the best model for holding conversations, because at every step reasons
are given which show the persons
we are talking to why we think what
we think. In mathe matics we
humans are in a position of equality
with respect to one another, and the
only authority we acknowledge is
the working of our rational m inds.
But, mathe matics aside, getting
along w ith one another, our belief
about God, the purpose and meaning
Summ e r 1 9 92
..
... WE SHOULD BE
THINKING ABOUT
THE BASES OF OUR
CONFIDENCE IN HUMAN
COMMONNESS, ABOUT
WHY WE THINK WE CAN
LEARN FROM ONE
ANOTHER.
of human life are the subject of endless controversy. Can talking about
these things do more than reaffirm
o ur differences? Can we still learn
and profit from one another's
thoughts'
A kind of faith is demanded of
us he re . A book is a p lace w here we
L E TTER S frum Sa nt a Fe
lose ourselves and our familiar
worlds, and open ourselves to the
unknown and the new, to the possibility of changes of all sorts. Why
should we venture into such dangerous territory?
Perhaps because it is necessary
to lose ourselves first to find out
what really is our own and who we
really are. Perhaps, too, we can act
to shake each other loose from our
supposed certainties so that we can
come to see truth for the first time.
It must be for such a reason that
we delight in hearing stories.
Human experience interests us vitally. Odysseus tells his hosts in the
Odyssey that there is no human
occasion better than when people
have eaten and drunk their fill and
then listen to tales about the terrible
in human lives. Somehow we do
know that other people's stories
matter to us, that we are all in life
together and what others have experienced and learned illuminates our
own lives. We must not be so very
unlike.
Besides reason and the w illingness to lose ourselves to books and
in one another's company, a third
ingredient is necessary to a community of learning, and that is humor.
Humor allows us to admit our
faults and e rrors, to say "that idea of
mine wasn 't right, here's a nothe r. "
This k ind of humor recreates the
comm unity. It incites o th ers to
remember that they can err, too .
This invitation to remember our
commonness asks us not to fa ll to
some level of mediocrity but to rise
to our possibilities, and leaves u s
open to change, a necessary state for
growth and for healing from our
ignorance.
From a lecture to graduate students at
the college, June 16, 1991.
pa ge f i v e
�W. E. B. DU BOIS
I sit with Shakespeare and he
winces not. Across the color
line I move arm in arm with
Balz ac and Dumas, where
smiling men and welcoming
women glide in gilded halls.
From out the caves of evening
that swing between the stronglimbed earth and the tracery
of the stars, I summon Aristotle
and Aurelius and what soul I
will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor cond es c ens ton, So, wed with
Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is
this the life you grudge us? Are
you so afraid lest peering from
this high Pisgah, between
Philistine and Amalekite, we
sight the Promised Land?
In thinking about the proposition that the greatest of
minds can draw us together,
speak to us, across any line
of race. place and time,
consider the following-
W. E. 8. Du Bois
The Souls of Black Folk,
(Greenwich: Fawcett Publications
Inc., 1903)
p a ge si x
LETTE RS fro m Sa nt a F e
Sum m e r 1 992
�MAYA ANGELOU
Determined to do what others did, at age twelve Maya Angelou
decided to "render a rendition" of poetry before the congregation of the C.M.E. Church of Stamps, Arkansas.
I decided that I would render Portia's speech from The
Merchant of Venice.
I had it choreographed; it was going to be fantastic, but then,
Momma (as I called my grandmother) asked me, "Sister, what are
you planning to render? " So I told her, " A piece fr o m
Shakespeare, Momma ." Momma asked, "Now sister, who is this
very Shakespeare?" I had to tell her that Shakespeare was white,
and Momma felt the less we said about whites the better, and if
we didn't mention them at all, maybe they'd just get up and
leave. I couldn't lie to her, so I told her, "Momma, it's a piece
written by William Shakespeare who is white but he's dead and
has been dead for centuries!" Now, I thought that she would forgive him that little idiosyncracy. Momma said, "Sister, you will
render a piece of Mister Langston Hughes, Mister Countee Cullen,
Mister James Weldon Johnson, or Mister Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Yes ma'am, little mistress, you will!"
Well I did, but years later, when I physically and psychologically left that country, that condition, which is Stamps,
Arkansas .. .I found myself and still find myself, whenever I like,
stepping back into Shakespeare. Whenever I like, I pull him to
me. He wrote it for me. "When in disgrace with fortun e and
men 's eyes,/ I all alone beweep my outcast state/ And trouble deaf
heaven with my bootless cries/ And look upon myself and curse
my fate.I Wishing me like to one more rich in hope/ Featured like
him, like him with friends possess'd/ Desiring this man's art and
that man 's scope/ With what I most enjoy contented least... " Of
course he wrote it.for me; that is a condition of the black woman.
Of course, he was a black woman. I understand that. Nobody else
understands it, but I know that William Shake!>peare was a black
woman. Tbat is the role of art in life.
Maya Angelou, Journey to the Heartland
Address delivered at the 1985 National Assembly of
Local Arts Agencies, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 12, 1985.
S umm e r 19 9 2
l. F. T T F. R S
f r o m Santa Fe
pa ge sev en
�Following is the list of books on which the St. John's program is based. The list is subject to
constant review and revision . Some books are read only in part.
SECOND YEAR
FIRST YEAR
Homer
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Thucydides
Euripides
Herodotus
Aristophanes
Plato
Aristotle
Euclid
Lucretius
Plutarch
Nicomachus
Lavoisier
Essays by:
Iliad, Odyssey
Agamemnon, Choephoroe,
Eumenides, Prometheus Bound
Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus,
Antigone
Peloponnesian War
Hippolytus, Medea, Bacchae
The Persian Wars
Cloud;~ Birds
Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology,
Crito, Phaedo, Symposium,
Parmenides, 1heaetetus, Sophist,
Timaeus, Phaedrus
Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics,
Nichomachean Ethics,
On Generation and Corruption,
The Politics, Parts ofAnimals,
Generation ofAnimals
Elements
On the Nature of Things
"Pericles," "Alcibiades," "Lycurgus,"
"Solon "
Arithmetic
Elements of Chemistry
Archimedes, Toricelli, Pascal,
Fahrenheit, Black, Avogadro, Dalton
Cannizzaro, Richter, T. Thompson
Aristotle
Apollonius
Virgil
Plutarch
Epictetus
Tacitus
Ptolemy
Plotinus
Augustine
Anselm
Aquinas
Dante
Chaucer
De Prez
Machiavelli
Copernicus
Luther
Rabelais
Palestrina
Montaigne
Viete
Bacon
Shakespeare
Poems by:
Harvey
Descartes
Pascal
Bach
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Schubert
Stravinsky
Webern
Essays by:
The Bible
De Anima, On Interpretation,
Prior Analytics, Categories
Conics
Aeneid
"Caesar", "Antony", "Brutus", "Cato
The Younger'; "Pompey ", "Cicero"
Discourses, Manual
Annals
Almagest
1heEnneads
Confessions, City of God
Proslogium
Summa 1heologica, Summa Contra
Gentiles
Divine Comedy
Canterbury Tales
Mass
The Prince, Discourses
On the Revolution of the Spheres
The Freedom of a Christian,
Secular Authority,
Gargantua and Patagruel
Missa Papae Marcelli
Essays
"Introduction to the Analytical Art"
Novum Organum
Richard II, Henry IV, Henry v; The
Tempest, As You Like It, Hamlet,
Othello, Macbeth, King Lear,
Coriolanus, Sonnets
Marvell, Donne, and other 16th and 17th-century poets
Motion of the Heart and Blood
Geometry
Generation of Conic Sections
St. Matthew Passion, Inventions
Quartets
Operas
Sonatas
Songs
Symphony of Psalms
Selected works
Bernard, Weismann, D'Arcy, Lamark,
Dreisch, Boveri, Von Baer
�THIRD YEAR
Don Quixote
Two New Sciences
Leviathan
Discourse on Method, Meditations,
Rules for the Direction ofMind
Milton
Paradise Lost
La Rochefoucauld Maximes
La Fontaine
Fables
Pensees
Pascal
Huygens
Treatise on Light, On the Movement of
Bodies by Impact
Spinoza
Tbeologico-Political Treatise
Locke
Second Treatise of Government
Racine
Phedre
Principia Mathematica
Newton
Epitome IV
Kepler
Monadology, Discourse on
Leibnitz
Metaphysics, Essay on Dynamics
Swift
Gulliver's Travels
Berkeley
Principles of Human Knowledge
Hume
Treatise of Human Nature
Social Contract, The Origin of
Rousseau
Inequality
Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations
Critique of Pure Reason,
Kant
Fundamental Principles of
Metaphysics of Morals,
Mozart
Don Giovanni
Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Emma
Hamilton, Jay
and Madison
The Federalist
Melville
Billy Budd, Benito Cereno
Dedekind
Essay on the Tbeory of Numbers
Fielding
Tomjones
Essays by:
Young, Maxwell , S. Carnot, L. Carnot,
Mayer, Kelvin, Taylor, Euler,
D. Bernoulli
Cervantes
Galileo
Hobbes
Descartes
FOURTH YEAR
Moliere
Goethe
Mendel
Darwin
Hegel
Lobachevsky
Tocqueville
Lincoln
Kierkegaard
Wagner
Thoreau
Marx
Articles of Confederation, Declaration
of Independence, Constitution of the
United States ofAmerica
Tbe Misanthrope, Tartuffe
Faust
Experiments in Plant Hybridization
Origin of Species
Phenomenology ofMind, Logic
(from the Encyclopedia),
Tbeory of Parallels
Democracy in America
Selected speeches
Philosophical Fragments, Fear and
Trembling
Tristan and Isolde
Walden
Communist Manifesto, Capital,
Political and Economic Manuscripts of
1844
Dostoevski
Tolstoy
Twain
Woolf
O'Connor
William James
Nietzsche
Freud
Jung
Valery
Kafka
Heidegger
Heisenberg
Einstein
Millikan
Conrad
Joyce
Poems by:
Essays by:
Brothers Karamazov, Tbe Possessed
War and Peace
Tbe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
To Tbe Lighthouse
Everything Tbat Rises Must Converge
Psychology: Briefer Course
Birth of Tragedy, Tbus Spake
Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil
General Introduction to
Psychoanalysis, Civilization and Its
Discontents
Two Essays in Analytic Psychology
Poems
Tbe Metamorphosis, Tbe Penal Colony
What is Philosophy
Tbe Physical Principles of the
Quantum Tbeory
Selected papers
Tbe Electron
Supreme Court Opinions
Heart of Darkness
TbeDead
Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens,
Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and others
Faraday, Lorenz, ].]. Thomson,
Whitehead, Minkowski, Rutherford,
Davisson, Bohr, Schrodinger, Maxwell,
de Broglie, Dreisch, Mendel
�CURRENT QUESTIONS
ABOUT THE ST. JOHN'S
COLLEGE BOOK LIST
by Eva Brann
Dean, St. John's College
Annapolis
We are sometimes asked why
our program contains so few works
by women and blacks, and none at
all from the East.
It is a subject we have considered individually and as a faculty.
Here are some of our thoughts:
First of all, it seems that people
ask this question with roughly three
sorts of expectations in mind:
1. They expect, in a general
way, that in putting together a list of
re quired readings we would make
sure to include a fair sampling of the
great works produced by all the
diverse groups-the civilizations ,
faiths, races, professions-that go to
make up humanity; in view of the
shrinking of today' s world they
would hope that we would help our
students to a more gl o bal understanding.
2. Or, again, they suspect that it
is pre s umptuous of a faculty to
establish criteria for a whole school,
especially whe n these criteria turn
out to select books written mostly
by European and North American
authors who are white , male and
long dead; they expe ct us to balance
this list with more recent works by
women and minority writers.
3. Finally, they worry that students b e longing to thes e latter
pa g e e ig h t
EACH WORK IS PICKED
BECAUSE IT IS FAIRLY
ACCESSIBLE ON ITS
OWN AND ALSO
BECAUSE IT FORMS AN
INTEGRAL WHOLE WITH
THE OTHERS. THESE
TEXTS BUILD ON AND
SOMETIMES REFLECT
BACK ON EACH
OTHER ...
L E TT E RS fr o m Santa F e
groups might have a hard time getting what they need from books not
written by, or for, or even much
about them; they feel that education
should provide an element of support for people with special histories.
Here are some responses we as
a fa c ulty do agree on-of course
within wide limits of difference:
1. It is easiest for us to respond
to the first version of the question,
which concerns the representation
in the program of greatness in all its
diversity, because our answer is so
much constrained by practical educational necessity. Conside r just the
literary works and sacred texts of
East and West : what c an we do in
the four short years we have with
our students? We could draw up a
list of isolated high points and fill in
the context with bro a d-brush e d
background lectures-a form of
instruction in which we have no
faith. Such a spotty survey would be
demeaning to the works and unsatisfying to our students. Moreover,
we are convinced that the condition
of an intelligent respect for other
worlds is a thorough assimilation of
one's own.
So we have chosen to study a
sequence of works from the Western
tradition . Each work is pick e d
because it is fairly accessible on its
own and also because it forms an
integral whole with the others.
These texts build on and sometime.}
reflect back on each othe r ; they
weave, willy-nilly, that web of refutation and resurrection, of argument
and counterargument, sensibility and
countersensibility, passion and
counterpassion that characte rizes
our particular legacy: Our tradition
develops as a unity of radical oppositions. More ove r, just as this list
lends intellectu a l integrity to the
program , it assures some social
Summ e r 19 9 2
�coherence to the college community, since we have almost all studies
in common. These are features we
value highly enough to forego others, though not without regret.
2. In answer to the second version of the question, how we can
presume to choose for the whole
institution and then to make so
restricted a choice , we would say,
first, that although our list may not
be broad (though it does span
almost three millennia and two continents) it is both deep and crucial to
our lives. These texts , be they
books , music or pictures, contain
the roots of understanding for moderns in general and for Americans in
particular. What all inhabitants of
the globe have in common is the
need to come to grips with science,
and for that the texts on our program are indispensible. But these
works also speak to us as
Americans, particularly since they
contain the political principles by
which we live together. Moreover, a
far truer description than that which
represents
the
hyphenated
Americans as outsiders to the
Western tradition is that which
regards them as charter members of
its continual refounding. Thus it is
not a mere curiosity that in reestablishing the theory of civil disobedience from jail in Birmingham, Martin
Luther King reached back to
Socrates in jail in Athens, or that the
present flowering of black literature
comes from women who are equally
well versed in the Bible and in
Baudelaire.
Of course, we cannot ove rlook
the fact that groups recently emerging are not well represented in the
program. We think of this fact as just
that: a mere fact, a brute historical
fact. To allow it to govern our
choice of readings would be to cut
Summ e r 1992
our nose to spite our face . How
would we serve our students by curtailing their access to a deep analysis
of the present condition? At any rate,
time itself will cure the defect. A tradition so long in the making is slow
to recognize newcomers, but when
we come round we will be paying
tribute to the intrinsic excellence of
the works , not to some exterior
pressure.
THESE TEXTS .. .
CONTAIN THE ROOTS OF
UNDERSTANDING . . .
We do, however, have both formal and informal ways of trying new
books. As a regular part of the program , we have the prece ptorial ,
small study groups in which tutors
and students can try out books not
on the seminar list. Furthermore ,
students run extra-curricular, all-college seminars for which they often
choose just such works. Moreover,
some of us subscribe to the ideal of
reading everything promising .in
sight.
The long and the short of it is
that as a faculty we could never
bring ourselves to include works just
because they were written by
L E T TE R S fr o m S anta F e
women or blacks, or even because
they were of burning topical interest. The reason is that we do not
think of a great book as representing a group interest, but rathe r as
presenting the sometimes radically
independent thought of an individual. In fact, that characteristic is one
of our criteria for picking a book.
We do recognize that there are
many people in the universities who
deny that there are such books, who
think that all books are almost totally conditioned by the ir authors' sex,
race or social origin. But we continue to believe that a thinking human
being can penetrate beyond these
circumstances. At any rate, we find
that works approached in this spirit
open up to us and to our students.
That faith fits in with the fact
that this college is-in ce rtain
respects-a deeply democratic
place. It is democratic in attempting
to combine individualism of inquiry
with community of endeavor, in
encouraging a kind of do-it-yourself
learning without recourse to professional expertise or authority, in providing for the sort of seminar discussion in which each member participates on an equal footing and the
most diverse opinions get a respectful hearing. So it is precisely to prote ct this egalitarian spirit that we
look for works which take hold of
us all as human beings, which
engage our feelings and our reason
and are yet distant enough from topical turmoil to keep the discussion
civil and thoughtful. One might say
that we are compelled by our democratic format to keep the program
gender-and color-and issue-blind.
3. But that doesn't mean that we
don't recognize the problems raised
by these principles in practical application: We know that we must come
to grips with the question how the
pa g e nine
�female half of our student population or the increasing number of
Asian and black students fare here,
what they find that may speak to
them specifically.
Here we do differ a good deal in
our individual concerns. One unde rlying assumption for those who feel
the problem-not all do-is that the
life of individual human beings is so
largely informed by their sex and
their race and by past injustices
done on those accounts that their
education must pay attention to
these facts. Others, while not denying the importance of being a
woman or being non-white , worry
about the dangers of fostering too
resentful a sensitivity or too narrow
a perspective of human affairs. It is
an open question within the community which is sure to be much
discussed in the immediate future.
What we can say is that our books
are not the worst background for
deepening the conversation.
Another supposition, more
directly relevant to the program, is
that works which are not written by
or about or for certain groups,
women, for example, have less to
say to them. This is a tricky problem , particularly since students'
receptivity depends in part on the
attitudes that are encouraged. Yet
there might well be some spontaneous recoil when, for instance, a
young woman meets as the first
hero in her reading here Home r's
Achilles. She might indee d have
trouble identifying with him, and
she might see his fatal self-regard as
a typically male flaw . But, then, such
a woman in her more martial moods
might have no difficulty at all
empathizing with his blazing fury.
Or, again, she might decide that neither alienation nor empathy is the
point, but human sympathy.
page ten
Similarly, it seems somehow evident that no man can write of a
woman's lot from the inside. And
yet, men have convincingly delineated female characters , from charmingly complex girls, like Homer's
Nausikaa and Tolstoy's Natasha to
royally terrific women like
Aeschylus' Clytemnestra and Virgil's
Dido. These grand portraits may be
as illuminating even to a womanor a man -as might be a tract by a
woman on the condition of women.
It should be mentioned that
there are in fact several great
women novelists on the program:
Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and
Flannery O'Conner. Some of them,
read blind, would probably not be
distinguishable as female . Others,
Jane Austen for example, add the
most digestible and salutary kind of
diversity, diversity of experience. It
would not do her proper honor to
say that she brings a woman's view
to the world at large ; she claims
rather to bring a human view to the
small and largely female world to
which she so expertly introduces us.
Nonetheless, it would be ostrichlike to deny that at this particular
time the program requires of som~
students something extra by way of
stretching their imagination and
widening their thinking. It requires
of the men that they take female figures with all the high seriousness
LETTEHS fr o m Santa Fe
ancient and modern authors have
accorded them. It requires of
women that they raise to a human
level texts not apparently written for
them. The rewards for that sort of
effort have always been an added
distinction.
(Although when this was written St.
John's had no regular selection of Asian
texts in the curriculum, the Santa Fe
campus now has an Institute for the
Study of Eastern Classics. It follows the
same principles as the regular undergraduate curriculum, with emphasis on
classic texts and special attention to
languages. It exemplifies exactly what
we mean by taking "otherness" and real
diversity seriously. The program does
not have the contemporary political goal
of "exposure" to diversity but, rather, a
deeper understanding of the fundamenta I and enduring questions that are
raised by thoughtful human beings
wherever an intellectual tradition is
established. In the end, however, what
we hope to learn is not simply something other-the Eastern mind-but
something common-the human mind,
and what we might learn in common
about human greatness and the human
condition.)
Summer 1992
�WHY LATIN? WHY GREEK?
Who we are ... and who we
are not.
by John Agresto
President, St. John's College
Santa Fe
T wain tells us that Huckleberry Finn, that quintessential American, was fascinated with the Biblical story of Moses. But it soon dawned on Huck "that
Moses had been dead a considerable long time." With that, Huckleberry
informs us, "I didn't care no more about him; because I don't take no stock in
dead people ." Since making the case for learning "dead" languages is,
arguably, harder than making the case for learning about Moses, what in the
world can contemporary Americans say in favor of Greek and Latin?
The first answer everyone seems to give is the one that is in the papers
each week: the study of ancient languages, especially Latin, is useful in building English · vocabulary, thus helping to raise our children's SAT scores. We
read it, and we wince. Is this how low the mighty have fallen? Is the real
competitor to Cicero no longer Catiline but Stanley Kaplan and the quickie
cram course?
Or sometimes we read that the best reason for learning Latin is simply
that it is tough- it teaches "rigorous discipline," it "exercises the mind." For
what end? Well, so valuable is the rigor of classical learning that I recently
heard of a teacher who promotes Latin as good mental training for future
computer buffs. A kind of warm-up exercise for the real stuff. 0 temporal
Such narrow and merely utilitarian arguments are perhaps why a majority of
Latin students drop the language after only one year. Surely we need to know
the value of these ancient studies, but is there nothing good the classics have
to offer beyond vocabulary building, pretechnical training and the academic
equivalent of Marine boot camp?
So let us begin a defense of the Ancients with the least popular of all contemporary academic reasons: We read the Ancients because they are ours.
These languages and their hooks, their plays, their modes of thought have
helped form not only our contemporary speech but our politics, o ur literature, our history and the shape of our civilization. If we are to know ourselves, we must know our own. Despite glib talk in certain circles that insists
our first jo b is to open our minds to the understanding of other cultures and
ways of life, if we fail to know our own civilization-its hopes, its principles,
its reasons and its greatness- we will not be able to make comparisons that
are even worth a dime.
These dead languages and the civilization the y embrace are ours: they
formed us, almost as deep ly as have Christianity and the Bible. To give a
small example, not too long ago I p icked up my copy of the Federalist Papers
and turned to one of James Madison's attacks o n the opponents of the
Constitution. In defending the new Republic, Madison mentions, in the space
of about two pages, Minos, Theseus, Numa, Tullius Hostilius, Brutus, Se rvius
Tullius, Romulus, Crete , the Locrians, Rome, Athe ns, Sparta and the Achaean
S umm e r 7 99 2
L E T TE R S fr o m S a n t a Fe
THESE DEAD
LANGUAGES AND
THE CIVILIZATION
THEY EMBRACE ARE
OURS: THEY FORMED
US, ALMOST AS
DEEPLY AS HAVE
CHRISTIAN/TY
AND THE BIBLE.
p a ge e l e v e n
�League. Madison, the Father of the
Constitution, was just as much at
home in Greek and Latin as he was
in English and French. But the
Federalist Papers were not essays
written for a convention of classics
professors. They were newspaper
articles, read on the street.
In forging this new nation, this
Novus Ordo Seclorum (you
can read these words in Virgil
and on the back of a dollar
bill),
any
number
of
Americans knew their Athens,
their
Rome ,
their
Republicanism and their Latin,
and knew them as something
living, not dead. The problems of Athenian democracy
were not far from our own
problems. Socrates' questions
about human excellence are
still our questions.
Nevertheless, the Ancients
are not completely ours. If
the thoughts of antiquity mirror our own in all or even
most particulars, if we are their
direct and exact descendants, then
there is less , not more, reason to
study them. Or if the progress of the
human mind was such that the
Romans and Greeks were mental
children and we are smarter, more
thoughtful adults, then looking back
is merely an antiquarian affectation.
It is only because Homer and
Herodotus and Cicero and Socrates
are like us, but not exactly, that they
are worthy of attention. Locke,
Madison, Marx and Nietzsche would
not have been possible without the
civilization and politics that
stemmed from Plato and Aristotle.
But they are not Plato and Aristotle.
Indeed, their conversations with the
Ancients are profound debates,
arguments that take seriously the
alternatives defended by those who
page twelve
lived before modernity. Arthur Miller
is not Sophocles. Sophocles has a
different insight into human tragedy
from the tragedy of Willy Loman.
That's why we read Sophocles. In
the Ancients we see parts of ourselves more clearly, yet refracted
slightly differently. And we see this
other side in texts and through Ian-
guages that move us from within.
Properly taught , the classics
inhabit the best of all possible
worlds. They can appeal to the
desire to know ourselves, to see the
roots of our principles, ideas and
culture and, at the same time, to see
who we are not. People who speak
as the Romans did are not the people we meet every day. The examples of Achilles, Hector, Odysseus,
Priam, Penelope and Antigone teach
thoughts that resonate, yet are still
disquieting.
I once met a professor of Latin
who taught Roman literature with
great misgivings. The Romans kept
talking about such unmodern
notions as manliness , virtue, the
deepest of friendships , nobility ,
baseness , revenge, honor. It made
LETT ERS from Santa Fe
him uneasy. This unease, not vocabulary building or the chance to play
in togas, is the true value of Latin
and Greek.
Yes, we can learn "about" the
Ancients and become pedantic. We
can do our Latin declensions and
hope to jump up a notch on the college boards. Or we can try to learn
some things from the
Ancients, and do it in their
languages and with their
ears, and become broader,
less provincial and more
deeply educated. Despite all
our contemporary pride, they
still might have the best
books.
There is one thing more
to say, and it has to do not
with searching for truth but
with beauty. The ancient languages and their poems and
plays and dialogues have
unrivaled charm, power and
grace. They have the singular
ability to help us free ourselves from vulgarity. I do not mean
"vulgar " in the Roman sense of
"common." The Greeks had a more
insightful word for vulgarity. They
referred to it as apeirokalia, the lack
of experience with things that are
beautiful. The Parthenon, Euripides,
the perfection of each Platonic dialogue, the sound of Greek sentences-all these have the power to
raise us up, not simply our vocabulary scores. It hardly qualifies as the
most practical argument to make,
but as we work over our Latin
declensions, difficult as they might
be, we might soon get the sense of
something precise , something proportioned, something noble, something truly beautiful. Salve.
This is an essay first published in The
Washington Post, July 22, 1987.
Summer19 92
�EQUAL CULTURES-OR
EQUALITY?
by Cathy Young
Freelance Writer
Article taken from
The Washington Post
Sunday, March 29, 1992
Feminism and multiculturalism have become essential articles of current
progressive faith. A recent report from the American Association of University
Women on eliminating gender bias in high school, for example, also enthusiastically endorsed a multicultural curriculum. But, like most academics, the
report's authors fail to recognize that these two tenets are often incompatible.
The central premise of the multiculturalist credo, after all, is that all cultures are created equal. To judge other cultures by Western standards is unforgivably ethnocentric. Yet, as Islamic fundamentalists remind us, equality of the
sexes is a Western value judgment. It is, moreover, a standard by which most
non-Western cultures--even allowing for a few quasimatriarchal tribes-come
up short.
Last year, the New York Times reviewed anthropologist Kenneth Good's
memoir of life with the Yanomamo tribe in Venezuela. Having summarized
his account of the tribe's misogynist brutality-unmarried girls past puberty,
widows and runaway wives are routinely gang-raped and sometimes
maimed-the critic went on to quote, approvingly, Good's assertion that "violence [was] not a central theme of Yanomamo life. " This angered a woman
reader, who wrote to the Times denouncing "the myopia ... where violence
against women is concerned."
Yet surely there was something else at work. One can hardly imagine a
Times reviewer extending such tolerance to violence against women by
American men. With a Stone Age Amazonian tribe, however, it is safer to be
myopic than "ethnocentric," even at the price of mental contortion.
In a world civilization course I once took at a community college in New
Jersey, our female professor explained that while the status of women in India
might seem low, they often wielded much power in the household and were
revered as mothers of sons. I expressed surprise she would make excuses for
an oppressive patriarchy. "As well," the professor snapped back, "there's no
reason for us to be smug. We still have a lot of discrimination against women
in this society too. " As if female infanticide and the immolation of widows
equaled the unfair denial of a promotion.
Similarly, advocates of Afrocentrism rarely say much about cliterodectomy,
polygamy or the acceptance of wife-beating in much of Africa. It seems that
Summer 1992
LETT ERS from Santa Fe
page thirteen
�the position of women has to be
cast in the best possible light when
it comes to non-Western culturesand in the worst possible light when
it comes to the West (which, even
before feminism, accorded women a
higher status than any other major
culture).
The double standard is blatant.
The only civilization that made an
effort to overcome its sexist traditions, the West is berated for failing
to do away with them completely.
But Third World cultures are treated
as static; to try to protect the
Yanomamo's ancestral customs from
the onslaught of Western ways is
noble.
The issue is not just an academic one. America is home to millio ns
of immigrants from a diverse array
of cultures. Current "politically correct'' thinking holds that these immigrants and their children should be
encouraged to preserve their cultural identities and values; assimilation
is viewed as a form of psychic vio1ence. But what if these va lu es
include polygamy or arranged marriages of nine-year-old girls? Shall
we condone the slaying of unfaithful wives by husbands avenging
their honor if that was the custom in
their native countries?
If you think I am pushing the
multiculturalist logic to an absurd
extreme, think again. The answer to
the last questio n is : We already do.
In 1987, a Chinese immigrant
name d Do ng Lu Chen killed his
wife, smashing h er h ead with a
claw hamme r after she confessed to
an affair. At the 1989 tria l, w hich
include d testimony of an anthropologis t, the d e fe nse a rg u e d that
Che n's background-"the specia l
high p lace the family ho lds in the
Chine se community " and "the
shame and humiliation" of a w ife's
p a ge fo u r t een
infidelity-made him lose control.
Mostly on the strength of this "cultural defense," a Brooklyn judge
sentenced Chen to five years probation on a manslaughter charge.
The sentence initially sparked
protests among women's groups and
Asian activist groups alike. But the
coalition fell apart because Asian
groups were fearful of undermining
the notion of a cultural defe nse. To
bar it "would promote the idea that
when people come to America, they
have to give up their way of doing
things, " huffed Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian-American
Legal Defense and Educatio n Fund.
TO JUDGE OTHER
CULTURES BY WESTERN
STANDARDS IS
UNFORGIVABLY
ETHNOCENTRIC.
YET, AS ISLAMIC
FUNDAMENTALISTS
REMIND US, EQUALITY
OF THE SEXES IS A
WESTERN VALUE
JUDGMENT
L ETTE R S f •· om San ta Fe
Yet is it not possible that many people come here because they arc
attracted to the American way of
doing things? This may be particularly true of women, who often relish
liberation from the patriarchal customs back home. What a cruel
mockery if, out of defere nce to multicultural sensitivities, our institutions
began to mimic these customs.
That was just how the Chen sentence was perceived by women who
had the most reason to take it personally: Asian American battered
wives. After that case, according to
Newsday, many told counselors that
the thre at of taking the ir men to
court had ceased to be a deterre nt.
Said an immigration lawyer, "Their
view is that maybe the courts he re
protect the male the same way the
system protects the male in China."
The "cultural defe n se" has s ince
cropped up in several spousal homicide and rape cases involving immigrants from othe r Third World countries.
One pow erful symbol of Desert
Storm was the contrast between the
veile d a nd silent women of Saudi
Ara bia and U. S. fe ma le soldie rs
working alongside the men. It was a
source of pride to most Americans,
and a reminde r that at least w hen it
comes to gender, some cultures are
clearly more equal than others.
Once this simple fact is recognize d , it might bring us to p o nde r
the possibility that women may owe
something to such unique ly Western
ideals as reverence for the individu al, free dom of c hoice, and even
technologi cal maste ry o f naturcw hic h h e lp e d ease the b io logical
constraints whose weig ht o n women
has always been esp ecia lly h eavy.
And o nce we start thinking of that,
who knows what heresies could be
next'
Stt m m e r 1 992
�ACCESS AND EXCELLENCE
by Carolynn Reid-Wallace
Assistant Secretary for Post-Secondary
Education , United States Deptartment
of Education
/ n 1986 the National Assessment of Educational Progress
indicated that two-thirds of the natio n's seventeen-year-olds did
n ot know wh e n the Civi l War occurred or wha t t he
Reformation was or the n a mes of such literary giants as
Chaucer, Melville, and Austen.
Many of these students went on to colleges that had equally low standards, as revealed in a 1988 National Endowme nt
for the Humanities survey of higher education , w hich found
that it was possible to earn a bachelor's degree from:
• 80 percent of U.S. colleges and universities without taking
American history
• 80 percent w ithout taking a course in Western civilization
• 62 percent without a course in philosophy
• 77 percent w ithout studying a foreign language.
How can we call o ur citizens "educated" if they have never
been exposed to the study of their o wn country's history? What is the purpose of higher education if not to produce an educated person? And how
can someone w ho has gone through four or more years of tertiary education
without studying history, philosophy, or a foreign language be considered
"educated "?
No t only can the standards of higher education in America be raised, they
must be raised. Moreover, they can and should be raised without reference to
the issue of access. There is no access/excellence dichotomy. These concepts
are not antithetical because they are not related. They represent two goals,
noble in themselves, worthy of our highest and best efforts to achieve them.
Su mm e r 7 992
L ETTERS from Santa F e
p age f i ft ee n
�NOT ALL WHO HAVE
ACCESS WILL ACHIEVE
EXCELLENCE; HOWEVER,
INCREASING SUCCESSFUL
PARTICIPATION THROUGH
LOWERED STANDARDSOR NO STANDARDS
AT ALL-DEMEANS AN
INSTITUTION OF
HIGHER EDUCATION BY
DEVALUING WHAT IT
PURPORTS TO OFFER.. ..
pag e
s i x t een
We should direct our attention to
solving the challenge of achieving
excellence, not as they might seem
to relate to one another-for that is
the path of finger-pointing and
blame-laying but as they exist apart
from each other.
Not all who have access w ill
achieve exce ll e n ce; h owever,
increasing successful participation
through lowered standards-or no
standards at all-demeans an institution of higher education by devaluing what it purports to offer: a firstrate, not third-rate, educatio n. No
one benefits-neither the student
nor the institution, let a lo ne the
prospective employer or societywhen colleges and universities create a false vision of excellence, one
"levele d down" by misguided
attempts to accommodate the illprepared.
There is no easy path to institutional excellence.
As H esiod
warned, "Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth,
and it lies close by. But in front of
excellence the immortal gods have
put sweat, and long and steep is the
way to it, and rough at first."
We all know from our experiences that the path to our own education was long and steep. We had
to sweat a little or a lot, de pending
o n w hether the standards set by the
institution we attended were easy or
tough. The institution that actually
helps its students excel is one that
expects sweat and toil from them. It
expects its students to read from the
classics, to be familiar w ith the natural sciences and the fundame ntals ·
of mathematics, to be skilled in the
principles of logic a nd reasoning.
Whether the students consider it relevant or no t, they are exposed to
the thought of the ages, to e thics,
history, a nd literature. They a re
L E TTERS from Santa F e
expected to know thoroughly the
Western h e ritage on which this
democracy is based and a lso to
understand the aesthetic vision of
cultures outside the Western tradition.
Institutions that have a vision of
excellence also make a con certed
effort to get students in the door. But
once there, th e students are n o t
allowed to set their sights too low or
their goals too narrow. They a re
exposed to a rigorous curriculum in
an environment conducive to learning, and they are expected to meet
the standards set by the institution ,
be they standards of content or performance or both.
Not all who have access will
achieve excellence. Tocqueville recognized this when he said, "The gifts
of intellect proceed directly from
God, and man cannot prevent their
une qual distribution ." But we can
prevent th e construction of fa lse
dichotomies. Access and excellence
a re not antithetical. Our vision of
excellence must include both . We
must set high standards for those
who are willing and able to take the
long, rough road to the top, and we
must help those less capable by
ensuring that no door is closed, no
path barred, and- especially-no
excuse made in their behalf th a t
dilutes standards of excellence in the
name of increasing access.
Su m m e r 7 992
�ANNOUNCEMENTS
DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL
PROJECTS
COLLEGE FUND
St. John's College in Santa Fe has an
opening, beginning this fall , for
someone to help arrange scholarly
conferences and symposia, organize
on-campus programs involving outside groups and institutions, and
manage meeting facilities . A letter of
interest with resume should be sent
to the attention of John Agresto,
President.
If there's a theme to this newsletter
we publish, it is the value and present condition of traditional liberal
arts education. St. John's College is,
in our opinion, an outstanding
example of this education.
Although these Letters. are not part
of the fundraising efforts of St.
John's, a number of our readers support the college financially. If there
are others of you who would care to
do so-and these Letters now go to
about 2500 friends-we would certainly welcome your support .
Helping St. John's College is a valuable way to further the cause of liberal education itself.
Thank you all.
We are ve1y grateful to the
Laurel Foundation
for their generous support
of this and the next two issues.
LE TT ER Sfrom Santa Fe.
Summe 1· 1 99 2
L E TT E R S fro m Santa F e
pag e s eve nt ee n
�PROFILE
St. John's College:
An independent, non-sectarian, four-year liberal arts college.
Founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St. John's College. Great
Books Program adopted 1937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
Curriculum:
An integrated, four-year, all-required liberal arts and science program based on reading and discussing, in loosely
chronological order, the great books of Weste rn civilization. The program requires four years of foreign language , four
years of mathematics, three years of laboratory science, and one year of music.
Approach:
Tutorials, laboratories, and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures. Classes are very
small.
Student/Faculty:
8:1 ratio.
Degrees Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts. Master of Arts in Libe ral Studies.
Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 students on each campus. Current freshman class made up of 55% men and 45%
women from 30 states and several foreign countries. Sixty-five percent receive financial aid. Students may transfer
between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
Alumni Careers:
Education - 21 %, Business - 20%, Law - 10%, Visual and Performing Arts - 9%, Medicine - 7%, Science and Engineering
- 7%, Computer Science - 6%, Writing and Publishing - 5%.
Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary master's degree program based on the same principles as the undergraduate program. It is offered on both campuses year-round. Readers of the newsletter may be especially interested in applying for our summer session. For more information please contact the Graduate Institute in
Santa Fe (505) 982-3691 ext. 249 or in Annapolis (301) 263 - 2371.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
St. John's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501-4599
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
Bulk Rate
U.S. Postage ·
PAID
Non-Profit
Organization
Permit No. 231
Santa Fe, NM
�
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Letters from Santa Fe, Summer 1992
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Letters from Santa Fe, St. John’s College—Santa Fe, New Mexico, Summer 1992
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Agresto, John
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1992
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Buchenauer, Nancy D.
Brann, Eva T. H.
Young, Cathy (Cathy A.)
Reid-Wallace, Carolynn
Bloom, Allan, 1930-1992
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I~ ,:_
c
LETTERSfrom ~1f!a Fe
{~
St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
LIBERAL
EDUCATION
john Agresto
M
ost essays on liberal education are pompous affairs.
They prattle on about how such an education liberates
the human spirit, opens our minds to other ways of life,
exposes us to higher " values," makes us more sensitive, more
humane, more aware, more sparkling. Then follows an often
patronizing comment about those who were led into studying the
useful rather than liberal arts-perhaps engineering, or computers,
or, worst of all, commerce. Finally, they often end with a bit of
ostentatious hand-wringing over the
nasty character of American culture,
which seduces the young away from
their native idealism through the
workings of those twin devils of
modern society, technology and
bourgeois materialism.
This is pretty much all balderdash.
I have never been convinced that a
liberal education makes you more
moral than you were; it only makes
you smarter than you were. It may
not make you more sensitive or
humane; it only hopes to make you
more discerning and knowledgeable about things that matter. It
does not necessarily make you more refined; although, poorly
pursued, it might make you more pedantic. Its aim was never
softness of spirit but toughness of mind.
One reason to look again at the meaning and promise of a
liberal education is that such an education has fallen on hard times
of late. Despite the historic presumption in American colleges
that the liberal arts are learning's most sublime expression, the
truth is that the liberal arts are in trouble, deep trouble. Last year
INSIDE:
l
r..
~R
Ml\X.. A£~'3oot
;r
there were three times as many students graduating with a degree
in computer science than in all foreign languages combined. Last
year, history, foreign languages and philosophy together
graduated 34,000 students, while 24 7 ,000 graduated in business
alone. In 1971, half of all fulltime undergraduates were in liberal
arts. Today the figures hover around 20 percent for women and
10 percent for men. The truth is that liberal studies comprise a
small and dwindling part of American education.
So how shall we again promote the
liberal arts in contemporary society?
More importantly, on what grounds are
the liberal arts worth defending? The
worst defense, hinted at above, is one
that sees the liberal arts as a way of
softening the rough edges of our
humanity, that teaches us "openness"
to each and every "value," that saves
us from being overly "judgmental,"
that frees us from every prejudice and
opinion--except, of course, from those
most contemporary of prejudices: the
love of pluralism and the belief in the
egalitarianism of all opinion. Such a defense begins, to be sure,
exactly where liberal education always began , with a desire to
break the chains of everyday life and the limits of received
opinion and see what other cultures, great thinkers, significant
events, or powerful literature might teach. But its proper end was
always the attempt to ascend from opinion to knowledge, from
superstition to truth, from suspended belief to judgment. Once
the question s of better and worse are removed from liberal
Continued on paf?e 2 .
EDUCATI
Cl
Walt
ann
L~:.:.z:a
SOME #t()IJGHTS ON
LIBER~~CATION
Ni1ff;)
L4f!giulli
''
' .;,? : ~.
Fall 1991
.L
:(·:. t
A COLLEq!,qRADUATE'S
J99]
RAL
�Liberal Education
A Message from the President
Continued from page I.
Dear Friends,
Somewhere along the way the idea of what constitutes a liberal education
was lost, lost even to educators. Gone , it seems , is the idea of liberal
education as a student's exposure to the best that has been thought and said
and written. Gone is the idea of liberal education as a coherent and systematic
study of the most important areas of human knowledge. Instead, even among
those who profess their love for the liberal arts, we are treated to the belief that
the liberal arts are akin to an educational smorgasbord-that getting a liberal
education means tasting a little of this, savoring a bit of that. How often do we
hear that such an education means taking a course in history, perhaps physics
for non-majors, an interesting sociology offering, and maybe something in
political science, all with the intent of helping you find something to major in.
Somewhere along the way, even among its friends, liberal education became
confused with incoherence, with dabbling, and with poking around.
Once the idea of coherence was dropped from the notion of liberal
education , it became commonplace to think that the fatter a college ' s catalogue
the more potentially liberal its education . But a fat catalogue doesn ' t
guarantee a good education, it only guarantees that there are that many more
courses a student will be unable to take.
There are, I'm sure, a hundred reasons why liberal education is faring
poorly these days . Part of the problem may be economic, since a liberal
education costs money without the promise of significant monetary return after
graduation. Part of the problem is academic. When fly -by-night fads take
over the various disciplines, students flee. If professors declare that "all
education is political," or that we cannot escape the confines of class, race or
gender, then students soon think that liberal education is silly. If their minds
cannot be liberated, at least they can study something lucrative. And, finally,
it becomes difficult to teach the liberal arts when those who profess its various
disciplines are not themselves liberally educated, thanks to the specialization
and research required for today ' s Ph.D. Why institutions insist that in order to
be an effective teacher within the liberal arts one needs a research degree in an
area of specialization, based on a thesis written on a topic that no one
previously thought worthy or interesting, is one of the age ' s great mysteries.
Thus, this issue of Letters attempts to lay out what a liberal education is and
isn't and what today ' s students may be missing in a college education.
education, liberal education dies.
If such a newer defense of the liberal arts is
not worth pursuing, what can be said of older
views? Caution again is in order. There was
always a tendency, a strand of argument in the
traditional defense of liberal education, that
gloried in its irrelevance. Other arts were
"useful," the liberal arts were not. Such
defenses talked blithely of educating "the whole
man," conveniently putting aside the good
counsel of friends who said that it was not
enough for a man to be good, he must also be
good for something.
Parts of this older defense were altogether
too smug about the intrinsic rather than
instrumental value of liberal education. Forms
were kept long after the reasons behind them
were lost, and the liberal arts opened themselves
up to the charge of being little more than a
museum culture. Self-consciously disconnected
from all utility, the liberal arts seemed less like
a preparation for life than a diversion from life.
In America, a liberal education modeled on the
leisure of European aristocracy was, sooner or
later, bound to fail. Democratic societies ,
Tocqueville rightly predicted, will always prefer
the useful to the beautiful, and even require that
the beautiful be us eful. Nor does antiquity
carry with it the presumption of respect.
Indeed, if anything, democracy gives its citizens
a sort of instinctive distaste for things merely
ancient. Why should we care for Beowulf or
Keats? Why pay thousands of dollars for an
The comments we have received since we began Letters from Santa Fe have
been very encouraging. As I wrote in my first column, one of our aims is to
start a conversation among us about the character and quality of education, and
we are finding that to be the case. Among those we heard from on our last
issue on accreditation was Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. He wrote
to say that he appreciated the "ideas for reform of the current process" and that
the issue would be "forwarded to the National Capital Advisory Committee on
Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility for their review." It will be
interesting to watch as this matter is resolved.
On a sad note, William R. Beer, professor of Sociology at Brooklyn
College, died this summer after a lengthy illness. Professor Beer wrote the
article "Accreditation by Quota: The Case of Baruch College" that appeared
=;
;" U" July;""' of L,um. O"' regmfa •nd •ymp•~iff
Page2
LETTERS from Santa Fe
October 1991
�education so proudly disconnected from the
world in which we live?
The justification for liberal education must
not lie in any misplaced faith in the power of
English, history , or math to make us more
"humane," nor in a belief that such
studies have the ability to
make us somehow "cultured ," nor in the
view that a potential jack of all
trades is better than the
sure master
of one. All
that liberal
education
ever rightly
promised
was that it
would open for
us doors of knowledge and imagination
that would otherwise be
closed. It never promised to make
us happier, only smarter. Above all, it tried to
make us smarter about things that truly matter.
What, then, matters? What is it that we, as
human be ings, want to know? We want to
know- or at least have some insight intolarge questions of good and bad, of right and
wrong. We'd like to know why good people
suffer, why great nations fall. We ' d like to
know what courage and cowardice, loyalty and
treachery, might be. We' d like to know what it
is we owe ourselves a nd what we owe our
countrymen. We'd like to know what are
causes and what are effects. We 'd like to know
if ideas can carry any weight, or if everything is
done by force. We 'd like to know what the
models and standards of an exemplary life
might be like. We'd like not to be so easily
deceived.
Liberal education is hardly alone in offering
to answer such questions. Our countries, our
parents, our priests, our friends all tell us they
have the answer for us, already packaged, ready
for the taking. And, to be sure, their answers
may be right. But liberal educati on simply
offers us the time and distance to consider the
answers on all sides, and to say to those around
us " Let me think about it, fo r perhaps you
haven't told me everything."
To reach this goal, the liberal arts have for
centuries relied on one great means: Books.
Great books. There is where the minds of men
lived lo ng afte r their bodies died. Books
represent-re-present- the world to us. In
literature and drama, treatises, histories and
essays, they hold the world up to reflection and
for reflection.
Paradoxical as it seems at first view, it is
none the less true that the conservative act of preserving the
books of great literature and the history
of great deeds is
the first and
most radical
step in the
liberation
of an individual's
mind .
Liberal
education
mean s th e
conservation
and transmission
of art, of thought, of
human acts, and two millennia of radical questions and
penetrating, differing answers. No matter how
advanced our opinions, no matter how far on the
cutting edge of scholarship we are, if our students leave college without knowing some of
these books-many of these books-they were
cheated.
But it was not the rise of modern science, nor
some new-found love of money, nor a premature
withering of the inquiring mind of students that
has turned the liberal arts into a wasteland.
More pointedly, the fault is not so much in them
as in us , their teachers. The attack on the
foundations of liberal education has most
effectively been waged from within. Today, for
example, the great books of civilized life are
often not criticized for being passe as much as
for falling on the wrong side of contemporary
feeling- for they are, we must note, often male,
often white, and often European. Rather than
liberation itself, whole sections of the liberal
arts now stand accused of being the nasty tools
of elitist bondage and oppression.
But this is only the latest assault. Even
before the ravages of modern ideological
ludditism attacked the liberal arts, we had
already started to abandon our books. Perhaps
C. S. Lewis captured it best-
Le conservative
act of preserving
the books of great
literature and the
history of great
deeds is the first
and most radical
step in the
liberation of an
individual's mind.
When a learned man is presented with
any statement in an ancient author, the
one question he never asks is whether it
is true. He asks who influe nced the
Continued on page 4 .
October 199 l
LETIERSji-om Santa Fe
Page 3
�Liberal Education
Continued from page 3.
We have
d e radicalized
ideas and turned
liberal education
from a
"
tran .s:formative
e1·ent into a
catalogue
cafegoriz.ing and
cari calure.
or
Page4
ancient writer, and how far the statement
is consistent with what he said in other
books, and what phase in the writer's
development, or in the general history of
thought, it illustrates, and how it affected
later writers, and how often it has been
misunderstood (especially by the learned
man's own colleagues) and what the
general course of criticism on it has been
for the last ten years, and what is 'the
present state of the question.' To regard
the ancient writer as a possible source of
knowledge-to anticipate that what he
said could possibly modify your thoughts
or your behavior-this would be rejected
as unutterably simple-minded.
We have for too long trivialized the liberal
arts and turned ourselves into pedants by
thinking it smarter to learn about books
rather than from books. Knowing all about
the author-his life, his times,
his maladies, his training,
and his influencewe have deradicalized ideas and
turned Ii beral
education
from a transform at iv e
event into a
catalogue of
categorizing
and caricature.
No longer does
our heart hurt for
Hester Prynne, for
we 're busy writing papers on the roots of
Transcendentalism. No longer does Hawthorne
write to teach; he now writes to be analyzed.
My guess is that all this will quickly be
labeled "conservative." Fair enough. If liberal
education cannot or will not conserve the landmarks of civilization, then it will have failed.
When, as we learned in the late 1980s, twothirds of America's high school seniors have
no idea when the Civil War took place, a third
do not know that Columbus sailed before 1750,
two-thirds cannot connect the word
"Protestant" to the word "Reformation," and
vast majorities have no notion whatever of
Chaucer, Whitman, Austin or Dante, then the
liberal arts, as the keeper of memory and culture, have failed.
LEITERS from Santa Fe
But political terms like "conservative" will
soon fail to describe any real restoration of liberal education. Ironically, the more we try to
conserve for our students the great writers and
thinkers of the past the more we increase the
pluralism, the diversity, of ideas and perspectives. A public fed only the contemporary does
not live in a diverse society but a fully homogeneous one. In today's culture, every restorative act is a liberal act. Indeed, it is also the
most radical of acts, since truly great books,
ideas, objects, and people-from Socrates to
Pascal to Rembrandt to Freud-together teach
us a radical cosmopolitanism of the first order.
The most reactionary societies are the ones that
live only in the present, in the storehouse of
accepted opinion, without ever looking sideways or back. If we truly want to liberate
minds, we would again present to all our students the great ideas and insights of civilized
life; then we would see how liberal education
has the singular ability to both liberate and to
preserve simultaneously.
All in all, this defense of liberal education
has centered around the student.
It is the opening of today's
mind and the quickening of today's soul
that has animated
what
have
written above.
But that may
only be part
of the story.
Yes, a liberal education exists to
do justice to
our children
and our contemporaries. But liberal education also serves to do
justice retrospectively. Tacitus says of history
that it serves to recreate the past so that the
great things that men have done can be
praised and the wicked held in eternal contempt. If that is true, then the function of liberal education is more than erudition, utility,
insight, or even enlightenment. We keep
alive the works of the past because we owe it
to those who did great deeds never to forget.
So, in the end, the restoration of humane
learning may not simply be an act of culture
or intelligence, but of justice.
This essay is taken from an article printed in
the Spring 1988 issue of the Boston College
Magazine.
October 1991
�ACollege Graduate's Despair
Max A. Boot
W
ith this year ' s graduation season
drawing to a close , we won't have
to
listen
to
many
more
commencement speakers. Usually, they tell the
graduating seniors how lucky they were to
spend four years acquiring wisdom. As a
graduating senior at UC Berkeley, I have a
somewhat different perspective- one that
wasn ' t heard often at this year ' s
commencement ceremonies but that contains a
great deal more truth about the state of
American higher education today.
I have done relatively well academically at
Berkeley. Even so I don't think I've received a
true liberal education- at least not in the way
that a well-educated man of the 19th century
would have understood it. Back then , a
university was supposed to provide
nourishment for mind, body and soul.
American colleges stopped catering to the latter
two long ago, when mandatory attendance in
chapel and at physical education classes was
abolished. Now , Berkeley and other leading
research universities have even stopped feeding
students' minds .
What I've missed is an education that
integrates philosophy, history , literature and
the other humanities into a coherent whole.
Part of the fault is my own: I did not seek out
some classes that I should have. But a large
share of the burden lies with the university,
which lacks a core curriculum-for example,
"Great Books"-that could provide a general
education.
Instead, Berkeley, like many other large
universities, offers a host of overly specialized
courses that seem to have little connection.
The history department offers a class on
Theodore Roosevelt; English has a course on
science fiction; philosophy offers a class on
Hegel. That ' s it. Almost no courses attempt to
bridge the gulf between these areas. Those that
should-that is, introductory courses aimed at
freshmen- have an added drawback: They are
taught by inaccessible professors in giant
auditoriums before thousands of bored
students.
The man responsible for this deplorable
state of affairs is Clark Kerr , UC president
during the 1960s and one of the most
influential figures of post-World War II higher
education . Kerr dreamed that the college
would become all things to all people-a
October 1991
" multiversity." Instead, it wound up serving
almost everybody inadequately.
Nobody is sure what the university's
mission is anymore: Is it to educate elite
students? To create a social melting pot? To
conduct graduate-level research? Partisans of
all three viewpoints have waged intermittent
battles on the Berkeley campus for decades ,
leaving all the players profoundly dissatisfied.
Undergraduates are therefore denied the
opportunity to pursue a comprehensive
curriculum . Instead, they are left , like
shoppers in a giant supermarket , to wander the
aisles, picking products at random, never sure
that their selections will add up to a nutritious
meal. Laissez faire may work in the economy,
but it's no way to run a university.
This loss of mission has also allowed a
weird collection of nuts and cranks to assume
prominent positions at Berkeley, as they have
at other leading
U.
S.
colleges.
Deconstructionists in the English department
teach that words have no intrinsic meaning .
Revisionists in the history department teach
that the Constitution was the result of a
capitalist cabal. Newly minted Ph.D. 's in the
ethnic-studies field teach that America has
waged genocidal war against its racial
minorities for centuries. Instructors in the
"Peace and Conflict Studies" department teach
strategies for nonviolent protest. A sociology
professor instructs students on the "plantation
system " in professional sports today.
This is education? Thankfully, I've been
able to avoid most of these professors with an
ax to grind. I have managed to study almost
exclusively with professors who believe in oldfashioned academic standards and the
importance of Western civili zation. But most
students don ' t fare as well. The lucky ones
merely miss the chance to be educated. The
unlucky ones are indoctrinated by
unscrupulous lecturers.
It ' s safe to say , then , that the reality of
college education today is a far cry from the
dreamy land of learning and higher thinking
described by commencement speakers. Just
ask any recent graduate.
Laissez.
faire may
work in tile
economy, but
it's no way
to ru 11 a
u 11 il'e rs i ty .
Max A. Boot, a history major, graduated from
UC Berkeley and is currently a graduate
student at Yale . This op ed appeared in the
Los Angeles Times.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Page 5
�EDUC
I
t w_as once the cust~m in the great universities to propound a
senes of theses which, as Cotton Mather put it, the student
had to "defend manfully." I should like to revive this custom
by propounding a thesis about the state of education in this troubled age.
The thesis which I venture to submit to you is as follows:
That during the past forty or fifty years those who are
responsible for education have progressively removed from
the curriculum of studies the Western culture which produced the modern democratic state;
That the schools and colleges have, therefore, been sending out into the world men who no longer understand the
creative principle of the society in which they must live;
That, deprived of their cultural tradition, the newly educated Western men no longer possess in the form and substance of their own minds and spirits, the ideas, the
premises, the rationale, the logic, the method, the values or
the deposited wisdom which are the genius of the development of Western civilization;
That the prevailing education is destined, if it continues,
to destroy Western civilization and is in fact destroying it;
That our civilization cannot effectively be maintained
where it still flourishes, or be restored where it has been
crushed, without the revival of the central, continuous, and
perennial culture of the Western world;
And that, therefore, what is now required in the modem
educational system is not the expansion of its facilities or
the specific reform of its curriculum and administration but
a thorough reconsideration of its underlying assumptions
and of its purposes.
Universal and compulsory modem education was established
by the emancipated democracies during the 19th century. " No
other sure foundation can be devised," said Thomas Jefferson,
"for the preservation of freedom and happiness." Yet as a matter
of fact during the 20th century the generations trained in these
schools have either abandoned the ir liberties or they have not
known, until the last desperate moment, how to defend them.
The schools were to make men free. They have been in operation
for some sixty or seventy years and what was expected of them
they have not done. The plain fact is that the graduates of the
modern schools are the actors in the catastrophe whic h has
befallen our civilization. Those who are responsible for modem
education- for its controlling philosopy-are answerable for the
results.
They have determined the formation of the mind and education of modern men. As the tragic events unfold, they cannot
evade their responsibility by talking about the crimes and follies
of politicians, businessmen, labor leaders, lawyers, editors, and
generals. They have conducted the schools and colleges and they
have e du cated th e politicia ns, businessmen , labor leade rs ,
Page 6
lawyers, editors and generals. What is more they have educated
the educators.
Modern education is based on a denial that it is necessary or
useful or desirable for the schools and colleges to continue to
transmit from generation to generation the religious and classical
culture of the Western world. It is, therefore, much easier to say
what modern education rejects than to find out what modern education teaches. Modern education rejects and excludes from the
curriculum of necessary studies the whole religious tradition of
the West. It abandons and neglects as no longer necessary the
study of the whole classical heritage of the great works of great
men.
Thus, there is an e normous vacuum where until a
few decades ago there was
the substance of education.
And with what is that vacuum filled : it is filled with
th e elective, eclectic, the
specialized, th e accidental
and incidental improv isations and spontaneous
curiosities of teachers and
students. There is no common faith, no common body of principle, no common body of knowledge, no common moral and intellectual discipline.
Yet, the graduates of these modern schools are expected to
form a civilized community. They are expected to govern themselves. They are expected to have a social conscience. They are
expected to arrive by discussion at common purposes. When one
realizes that they have no common culture is it astounding that
they have no common purpose? That they worship fal se gods?
That only in war do they unite? That in the fierce struggle for
existence they are tearing Western society to pieces? They are
the graduates of an educational system in which, though attendance is compulsory, the choice of the subject matter of education
is left to the imagination of college presidents, trustees and professors, or even to the whims of the pupils themselves. We have
established a system of education in which we insist that while
everyone must be educated, yet there is nothing in particular that
an educated man must know.
For it is said that since the invention of the steam engine we
live in a new era, an era so radically different from all preceding
ages that the cultural tradition is no longer relevant, is in fact
misleading. I submit to you that this is a rationalization, th at this
is a pretended reason for the educational void which we now call
education. The real reason, I venture to suggest, is that we reject
the religious and classical heritage, first, because to master it
requires more effort than we are willing to compel ourselves to
make, and, second, because it creates issues that are too deep and
LETTERS ji·om Santa Fe
Fall 1991
�l
~TERN CIVfllZATION
,ppmann
·
too contentious to be faced with equanimity. We have abolished
the old curriculum because we are afraid of it, afraid to face any
longer in a modern democratic society the severe discipline and
the deep, disconcerting issues of the nature of the universe, and
of man's place in it and of his destiny.
By separating education from the classical religious tradition
the school cannot train the pupil to look upon himself as an inviolable person because he is made in the image of God. These
very words, though they are the noblest words in our language,
now sound archaic. The school cannot look upon society as a
brotherhood arising out of a conviction that men are made in a
common image. The teacher
has no subject matter that
even pretends to deal with the
elementary and universal
issues of human destiny. The
graduate of the modern school
knows only by accident and
I
I
by hearsay whatever wisdom
mankind has come to in
regard to the nature of men
and their destiny.
For the vital core of the
civilized tradition of the West is by definition excluded from
the curriculum of the modern, secular, democratic school. The
school must sink, therefore, into being a mere training ground
for personal careers. Its object must then be to equip individual
careerists and not to form fully civilized men . The utility of the
schools must then be measured by their success in equipping
specialists for successful rivalry in the pursuit of their separate
vocations. Thus there is a cultural vacuum, and this cultural
vacuum was bound to produce, in fact it has produced, progressive disorder. For the more men have become separated from
the spiritual heritage which binds them together, the more has
education become egoist, careerist, specialist and asocial.
In abandoning the classical religious culture of the West the
schools have ceased to affirm the central principle of the
Western philosophy of life-that man ' s reason is the ruler of his
appetites. They have reduced reason to the role of servant to
man's appetites . The working philosophy of the emancipated
democracies is, as a celebrated modern psychologist has put it,
that "the instinctive impulses determine the end of all activities.
.. and the most highly developed mind is but the instrument by
which those impulses seek their satisfaction."
The reduction of reason to an instrument of each man's personal career must mean also that education is emptied of its content. For what the careerist has to be taught are the data that he
may need in order to succeed. Thus all subjects of study are in
principle of equal value. There are no subjects which all men
belonging to the same civilization need to study. In the realms
October 199 l
of knowledge the student elects those subjects which will presumably equip him for success in his career; for the student
there is then no such thing as a general order of knowledge
which he is to possess in order that it may regulate his specialty.
And just as the personal ambition of the student rather
than social tradition determines what the student shall learn,
so the inquiry and the research of the scholar becomes more
and more disconnected from any general and regulating body
of knowledge.
For what enables men to know more than their ancestors is
that they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors have
already learn ed. They are able to do advanced experiments
which increase knowledge because they do not have to repeat
the elementary experiments. It is tradition which brings them to
the point where advanced experimentation is possible. This is
the meaning of tradition. This is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its tradition.
The notion that every problem can be studied as such with an
open and empty mind, without preconception, without knowing
what has already been learned about it, must condemn men to a
chronic childishness. For no man , and no generation of men, is
capable of inventing for itself the arts and sciences of a high civilization. No one, and no one generation, is capable of rediscovering all the truths men need , of developing sufficient knowledge by applying a mere intelligence , no matter how acute, to
mere observation, no matter how accurate. The men of any generation, as Bernard of Chartres put it , are like dwarfs seated on
the shoulders of giants. If we are to "see more things than the
ancients and things more distant" it is "due neither to the sharpness of our sight nor the greatness of our stature" but "simply
because they have lent us their own. "
For individuals do not have the time, the opportunity or the
energy to make all the experiments and to discern all the significance that have gone into the making of the whole heritage of
civilization. In developing knowledge men must collaborate
with their ancestors. Otherwise they must begin, not where their
ancestors arrived but where their ancestors began. If they
exclude the tradition of the past from the curricula of the schools
they make it necessary for each generation to repeat the errors
rather than to benefit by the successes of its predecessors.
Having cut him off from the tradition of the past, modern
secular education has isolated the individual. It has made him a
careerist- without social connection- who must make his
way-without benefit of man 's wisdom- through a struggle in
which there is no principle of order. This is the uprooted and
incoherent modern "free man" .. . .
This essay is reprinted in part from Essays Yesterday and
Today , John A. Lester, editor, Harcourt , Brace and Company,
1943.
LETTERS/ram Santa Fe
Page 7
�Some Thoughts on Liberal Education
Nino Langiulli
I
T,wsewho
believe that
liberal education
is a hymn or
''celebration <~f'
l~fe" have
understood
neither liberal
cduration nor
lift•.
Page 8
t is not uncommon these days to hear the
term "survivor" used as a term of praise.
Now l submit that persons educated in the
liberal tradition wo uld question the usage.
They will wonder whether "survival" is a virtue
and therefore worth y of praise . How the
s urvivor survived would be crucial. Mere
survival is not a virtue because it may be that
survival was achieved by
treading upon others and
leaving behind a long list
of betrayals. Sometimes,
as Sidney Hook noted,
the worst thing that can
be said of people is that
they survived, since their
survival has been at th e
co s t of everyone and
everything else.
De pending on h ow
th e y s urviv e, pe ople
wri re for them selv es
e ither an e pitaph of
infam y or one of glory .
Those
who
prai se
s urvi vors merel y for
s urviv a l
write
for
themselves an epitaph of
mindlessness.
Consider a lso the orgy of sen tim e nta lity
passing for morality, such events as the " Hands
Across Ameri ca" phe nomenon or th e " Live
Aid" and " Farm Aid" concerts. Again those
e du cated in the tradition will find the se
express ions of pity- whose purveyors wi ll
grace with t he na me "compassio n" -to be
meager substitutes for the practice of the moral
and theological virtues. They will regard these
public displays of pity as mawkish and even the
money raised from these displays as fleeting as
paper in the wind when compared to acts of
inte lli gence, co urage, fai rn ess and c h arity
demand ed in th e ord in ar y and somet im es
extraordinary events of dail y life.
What I am suggesting with these examples
is that the tradition of liberal education commits
us to excellence. It is the systematic cultivation
of th ose thin gs whi c h make hum an beings
excellent: reason and the freedom grounded in
that reason. It is not a reflection or an echo of
fas hi onabl e th eo ri es o r actio n s , of pop
psy chology or soc io logy o r a porr idge of
cliches, buzzwords, and acronyms whi ch can
LETTERS/mm Santa Fe
openly deaden reason, deaden moral sensibility
and deaden freedom. Liberal education consists
in the formation of a proper harmony of
intelligence, character, and taste- a harmony
which is sometimes vaguely expressed in that
quaint metaphor " well rounded. " ft does not
consi s t in th e production of dilett ante s or
esthetes who believe that their education was
aimed at holding their own in cocktail party
discussions, or at mastering the Sunday N ew
York Times or who believe th at t h ey are
liberall y e duc a te d beca us e th ey have
subscriptions to the opera, the ballet, or the
museums. The tradition of liberal education is
just as resistant to producing vol upt uaries
w ith ou t c h aracte r as it is to produc in g
technicians or specialists without imag ination.
Indeed, it is a preparation for the terrors of life
so that when fai lure or even tragedy occurs, one
can face it and not be destroyed by it. Those
who be lieve that liberal education is a hymn or
"celebration of life" have understood neither
liberal education nor life.
If, h owe ver, liberal edu cati o n seek s to
develop free and rational men and women who
are concerned with the pursuit of knowledge,
and who are conscious of their moral, religious,
and social obligations, or to put it another way,
if liberal education is the formation of persons
ca p a ble of respo n s ibl e inte llec tu a l se lfdetcrm ination, then th e test will be not only
what they recognize as worthy of pursuit but
a lso wh a t th e y deem n ecessa ry to res ist.
October 1991
�Consequently, the pursuit of knowledge , of
power, of wealth, of pleas ure, of honor will
always be subject to the moderating rule of
reason. Excess and defect will be avoided.
Freedom will consist both in their mastery over
their opinions and over their passions, either of
the erotic or the aggressive kind. Mastery over
opinions will show itself in the ability to explain
them and to account for them. Dominion over
passions will show itself in such an expression
of them that an absolute "letting go" or a
"letting it all hang out" will not be permitted.
In their relationships with others, liberally
educated persons will give and accept service
graciously. They will pursue learning together,
enjoying the company of like-minded ,
independent, and confident people . They will
avoid or try to keep under control those people
who know only two postures-at one ' s feet or
at one's throat. They
will surely avoid
those
postures
themselves. Rather
they will give respect
and friendship, not
flattery. They will
have learned to
respect ordinary,
plodding, decent
humanity which they
acknowledge not
only in thems e lves
but cherish in others.
This ordinariness, as
Eva Brann has said,
is not the opposite of
excellence, nor is the
respect for it a
mythologizing and
romanticizing of the
"common
man ."
Rather it is the
ground from which
excellence grows .
The true opposite of
this ordinarinessactually there are two of them and they are both
monstrosities- are barbarism and intellectualism . The first is the embodiment of
mindless passion; the other is the abstraction of
passionless mind . Liberal education aims at
resisting both of these opposites.
Needless to say, the members of the tradition
of liberal education are also united in their
resistance to tyranny which is the perennial
danger to liberty in general and to liberal
education in particular. It should come as no
October 1991
surprise that modern tyranny, because it has at
its di sposal technologies and ideologies,
threatens to become what no earlier tyranny
ever became , according to Leo Strauss ,
homogeneous, perpetual , and universal. The
members of the tradition mu st be constantly
vigilant to defend the elementary and
unobtrusive conditions of liberty. They must
remind themselves that the face of tyranny is
not that of a devil but rather of an angel. It
does and will come speaking about its concern
for the poor, for the oppressed races, the
oppressed classes, even for the oppressed sex.
It will appear to be sincere and devotedsacrificial to the point of martyrdom-for its
cause. ft will wipe away every tear from every
eye. But when the mask of sincerity melts
away, the face of tyranny will soon enough
reveal itself for what it is-a contorted grimace
of the lust for power.
In fine, the tradition
of liberal education is
more than the study of
languages, mathematics , history, the sciences, philosophy,
and theology. It is a
training through those
disciplines-in critical reason and freedom- in excellence.
It is liberation from
ignorance, from baseness , from vulgarity.
It demands from its
adherents a complete
break with the fashionable ideas of the
careless intellectual
and resistance to the
vulgarity and terror of
the barbarian. Since
the modern tyrant is
the incarnation of
both the intellectual
and the barbarian, it is
the tradition of liberal education-save the
power and will of God-that will offer the
surest resistance to tyranny.
Ti1e members
of the tradition
r~f' liberal
education are
al.'\'O united
in their
resistan r_·e to
tyram.n; whirl!
is the
p(Jrnwial
dan:!tT tn
to /; rnl
edu cation in
particular.
Nino Langiulli is professor of philosophy at St.
Francis College, Brooklyn Heights , N.Y. This
piece , taken from a speech Mr. Langiulli gave
when he was presented with the Alumni
Association ' s Distinguished Faculty Award.
originally appeared in the fall 1986 issue of
Terrier, the College's alumni magazine.
LETTERS/ram Santa Fe
Page 9
�The Aim of Liberal Education
Leon Kass
L
<~l
For the aim
liberal education
is other than the
advancement of
the sum of
human learning
or the discovery
of new truths or
the growth of
knowledge from
more to more.
Page 10
et us begin by distinguishing liberal
education from other sorts of education. Let
us set aside that part of higher education
which prepares one for one's future career, whether
in the professions of law, medicine, divinity,
engineering, or business or in scholarship or
scientific research . In these cases , the mind is
specifically prepared in the basic concepts and
methods, either of practical arts , say, of legal
reasoning or of healing, or of specialized
investigation, in each case according to the accepted
canons of the profession or discipline. Bodies of
accumulated knowledge are transmitted, skills are
acquired, and the particular methods of problemsolving are learned through practice. Expertise,
competence, mastery are the marks of
accomplishment. I do not for a moment discount
the importance of such achievement and such
training; but it is not liberal education. True,
medicine or law or biology or politics can be
studied in a liberal way, but when taught
professionally or pre-professionally they are not.
True, scholarly research can be an aid to liberal
education- and vice versa-but the training or
preparation of future scholars is not what liberal
education is about or for. For the aim of liberal
education is other than the advancement of the sum
of human learning or the discovery of new truths or
the growth of knowledge from more to more.
But neither is liberal education just the
transmission of accumulated knowledge, the pouring
of old learning into new receptacles, or even the
initiation of new members into the great tradition,
understood as tradition. It is, of course, hard to call
someone well educated who is ignorant of the Bible
and the writings of Homer and Plato, Shakespeare
and Locke, R9usseau and Tolstoy, Newton and
Einstein , Darwin and Freud. Indeed, because of
their depth, range, and power, these writings are the
best materials for the practice of liberal education.
But desirable though it is to know one's intellectual
forebears, to know them as part of the tradition-or,
in the current jargon, as part of the so-called history
of ideas-is only to know about them and about
what they thought , not to think with them. The
history of thought, however valuable, is not itself
thinking. And to regard the so-called tradition as
authoritative, to accept its authority because of its
venerability, is to give over the activity of thinking
here and now. The same must also be said for the
docile ingestion and unassimilated retention of the
fruits of contemporary sciences, whether received
authoritatively from written textbooks or even from
LETTERS from Santa Fe
the mouths of Nobel Laureates.
I would also distinguish liberal education from
those aspects of education which aspire to or attain a
broadening of views, an elevating of sensibilities
and tastes, or even the sharpening of intellectual
skills. These are, of course, all fine things. It is
good to be exposed to and to know about many
variations in culture, beliefs, and human activities.
But learning is more than exposure, and collecting
broad variations does not mean gaining deeper
understanding. Liberal education is more than
general education.
It is also more than aesthetic and cultural
enrichment. Our tastes and sensibilities can certainly
stand refinement: It should be one of our goals to
learn to recognize and to love the difference between
what is noble and beautiful and what is vulgar and
ugly. But even the love of Homer and Mozart or the
growing taste for the beautiful in nature on in human
character is not yet what I mean.
Liberal education also goes beyond requiring the
skills of careful reading, writing, listening, speaking,
arguing, calculating, looking, and experimenting.
These skills- often called the liberal arts-sharpen
the mind and are invaluable as instruments for its
proper work. But the skills alone are insufficient.
When severed from the true work of the free mind,
pre-occupation with skills can be enslaving, a kind
of mental gymnastics which tones one ' s mental
muscles and swells one's vanity, but which in fact is
useless and vain. What is the point of knowing
"how to think" if one never seriously engages in
thinking?
What, then, could be left for the aim of liberal
education, if we exclude professional training,
research and scholarship, general broadening and
culture, the arts of learning, and familiarity with the
intellectual tradition? I have already hinted at my
answer: Not the adding of new truths to the world,
not the transmission of old truths to the young, but
the cultivation in each of us of the disposition
actively to seek the truth and to make the truth our
own. More simply, liberal education is education in
and for thoughtfulness. It awakens, encourages, and
renders habitual thoughtful reflection about weighty
human concerns, in quest of what is simply true and
good.
This piece is taken from the early part of a speech
Leon Kass delivered on September 25, 1981, to the
entering freshmen at the University of Chicago as
the annual Orientation Week "Aims of Education"
address.
October 1991
�What are the Liberal Arts
The followinf.! piece is taken from a St. John's
College brochure for interested high school
students.
L
iterally, "liberal" comes from the Latin
root "liber" which means free. There is
a certain kind of intellectual freedom
gained from studying liberal arts which helps
one form sound and independent judgments
and allows one to be free from accepting
currently modish but not necessarily sound
opinions. Another
kind of freedom is
the freedom from
specialization. The
liberal arts student is
not concentrating on
a particular field and
is thus able to make
connections between
different disciplines.
The world isn ' t seen
only in engineering
terms or accounting
terms. The student is
able to rely on an
analogy, illumination,
or insight from one
subject to explain
something in another
subject.
The primary function of the liberal arts has
always been to bring about an awareness of the
forms that are embodied in combinations of
words and in numbers so that they become
means of understanding . Traditionally , the
liberal arts were seven in number: grammar,
rhetoric, log ic- th e arts of language; and
arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomythe arts of mathematics.
In more contemporary terms, the liberal arts
bring to light what is involved in the use of
words and numbers in all kinds of discursive
thought, in counting, measuring, deducing,
demonstrating, analyzing, thinking, writing,
speaking, and listening. They are the arts of
judgments and decisions.
It is, however, not subject matter alone that
determines the character of the liberal arts, for
the way in which a formal discipline, a subject
matter, is taken up is decisive. The art of
questioning, and of seeing oneself differently
as a result, is central to a liberal arts education.
October 1991
It is not enough to acquire knowledge and to
develop facility in the arts of language and
mathematics. There must be a constant
questioning, a search for the grounding and
consequences of propositions, truths, and
beliefs. We must ask the persistent questions
of human existence, which have relevance to
the contemporary problems with which we
have to deal. Only to the extent that we
honestly face such philosophical questions will
we be able to confront our future in a
meaningful way.
As
knowledge
advances and the
fundamental outlook
of civilization changes
over the centuries,
these
arts
of
understanding remain,
in one form or
another,
indispensable.
They
enable men
and
women
win
to
knowledge of the
world around them
and knowledge of
themselves in this
world and to use that
knowledge
with
wisdom. Under their
guidance men and women can free themselves
from the wantonness of prejudice and the
narrowne ss of beaten path s. Under their
discipline they can acquire the habit of
listening to reason in others and demanding
reasons in themselves. A genuinely conceived
liberal arts curriculum cannot avoid aiming at
these most far reaching of all human goals.
Through both curricula and pedagogy it is
hoped that a liberal education will impart such
stimulus that students will become their own
teachers for the rest of their lives. It has been a
firm and well-supported belief that students
who have begun to seek and understand the arts
that are common to all disciplines, who have
learned to be their own teachers, and who have
a beginning awareness of the fullness and
variety of human experience will necessarily
be the citizens best equipped to deal
intelligently with the particular professions
they choose and with the human situations in
which they find themselves.
LEITERS/rom Santa Fe
Through
both curricula
and pedagogy
it is hoped
that a liberal
education will
impart such
stimulus that
students will
become their
own teachers
for the rest of
their lives.
Page II
�Profile
St. John's College is an independent, non-sectarian.four-year, liberal arts college.
•founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St. John's College. Great Books Program
adopted l 937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
•Curriculum :
An integrated, non-elective arts and science program based on reading and discussing, in loosely chronological order, the great books of
Western Civilization.
•Approach :
Tutorials, laboratori~s. and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures. Classes are very small. Student/faculty
ratio is 8: I.
• Degree Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts.
•Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 undergraduate students on each campus. Current freshman class made up of 46% men and 54% women,
from 34 states and several foreign countries. Students may transfer between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
• Alumni Careers:
Education-21 %, business-20%, law-IO%, visual and performing arts-9%, medicine-7%, science and engineering-?%, computer science-6%,
writing and publishing-5%.
• Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary Master's degree program based on the same principles as the
undergraduate program. Offered on both campuses year-round.
�
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LETTERS from Santa Fe
St. John 's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
J anuary 1991
A Message
from
the President
2
John Agresto
4
David W Breneman
A Light for
Higher Education
Dear Friends,
For almost a decade now there has been a growing
debate about education at all levels-from elementary
through graduate school. There have been monthly, it not
weekly, reports, studies, surveys, and predictions issued on
the state of American education. So many, that the central
issue of what constitutes a good education and how to
improve the education America's youth receive has often,
I'm afraid, gotten lost in the rhetoric. Thus. this newsletterLetters from Santa Fe.
You will see as you read this newsletter that it is not
about education across the board but about American
higher education in general and American liberal education in particular. This is for purely personal reasons-I
have been involved in higher education all of my
professional career, and I am the president of a four-year
liberal arts college.
I would like for Letters from Santa Fe to be a source of
information to readers on the state of higher education, to
give facts and figures that may not have crossed your
desks, to reprint articles of general interest, to offer some
observations on what is and is not working, and to let you
know what's going on at the liberal arts college I know
best, St. John's.
For the most part. this newsletter will go to friends and
professional acquaintances I have made over the years.
However, at the best, these letters will be a two-way street
with your writing if there is something you know, or notice.
or want to bring to our collective attention. If this
newsletter not only gives you valuable information but
also helps start a conversation among us about the
character and quality of American education, then I think
we will have accomplished a great deal.
1n this first issue there will be more about St. John's
College than in subsequent ones just because many of
you are unfamiliar with who we are and what we do.
Included is the talk I gave at my recent inauguration as
well as the results of a study of how our students did
compared to other students in a national survey. Also,
there are articles by David W. Breneman and Lynne V.
Cheney I think you will find interesting and helpful.
So, this is our first issue of Letters from Santa Fe. Let me
know what you think.
5
10
Are We Losing
Our Liberal Arts
Colleges?
Lynne V Cheney
Research and
Teaching
at Colleges and
Universities
Special Report:
St. John's Seniors
Ace NEH Survey
While National
Sample Flunks
�John Agresto
A Light for Higher Education
Inaugural Address, April 28, 1990
we think about the place of college
W hen
education in America, many of us
In the last thirty
years the
number of
students
concentrating in
the liberal arts
has fallen from
60 percent
to around
10 percent.
Page 2
automatically think of liberal education: of
students leaving home for four years to read
some literature, study some history, learn
about languages, study mathematics, or bi0logy , psychology or classics. To think this
way is simply an anachronism, simply false .
In the last thirty years the number of students
in American colleges and universities who
can be said to concentrate in the liberal arts,
or in some major area of the liberal arts, has
fallen astonishingly. The figures are soft, but
they look something like this: in the last thirty
years the number of students concentrating in
the liberal arts has fallen from approximately
60 percent of the college population to
somewhere just around 10 percent. To think
of American collegiate education today as
liberal education is simply not true: the great
bulk of it is technical, vocational , commercial
and professional education .
Everyone, it would seem, within the
academy has the same explanation for the
shift away from the liberal arts: students have
been captured by materialism and commercialism, sttldents have lost their idealism,
students have been seduced by bourgeois
American capitalism and Wall Street or have
simply given in to their narcissistic desire to
be rich, selfish, competitive and comfortable.
These explanations are, I think, by and large
false and deluding. The leaders of American
higher education often have the incredibly
elastic ability to blame everything and everyone for their woes-everyone, that is, but
themselves.
So what's wrong with higher education
today that has precipitated this monumental
decline in liberal education? Plenty.
First, it clearly has something to do with
the decline of teaching. While I have no
objection to good research and scholarship in
the liberal arts, and I know that there are
some students who pride themselves on
association with the names of great scholars
on their campuses, I do think that most
students would rather be in the company of a
great teacher than on a campus with renowned but unavailable researchers.
Second, it has something to do with
LETTERS fro m Santa Fe
arrogance and contempt. I mean especially
contempt for this country and this civilization . We all have our stories and we've all
compiled enough evidence to know that the
segment of the academy that almost seems to
pride itself on its gloating disdain for general
American habits and ways and hopes and
loves is not to be found in schools of nursing
or pharmacology or electrical engineering or
accounting, but in the liberal arts. Yet
students, despite what their parents might
think, come to college with an instinctive,
wholesome and totally proper love of country,
of customs, and even of religious values and
institutions. And while no one begrudges the
academy its role as cultural critic, students do
sense that if what they'll be subjected to is
politics and ideology masquerading as teaching, or if they see themselves subject to an
unremitting attack on Western civilization or
on their untutored but seemingly sensible
devotion to certain principles and values,
well, they'd sooner major in business or
finance, thank you all the same. It's a sad
situation, for I've seen that the more professors drive away students because of their
disdain and contempt for the principles and
works of this civilization, the more they
blame the character of today's students rather
than themselves.
LETTERSfrom Santa Fe
A quarterly newsletter on higher education
Published in January, April, July, and
October at St. john 's College, Santa Fe.
Submit letters or comments to:
John Agresto, President
St . john's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 -1599
Telephone (505) 982-3691
FAX (505) 989-9269
john Agresto, Publisher
Ben Galison, Editor
Douglas Jerrold Houston,
Design and Production
Copyright
Santa Fe.
© 1991 by St. John 's College,
J anuary 199 1
�Third, the trivialization of the liberal
arts has probably driven as many students
away as the politicization of the liberal arts.
Once we say that there are no great books to
read or great ideas to understand or great
people to study but that virtually all things
are equally instructive, interesting or valuable, the more our students will disbelieve us
and rightly walk away. If books and ideas are
objects of play rather than substantial, transformative and significant items central and
important for life, why bother? Then we've
really made the liberal arts irrelevant. And,
at the cost of $60,000 or more, students will
go elsewhere.
Despite the incredible decline in liberal
education nationally, we know that there are
places where it not only survives but flourishes. Where you're standing today is a case in
point. Applications to this school are as
strong as, if not stronger than, ever. There's
a new library. Voluntary contributions are on
the rise. And everyone I meet here senses that
this is a place where teaching and learning
are alive and healthy, where liberal education
still manifestly flourishes.
We are hardly perfect, and much of what
I have to say may still be in the form of goals
rather than solid fact, but I do think this
college can be and is a model and a light for
higher education generally. Here teaching is
taken seriously because learning is taken
seriously. Here, in a school without academic
departments, where each day the tutors
themselves strive to be better and more
widely educated, the drive to know, the love
of learning and the desire to talk about and
teach what we've seen and read is clear.
When the faculty here resolves, as it has so
recently, that it would rather forego all salary
increases than increase the size of classes, you
know that teaching is paramount.
Second, when one takes the books of the
Western tradition as seriously as we do here,
simple contempt for the tradition, or of the
principles and works of this civilization, are
impossible. We simply know too much to be
enemies of this culture. We know, to be sure,
that one's own is not necessarily the best . But
we've seen enough and read enough to know
the good when we see it. And we know that as
we hold the ideas and works of this tradition
up for question and investigation that we
also, by that very act, transmit the ideas,
works and principles of this tradition forward. We are not embarrassed to be both
scholars and critics and bearers of the culture
all together. And we trust that we turn out
and will continue to turn out graduates who
J anuar·y 1991
themselves have an attachment to this civilization as well. We trust that we are turning
out students who are public servants and
producers of public goods and not just
carpers and critics.
On that score, we also know that
knowledge is not necessarily virtue-we know
that there can be angels in understanding and
devils in conduct. What is left for us to show,
however, is that knowledge and virtue,
education and public spiritedness, are not
incompatible . What we have to show is what
is written on the first page of our catalog,
something which I think many institutions
would be ashamed to reprint each year,
though we are not-it goes like this: "Liberal
education should seek to develop free and
rational men and women committed to the
pursuit of knowledge in its fundamental
unity, intelligently appreciative of their common cultural heritage and conscious of their
social and moral obligations."
If we can do these things with fervor and
intelligence, St. John's will continue to be
what I think it is at present, a light to all
colleges, a leader in the meaning of liberal
education, and the maker of men and women
of whom we and our fellow citizens will be
proud.
Here teaching is
taken seriously
because learning
is taken
seriously.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Page 3
�David W. Breneman
Are We Losing Our Liberal
Arts Colleges?
of doing research for a book
I onn thethecourse
future of private liberal arts colleges, I made a startling discovery. While I
began with the belief that there were roughly
600 such institutions in this country, I have
concluded that, given a reasonable definition
of a liberal arts college, we have only about
200 of them left.
My discovery was as simple as it was
disturbing: The liberal arts college as we
know it is disappearing from the landscape,
and another type of institution-the professional college-is taking its place. Furthermore, I believe that most educators are not
aware of this "sea change," nor have we
begun to debate its significance .
The liberal arts
college as we
know it is
disappearing
from the
landscape.
A Unique Mission
Among the nation's 3400 colleges and
universities, only the liberal arts colleges are
distinguished by a mission of providing
four-year baccalaureate education exclusively, in a setting that emphasizes and rewards
good teaching above all else.
These colleges tend to enroll small
numbers of students; they emphasize liberal
education over professional training. They
are the source of a disproportionate number
of graduates who go on to earn doctorates
and to pursue academic careers.
Their "privateness" means that certain
values-religious and otherwise-can inform
their mission in ways not possible at state
institutions, while their small size makes
possible a sense of community among students, faculty, and staff that can rarely be
achieved in larger settings.
The diversity of American higher education, one of its oft-noted and much-valued
attributes, will be much reduced if these small
private colleges are unable to sustain themselves and their mission because of changing
economic circumstances.
languages, social sciences, and physical
sciences. They rarely enroll more than 2500
students; most enroll between 800 and 1800.
The kind of education they provide
might be described as pre-professional: Many
students enroll in graduate or professional
programs upon graduation, but the college
itself offers virtually no undergraduate professional education.
Economically, liberal arts colleges have
comparable revenue and cost structures.
Their common economic struggle is partly a
function of their offering a curriculum that
does not cater to current . student concerns
with the job market. While remaining true to
an educational ideal, liberal arts colleges must
compete with universities that provide many
more courses and majors, as well as a vast
array of professional degrees in fields such as
business, engineering, architecture, nursing,
and education.
And while it is easy to understand the
pressure on colleges to shift away from
offering liberal arts toward offering professional training, it is all the more important to
appreciate the financial constraints of liberal
arts colleges that have not taken that way out.
David Breneman then lists 140 colleges
as "Liberal Arts I" colleges-those private
institutions in which more than half of the
degrees awarded were in the arts and sciences. Only 140. Indeed, in our area, in addition
to St. J ohn' s, the only comparable institution listed is Colorado College . Arizona,
Utah, Nevada, and Oklahoma have none,
and Texas only one. -J .A.
Defining Terms
After further thought it soon became
apparent that liberal arts colleges might be
characterized in two ways: by their educational ideals and by their economic structure .
Educationally, these colleges award the
bachelor of arts degree, are residential, enroll
full-time students in the age range of 18 to
24, and limit the number of majors to
roughly twenty in the arts, humanities,
Page 4
LETTERS.from Santa Fe
David W. Breneman is a visiting professor at
the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a
visiting fellow in economic studies at the Brookings
Institution, Washington, D . C. He was presidmt of
Kalamazoo College, Michigan, during 1983-1989.
This article is reprinted with permission .from The Colltge
Board Review, No. 156, Summer 1990. © 1990 by College
Entrance Examination Board, New York.
January 1991
�Lynne V. Cheney
Research and Teachinp at
Colleges and Universities
decades critics have been saying that
Forinstitutions
of higher education do not do
enough to encourage good teaching. Classicist William Arrowsmith made this point in
1967, observing that "at present, the universities are as uncongenial to teaching as the
Mojave Desert to a clutch of Druid priests.''
Almost a quarter century later, historian
Page Smith asserts that faculties "are in full
flight from teaching .... In many universities,
faculty members make no bones about the
fact that students are the enemy. It is students
who threaten to take up precious time that
might otherwise be devoted to research. ''
This situation has not come about because faculty members necessarily prefer
research. In a recent survey, 71 percent
reported that their interests either leaned
toward or lay primarily in teaching. But the
road to success-or even to survival-in the
academic world is through publishing. Anthropologist Bradd Shore notes, "If you fail
at the teaching and fail at the service but still
do terrific scholarship, you are likely to get
tenure," but not the other way around. A
senior literature professor, who himself publishes actively, reports that " the way one
prospers is by finding time away from
teaching to get one's own work done."
Philosopher Thomas Flynn relates the advice
he received as a young assistant professor
trying to get tenure: ' ' Beware of the students.
They will destroy you."
Dramatic Emphasis
on Research
The most dramatic examples of how
research is valued over teaching occur when
faculty members who have won campuswide
awards for teaching suddenly find themselves
without jobs. A 1988 article in The Chronicle of
Higher E ducation even raised the possibility that teaching awards, by implying that a
faculty member is not as serious about
research as he or she should be, are "the kiss
of death" as far as achieving tenure is
concerned. Economist Thomas Sowell reports, "I personally know three different
professors at three different institutions who
have gotten the Teacher of the Year Award
and were then told that their contracts would
not be renewed. ''
The emphasis on research is greatest at
J anuary 1991
research universities where 64 percent of the
faculty report spending five hours or less per
week on formal classroom instruction and 86
percent report spending six or more hours per
week on research. At liberal arts colleges, by
contrast, only 16 percent of the faculty report
less than five hours a week in the classroom;
and 48 percent report spending six or more
hours on research. Even at liberal arts
colleges, however, the emphasis on research
is growing. Fifty liberal arts schools have
banded together under the lead of Oberlin
College and are considering calling themselves "research colleges." Schools such as
Colorado College, Grinnell, and Wellesley
have reduced the number of hours faculty
teach so that they have more time to do
research. A recent survey of twelve liberal
arts colleges reported that faculty frequently
distinguish between teaching and what they
often call, significantly, 'my own work, ' '' or
research.
Faculty members often blame administrators for the emphasis placed on research,
but administrators are responding to powerful external forces. The money that flows to
their institutions and the prestige their
schools enjoy will be largely dictated by the
research those institutions do. Thomas Sowell
points out that hundreds of millions of federal
dollars flow into research at universities.
"Money talks in academia as elsewhere,"
Sowell notes, ''and what money says on most
campuses is 'do research.' " Emory University's Frank Manley observes that academic
reputation is established through the public
act of publishing, not through the more
private act of teaching. " The people who
have status outside the University, who are
writing and publishing, are the ones who are
going to get the status inside the University,"
says Manley. "They are the ones. who are
looked upon with most favor by the administrators because they are the ones who have
the marquee value for the University.''
Even at liberal
ll
h
arts co eges, t e
emphasis on
research is
growing
The Tyrannical Machine
that Reigns
The model that increasingly drives all of
higher education- the tyrannical machine
that reigns- was fir st established in the
United States at the end of the nineteenth
LETTER S from Santa Ft
Page 5
�century. Derived from German universities,
this model emphasized the production of
knowledge rather than its diffusion. Both
Daniel Coit Gilman and G. Stanley Hall,
influential spokesmen for the new university
ideal, thought that the scholar's proper role
lay in producing "bricks" for the rising
temple of knowledge. William James was
among the first to note that such a singleminded view threatened a system in which
there were many paths to excellence. It was in
a 1903 essay on the Ph.D.-the degree
associated with the new, research-oriented
university-that James coined the phrase
''tyrannical machine. ''
Teaching Less
The gradually
shrinking
academic year
also affects
time faculty
members spend
in the
classroom.
Page6
One of the most dramatic effects of
emphasizing the production of new knowledge-that is, research that leads to publication-rather than the communication of
knowledge to the next generation-that is,
teaching-has been a decline in how much
faculty members teach. At four-year institutions, time spent by faculty in the classroom
has decreased steadily. According to one
estimate, teaching responsibilities at noted
research universities_ have, since 1920, decreased in many instances by one-third, and
often by half to two-thirds. As the president
of York College of Pennsylvania, Robert
Iosue, notes, it is difficult to be precise about
the degree to which teaching responsibilities
have declined because official teaching loads
are often different from actual ones, which
may be reduced for such work as service on a
faculty committee. " In one bizarre case,"
louse says, "a professor received fifteen
hours of reduction from an official work load
of twelve hours. He was paid a three-hour
teaching overload yet did not step inside the
classroom. ''
The gradually shrinking academic year
also affects time faculty members spend in the
classroom. In the late 1960s, according to an
executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
Officers, most colleges had two seventeenweek semesters. Now, two fifteen-week semesters are more typical, with some schools
in session as few as twenty-eight weeks-or
half a year. Observing that students in
Missouri institutions of higher education now
spend a semester and a half less in college
than students in the 1940s, Governor John
Ashcroft has asked the schools in his state to
lengthen the academic year.
Because the prestige of an institution
depends on whether it has a faculty well
known for publishing, colleges and universities frequently raid other institutions for their
research stars. "Hiring superprofessors,"
LETTERS from Santa Fe
observes Lewis H. Miller of Indiana University, "is a quick and easy method of raising
the value of one's academic stock." The
primary way of luring faculty from other
institutions is to offer them reduced teaching
loads. As Lee Knefelkamp of the American
Association for Higher Education puts it,
"Unfortunately, the blue chip that we play in
the poker game these days is to offer our best
scholars less time with students. The currency
of higher education has become, in fact, less
time with the constituency we are supposed to
serve." Professor Miller reports that when he
was a dean, faculty members who visited his
office to discuss offers they had from other
institutions were almost always more attracted by the possibility of teaching less than the
promise of earning more. "Although some of
these colleagues were teaching just one or two
courses a year," Miller writes, "they were
being wooed by the prospect of a 50 percent
reduction, even if that translated into teaching one course every other year. "
When faculty members teach less, there
is a financial consequence. Because more
people must be hired to teach, the costs of
education escalate-and so does tuition. Between 1980-81 and 1989-90, average tuition
charges rose an inflation-adjusted 50 percent
at public universities, 66 percent at private
universities, and 57 percent at other private
four-year schools. Other factors, including
increased administrative expenses, account
for some of these increases; but with instructional budgets typically comprising 40 percent of educational and general expenditures,
the decline in the amount of time faculty
members spend in the classroom clearly plays
a role.
Between 1977 and 1987, while the
number of full-time arts and sciences students
decreased by 14 percent, the number of
full-time arts and science faculty members
increased by 16 percent, but it is hard to find
evidence that instruction benefited. Instead
there are reports of students unable to get
into classes or to take the courses they want.
At the University of Texas at Austin, after
the English department reduced the teaching
load by one-third, students stood in long lines
in Parlin Hall , waiting, as the student
newspaper put it, " for an English class, any
English class, to open.'' At Northwestern
University , a student editorial complained
about course offerings in history, noting that
20 percent of the department was on leave to
do research and that none of the four highly
publicized, newly hired faculty members in
the department was teaching.
An ''Academic Underclass''
Even though the number of arts and
sciences students has declined markedly and
J anuary 1991
�are often unsupervised; and while· some
manage to be excellent teachers without any
orientation or opportunity to discuss their
work with experienced faculty members, few
find themselves rewarded for a job well done.
In fact what graduate students learn, all too
often, is that teaching is not worth doing well.
Says Frank Manley of Emory University, "I
left Uohns Hopkins] with the idea that my
main job was to do research, write books, and
neglect undergraduates, because otherwise
they would take all my time .... My career has
been in part an unlearning of what I learned
in graduate school." Jaime O'Neill of Butte
College in Oroville, California, says that it
took him "five years of adjustment to get
over the snobbery of graduate school.
The High Price
the number of faculty members has increased
significantly, many institutions still find
themselves short of teachers. They frequently
fill in the gap with what has been called an
''academic underclass'' -part-time instructors. Part-timers, who in 1988 comprised 37
percent of faculty nationwide, are paid much
less than full-time faculty. A survey of
English departments showed the typical parttime faculty member earning $1,500 per
course although there were examples of
departments paying as little as $400. Colleges
and universities often cap the number of
courses that a part-timer can teach so they
will not have to pay fringe benefits. Thus
many part-timers become "gypsy scholars,"
frantically commuting between teaching assignments at different institutions and frequently looking for other ways to supplement
their salaries. Michael Shenefelt, a part-timer
at New York University and Long Island
University, reports that by supplementing his
income as an office temporary, he is able to
earn $20,00 a year. "A New York University elevator operator begins at $20,000,"
Shenefelt observes.
For Ph.D.-granting institutions, graduate students are another source of cheap
labor for the classroom, one used extensively
at some universities. A 1989 walkout at
Berkeley is reported to have caused the
cancellation of nearly 75 percent of classes.
Like part-time instructors, graduate students
January 1991
Across the country are thousands of
faculty members whose professional lives run
counter to the prevailing culture of academia.
At a liberal arts college in the Midwest where
a new emphasis on publication has led to a
cutback in course offerings, a literature
professor teaches as many courses as he
possibly can to try to make up the shortfall.
"I am permitted to teach on an unlimited
basis," he says "and I do. If I did not do this
many students would not be able to take a
literature course . " All too often, however, a
decision to emphasize teaching exacts a price.
At the University of Maryland, associate
professor Maynard Mack, Jr., notes that his
own focus on teaching "is not a fast track to
that promotion. I should minimize my campus responsibilities and produce a second
book."
Nowhere is the Countertrend to academia's current culture stronger than in community colleges. The mission of these institutions is clear. "We are a practical teaching
college," in the words of one professor. But
in a system of higher education that does not
place high value on teaching, community
colleges rank low in prestige. Having less
status than four-year colleges, they command
fewer resources. Their faculty members earn
less even though they teach more . The
overwhelming majority of community college
faculty spend more than eleven hours a week
in the classroom; 10 percent spend more than
twenty hours a week. Many find year-round
employment a necessity. "If you don't
teach,'' says Evelyn Edson of Piedmont
Virginia Community College, "you work at
Shoney's [a fast-food restaurant] in the
summer. You get some kind of job. " The
results can be too little time to undertake the
reading and reflection that make for better
teaching, too little time to exchange ideas
with other faculty members about issues in
one's field or ways to improve courses and
curricula.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Graduate
students are
another source
of cheap labor
for the
classroom.
Page 7
�Faculty Interests and
Student Needs
Focusing on
increasingly
narrow topics
is one way of
achieving the
originality that
publication
demands.
Page8
The increased emphasis on research has
resulted in a surge of publications. The
number of books and articles published
annually on Shakespeare grew by 80 percent
between 1968 and 1988; the number on
Virginia Woolf by 800 percent. With so
much being written, individual researchers
find themselves having to take up narrower
and narrower topics in order to find a niche.
The consequences were apparent in the 1970s
when Professor William Schaefer became
editor of Publications of the Modern Language Association. Discovering a backlog of
articles on exceedingly specialized topics,
Schaefer developed a new editorial policy
emphasizing articles of "significant interest";
but PMLA, despite being one of the premier
journals of the academic world, did not
receive a sufficient number of articles of
wider interest to sustain the new plan.
Focusing on increasingly narrow topics
is one way of achieving the originality that
publication demands. Another, as Gerald
Graff has noted, is proposing innovative
interpretations. "The new wave of paracritical and metacritical improvisation in criticism .. . . " Graff wrote in 1979, "may be a
necessary spur to industrial growth at a time
when the conventional modes of professional
publication have worn thin." The importance of new theoretical approaches to scholarly publishing can be seen in journal article
after journal article in which scholars write
about ''foregrounding,'' ''appropriating,''
"inscribing," and "engendering." It can be
seen in books: An historian, for example,
takes up such topics as ''The Semantics of
Transcendence as a General Academic
Code" and "Historiographical Rejection of
Cultural Disengagement." Theory shapes
the programs of professional gatherings. At
the Modern Language Association's most
recent convention, papers were given on
"The Authority of Female Representation in
the Postmodern Matrix,'' '' Prosaics and
Semiotic Totalitarianism,'' and ''Narrative
Dismemberment: Psychological Digressions
in the Structure of Hypertests." Members of
the College Art Association are currently
being invited to present papers on "Rethinking the 'Foucauldian' association of photography with the generalized 'panoptic' regime of truth and power. ''
It is not surprising that faculty would
want to teach what interests them professionally, but the extent to which specialization
and new theoretical approaches have affected
curricula may well startle anyone who has not
LETTERS from Santa Fe
followed the collegiate course of study over
the last few decades. A student can fulfill core
requirements at Harvard by studying tuberculosis from 1842 to 1952, and distributive
requirements at Dartmouth with "Sexuality
and Writing," which analyzes "the use of
sexuality and its ramifications as symbols for
the process of literary creativity, with particular reference to ... potency and creative fertility; marriage or adultery and literary sterility;
deviation and/or solitude and autobiography;
prostitution and history; chastity and literary
self-referentiality.''
Concern for Western
Civilization Courses
At the University of Minnesota, faculty
in the humanities department recently proposed doing away with the ten courses the
department offers in Western civilization and
substituting three new courses: "Discourse
and Society," "Text and Context," and
"Knowledge, Persuasion, and Power." In
these introductory courses, students will analyze "ways that certain bodies of discourse
come to cohere, to exercise persuasive power,
and to be regarded as authoritative, while
other are marginalized, ignored, or denigrated ." More advanced courses are also being
planned, including "Music as Discourse,"
for which the syllabus includes music videos, a
heavy metal concert, and songs sung at a
workers' strike .
Resistance from faculty in other departments as well as from students has led the
humanities department to give up plans to
abandon the Western civilization courses
immediately. For the time being, the older
curriculum will continue to be offered along
with the newer ones. There is concern,
however, about how long the Western civilization courses will last since the overwhelming majority of faculty members in the
humanities department has little interest in
teaching them.
A disgruntled student at Minnesota
observes, "This is all because members of.a
department want to teach what they want to
teach"-which is not necessarily what undergraduates need to learn. A recent nationwide
survey conducted by the Gallup Organization
for the National Endowment for the Humanities showed that many students manage to
approach college graduation with alarming
gaps in knowledge. About 25 percent of the
nation's college seniors were unable to date
Columbus's journey within the correct halfcentury. More than 30 percent could not
identify the Reformation.
"We are graduating a generation that
knows less and less,'' says Vassar sociology
January 1991
�professor James Farganis. In the absence of
required, broad-based courses in which
undergraduates study significant events and
books, Farganis notes, "students are picking
and choosing, making their own curriculum
in a haphazard fashion." Some students do
not study American or English literature at
all: It is possible to graduate from 45 percent
of the nation's colleges and universities
without doing so. Similarly, some undergraduates do not study history: It is possible to
graduate from 38 percent of the nation's
colleges and universities without doing so. At
41 percent of colleges and universities, it is
possible to graduate without studying mathematics; at 33 percent, without studying
natural
and
physical
sciences.
Significant Decline in
Humanities Majors
Between 1968 and 1988, while the
number of bachelor's degrees awarded in the
United States grew by 56 percent, the
number of bachelor's degrees awarded in the
humanities fell by 39 percent. There have
also been significant declines in mathematics
and physical science majors during this
period: down 33 percent and 9 percent,
respectively. For the humanities (and for
mathematics) the situation has improved in
recent years, but the loss remains significant.
Twenty years ago, one out of six college
graduates majored in the humanities. Today
the figure is one out of sixteen. No doubt
there are many explanations, but surely one
is that many students come to college poorly
prepared in the humanities-and in mathematics and physical sciences as well-and
once in college, they do not take introductory
courses that fully introduce them to the
challenges and pleasures of these disciplines.
How could an undergraduate who has never
taken a meaningful course in history or
physics choose to major in one of these fields?
people now earning undergraduate degrees in
English or French at our most prestigious
institutions have read two or three pages of
Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, and Kristeva for
every page of George Eliot or Stendhal. "
In graduate school, students prepare to
publish and survive by narrowing their focus
as much as possible- and by reading theory.
Elizabeth Fentress, who went to graduate
school because she wanted to concentrate on
original works of literature, has written about
her discovery that there was no way to earn
an advanced degree without diving into a
"tidal wave of theory." Rather than be
diverted from her goal, she ended her
graduate studies. "I deemed it best to
leave . ... " she writes, "and to learn what I
wanted
to
learn
on
my
own.''
Summary
Research interests affect teaching and
learning at all levels of higher education, and
they have an impact on schools as well.
Among today's college students are tomorrow's teachers; and if their curricula have
been haphazard, they may well know less
than they should about the subjects they will
teach. If they have been taught in an
indifferent fashion, they will be less likely to
know how to teach well themselves. "The
undergraduate education that intending
teachers receive is full of the same bad
teaching that litters American high schools,"
a group of education school deans observes.
"If teachers are to know a subject so that they
can teach it well, they need to be taught it
well."
''We are
graduating a
generation that
knows less and
less, ''says
Vassar sociology
professor~ames
Farganis.
Preparation for Demands
of Graduate Schools
Those who do major in the humanities
often find that their courses are not conceived
as comprehensive treatments of important
subjects but as preparation for graduate
school. Even though most majors in subjects
like English do not go on to work on Ph.D. 's,
they may well spend time as undergraduates
becoming familiar with critical theoryperhaps more time than they spend reading
literature. "I strongly suspect," writes Professor Robert Alter of the University of
California at Berkeley, "that many young
January 1991
Lynne V. Cheney is Chairman of the National
Endowment for the Humanities . Reprinted here is
an excerpt from Tyrannical Machines : A Re-
port on Educational Practices Gone Wrong
and Our Best Hopes for Setting Them Right,
published recently by the NEH.
LETTERS.from Santa Fe
Page 9
�Special Report:
St. John's Aces NEH Survey
While National Sample Flunks
contract with the National EndowU nder
ment for the Humanities, the Gallup
The national
mean score was
58 percentfailing.
Organization last spring tested nearly 700
U.S. college seniors on their knowledge of
American and world history and literature . If
the students' answers were to be graded ,
more than half of those tested would have
failed . Using the standard "A" to "F" scale ,
where less than 60 percent-correct score
means failure, 55 percent would have received an "F" and another 20 percent a
"D. " Just 11 percent would have received an
"A" or "B" grade . The national mean score was
58 percent-failing.
Appalled by these scores, St. John's
decided in April of this year to administer
informally the same test to its own seniors,
hoping that we would see more heartening
results. We did . Twenty-three out of the sixty
members of the 1990 senior class volunteered
to take the test one afternoon while President
Agresto proctored. All of them passed. Only
one person got a "C" grade. The other 22 , a
full 96 percent, received grades of "A" or
" B." The average score for the St. john's seniors
tested was 91 percent correct-a grade of ''A. ''
The NEH, whose mission it is to
promote the study of the humanities, developed this survey to measure the students'
command of basic historical and literary
knowledge in the last year of their undergraduate education . Each senior was asked 87
questions concerning important historical figures, dates and events as well as significant
authors and literary works.
Significant gaps in knowledge about
history were found among college seniors in a
variety of areas. For exampi<;, only two in
five students nationally knew that the "shot
heard round the world " that signified the
start of the American Revolution was fired at
Concord , Massachusetts. (Seventy-eight percent of the St. John's seniors answered
correctly.) One-fourth were unable to date
Columbus' journey within the correct halfcentury. (None of the St. John's students
missed this question .) If they were to take the
Immigration and Naturalization exam to
qualify for U.S . citizenship, the majority of
American college seniors would flunk .
In the literature section, one part consisted of 19 questions in a multiple choice
Page 10
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Summary Findings:
Performance of College Seniors
On History and Literature Questions
GRADE
A
B
c
D
F
USA ('lo)
St. Johns(%)
2
9
14
20
55
74
22
4
0
0
100
100
M ean
Correct
58%
91 %
No. in
S urvey
691
23
Grading Scale U sed for the Survey:
A
90% or more correct
80 % -89 % correct
B
70%-79% correct
C
D
60 %-69 % correct
less than 60 % correct
F
format with one correct answer and three
"foils" presented. A majority of the national
sample could not link major works by Plato,
Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton with their
authors. Only six in ten college seniors
nationally knew that Chaucer wrote the
Canterbury Tales or that Melville wrote Moby
Dick. Less than one-half of the national
survey of college seniors knew that Jonathan
Swift wrote Gulliver's Tra vels and barely a
quarter could identify Virgil as the author of
the Aeneid.
Nationwide , graduating seniors have
equal difficulty with classic texts and newer
literature. One interesting fact regarding St.
John's students was their strong familiarity
with literature not directly covered in their
four years here . For example, 86 percent
knew that Ralph Ellison was the author of
Invisible Man when only 12 percent of seniors
nationally could make that connection .
"While our students here are bright , "
Agresto said, "what this experiment tends to
show is the singular importance of a rigorous,
intensive and sequential program of study-a
core curriculum, if you will-to help students
see and understand the full sweep of civilized
life with all its facets and complications. ' '
-Compiled by Ben Galison
J a nuary 1991
�Sample Survey Questions
23. Who wrote Native Son, a novel of black life in Chicago, and Black Boy,
which is highly autobiographical?
USA(%)
v
1
2
3
4
31
23
9
31
6
100
Richard Wright
Eldridge Cleaver
LeRoiJones
MalcolmX
Blank I No Answer
St. John's (%)
72
18
5
5
0
100
24. A Greek play about a woman who defies a king in order to honor her dead
brother is ...
USA(%)
1
v
14
49
14
16
7
100
Medea
2 Antigone
3
4
Electra
Agamemnon
Blank I No Answer
St. John's (%)
0
100
0
0
0
100
5 7. The ''shot heard round the world'' was fired at ...
USA(%)
v
1 Gettysburg
2 Yorktown
3 Concord
4 Bunker Hill
Blank I No Answer
21
15
39
23
2
100
St. John's (%)
8
8
77
5
5
100
64. In which time period was the Civil War?
USA(%)
1
2
3
v
4
5
6
Before 1750
1750-1800
1800-1850
1850-1900
1900-1950
After 1950
Blank I No Answer
**
15
24
58
2
**
1
100
St. John's (%)
0
0
14
86
0
0
0
100
All of the St.
John) s seniors
passed. 96
percent received
grades of 'A ) or
'B.)
* * Less than one-half of one percent
January 199 1
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Pa ge 11
�Profile Profile
St. john's College is an independent, non-denominational, four-year, co-ed, liberal arts college.
•Founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St. John's College.
Great Books Program adopted 1937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
• Curriculum:
An integrated, non-elective arts and science program based on reading and discussing , in loosely chronological order,
the Great Books of Western Civilization.
•Approach:
Tutorials, laboratories, and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures. Classes are very small.
Student/faculty ratio is 8: 1.
• Degree Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts.
• Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 students on each campus. Current freshman class made up of 55 % m en and 45 % women ,
from 30 states and several foreign countries. Students may transfer between th e Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
• Alumni Careers:
Educatio n-2 1 % , b usiness-20 %, law- 10 %, visual and performin g arts-9 %, m edicine-7%, computer science-6 %.
• Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary Master' s degree program based o n the same principles as
the undergraduate program. Offered on both campuses year-round .
. ADDRESSCOR~~CTIO~
REQUESTED
�
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Letters from Santa Fe
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Letters from Santa Fe, January 1991
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Letters from Santa Fe, St. John’s College—Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 1991
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Agresto, John
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Santa Fe, NM
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1991-01
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Breneman, David W.
Cheney, Lynne V.
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Text
LETTERSf1iJ11iF~anta
! ',:;
/ '.-'\
·~
'
~~ '.:;~
ST.JOHN'S COLLEGE, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
"$
John Agresto
Fe
JULY 1991
~-'
"
"'~ DITATION
DIVERSITY AND AC
T
he last issue of our Letters talked about the proper
What is especially striking in the events of the past year is
and improper place of diversity in liberal educathe way in which the notion of diversity can be used as a
tion. Parts of the clamor for increased diversity or
weapon to refashion the character and makeup of colleges to
"multiculturalism" had us concerned. We focused our
satisfy a clearly political agenda.
worries especially on the political use of curricular diversity
Why there should be magic in the word "diversity" is not
as a way not of expanding our understanding of the variety
immediately obvious. Indeed, curricular "coherence" or
of intellectual traditions and insights but as a handy tool for
"integrity" would seem to have equal claim to our respect.
disarming the traditional liberal arts, rejecting the idea of
This would seem especially true when we realize that much
Great Books, and belittling the study of Western civilization.
of what passes for curricular diversity today seems more
We were concerned about a multiculturalism that reduced
fashionable and newly orthodox than truly diverse: the
all works to, at best, representations of a person's sex, race
loudest proponents of diversity hardly ever seem to make
and class. And we were concerned that, under th e banner of
the case for stricter attention to foreign languages or for
diversity, a political agenda was now masquerading as
expanded reading of the best that has been thought and
educational reform .
writte n in other traditions . Nor do they seem to clamor for
If the last issue of Letters could be
an expanded place for ideas radically
accused of be ing overly abstract
at odds with the reigning orthodoxy
In this issue we leave the world of diversity
about this matter, this one cannot.
of the bulk of the professorate.
as
a curricular debate and show what has (Where, for instance, have we seen
This issue is about one thing and one
been attempted in its name in the life of proponents of diversity saying that
thing alone: accreditation.
What makes this seemingly sopor- higher education.
colleges should hire more veterans or
ific topic interesting is that it is a
Republicans, or recruit as students
fairly pointed example of " diversity
more Mormons, or Fundamentalists
in action.'' It takes what was previously rather theoretical
or practicing Catholics?)
and concretizes it. In this issue we leave the world of
Rather, diversity-which, on a certain level , is absolutely
diversity as a curricular debate and show what has been
defensible as a curricular principle-has become code for a
attempted in its name in the life of higher education.
kind of thorough-going affirmative action program in
What is obvious is the degree to which the word
higher education, an affirmative action program based not
"diversity" has , in the last few years , taken on an aura, a
on an expanded attention to intellectual pluralism but an
sanctity, that makes otherwise thinking educators fear to
expanded attention to issues of race and sex. And that, in
question it. Of all the "politically correct" formulations rife
brief, explains why college and university administrators
in higher education today , "diversity" and "multiculturalhave so hard a time resisting its onslaughts . That is
ism" have , simply by the incantation of the words , the
why-because of their supposed sins of sexism and
power to bulldoze faculties and administrators into immediracism-the traditional liberal arts, the Great Books, and
ate and quiet acquiescence .
Western civilization are all targets for the proponents of
Continued on page 2.
2
Letters
to
Santa Fe
3
How the
Controversy
Started
5
Joel Segall:
On Academic
Quality
6
8
10
Lamar Alexander:
THE DIVERSITY CRITERION
The Secretary 's
CON:
PRO:
Decision
JiVilliam R . Beer
StevenS. JiVeiner
�LETTER.S .ta·Santa .Fe ·
Diversity and Accreditation
' .'RELEVANCW '•M:IJST ENDURi;.I~l\1UI:,
TI_C{,JLTYf4.LisM
"" .
'"
.
' ··" ,....
··..
'·
.. -
"'·
.,·;
One central notion ·thaf keeps' striking· me is the 4se of the word
"relevance." Jt':seemsto n:ie that relevance, when it comest() the serious
business of educationin any guise 1 must have durabiliiy, Thpse•who
advocate "diversity,'' 'fmulti7cuhur!!Iis£Il,'' •''gencier stu?ies/' and ..''politicaj c.or,rectnes.s" ~re indeed col'rect in sugg¢sting a certain degree of
relevance-'narro"Y, re~tricted and stultifying. To tap into the .. greatest
minds an~hspirits goes bey.ond narrow. concerns · anci J:as ~he greatest
relevance'm terms pf a truly hberaledµcatton.,
.. i .
PeterA. Benoliel
9hairma11 of the Baafd.' ....... , ; ' · ' '
Qµaker ·Chemical·Cdrporation
WESTERN CIVILlZAT.I ONCURRICULUM PROVIDES ·.
DI~~OMF()!t'!' . .()F Qp~~'I'IO.NS • .
E~h .of us h.a~. d\fferept memo,ri~s ofC()liunl)ia College, butfor allbf us
a d?minant rec;o~ecti()n· of tJ:ie .•.(;olle~e ., is j ts ' We,stFrll Pi;vilizatiOn
c;urnculum-rno~t n9tably, the tw9~ye'l! sequFnce of cou.rses )n qontem-
f~;~};"o~i;}1~:iec14~~~~f~r~~d~:gi~~~~e~~~o~~s0~~\f~~~.~tafu~l::· · ~e~:
11ewcoII1ers or:fI1<J.rgip~ized here, th.is extra9rdi11ary cornm9n. curdctiltim"
represe11ted ,a gre.at ()pe11ing~ tR t~e "YC>El~. ,l t .becaII1e}~e fi~!Il .~f.se for,.all
our
0th.e r ac'tder:mc. andprofess.
1onal trafI1ipg.
: .demar:ided
··•·· · . ···•·•··· · the most
.
. . , yoluIIlbia.Colleg-7
call Jake prid7.
ill hctying
of alFof
t)S, .· r7gardJess of ll.<J.~~g~Ot)f\Cf.c ff call b7 pr()t)d of having made all ' of US·
qt)\te ·u11comfoi:t~Ol~-;:..:.~.ncomfohable a{we :ncountered new and unfarriil,
iar }de~s 'and as'.: \V~ pq.rsued toge~~r ..<tr:l .. understanding of t~e · estern
heritage: . . . . . : \
..· . .
. . <.
'? ) • ·
f ' • •
•
•••
; · ••
C.olum~ia (;oJ1eg-e di,d Il()r define its academic program on the basis .of
i;thni~ity or th~. ~~c.e ?f 'tJlY of gs. It invited u.s all', regardless ofour orig~ns
'tlld. ~ith .foH respect .for otir origins, to joinin ·the common. study,of our;·
heritage, ar:id.·to do so with an <ippreci~tion ' thar criticjsqi 'tlld reform .of
our.insti.ttitions i~ an jntegral part•ofthe tr<idition we describe as ''Western
qiviliiation. '' ''
~
<
" <
.- •···· ,.
• .:' For Colu'rnbia . Cdllege. graduates, ·· the · current d.e bate . on American .
climpuses on the merits and die place •pf:Western« CiviH:Z<ition in the
. ~b:::s~a1~u;;te· cll~fi~lllu~ r~st see~ . r:n:111~ amusin~, .an.1 ) even · ~ bit
Vi
<· .• ··"
·' . ·. . :.
.!'lo Columbia qoHege alumnus would suggest, on the ba~js o( hispwn
education, that a Western Civilization curriculmn 1is ..an .unchangeable
'canon' or anything of the<soh. No Columbia College gradm1te would
suggest that a "'core currieulum'•' excludFs the. study of other. cultures or:.
the.• contributions· of all :our ..•peoplerorTleast .oLall, th<).t...it ,forecloses the
study ofour sins and imperfections. • t .· · '•
• .. , } , , ·~
'·.The current: attackS .on the. study of Western . Civilization/.in'. cgl!eges
arpund .. the • country and .... even .- in . our .• ..high •schpols.. is · e.~R,ecially; ...
incomp~ehensible to those of us frov.i minority groups,wlJ.p wer~ fortµna~e .
enough to be educated at Columbia. College• We bii.ve n() 41f~culty ,Jn
understanding ··the .-observations·. of . the .p istinguis,h ed histpri<J.n ; J)onald
Kagah,•,!:he Dean •o fYale College; that . •.· . ; ., , ·
,. \ ,. . .
·
"at the core .of Western Civilization is .a tolei;anc;i; <ind
respect for ,.diversity unknown if1. .µi0 st. cµItures : . Qµe pf it§.
most telling char<J.cteristics is ils, eq.c()Ufagement;o( Cfit~cism
ofitse_lf and •its ways. Oiily• i11 tpe West cah ()ne imagine . a
movement to n~gfoct the q.dtµre 's .O\\'n peritage .in favpr o.f
some pther . .The ,u niversityjtself, a . speciajly sheJte~7d . pllict; •
for.such self~examination., is a . We.s~7rn phenpfI1epop, · orily
.• .. • . . .partially as~imil.(lted in other 1:ul.t1.1r~s . '' ., .. ·. . \ .•. , · ••..• . . . ... ·•. . .·. .
. In ~is great tradition.i Colµinbja's 1:u~ri.cutum taughtiP~ slt7~tisi~m 'and
.the >co~plexity of ,tP,~ngs, . thereby c~al!e11ging .m~llY . <:Jf. ()0,..f .•.'se~tl~d·'
·assurnptfons. G()lµpi9i<i poJlege pro~19i;d 1 us with the. 11s~()J'hfort of
questions,.rather.tJ:l11ntP,e comfort of an.s~ers. Tl,ie College helped each of
us .b uild, in .our 9wn ·· \\'aYt· from
ation , . res.ts on a lib!'! r31l"'
,. •; ,·
:>
···· ~ +··
traditio11 tho4~nps:9fye ql.d " {,,,
1
.lostA.Cabiaryes •
"
> " ...\' .·· •.
1J,S. DistrictJlldge fortJle · istrictof
·······•<) .
~,.
nectic~t ~,·
Continuedfrom page 1.
diversity and multiculturalism.
Now, back to accreditation. Last year,
Baruch College of the City University of New
York had its accreditation "deferred" by the
Commission on Higher Education of the
Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools (a Department of Education recognized regional accrediting agency) for reasons
of insufficient diversity. These standards of
diversity governing Middle States are reprinted, in part, in the pages that follow.
Also reprinted is an article that appeared last
May in Black Issues in Higher Education that
clearly announced how the Middle States
would apply the diversity standard, and an
article by the executive director of the
Western States Association of Schools and
Colleges decreeing that all colleges and universities within its jurisdiction must now have
affirmative action policies in place and have
as a specific educational outcome an ' ' appreciation of cultural diversity." So far, these
are the only two regional accreditors that
seem to require collegiate adherence to a
diversity standard.
Interestingly enough, in April of this year,
Lamar Alexander, the new Secretary of
Education, deferred recertification of Middle
States pending an inquiry into Middle States'
use of diversity as a criterion of accreditation .
The Secretary's memo and portions of his
decision regarding this matter are reprinted
within.•
L E T T E R S.from San/,(], Fe
A quarterly newsletter on higher education
Published in January, April, July, and
October at St. John's College, Santa Fe.
Submit letters or comments to:
John Agresto, President
St.John's College
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501-4599
Telephone (505) 982-3691
FAX (505) 989-9269
Ben Galison, Editor
Douglas Jerrold Houston,
Design and ProdU£tion
Copyright © 199 1 by St. John' s College, Santa Fe.
· Excerpted from remarksat:.th:ejohnJ ay ~:ward~ Dinner,,,
Columbia Gollege, Ne:w ,.)':ork, March 21, 199•.1. '"'"
Page 2
LETTERS from Santa Fe
July 1991
�MORE INSTITUTIONS MAY BE HELD
ACCOUNTABLE FOR DIVERSITY THROUGH
NEW ACCREDITING EMPHASIS
This article, exa:rpt£d from the May 10, 1990
Black Issues in Higher Education, was one of
the first w indicat.e that, at least within the Middle
States Association, colleges and universities would be
held f,o a rigorous stondard of 'diversity ' that would
apply t,o its curriculum, the rnak-up of its student
body and jaculty, and the cho.racter of its administration and board.
-JA.
I
n the wake of an informal investigation
into New York's Baruch Collegewhich has placed the school's accreditation renewal on hold-scholars are debating
the extent to which an institution may be held
accountable for its failure to attract a nd retain
minority faculty and students.
One of the buzzwords in higher education
circles over the last few years has been
"diversity." But when the Middle States
Association of Colleges and Schools took the
unprecedented action of deferring the accreditation of Baruch last month, becau se of its
poor record on minority representation, many university leaders were forced to reevaluate their commitment to a multicultural
campus.
M any education officials say it is only
natural that institutions be expected to diversify their campuses, especially considering
society's increased minority populations and
academia's declining minority representation.
Dr. Howard L. Simmons, executive director of the Middle States accrediting group,
declined comment on the status of Baruch
and said that attention should be focused on
the larger issue : the responsibility of all
institutions to ensure minority status inhigher education.
" When we're talking about equity a nd
diversity, it applies to minority involvement
in curriculum , faculty and the board of
trustees," Simmons said . " An institution has
the responsibility to provide services that
cater to the diverse, special needs of its
students. And it's not just a matter of
bringing them in and making programs
available-not just access, but success. "
Simmons said it is only sensible that
accrediting agencies begin to measure an
institution' s record in determining its ability
to provide quality education. "There is no
better agency to deal with this. W e deal with
July 1991
everything else," he said. " How can curriculum have integrity if you leave out references
of large contributions from different
groups?"
He said that many educators hide behind
"the spectre of academic freedom" in avoiding the diversity issue. ' ' They may have a
r ight to teach, but they also have a responsibility to teach the truth," he said.
Andrew V. Stevenson, second vice president of the board of the Association of the
Collegiate Business Schools and Programs,
said that the Middle States' decision exemplifies an "appropriate" use of the accrediting
process.
" I think what Middle States did was a step
in the right direction," Stevenson said. "It's
the beginning of the kind of accountability
that is going to be necessary for this nation to
come to grips with the realization that unless
it is willing to declare a national emergency,
we are all going to suffer . The accrediting
process can facilitate institutional focus on the
issue of recruitment and retention of minorities by assessing the standards by which the
institution will be accredited."
Stevenson , however , is not willing to
endorse the concept of withholding accreditation, but rather of postponing it until satisfactory recruitment and retention progress h as
been made. "I'm not sure accreditation can
be withheld on these grounds, but it certainly
can be provided on a conditional basis until
such time that satisfactory evidence can be
provided," he said.
Dr. D avid Reyes-Guerra, executive director of the Accrediting Board for En gineering
and Technology, said, " I would support the
nption of having racial recruitment and
retention as criteria for accreditation . I would
suppo rt moving the profession in that direction. ''
But officials at some accrediting agencies
q uestion the fairness of penalizing institutions
for low minority representation. They argue
that factors outside of an institution' s control
often make it virtually impossible to hire
minorities or to attract students of color.
William Laidlaw, executive vice president
for the American Assembly of Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB) said that because there are so few minority faculty
"They
may have
a nght to
teach but
they also
have a
responsibility
to teach
the truth. ))
-Howard L. Simmons
Executive Director,
Middle States
Association
Continued on page 4.
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Page 3
�Joel Segall
Continuedfrom page 3.
members to go around, enforcing such a
mandate would prove difficult. "There are
270 accredited schools of business," he said.
"Ifwe made requiring minority faculty members a criterion, too many schools would
never be accredited.''
Laidlaw said that in 1989, of the 696
doctorates awarded in business only 2.2%
were received by blacks; . 7 were given to
Hispanics; and none was given to Native
Americans . Moreover, he said, there were
5,370 U.S . citizens enrolled in business
doctoral programs, and only 2. 9 of those were
black, 1 % Hispanic and .1 % Native American. "You can see from those numbers that
there are not that many ,' ' he said.
Much more can be accomplished by encouraging universities to sponsor summer
institutes and other initiatives that acquaint
minority juniors and seniors with doctoral
programs, such as the six-week program
established by AACSB, Laidlaw said. "If you
try to legislate, you don't always get the best
and the brightest.
That's the difference
between the old affirmative action progra ms
and the more sophisticated a pproach of
valuing diversity, ' ' he said .
Mark Dugan, assistant director of the
accrediting commission of the Association of
Independent Colleges and Schools, also took
umbrage with Middle States' tactics.
He said that the focus should be on
"whether students are getting what they ca me
to the university for and not on the color of
the faculty and administrators. I don't think
anyone cares what color they are if they are
doing the job. If you have poor instructors,
they're not going to help retention. The key
is having qualified people.''
But Simmons argues that quality comes in
all colors, and he also discounted claims that
certain regions-particularly rural a reas-are
not able to attract qualified minorities. "In
most cases, that's an avoidance tactic," Simmons said. " It's ridiculous. That's like saying
that all Black Americans like to be concentrated in the same place . The bottom line is,
they don't want to be in those places. "
With Middle States' action stirring deb ate
throughout the higher education community,
observers nationwide are speculating about
the long-term role that accrediting agencies
will play in enhancing diversity. Bu t most
agree that whatever the impact, Middle
States is to be commended for raising the
issue to a new level of discussion . •
Page 4
LETTERS f rom Santa Fe
WHEN ACADEMIC
Joel Segall was president of Baruch College during
its review for accreditation. He resigned that
position last year, after Middle States Association
deferred its accreditation. This piece is excerpted
from an October 29, 1990 op-ed, reprinted with
permission of the Wall Streetjournal © 1991
Dow Jones & Company, Inc., All Rights
Reserved.
-].A .
I
t is hard to decide whether higher
education has entered a new era of
McCarthyism or a Kafkaesque trial
process: McCarthyism because the label of
racism is liberally and generously applied
with as little recourse available to the victim
institution as in the days when a label of
communist was enough to smear the victim
for long periods: a Kafkaesque trial process
because the institutions are not made aware
of explicit charges nor are they presented with
evidence.
What is more horrifying is that colleges
across the country are quick to accommodate
to the demands of those who would call them
racist if the demands were not met.
At issue here is the interjection of racial
considerations into official assessments of the
worth of a college. Traditionally, accrediting
agencies were concerned primarily with " academic quality, '' which involved such matters
as library holdings, faculty output, and
research and teaching programs. Some accrediting agencies, particularly the tougher ones,
have quite explicit requirements-including
the percentage of student credit hours taught
by full-time faculty, the percentage of faculty
holding doctorates, and the substance of
course offerings.
But these are changing times. The Commission on Higher Education of the Middle
States Association of Colleges and Schools, in
pursuit of something its executive director
calls "social justice," has introduced into the
accreditation process criteria concerning racial balance and harmony. Most other regional accrediting associations are following
suit.
On the basis of the new, nonspecific
criteria, Middle States this M a rch deferred its
decision on reaccreditation of Baruch College
of the City University of New York for
almost three months. The major shortcomings Middle States found at Baruch were
''the paucity of minority representation on
the faculty and in the administration" and
low student retention rates. But what constitutes "paucity?"
July 1991
�QUALITY IS BESIDE THE POINT
Minority members constitute more than
18% of Baruch's full-time faculty, which is
higher than the average for senior colleges in
City University, much higher than for all
colleges in the U .S., and very much higher
than for all colleges in New York state. Is
''paucity'' gone if we can go to 20 % , 30 % ?
Apparently, there exists a minimum quota in
the mind of Middle States, and Baruch has
not yet reached it . What Middle States wants
is more. No matter that barely 3.5% of new
doctorates in all disciplines go to blacks, a
high proportion of whom will not choose
academic life, or that an even smaller percentage go to Hispanics. And no matter that
just about every college in the country is
searching for minority faculty. Now, we must
have more or accreditation is in jeopardy .
Similarly with retention rates . Baruch's
retention rates may be, as Middle States says,
''particularly among Black and Hispanics
students . . . worse than at many comparable
institutions, '' but logic alone requires that if
the rates are worse than at "many comparable institutions" they must also be better than
at "many comparable institutions." In fact,
Baruch's six-year retention rates for regularly
admitted black students are at about 40 % ,
which is the same as for City University and
exceeds the national average for four-year
public colleges. For Hispanic students,
retention rates (at about 32 %) are
considerably lower. What is the right or the
adequate retention rate? Middle States does
not say and has refused to consider the
statistical data.
The new criteria have little to do with
academic quality . The report of a follow-up
visit by a special team representing Middle
States came to the following conclusion:
From the team's perspective, Baruch
College has been, and remains, an
excellent academic institution. We believe that the problems surrounding the
reaccreditation process can be attributed primarily to two factors:
1. Baruch College has emphasized traditional academic values without exhibiting equal concern for the values of
social justice and equity critical to
serving working people in a multicultural urban environment.
2. Baruch College took the recommendations contained in the evaluation.
team's report less seriously than it
should have, given the serious nature of
the criticisms. In fairness, communications from Middle States' representaJuly 1991
tives during the reaccreditation process
contributed to shaping the institution's
initial reaction to the evaluation team's
report.
So there it is. In pursuit of academic
excellence, we do just fine; in pursuit of social
justice-whatever is meant by that undefined
phrase-we do poorly. As a consequence, our
reaccreditation was deferred and not restored
until July .
This is not a trivial matter. People do not
always distinguish between deferral and denial, and the reputation of the college has been
impaired . Because the matter was widely
covered in the press, fund-raising efforts have
been impeded, the value of the Baruch degree
called into question, and residual anxiety
exists among students, parents and prospective applicants.
Damage control required that we present a
program to Middle States designed to secure
reaccreditation. We have presented such a
program and the college will carry it out.
That program was treated by the press as a
cave-in to Middle States, which it was, and a
confession that Baruch had some racist tinge,
which it does not.
There remains, however, a fundamental
problem raised by the change in Middle
States' criteria. When colleges are called on
to depart from normal academic standards to
solve societal problems, they are being asked
to do something they are not equipped to do,
and are diverted from what I persist in
believing is their main job, the pursuit of
academic excellence. This tinkering with
recognized academic standards to try to solve
the problems of society at large can only
damage the college and diminish the value of
the degree. That, in turn, will harm the
career prospects of precisely those people the
college should benefit most.
By now it must be clear that I find Middle
States' criteria offensive, even disastrous.
And yet they carry the banner of "social
justice," which I understand to be, roughly,
egalitarianism . And what that means, I
suppose, is equal outcomes: minority students must be graduated at about the same
rates as non-minorities and minority faculty
must reflect the demographic profile of the
student body or, perhaps, the city or some
as-yet-unidentified base . What we are left
with is something like a quota system with the
quotas not yet specified, but higher than
current numbers imply. And that, I submit,
is no way to run an accrediting agency. Or a
college . •
LETTERS.from Santa Fe
Page 5
�UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
THE SECRETARY
April 11, 1991
MEMORANDUM
'lb:
The Natlon&l Adv1sary CommittBe On Aoaredit.&tlon
And Instltut1onal Eligl.b1l.11\V
From: L&ma1' Alexander
I am enclosing a copy of my decision accepting your recommendation that I not grant Middle States Association's recognition petition
until you have had the opportunity to further review how Middle
States has applied its "diversity" standards. Until your inquiry is
completed and I reach a final decision on Middle States' renewal
petition, Middle States will of course continue to be included on the
Secretary's published list of recognized accredited agencies.
I can understand your concern that the Middle States Association
may have exceeded the appropriate role of a Department-recognized
regional accrediting agency by deferring the accreditation of Baruch
College of the City University of New York and the Westminster
Theological Seminary. Apparently there was no question about the
quality of education provided in these institutions. Yet Middle States
allegedly deferred accreditation of Baruch and Westminster because
those institutions did not conform to the accrediting agency's view of
an appropriate racial, ethnic or gender balance on the faculty or
governing board.
America's strength lies in its variety, especially in the diversity of
its people. We are a huge patchwork quilt of different backgrounds
and cultural experiences. Many colleges and universities seek to
become communities that reflect this American experience, to attract
individuals of many different backgrounds. Other colleges and
universities have chosen different missions for themselves. In light of
the enormous variety among colleges and universities in this
country, should a regional accrediting agency dictate to institutions
whether or how they should balance their students, faculty,
administration and governing boards by race, ethnicity, gender or
age? Middle States' "diversity" initiative may undermine institutional autonomy and academic freedom and could in fact lessen
variety among the nation's colleges and universities.
A decision by an accrediting agency to withhold accreditation
from an educational institution carries serious consequences. A
negative decision by an accrediting agency not only stigmatizes the
institution, but may lead to a cutoff offederal student aid and other
forms offederal financial assistance. Since about one out of every
two postsecondary students now depends on some form of federal
aid, this is a powerful sanction to use against an institution. Such an
extreme step may be necessary when an educational institution fails
to meet its most basic responsibility to provide a sound education to
its students. But, because of its serious consequences, a Department- recognized regional accrediting agency should exercise great
care before threatening to suspend accreditation on any grounds
other than academic quality or institutional integrity.
I look forward to working with you to strengthen and improve
higher education. I especially hope that we can focus on encouraging
accrediting agencies to develop stronger standards by which to gauge
the quality of education provided to postsecondary students.
Page6
LETTERS from Santa Fe
THE SECRETARY'S
Reprinted below are sections from Secretary of
Education Lamar Alexander's decision on April 11,
1991 to review the certification of Middle States.
The Secretary has asked that section of the Department that recognizes accrediting agencies to review the
certification of Middle States at its Fall 1991
meeting. Towards that end, all who wish to
comment to the Department 's Advisory Committee on
Accreditation and Institutional eligibility must do so
byjuly31 ofthisyear.
-].A .
n order for a postsecondary institution
and its students to be eligible for many
types of Federal financial assistance, it
must be accredited by an accrediting
agency recognized by the Secretary of
Education (unless one of the statutory
alternatives to such accreditation applies).
About one out of every two postsecondary
students in this country now receives some
form of federal financial assistance. For that
reason, accreditation by a recognized agency
is for most institutions not simply a matter of
choosing to affiliate with like-minded institutions in a voluntary association; it is a matter
of necessity.
I can certainly understand why a
Mz'ddl~
college or university might try to
attract students, faculty and employ''dz'versz'ty
ees of very different backgrounds.
mayun
America is a country of people from
z'nstz'tt
a variety of backgrounds and experiences. That is part of its unique
autono:
strength. Many colleges and univeracademic
sities seek to become communities
reflecting the variety that is America.
Other colleges and universities have chosen
different missions for themselves. In light of
the enormous variety among colleges and
universities in this country, should a regional
accrediting agency dictate to institutions
whether or how they should balance their
students, faculty, administration and governing boards by race, ethnicity, gender, or age?
I am concerned that CHE's prescription
and application of diversity standards as part
of the accreditation process may undermine
the reliability of accreditation decisions as
basic indicators of an institution's adequacy
in providing training and education to the
I
July 1991
�DECISION
students. I am also concerned that CHE's
prescription and application of diversity standards as part of the accreditation process may
interfere with a postsecondary institution's
traditional academic freedom and may decrease real diversity among postsecondary
educational institutions that define their educational missions differently.
While as a voluntary private association
CHE may wish to promote various social
goals or agendas as it sees fit, the federal
recognition role is subject to additional considerations . As mentioned earlier, the accreditation decisions of Department recognized
accrediting agencies have serious consequences under federal law for institutions and
students . For that reason, the Department
must be careful not to sanction coercive
restrictions on traditional academic independence through the departmental recognition process.
CHE and other interested parties should
have ample opportunity to address my concerns about the application of CHE's diversity standards . Moreover, before I reach any
final decision on CHE's petition, I wish to
receive the recommendations of the Advisory
Committee on matters within that
Committee's expertise . That ComStates'
mittee
at its Fall 1990 meeting voted
' initiative
to defer making a recommendation
'ermine
on CHE' s petition because of many
of those same concerns about CHE's
~ional
diversity standards . Accordingly, I
~and
am deferring a decision on CHE's
freedom.
petition for renewal of recognition
and remanding this matter to the
Advisory Committee.
CHE and other interested parties are
invited to submit supplemental material addressing
all
the
above
issues .
To allow adequate time for review by the
Advisory Committee and by the Department,
CHE and any other interested parties should
submit any additional written materials on
CHE's renewal petition to the Accrediting
Agency Evaluation Branch, Office of Postsecondary Education, by July 31, 1991.
What follows . is the Middle States Association's
own excerpts regarding its diversity requirements
from its guidelines document Characteristics of
Excellence, approved in December ·J 988. The
Association underscores thaJ, in applying these
principles, the institutions themselves are expected
to ''determine the methods most suitable to their
unique needs .... " Nonetheless, in releasing this
summary the Association "reaffirmed the appropn'aJeness of procedure and actions with regard to
Baruch College.. .. "
-J.A.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EXCELLENCE:
In the current · version of Characteristics of Excellence, approved at the
Middle States Association annual meeting in December 1988, the
relevant statements on equity and diversity are.these:
•
Eligibility Requirements:
Among the stated eligibility criteria for membership in the Middle
States Association are requirements that an institution "have a governing
board which includes a diverse membership broadly representative of the
public interest and reflecting the student constituency.''
•
Institutional Integrity:
Among the standards for accreditation (the common elements for
accreditation) is an expectation that institutions will have "humane and
equitable policies for dealing with students, staff, and faculty" and
"programs and courses which develop abilities to form independent
judgment, to weigh values, to understand fundamental theory, and to live
in a culturally diverse world . . . . ' '
•
Programs and Curricula:
In reference to programs and curricula, Characteristics states: "Where
possible a global perspective should be introduced to emphasize the
cultural diversity and interrelatedness of the contemporary world. "
Furthermore, "the kinds of courses that ~hould be included in general
education are those which draw students into important new areas of
intellectual experience, increase awareness of each individual's own
cultural heritage as well as that of otfo~rs, and prepare them to make sound
judgments outside as well as Within their specialized field .''
•
Services to Students:
Student services '' ... should also address with more •·• than mere
expressions of intent the special needs and concerns of minority students."
Students should be given ''an environment in which personal integrity,
social understandi11g, and human sensitivity flourish.''
•
Admissions
Regarding admissions, .Characteristics .states: ' 'An important index of an
institution's caliber is its admissions policy as evidenced .in requirements,
standards, and procedures, and in the efforts it makes to achieve diversity
in the student population.''
·
•
Faculty
As regards faculty, Characteristics stresses that ..the . "selection of the
faculty must avoid parochialism and excessive inbreeding. Steps must also
be taken to achieve appropriate diversity of.race, ethnicity, gender, and
age in faculty ranks.''
·
•
Governing Board
Finally, members of.the governing board "should represent different
points of view, interests, and experiences as well as diversityin age, race,
ethnicity, and gender."
·
July 1991
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Page 7
�Stephen S. Weiner
Accrediting Bodies Must Require AComnitment To Diversity
A
Accrediting bodies
stand at the
boundary between
higher education
and the public.
merican colleges and universities are
undergoing massive changes in the
racial and ethnic composition of
their student bodies. What is the relation
between those changes and issues of educational quality? What role should accrediting
agencies play in shaping campus actions
concerning diversity and quality?
In 1988, after extensive discussion among
our 152 accredited and candidate institutions,
the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges decided that
every accredited institution, as part of its
commitment to educational quality , should
be expected to make continuing progress
toward becoming a multiracial, multicultural
institution. The Accrediting Commission for
Community and Junior Colleges in our
region and the Middle States Association of
Colleges and Schools have taken similar
stands .
Our commission recognizes that today's
college students will come to maturity as
parents, workers, voters, and professionals in
a world that has no majority . Colleges and
universities must keep that world very much
in mind as they shape the educational
experiences they offer. As the Association of
American Colleges declared in its 1985 report
"Integrity in the College Curriculum":
"All study is intended to break down the
narrow certainties and provincial vision with
which we are born. In a sense, we are all
from the provinces, including New Yorkers
and Bostonians, whose view of the world can
be as circumscribed as that of native Alaskans
who have never left their village ... . At this
point in history colleges are not being asked
to produce village squires but citizens of a
shrinking world and a changing America.''
Diversity is already a fact of life both in our
region and on our campuses. The proportion
of Caucasians in California's population is
predicted to drop below 50% within the next
15 years. In 1988, white, non-Hispanic
students accounted for 65% of the state ' s
college enrollment, compared with close to
80% for the nation as a whole. In Hawaii,
white, non-Hispanic students make up 30%
of campus enrollments. While changes in the
composition of the population have affected
our region earlier than most others, there is a
steady shift to a more diverse population
throughout the United States. Thus, the issue
This essay by Stephen S. Weiner, Executive Director
Western Association of Schools and Colleges,
appeared in the October 10, 1990 issue of the
of the
Chronicle ofHigher Education.
Page8
LETTERS from Santa Fe
now is less whether racial and ethnic diversity
is coming than it is how to harness that
diversity to the cause of educational improvement.
The commission's expectations regarding
diversity affect virtually every aspect of
campus life, and, therefore, each of our
accrediting standards. For example, the commission's standard on institutional integrity
now includes this statement: "The institution demonstrates its commitment to the
increasingly significant educational role
played by diversity of ethnic, social , and
economic backgrounds among its members
by making positive efforts to foster such
diversity.'' This standard requires institutions to have equal-opportunity and affirmative action policies .
"Appreciation of cultural diversity" has
been added to the commission's expectations
concerning the outcomes of undergraduate
education, along with competence in written '
and oral communication, quantitative skills,
and the habit of critical analysis of data and
argument . With respect to the learning
environment, the commission expects that
each institution will have "an academic
community that significantly involves its
various populations. ''
First, we ask both institutions and our
teams not to define the challenge of diversityor its attainment-solely in terms of numbers
of minority group students or faculty, staff,
or governing-board members. Contrary to
the fear expressed by some, we are not
pressing for the adoption of quotas . Having
members of minority groups in each constituency of an institution, especially in leadership
positions, is essential and a prerequisite for
meaningful dialogue about diversity. But our
concerns go well beyond such counting
exercises to the culture of the campus, the
value placed upon diversity, in different
aspects of campus life, and the ability of the
campus to bridge the contrasting perceptions
of reality held by members of different ethnic
and racial groups . Interviews, focus-group
discussions, and the analysis of institutional
data (such as student-retention rates) often
reveal a gulf in perception. Whites perceive
minority group members as being treated
well, while people of color often recount
experiences that convince them that they are
still "outsiders" and that their status on
campus is both marginal and vulnerable . The
first step toward addressing the tensions that
arise from such diametrically opposed views
is to know that they exist.
Second, we look for presidential and faculty leadership in affirming that "diversity"
July 1991
�does not mean a narrow effort to benefit only
members of minority groups, but a commitment of talent and resources to widen everyone's intellectual grasp and personal understanding. Diversity is not a "problem" to be
solved so that colleges and universities can get
on with "real business ." A permanent part of
the "real business " of higher education is
examining how diversity and educational
quality should be pursued both inside and
outside the classroom. Presidents and faculty
leaders need to attend to the requisites of
affirmative action in employment and admissions policies, support candid assessment of
the existing campus climate concerning diversity, and take the lead in articulating a
vision of how a diverse and educationally
challenging campus community can develop .
Third, campuses should have written plans
on how to achieve diversity that have been
subjected to broad and searching discussion.
The plans should address curricula, recruiting and retention strategies for students and
faculty and staff members, student-life programs, and academic support for students.
The plans should have goals and some way of
assessing whether the goals are being
achieved . We have found that writing such
plans forces disciplined thought and commitment. The purpose of the plans is not for
campus leaders to become caught in the
slavish grip of a document, but rather to
prompt them to come back to these issues on
a continuing basis .
Finally, we expect each of our visiting
teams to address diversity issues in their
report evaluating the institution. Our teams'
reports do not impose solutions on a campus.
Rather , in a collegial spirit, they analyze the
institution's self-study; ask questions; report
perceptions, problems and opportunities that
become evident during the visits; and praise
worthwhile efforts that are under way.
After conducting 50 comprehensive visits
under the new standards, we have learned
this most important lesson: that to achieve an
academic community that embraces diversity, we first have to learn how to talk about it.
Issues involving race and ethnicity have
emotional and political overtones, and many
people feel uncomfortable discussing their
perceptions, feelings , and aspirations.
Two steps seem to help in getting the
discussion started. The first is to remind
ourselves that "diversity" should not be a
code word for granting preferences to one
group over another. Rather, we are seeking
to build a campus community where all
people, regardless of professional role, ethnicity, or gender, will be respected, will have
the maximum possible opportunity for professional development, and will be productive . In particular, we are seeking to create
campus cultures where individuals and
July 1991
groups are deeply committed to teaching one
another and learning from one another.
When people begin to understand that diversity is about bringing people together, rather
than driving them apart, they become far
more willing to contribute their thoughts and
their energy .
Second , even after assurances that the goal
of diversity is community building, people
need to be given "protected space" in which
to talk. By that I mean the guarantee that
people may speak freely and candidly, in a
diverse group, without fear that they will be
punished or ostracized for expressing controversial opinions. At times, discussions about
diversity are emotional. But the discussion
must go beyond emotion. We have to be
willing to think hard and anew and to explore
uncomfortable questions .
Conflict and disagreement often accompany progress on diversity . The campus where
students are demonstrating in the president's
office may be just the one that has most
seriously and thoughtfully engaged the issues.
And, it is also true that there are times when
an ugly racial incident galvanizes a campus to
take constructive steps that are long overdue.
With only rare exceptions, college leaders
in our region agree that diversity and educational quality are intertwined and, therefore,
both are the proper concern of the regional
accrediting commission . But we also find that
institutions fall along a wide spectrum in their
initial capaciy to respond to the commission's
expectations.
Campuses are changing and so is the
nature of accreditation . Accrediting bodies
stand at the boundary between higher education and the public . We seek to inform the
public about proper standards of higher
education and to affirm that certain institutions meet those standards . In turn, we must
also serve as a medium to insure that public
concerns are reflected in the dialogue about
quality in higher education.
Accreditation should be about more than
the setting of minimum standards. Our role,
which must be carried out with great care and
deliberation, is also to challenge even the best
colleges and universities to rethink their
contribution to society as a whole.
As
accrediting bodies play that role we do not,
and will not, please everyone. But as we ask
tougher and better questions about the meaning of quality, we join the campuses in taking
risks that are well worth taking.•
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Diversity and
educational
quality are
both the proper
concerns ef the
regional
accrediting
commzsszon.
Page 9
�Wzlliam R. Beer
Accreditation By Quota:
The Case Of Baruch College
O
The aifLlck on
Segall and the
Baruch faculty
represents an
omznous
direction
token by
accreditaiion.
n April 5, 1990, the New York
Times reported that Dr. Joel Segall, president of Baruch College of
the City University of New York, was
resigning from his job, following a critical
review by the Middle States Association of
Schools and Colleges. There was no allegation that Baruch was anything less than an
excellent college. In fact, it is widely regarded
as one of the four top business colleges in the
country and trains almost one out of every
three of the certified public accountants
working in New York. Rather, the complaint
was that there were not enough "minorities"
in the faculty and administration and that not
enough "minorities" graduated. Disturbing
though this is, even more unsettling is the fact
that the criticism was concocted by the central
offices of the accrediting agency, acting
independently of its own guidelines and
evaluation team.
T he attack on Segall and the Baruch
faculty represents an ominous direction taken
by accredita tion . For the first time, a n
accrediting agency is criticizing the ethnic
composition of a college's graduating class, as
well as making specific complaints about the
racial m akeup of its faculty and staff. According to a source on the Department of
Education's National Advisory Committee
on Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility,
such a step is entirely unprecedented. No
other accrediting agency has ever undertaken
an aggressive role in attempting to impose
racial quotas on faculty, administrators, and
graduates.
In itself, the attempt to control the ethnicity of university personnel is nothing new . In
the last twenty years, the concept of affirm ative action has evolved into a quota system in
which white males are routinely excluded, as
John Bunzel h as d ocumented in a recent
article in the American Scholar. Although
deeply threatening to the integrity of the
university because they undermine the concept of profession al peer review, quotas
imposed on personnel committees have been
a long time aborning, a nd it does not appear
that they will be easily abolished. Until
recently, however, the federal government
was the principal agency in this coercion .
Now, it appears, the effort has shifted from
This ~say by William R. Beer, prof~sor of
Sociowgy at Brooklyn College, is excerpt,ed from the
Fall 1990 issue of At:o.tkmic Qµestions, published
by the National Association of Scholars .
© 1991, Transaction Publishers.
Page 10
LETTERS f rom Santa Fe
government to private agencies such as
Middle States, accompanied by the notion
that henceforth a college may have its
accreditation withheld if it does not graduate
the right percentage of certain ethnic groups.
A Racial Graduation Quota?
When asked if a college could be found
delinquent for failing to graduate sufficient
numbers of " minority" students, Dr. Howard L. Simmons, executive director of the
Middle States Association,
agreed that
Middle States does use an "outcomes-based
approach'' for granting or withholding its
approval. H e denied that Middle States has
any " ha rd and fast rules" regarding minority
retention rates, indicating there is " never a
single standard" in assessing a school's performance in this regard.
Simmons has cla imed that his approach
comes from Characl£ristics of Excellence in Higher
Education: Standards for Accreditation, the handbook used by Middle States. In fact,
there is no statement whatsoever in that
m anual concerning minority retention rates.
When this was pointed out, Simmons
changed his mind and said that accreditation
is granted or withheld on a case-by-case basis.
" I know that sounds hard to understand," he
adm itted, "but that's how they do it. The
team decides differently for each school. ''
There are "so m a ny factors involved " that
there can be " no quantitative standards" for
evaluating a college. So much for the objective criteria of accreditation .
The use of an unstated but de facto racial
graduation quota puts university administrators in a vulnerable position, since there is no
way to tell whether Middle States will cha rge
them with not having satisfied the goal of
graduating sufficient numbers of designated
minority groups. The lack of precision permits Middle States to deny that they are
seeking any exact outcome, thereby avoiding
legal action. At the same time, when it suits
them they can use the " outcomes-based
a pproach" as a potential threat to colleges
seeking accreditation. Knowing that they will
be held to a n inexact but real racial graduation quota, residents and deans will be
inclined to design programs to increase
graduation prospects for protected groups.
Middle States can thus obtain the desired
outcome without ever ha ving to invoke the
threat explicitly, a nd all the while remain
protected from public scrutiny. Simmons
admits having adopted the same tactic with
many other institutions, but because of the
secrecy involved in the accredita tion process,
July 1991
�he has not had to be held publicly accountable .
The other criticism leveled against Baruch
is that it does not employ enough "minorities.'' In reality, this argument is absurd
since many Baruch professors are Jewish and
non-white Asians . But in education-speak,
such individuals are not defined as "minorities. '' Middle States is actually arguing that
Baruch's faculty has too many non-Hispanic
whites and not enough blacks for a student
body that includes many blacks and Hispanics . Thus, the broader question at issue is
whether or not white instructors can adequately teach "minority" students. The "diversity " of a student body, according to
Middle States, must be matched by a corresponding "diversity " of faculty and administrators. This belief is so widespread amongst
academic administrative cognoscenti that few
question it. When the logic of such a concept
is challeneged , the usual response is that a
white professor cannot be as good a "role
model" for a black student as a black
professor.
While one may suggest that professors can
serve as inspirational mentors to college
students, no evidence exists that such individuals must be of the same sex, race, or cultural
background. The idea of "role model," in
short, is fraudulently applied in the field of
higher education .
Indeed, if such a concept did make sense, it
would have exactly th e opposite results of
what Middle States ostensibly desires . It
would mean not only that black students
should be counseled to take courses only from
black professors. If black students need black
professors as role models to spur them to
greater levels of achievement, white students
require and deserve the same kind of encouragement. Taken to its logical conclusion, the
"role model" argument is actually a strong
justification for racial segregation in higher
education. If black students respond best to
black professors, they ought to maximize
their chances by enrolling at all-black colleges.
The same would apply, mutatis mutandis, to
white students.
In the classic accreditation process, institutions are evaluated on the basis of the
stringency or laxity of their educational
standards. In the past, if a college was found
to be too lax, accreditation was withheld, or
perhaps conditionally granted pending correction of certain deficiencies. But now, for
the first time, a college's accreditation has
been "deferred," not because its standards
are too low, but because they are too high.
An institution of higher learning is being
directed to arrange its faculty , administration, and curriculum so that a de facto racial
graduation quota can be filled . Aside from
some serious issues of law, this initiative
July 1991
represents the latest step in the abolition of
institutional autonomy and faculty control
over the hiring process.
It is no coincidence that this new and
arbitrary direction has been taken by a
private accrediting agency. In 1989 the
Supreme Court issued a series of decisions
that seriously undermined the ability of
government to require institutions to use
racial and sexual quotas in hiring and
promotions. Though this was a serious setback for those who would like to see a
political system governed by racial and sexual
entitlement, they have evidently regrouped.
For example, under the sponsorship of
Senators Kennedy and Hawkins, the Civil
Rights bill of 1990 currently being argued in
Congress would reimpose on employers the
burden of proving that they did not discriminate against minorities in hiring. Since it is
virtually impossible to prove that something
has not occured, the result will be that
employers (including colleges and universities) will be obliged to adopt quotas in hiring
in order to forestall potential lawsuits. This is
particularly likely because the same legislation will require employers to pay the cost of
employees' litigation, thus encouraging plaintiffs to make complaints of discrimination free
of charge
On the level of academic rhetoric, the tactic
has been to substitute "diversity" for the
now-tainted "affirmative action," since it is
widely recognized that the latter has produced discriminatory preferential hiring. Surveys show that most blacks, as well as most
whites, are opposed to preferential treatment
for blacks. Using "diversity" sounds better
because the term is vague and it is hard to say
one is against it. But the Baruch case shows
what " diversity" truly means; it is simply old
wine in new bottles.
That there is no logical or empirical
justification for racial quotas in hiring or
graduation should not need saying. But
Simmons and his allies are not governed by
logic or facts; they are driven by a sense of
moral righteousness that is impervious to any
argument. Rather than conforming to consistent and objective standards of excellence,
Simmons makes up the rules as he goes
along. Rather than appealing to the intellect,
Simmons tugs at people ' s basest emotions in
order to impose his political agenda on higher
education.•
LETTERS from Santa Fe
The Bamch case
shows what,
''divers£ry ))truly
means)· zt is
simply old wine
in new bottles.
Page 11
�•Founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St.
John's College. Great Books Program adopted 1937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
I
I
Profile
Profile
Profile
Profile
• Curriculum:
An integrated, four-year, non-elective arts and science program based on reading and discussing, m
loosely chronolpgical order , the G reat Books of Western C ivilization.
• Approach: .
Tutorials, laboratories, and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures.
Classes are very small. Student/faculty ratio is 8: I. St. J ohn's is independent and non-sectarian .
• Degree Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts.
• Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 students on each campus. C urrent freshman class made up of 55 %
men and 45 % women, from 30 states and several foreign countries. Fifty-seven percent receive
financial aid. Students may transfer between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
• Alumni Careers:
Education-21 % , business- 20 % , law-10 % , visual and performing arts-9% , medicine- 7% ,
science and engineering- 7 % , computer science- 6 % , writing and publishing-5 % .
• Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary M aster 's degree program based on
the same principles as the undergraduate program . Oflered on both campuses year-round~
�
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Agresto, John
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Segall, Joel E., 1923-
Weiner, Stephen S.
Beer, William R., 1943-
Alexander, Lamar, 1940-
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Presidents
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LETTERSJrom Santa Fe
St. John's College-Santa Fe , New Mexico
INSIDE
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
page!I,
Volume 111 , Issue 2
Education, Equality
and Race
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
pages
THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY
OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
page6
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
V. ALLAN BAKKE
page9
WHY RACIAL PREFERENCE IS
ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL
page 15
RACIAL PREFERENCES?
SO WHAT?
page 18
INSIDE AMERICAN EDUCATION
page 19
COLOR-BLINDED
page 22
RACE-TARGETED AID
page 23
A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY
OF EDUCATION
page 24
RESPONSE FROM THE
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION
page 25
RACE, SCHOLARSHIPS AND
THE AMERICAN WAY
page 26
PODBERESKY V. UNIVERSITY OF
MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK
page 28
When has America . not been divided, harassed and harmed by the
race issue? The best instinct of the Founders-that all men are created
equal-was undercut and submerged by the irrepressible fact of slavery.
The lives of thousands given in the service of abolition were forgotten in the
years of segregation, black codes and Jim Crow. And now (with the best of
intentions we are told) the vision of a nation where race doesn't matter will
not materialize-now and in the future people will be helped or hindered
because of their complexion. Dwell on race. Count by race. Classify by race.
Take race "into account." Reward by race. Harm by race.
Worst of all, leadership in this new policy lies not in the ranks of the former
agents of ill will but in the one place America has looked to for civility, for
enlightenment, and even for wisdom: our colleges. Has the resegregation of
America happened anywhere else with the fury-and ·the design-that we
see on college campuses?
Part of this is imposed on our campuses by threat and fear: The university
will be brought to a halt if we do not have a separate Black Student Union;
the college will be harassed if we do not increase the funding for minority
studies.... Universities are easily pushed around, and perhaps they should
be forgiven when, repeatedly, they give in to threats and force. One only
wishes they had enough character to admit they gave in to force and not pretend
to love and support their intimidators.
But part of the evil, the greater part, is the colleges' own doing. Shall we
treat people equally, without regard to color? Well, no. Not if, as at one
school, you decide to pay for all campus visits, but only for black applicants.
Not if, as at another college, you decide to give full financial aid to all minority
students, regardless of need. Not if, as many colleges proclaim, you let
minority students work less, or take out fewer loans, than non-minority
students and make up the difference with college funds . Not if, as at one
major university, you decide to enhance the salaries of candidates for faculty
positions, so long as they are women and minorities. Not if, in following the
lead of the Department of Education, schools decide that racially-based
scholarships are perfectly okay; that public money can be given to some people
and denied to others simply on the basis of their race.
(continued on page 2)
�(continued from page 1)
Having taught people
to judge by race and
prefer by race, why
are we surprised
when they do?
page two
The philosophical objections to
these actions are immense. The
moral conscience of most Americans,
whether they acted on it or not, has
always known that judging,
rewarding, denying and promoting
by race has no place in decent civil
society. Color is an accidental, not
essential characteristic; it does not
make a person better or more worthy or finer, lesser or debased or
degraded. To judge merit on the
basis of race is to judge irrationally.
Notice how the moral sense rebels
at the thought, for example, of a
store that charged one race more
than another for the same goods; or
if the government decided that some
people, because of their complexion, could pay less in taxes. Yet, are
we doing anything different in our
colleges and universities?
Today, we are told, schools and
colleges can have "race-conscious"
and "race-targeted" policies because
now there is something afoot more
important than racial impartiality:
"diversity." So long as it is in the
service of campus diversity, virtually
any form of racial preference is
allowed. (Or, rather, is diversity the
means of achieving racial preferencing? Sure is hard to say.) This
means, of course, racial preferences
in admissions, in faculty hiring and
retention, in minority-based scholarships, in reduced loan burdens, and
in reduced student work hours but
at higher pay-all for preferred
groups.
Let us not be quick to argue that
these policies are wrong because
they violate the "rights" of the
majority . They are wrong not
because of damage they do to
majority groups but because of the
damage they do to the principle of
equality and non-discrimination, a
LETTERS from Santa Fe
principle that benefits all people.
And, as is becoming so painfully
clear, the real losers in race-based
preferences are often not members
of some putative majority, but
members of some not-now-preferred
minority.
My guess is that not long ago,
the best educators and administrators
in America were wholeheartedly
and correctly on the side of nondiscrimination and color-blindness.
When we first embraced affirmative
action policies, it was as they were
originally and rightly conceivedas a way of casting the widest net,
of looking here and everywhere, for
the finest candidates regardless of
race or ethnicity. Unlike today's
discriminatory affirmative action,
nondiscriminatory affirmative
action was a wise and just policy,
one that sought to find the best
regardless of race.
To see how pernicious distinctions
and rewards based on race really
are, consider the response often
given in support of such programs"The university favors children of
alumni, it has sports scholarships, it
has 'merit' scholarships for academically gifted students. The university
consistently classifies students and
treats them differently, so why not
do the same for minorities?" But
why is it that one's moral sense
would be indignant, would rebel, if
the policy were not "alumni preference," but "alumni preference, as
long as they're white," or "sports
scholarships, but not for Jews," or
"non-Asian merit scholarships."
See what a difference race makes?
See how categorizing and rewarding
by race repels? In America, race
matters. Race is the single most
divisive fact in our nation. And we
lie to ourselves if we say we are
doing good when we separate,
Volume III, Issu e 2
�reward and punish by race.
Not uncommonly, when we
discard a great and good principle-in this case the principle of equality
and non-discrimination-bad things
happen. And on our campuses, bad
things are happening with a
vengeance. Have racial incidents,
or racism itself, ever been higher?
Having taught people to judge by
race and prefer by race, why are we
surprised when they do?
"
Speaking practically, what Cio
we colleges and universities teach
when we decide, admit and rewJrd
i
by race? Have we treated each of
our students as responsible individuals, with individual and unique,
minds? Or, having judged peoples~
minds and outlooks by their pigmen:,
tation, have we taught stu,pepts to
categorize and pigeonhole by race?
Have we prepared our students
the world of work the!y'll' Soon
enter? Shall they expectto be hired,
promoted or retained on the basis;
of color? And, havirig saidi to
America for so long, d() nofjudge
by race, do not prefer
race,
now say dwell on race, ' ~~d see how ,
the spoils of society a~~ ~~visib!e'
through race competitiop:
Not too long ago we .. yvo(ried
about the "two cultures" in the
academy-about the gap bet:veen
scientists and humanists. But. now
there are two new cultures bedeviling
education, and the gulf between them
is immense: I mean the antagonism
between contemporary education
and the public. In narrowness of
scholarship, in smallness of vision,
in our unwillingness to promote or
often even to understand civic
needs, a large part of the academy
sets itself up in conscious opposition
to the common sense of the
American public. And, in the area
of race, we see how far behind the
ITT
decent moral sense of the American
people our schools and colleges
can be.
Whatever the motive-because it
seems easy and currently acceptable,
or because everyone's doing it, or
because they feel intimidated by
threats or epithets-categorizing,
judging and rewardihg by race.'is
all the rage in higher edu,cation. Buf
we onthis campu~ find in gur
document~ wdrds th(lt say tJl.a.t
.,-:of:,_--:: )[$'; :0-,,;..: :-:k:- ·:,;;,- <l
admissio~s, ~PP?~11~1B~!,1ts{c p~oino~·
tions, honors;
salaries
andGaidr-. will
R
···· .. , ,
fr --· "
?~..safried out ')'it~?~t r~g<Jn:I; ~p
race, color, sex or <::r.ee9.. Without
regar4. Just two littl~ words, })ut
two words that teach the best that
can teach.
,w;,·
«.
for
of
Vo l ume III, I ss u e 2
Agresto
f'
we
..';J:
LETTERS from Santa Fe
.;
,,
p age thr ee
�BROWN V. BOARD OF
EDUCATION
Brown did not immediately concern
itself with higher education. Nevertheless,
the core statement of Brown, that in the
field of race "separate" cannot mean
"equal," has been both the focal point
and, now it seems, the point to be
avoided in campus discussions on race.
-J.A.
Excerpted from
Brown et al. v. Board of Education of
Topeka et al.
May 17, 1954.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren:
Segregation of white and Negro
children in the public schools of a
State solely on the basis of race,
pursuant to state laws permitting or
requiring such segregation, denies
to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment-even
though the physical facilities and
other "tangible" factors of white
and Negro schools may be equal.
The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal"
and cannot be made "equal," and
that hence they are deprived of the
equal protection of the laws.
*
*
*
*
*
In approaching this problem,
we cannot turn the clock back to
1868 when the Amendment was
adopted, or even to 1896 when
Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We
must consider public education in
the light of its full development and
page four
L E TTERS f rom Santa Fe
its present place in American life
throughout the Nation. Only in
this way can it be determined if
segregation in public schools
deprives these plaintiffs of the
equal protection of the laws.
Today, education is perhaps the
most important function of state
and local governments. Compulsory
school attendance laws and the
great expenditures for education
both demonstrate our recognition
of the importance of education to
our democratic society. It is required
in the performance of our most
basic public responsibilities, even
service in the armed forces. It is the
very foundation of good citizenship.
Today it is a principal instrument in
awakening the child to cultural
values, in preparing him for later
professional training, and in helping
him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful
that any child may reasonably be
expected to succeed in life if he is
denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where
the state has undertaken to provide
it, is a right which must be made
available to all on equal terms.
We conclude that in the field of
public education the doctrine of
"separate but equal" has no place.
Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal. Therefore, we
hold that the plaintiffs and others
similarly situated for whom the
actions have been brought are, by
reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed
by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Volum e III, I s sue 2
�THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
Excerpted from
The Civil Rights Act,
July 2, 1964.
Title VI, Sec. 601
No person in the United States
shall, on the grounds of race, color,
or national origin, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subject to discrimination
under any program or activity
receiving federal financial assistance.
Title VII, Sec. 703
(a) It shall be an unlawful
employment practice for an employer
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or
to discharge any individual, or
otherwise to discriminate against
any individual with respect to his
compensation, terms, conditions,
or privileges of employment,
because of such individual's race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate or classify his employees in any way
which would deprive or tend to
deprive any individual of
employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status
as an employee, because of such
individual's race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin.
*
*
*
*
*
(j) Nothing contained in this
title shall be interpreted to require
any employer, employment agency,
labor organization, or joint labormanagement committee subject to
this title to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any
Vo l um e Ill , I ss u e 2
group because of the race, color,
religion, sex, or national origin of
such individual or group on
account of an imbalance which may
exist with respect to the total number
or percentage of persons of any
race, color, religion, sex, or national
origin employed by any employer,
referred or classified for employment by any employment agency or
labor organization, admitted to
membership or classified by any
labor organization, or admitted to,
or employed in, any apprenticeship
or other training program, in comparison with the total number or percentage of persons of such race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin
in any community, State, section, or
other area, or in the available work
force in any community, State,
section, or other area.
Title VII, Sec. 704
(b) It shall be an unlawful
employment practice for an employer,
labor organization, or employment
agency to print or publish or cause
to be printed or published any
notice or advertisement relating to
employment by such an employer or
membership in or any classification
or referral for employment by such a
labor organization, or relating to any
classification or referral for employment by s uch an employment
agency, indicating any preference,
limitation, specification, or discrimination based on race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin, except that
such a notice or advertisement may
indicate a preference, limitation,
s pecification, or discrimina tion
based on religion, sex, or national
origin when religion, sex, or national
origin is a bona fide occupational
qualification for employment.
LETTERS from Santa F e
No person in the United
States shall, on the
grounds of race, color,
or national origin, be
excluded from participation in, be denied the
benefits of, or be subject
to discrimination under
any program or activity
receiving federal
financial assistance.
pag e fi ve
�THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY
OF BROWN V. THE BOARD
OF EDUCATION
by
Diane Ravitch
Thus it was that the
idea of a color-blind
society fell out of fashion
almost as soon as it
was enacted into law
and well before it
became part of custom.
Those who continue to
defend the belief that
individuals should not
be judged in relation
to their race, religion,
sex, or national origin
sense that they are
fighting, at least for
the time, a losing battle.
p ag e s ix
In 1954, the Supreme Court
declared in the Brown decision that
state-imposed school segregation
was unconstitutional and invalidated
state laws which classified and
assigned children to schools on the
basis of their race. Today, the Brown
decision is cited as authority for a
net_w ork of judicial decisions, laws,
and administrative regulations that
specifically require institutions to
classify people on the basis of their
group identity and to deal with
them accordingly. How the civil
rights movement, the judiciary, and
the government moved from the
goal of equal treatment for all,
regardless of group affiliation, to
present practices is one of the most
significant trends of the past quarter
century.
By removing from the states the
power to use race to differentiate
among their citizens, the Brown
decision provided a strong precedent
to bar racial discrimination in every
realm of civic and public activity.
Its coverage was strengthened and
extended by the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibited discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex,
or national origin. The Civil Rights
Act embodied the fundamental
principle that everyone should be
considered as an individual without regard to social origin. This
ideal a ttra cted the s upport of a
broad alliance composed of blacks,
liberals, organized labor, Catholics,
L ETTERS f ro m Santa F e
Jews, and others who perceived
that the black cause was the common
cause of everyone who wanted to
eliminate group bias from American
life. The particular genius of the civil
rights movement was its successful
forging of a coalition led by blacks
but far more numerous than blacks
alone; at the height of its power, in
1964-65, the coalition was potent
enough to win passage of the Civil
Rights Act, federal aid to education,
the Voting Rights Act, and the antipoverty program.
The relatively recent shift in
focus from anti-discrimination to
group preferences has splintered
the civil rights coalition of the 1960s
and has changed the nature of civil
rights issues. The issues of the 1980s
are far more complex than were
those of the 1950s and 1960s, when
the public could readily understand
the denial of the civil and political
rights of black people. In 1984, the
issues are not capable of generating
folk heroes like Rosa Parks, James
Meredith, and Autherine Lucy, or
charismatic leaders like Martin
Luther King, Jr., or villains like
Eugene "Bull" Connor. Police brutality and racially closed primaries
were powerful emotional symbols
precisely because they presented so
little ambiguity; to those concerned
about the realization of American
democratic ideals, there was only
one side to be on. Today, it is by no
means simple to sort out the right
side and the wrong side of such
issues as racial balancing, busing,
affirmative action, and quotas, and
people of good will of all races and
sexes are to be found on different
sides of these questions.
If one-time allies in the struggle
for universalism and equal rights
now dis a g r ee, it is not s imply
because the issues today are comVo lu me Ill , I ssue 2
�plicated, but also because there is
an essential dilemma, which is all
too rarely recognized as judicial
decisions and bureaucratic regulations reinforce one another: The
group-based concepts of the present
are in conflict with the historic
efforts of the civil rights movement
to remove group classifications
from public policy. And at the heart
of this dilemma is the Brown decision,
which exemplified in its history the
ideals of the civil rights movement
and the transition from "colorblind" to "color-conscious" policies.
*
*
*
*
*
When the Brown decision was
announced on May 17, 1954, it was
a unanimous victory for the civil
rights forces. It struck down the
Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of
"separate but equal"; it declared
that "separate educational facilities
are inherently unequal"; and it
ruled that segregation in public
education was unconstitutional. It
appeared that the grounds for the
decision were more sociological
than constitutional, which in retrospect seems surprising in light of
the solidity of the constitutional
argument and the controvertible
nature of the sociological evidence.
The Court did not, in its Brown
decision, declare the Constitution to
be color-blind, which explains some
of the present day confusion about
the meaning of the decision. The
decision can be read, as it was then,
as removing from the states the
power to use race as a factor in
assigning children to public
schools; and it can be read, as it is
now, as a mandate to bring about
racial integration in the public
schools by taking race into account
in making assignments.
Volume III, Issue 2
Today the Brown decision is
considered the progenitor of a host
of color-conscious and group-specific
policies. The concept of group
rights, as distinct from individual
rights, has become commonplace.
The decision that was supported to
remove from the states the power
to assign children to school on the
basis of race has become the authority
for assigning children to school
solely on the basis of race, even
where official segregation never
existed. One Western school district,
which contains 19 variants of the
HEW-designated minority groups
(blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans,
and Asian Americans), has voluntarily
undertaken to maintain a racial and
ethnic balance in its schools for both
students and teachers. How such
efforts grew out of a decision that was
sought in order to eliminate group
labels from public policy is one of the
fascinating paradoxes of our time.
For at least the first ten years
after the Brown decision was rendered, belief in color-blind policy was
the animating force behind the civil
rights movement.
Not long after Congress passed
into law the color-blind principle
embodied in the Civil Rights Act of
1964, several trends converged to
undermine it.
First, white Southern intransigence had effectively preserved the
status quo despite the Brown decision.
The dismantling of state-segregated
school systems was occurring at a
snail's pace; by 1964, only two
percent of the black students in the
Deep South attended schools with
white students.... Thus, the nearly
complete failure of the white South
to comply with the Brown decision
or to make any good faith efforts to
desegregate created pressures to
find some mechanism to bring an
end to their resistance to the law of
the land.
Second, the Civil Rights Act of
1964 authorized federal officials to
cut off federal funds from districts
that failed to desegregate their
schools. This meant little in 1964,
when federal funds for elementary
and secondary schools were limited,
but it became a powerful weapon to
compel desegregation after 1965,
when federal aid to education was
passed by Congress.
Third, just as the federal
bureaucracy and the federal judiciary
began to abandon the color-blind
principle, the black power movement
emerged. Black power spokesmen
ridiculed the leaders of the civil
rights movement as Uncle Toms
and accommodationists. It was not
their rejection of integration that
gave them mass appeal, however,
but rather their open advocacy of
black self-interest. While civil rights
leaders championed policies of
non-discrimination, the black advocacy movement demanded black
principals, black teachers, specific
jobs, here and now, period. How
could the civil rights movement, so
long as it stood by the color-blind
principle, hope to compete with the
organizations that sought tangible
black gains?
Fourth, the color-blind principle
lost much of its luster for the civil
rights organizations as soon as it
was established in law. Once it was
a fact, it ceased to be a goal; organizations either generate new goals or
become defunct. A new agenda was
required, one which was tailored to
the pressing economic needs of the
black masses.
Fifth, some of those who had
led the fight against segregation
came to the view that color-blindness
is an abstract principle with no
LETTERS from Santa Fe
page seven
�power to alter the status quo and
no possibility of making up for the
effects of past discrimination, either
in institutional or in personal terms.
Thus it was that the idea of a
color-blind society fell out of fashion
almost as soon as it was enacted
into law and well before it became
part of custom. Those who continue
to defend the belief that individuals
should not be judged in relation to
their race, religion, sex, or national
origin sense that they are fighting,
at least for the time, a losing battle.
Those in Washington who write the
regulations have apparently decided
that social origin and group identity
are appropriate grounds by which
to determine a citizen's eligibility
to participate in governmental
programs.
This is a turn of events that is
not without consequence for
American society. We do not have
a universalistic civil rights movement
in the United States precisely
because the only common purpose
that could bind dozens of minorities
together is the goal of preventing
discrimination against all minorities.
The fight to ban discrimination,
which gathered to its banners a
powerful coalition of diverse
groups, has been replaced for now
by groupism, or every interest
group for itself. Blacks demand
more for blacks, Hispanics more for
Hispanics, women more for
women, and so on. Competition, all
against all, takes the place of cooperation. In the present atmosphere,
the idea of universalism is in
retreat, an idea whose time came
and went with amazing rapidity.
*
*
*
*
group members is as uncertain
today as it was in 1954. And
whether it is possible to achieve an
integrated society without distributing jobs and school places on the
basis of group identity is equally
uncertain. What does seem likely,
though, is that the trend towards
formalizing group distinctions in
public policy has contributed to a
sharpening of group consciousness
and group conflict. As a people, we
are still far from that sense of common humanity to which the civil
rights movement appealed; still not
a community in which e'1eryone
feels responsibility for the wellbeing of his fellow citizen; still
unpersuaded that our many separate
islands are part of the same mainland. We may yet find that just such
a spirit is required to advance a
generous and broad sense of the
needs and purposes of American
society as a whole.
+ "'
l
;
Diane Ravitch is/proressbr
and education at eottJi:nbi
College in'fti~~:Yor~.
Civil Rights.
*
Whether it is possible to treat
people as individuals rather than as
page eig ht
L ETTERS f r om Sa nt a F e
Volum e !Ii , I ss u e 2
�UNIVERSITY OF
caused by past discrimination-a new
and more pervasive position arose:
CALIFORNIA V. ALLAN
Colleges and their programs and curricula
BAKKE
can, and perhaps must, take "diversity''
into account; and toward that end racial
preferences, once maligned for their
injustice, now became constitutionally
More than anything else, the Bakke
case opened the door for affirmative
enshrined when in the service of particular
curricular and educational reform.
action, for preferential treatment based
on race and for minority scholarships.
reprinted below much of the central
But how it did so remains one of the
parts of Powell's position. -J.A.
most amazing stories in American
jurisprudence.
A majority of the court-Powell,
Stevens, Burger, Stewart and
Rehnquist-rejected the university's
affirmative action plan. Four judges-
Because of its importance, I have
Excerpted from
Regents of the University of California,
Petitioner, v. Allan Bakke,
June 28, 1978.
Blackm un, White, Marshall and
Brennan-dissented on various
grounds, but centering on the belief that
the university was engaged in a good
faith effort to remedy the evil effects of
racism and segregation and that the
quotas were benign.
Powell wrote an opinion which said
that ''the attainment of a diverse student
body'' was "a constitutionally permissible
goal for an institution of higher education,"
and that race or ethnic background can
be viewed as a "plus" in the selection
process. Not one other justice thought
this analysis constitutionally weighty
and none joined Powell in this view. Yet,
the four dissenters were happy to agree
with Powell's conclusion that, therefore,
sometimes race can be used in higher
education's policy on admission and
rewards. Spurning the argument, they
nonetheless accepted the conclusions.
And racial preferencing became licit.
Though the University of California
did not push the notion and no other
justice supported it, "diversity" soon
became the important-and only necessary-argument for racial preference
on campus. Rather than the older,
standard argument of the dissentersthat we must remedy the disadvantage
Volume III, Issue 2
Mr. Justice Powell:
The Medical School of the
University of California at Davis
opened in 1968 with an entering
class of 50 students. In 1971, the
size of the entering class was
increased to 100 students, a level at
which it remains ... . Over the next
two years, the faculty devised a
special admissions program to
increase the representation of "disadvantaged" students in each medical
school class. The special program
consisted of a separate admissions
system operating in coordination
with the regular admissions process.
The special admissions program
operated with a separate committee,
a majority of whom were members
of minority groups. On the 1974
form the question was whether [candidates] wished to be considered as
members of a "minority group,"
which the medical school apparently
viewed as "Blacks," "Chicanos,"
"Asians," and "American Indians."
If these questions were answered
affirmatively, the application was
forwarded to the special admissions
LETTERS from Santa Fe
page nine
�committee.... Having passed this
initial hurdle, the applicants then
were rated by the special committee
in a fashion similar to that used by
the general admissions committee,
except that special candidates did
not have to meet the 2.5 grade point
average cut-off applied to regular
applicants. The special committee
continued to recommend special
applicants until a number prescribed
by faculty vote were admitted.
While the overall class size was still
50, the prescribed number was
eight; in 1973 and 1974, when the
class size had doubled to 100, the
prescribed number of special
admissions also doubled, to 16.
goals of integrating the medical
profession and increasing the number
of physicians willing to serve
members of minority groups were
compelling state interests ... the
California court held that the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment required that "no
applicant may be rejected because
of his race, in favor of another who is
less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race."
*
*
*
*
*
Allan Bakke [respondent] is a
white male who applied to the
Davis Medical School [petitioner] in
both 1973 and 1974.
In both years, applicants were
admitted under the special program
with grade point averages, MCAT
scores, and bench mark scores significantly lower than Bakke' s.
The trial court found that the
special program operated as a racial
quota, because minority applicants
in the special program were rated
only against one another, and 16
places in the class of 100 were
reserved for them. Declaring that
the university could not take race
into account in making admissions
decisions, the trial court held the
challenged program violative of the
federal Constitution, the state constitution, and Title VI [of The Civil
Rights Act of 1964].
The Supreme Court of California
transferred the case directly from the
trial court, "because of the importance of the issue involved. " . . .
Although the court agreed that the
The parties disagree as to the
level of judicial scrutiny to be
applied to the special admissions
program. Petitioner argues that
the court below erred in applying
strict scrutiny, as this inexact term
has been applied in our cases .
That level of review, petitioner
asserts, should be reserved for
classifications that disadvantage
"discrete and insular minorities."
United States v. Carolene Products
Co ., 304 U.S. 144, 152 n . 4 (1983).
Respondent, on the other hand,
contends that the California court
correctly rejected the notion that
the degree of judicial scrutiny
accorded a particular racial or ethnic
classification hinges upon membership in a discrete and insular minority
and duly recognized that the "rights
established [by the Fourteenth
Amendment] are personal rights."
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. l, 22 (1948).
En route to this crucial battle
over the scope of judicial review,
the parties fight a sharp preliminary
action over the proper characterization of the special admissions program. Petitioner prefers to view it
as establishing a "goal" of minority
r e presentation in the medical
school. Respondent, echoing the courts
below, labels it as a racist quota.
page t en
LETTERS from Santa Fe
*
*
*
*
*
This semantic distinction is
beside the point: The special admissions program is undeniably a
classification based on race and
ethnic background.
The guarantees of the Fourteenth
Amendment extend to persons. Its
language is explicit: "No state shall ...
deny to any person w ithin its
jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws. " It is settled beyond
question that the "rights created by
the first section of the Fourteenth
Amendment are, by its terms,
guaranteed to the individual. They
are personal rights." The guarantee
of equal protection cannot mean
one thing when applied to one
individual and something else
when applied to a person of another
color. If both are not accorded the
same protection, then it is not equal.
Nevertheless, petitioner argues
that the court below erred in applying
strict scrutiny to the special admissions programs because white
males, such as the respondent, are
not a "discrete and insular minority"
requiring extraordinary protection
from the ma joritarian process.
Carolene Products Co., supra, at 152153, n. 4. This rationale, however, has
never been invoked in our decisions
as a prerequisite to subjecting racial
or ethnic distinctions to strict scrutiny.
"Distinctions between citizens solely beca use of their
ancestr y are by their very
nature odious to a free people
whose institutions are founded
u pon the doctrine of equality."
Hirabayashi, 320 U.S., at 100.
" ... [A]ll legal restrictions
which curtail the rights of a
single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to
say that all such restrictions
are unconstitutional. It is to
say that courts must subject
V o l ume III , I ssu e 2
�them to the most rigid scrutiny."
Korematsu, 323 U.S., at 216.
The Court has never questioned the
validity of those pronouncements.
Racial and ethnic distinctions of
any sort are inherently suspect and
thus call for the most exacting judicial
examination.
*
*
*
*
*
The Court's initial view of the
Fourteenth Amendment was that
its "one pervading purpose" was
"the freedom of the slave race, the
security and firm establishment of
that freedom, and the protection of the
newly-made freeman and citizen from
the oppression of those who had formerly exercised dominion over him."
As a nation filled with the stock
of many lands, the reach of the
Clause was gradually extended to
all ethnic groups seeking protection
from official discrimination.... The
guarantees of equal protection, said
the Court in Yick Wo, "are universal
in their application, to all persons
within the territorial jurisdiction,
without regard to any differences of
race, of color, or of nationality; and the
equal protection of the laws is a pledge
of the protection of equal laws."
Although many of the Framers
of the Fourteenth Amendment conceived of its primary function as
bridging the vast distance between
members of the Negro race and the
white "majority," the Amendment
itself was framed in universal terms,
without reference to color, ethnic
origin, or condition of prior servitude.
Petitioner urges us to adopt for
the first time a more restrictive view
of the Equal Protection Clause and
hold that discrimination agains t
m embers of the white "majority"
cannot be suspect if its purpose can
be characterized as 'benign."
Vo l ume II I, I s sue 2
LETTERS from San ta F e
page e l even
�*
*
*
*
*
There are serious problems of
justice connected with the idea of
preference itself. First, it may not
always be clear that a so-called
preference is in fact benign ....
Second, preferential programs may
only reinforce common stereotypes
holding that certain groups are
unable to achieve success without
the special protection based on a factor having no relationship to individual worth. DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416
U.S. 312, 343 (Douglas, J., dissenting). Third, there is a measure of
inequality in forcing innocent persons in respondent's position to
bear the burdens of redressing
grievances not of their making.
By hitching the meaning of the
Equal Protection Clause to these
transitory considerations, we would
be holding, as a constitutional
principle, that judicial scrutiny of
classifications touching on racial
and ethnic background may vary
with the ebb and flow of political
forces.
approved a classification that aids
persons perceived as members of
relatively victimized groups at the
expense of other innocent individuals
in the absence of judicial, legislative,
or administrative findings of constitutional or statutory violations.
Hence, the purpose of helping
certain groups whom the faculty of
the Davis Medical School perceived
as victims of "societal discrimination"
does not justify a classification that
imposes disadvantages upon persons
like respondent, who bear no
responsibility for whatever harm
the beneficiaries of the special
admissions program are thought to
have suffered. To hold otherwise
would be to convert a remedy
heretofore reserved for violations of
legal rights into a privilege that all
institutions throughout the Nation
could grant at their pleasure to
whatever groups are perceived as
victims of societal discrimination.
*
*
*
*
*
If petitioner's purpose is to assure
within its student body some specified percentage of a particular
group merely because of its race or
ethnic origin, such a preferential
purpose must be rejected not as
insubstantial but as facially invalid.
Preferring members of any one
group for no reason other than race
or ethnic origin is discrimination
for its own sake.
The State certainly has a legitimate and substantial interest in
ameliorating, or eliminating where
feasible, the disabling effects of
identified discrimination .. . .
[Nonetheless], we have never
Petitioner identifies, as another
purpose of its program, improving
the delivery of health care services
to communities currently underserved .. .. But there is virtually no
evidence in the record indicating
that petitioner's special admissions
program is either needed or geared
to promote that goal.
[A final] goal asserted by petitioner is the attainment of a diverse
student body. This clearly is a constitutionally permissible goal for an
institution of higher education.
"... 1t is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere
which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. ' . . ."
The atmosphere of "speculation,
experiment and creation" -so
essential to the quality of higher
page twelv e
L E TT ERS from San t a Fe
*
*
*
*
*
education-is widely believed to be
promoted by a diverse student
body. Even at the graduate level, our
tradition and experience lend support
to the view that the contribution of
diversity is substantial. An otherwise qualified medical student with a
particular background-whether it
be ethnic, geographic, culturally
advantaged or disadvantaged-may
bring to a professional school of
medicine experiences, outlooks and
ideas that enrich the training of its
student body and better equip its
graduates to render with understanding their vital service to
humanity.
*
*
*
*
*
The diversity that furthers a compelling state interest encompasses a
far broader array of qualifications
and characteristics of which racial or
ethnic origin is but a single though
important element. Petitioner's special
admissions program, focused solely
on ethnic diversity, would hinder
rather than further attainment of
genuine diversity.
The experience of other university
admissions programs, which take
race into account in achieving the
educational diversity valued by the
First Amendment, demonstrates
that the assignment of a fixed
number of places to a minority
group is not a necessary means
toward that end.
"In recent years Harvard
College has expanded the concept
of diversity to include students
from disadvantaged economic,
racial and ethnic groups. Harvard
College now recruits not only
Californians or Louisianans but
also blacks and Chicanos and other
minority students."
"In Harvard College admissions
Vo lu m e Ill , I s s u e 2
�the Committee has not set target
quotas for the number of blacks, or
of musicians, football players,
physicists or Californians to be
admitted in a given year.... [Rather]
the Committee, with a number of
criteria in mind, pays some attention
to distribution among many types
and categories of students."
In such an admissions program,
race and ethnic background may be
deemed a "plus" in a particular
applicant's file, yet it does not insulate
the individual from comparison
with all other candidates for the
available seats. The file of a particular
black applicant may be examined
for his potential contribution to
diversity without the factor of race
being decisive when compared, for
example, with that of an applicant
identified as an Italian-American
if the latter is thought to exhibit
qualities more likely to promote
beneficial educational pluralism.
This kind of program treats
each applicant as an individual in
the admissions process. The applicant
who loses out on the last available
seat to another candidate receiving
a "plus" on the basis of ethnic background will not have been foreclosed from all consideration for
that seat simply because he was not
the right color or had the wrong
surname. It would mean only that
his combined qualifications, which
may have included similar
nonobjective factors, did not outweigh those of the other applicant.
His qualifications would have been
weighed fairly and competitively,
and he would have no basis to complain of unequal treatment under
the Fourteenth Amendment.
*
*
*
*
In summary, it is evident that
the Davis special admissions program
involves the use of an explicit racial
classification never before countenanced by this Court. It tells applicants who are not Negro, Asian, or
"Chicano" that they are totally
excluded from a specific percentage
of the seats in an entering class . .. .
[W]hen a state's distribution of
benefits or imposition of burden
hinges on the color of a person's
skin or ancestry, that individual is
entitled to a demonstration that the
challenged classification is necessary
to promote a substantial state interest.
Petitioner has failed to carry this
burden. For this reason, that portion
of the California court's judgment
holding petitioner's special admissions program in valid under the
Fourteenth Amendment must be
affirmed.
*
*
*
*
*
In enjoining p etitioner from
ever considering the race of any
applicant, however, the courts
below have failed to recognize that
the State has a substantial interest
that legitimately may be served by
a properly devised admissions program involving the competitive
consideration of race and ethnic origin.
For this reason, so much of the
California court's judgment as
enjoins petitioner from any consideration of the race of any applicant
must be reversed.
*
Volum e III , I ss u e 2
LETTERS from S anta F e
p a ge thir te e n
�page fourteen
LETTERS from Santa Fe
Volume III , Issue 2
�WHY RACIAL
PREFERENCE IS ILLEGAL
AND IMMORAL
by
Car/Cohen
This article appeared in Commentary in
1979. Although it focused on the thenpending Weber case, I've tried to
excerpt from the piece those arguments
that have wider scope. -J.A.
So long-lasting and self-perpetuating have been the damages done
to the many blacks and others by
discrimination that some corrective
· steps must be undertaken. .. . [But]
in the passion to make social restitution, sensitive and otherwise fairmind ed people have gotten the
moral claims of living persons
badly confused.
[D]eliberately visiting the sins
of the fathers upon their innocent
sons and grandsons, to the special
advantage of persons not connected
with the original sinning, is conduct
neither lawful nor morally right. To
suppose that both the beneficiaries
of redress and those who are made
to carry its burden are properly
identified by race is, to be plain,
racism. It is simplistic because, on
this view, race by itself-without
consideration of the nature or
degrees of past injuries, present
advantages, or future pains- is sufficient to trigger the preferential
device. The mistaken view in question is therefore properly entitled
simplistic ethical racism.
Injuries are suffered in fact,
claims made and burdens carried,
by individual persons. Civil society
is constituted to protect the rights
Vo l um e Ill , I ss u e 2
of the individuals; the sacrifice of
fundamental individual rights
cannot be justified by the desire to
advance the well-being of any ethnic
group. Precisely such justification is
precluded by the Fourteenth
Amendment of our Constitution,
whose words-no state "shall deny
to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws"express no mere legalism but a
philosophical principle of the deepest
importance. Explicating that clause,
in a now famous passage, the
Supreme Court wrote: "The rights
created by the first section of the
Fourteenth Amendment are, by its
terms, guaranteed to the individual.
The rights established are personal
rights . ... Equal protection of the
laws is not advanced through
indiscriminate imposition of
inequalities" (Shelly v. Kraemer 334
U.S. 1, 22 [1948]).
The nature and degree of the
injury done to many Americans
because they were black or brown
or yellow varies greatly from case
to case. Some such injuries may
justify compensatory advantage now
to those injured. But the calculation of
who is due what from whom is a
very sticky business; compensatory
instruments are likely to compound
injustice unless the individual circumstances of all involved-those who
were originally hurt, those who
b enefit now, and those who will
bear the cost-are carefully considered. Whateve r compensatory
a dvan tag e m ay be g ive n- in
employment or elsewhere-it must
be given to all and only those who
have suffered like injury, without
regard to their race. What we may
not do, constitutionally or morally, is
announce in effect: "No matter that
you, X, were innocent and gained
no advantage; you are white and
L E TT E RS from Santa F e
[D]eliberately visiting
the sins of the fathers
upon their innocent
sons and grandsons,
to the special advantage
of persons not connected
with the original sinning,
is conduct neither lawful
nor morally right.
pag e fift ee n
�therefore lose points. No matter
whether you, Z, were damaged or
not; you are black and therefore
gain points." If the moral ground
for compensatory affirmative action
is the redress of injury, the uninjured have no claim to it, and all
those individuals of whatever ethnic group who have suffered the
injury in question have an equal
claim to it.
Racially based numerical
instruments have this grave and
unavoidable defect: they cannot make
the morally crucial distinctions
between the blameworthy and the
blameless, between the deserving and
the undeserving. As compensatory
devices they are under-inclusive in
failing to remedy the same damage
when it has been done to persons of
the non-favored races; they are
over-inclusive in benefiting some in
the favored categories who are
without claims, often at substantial
cost to innocent persons.
*
*
*
*
*
opportunity I affirmative action
employer." The very term "affirmative action" has lost its honor and
has become, for most, a euphemism
for racial preference.
Nothing is more indicative of
the true spirit of a community than
the character of the instruments it
permits, and of those it precludes,
in advancing public policy. Police
surveillance to root out spies, the
suppression of speech (radical or
conservative) to protect the peace
-all such instruments are rejected
in a decent society. Civil libertarians
wisely insist that we forswear
instruments that invade the rights
of individuals, even when forswearing proves inconvenient. The
use of such instruments is precluded,
forbidden not just to evil people but
to all people. Preference by race is
one of the forbidden instruments.
The very high priority given to this
exclusionary principle, and its
applicability to all including the
state itself, marks it as constitutional
in the most profound sense.
Efforts to cut constitutional corners-however well intentioned corrupt a civil society. The means
we use penetrate the ends we
achieve; when the instrument is
unjust, the outcome will be infected
by that injustice. This lesson even
civil libertarians have always been
relearning.
Affirmative steps to eliminate
racially discriminatory practices
rightly win the assent of all.
Affirmative efforts to recruit fairly
(whether for on-the-job training
programs or for professional schools),
affirmative inquiry to determine
whether testing is job-related and
to ensure that evaluation of performance is not racially infected-in
such forms affirmative action is of
unquestionable merit. But when, in
the name of affirmative action for
racial equality, the deliberately
unequal treatment of the races is
introduced, we suffer a national
epidemic of double-speak. Employment advertisements everywhere
exhibit this duplicity with an
almost ritualized motto: "An equal
Defenses of racial preferenceby efforts to reinterpret the law, by
confused arguments based on
"societal discrimination," by claim
of executive order-all collapse. It
is important to see why they should
collapse. The defenders, conscious
of their own righteous pursuit of
racial justice, little doubt that the
pa ge six t ee n
LE T T E R S from S ant a F e
*
*
*
*
*
tools they wish to employ would
have the good consequences the)
hope for. To question the merit o
those tools is for them almost<
betrayal of the oppressed in whoSt
behalf they claim to battle. In thei1
eyes the conflict is only ove
whether they are to be permitted Ii
do a good deed-i.e., give prefereno
to racial minorities-not whether i
is a good deed, or whether its conse
quences will be good.
Decency of motivation, howeveJ
does not insure the goodness of th
immediate object, or the goodnes
of its consequences. Racial justice i
an aim that all share; it is distorte
when transformed into formulas fo
ethnic proportionality. . . . Federo
appellate courts have not bee1
oblivious to the evils that ensue:
There are good reasons
why the use of racial criteria
should be strictly scrutinized
and given legal sanction only
where a compelling need for
remedial action can be shown. ...
Government recognition and
sanction of racial classifications
may be inherently divisive, reinforcing prejudices, confirming
perceived differences between
the races, and weakening the
government's educative role on
behalf of equality and neutrality.
It may also have unexpected
results, such as the development
of indicia for placing individuals
into different racial categories.
Once racial classifications are
embedded in the law, their pur·
pose may become perverted: a
benign preference under certain
conditions may shade into
malignant preference at other
times. Moreover, a racial prefe r e nc e for m e mbe r s of one
minority might result in dis·
crimination against another
Volume III, I ss u e 2
�minority, a higher proportion of
whose members had previously
enjoyed access to a certain
opportunity (Associated General
Contractors of Massachusetts Inc.
v. Altshuler 490 F. 2d 9, 17-18
[1973]).
In this spirit three Federal Circuit
Courts have repeatedly refused to
approve racial quotas in the
absence of proved past discriminatory practice dictating that specific
remedy.
Racial classifications have
insidious long-term results: anger
and envy flowing from rewards or
penalties based on race; solidification of racial barriers and the
encouragement of racial separatism;
inappropriate entry of race into
unrelated intellectual or economic
matters; the indirect sup port of
condescension and invidious judgments among ethnic groups-in
sum, the promotion of all the
conditions that produce racial disharmony and racial disintegration.
their target not the culinary opportunities denied, but the immoral
character of the ground of their
denial.
Applicants to a competitive
program have a right to evaluation
on some set of relevant criteriapast performance, intellectual
promise, character, or whateverand if deserving on the basis of
those criteria, ought not be
deprived of place because of race.
*
*
*
*
The villain . . . is preference by
race. [We have] the moral and constitutional commitment to govern
ourselves without preference to any
by reason of color, or religion, or
national origin. If we undermine
that commitment-even though it
be in an honest effort to ,do good:;;;we will reap the whirlwind.
Carl Cohen is a professor of philosophy
at the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor; anq the a1.1thor of
*
*
*
*
*
All arguments thus far explored
incorporate the realization that
individuals are indeed injured
when disadvantaged solely because of
their race.. . . It is callous to minimize
the injury done when rights are not
respected.
When the ground of that disrespect is race, the injury is particularly
offensive . Entitlements in themselves minor . .. become matters of
grave concern when manipulated
for racial reasons. Where one must
sit on a bus or go to the toilet
understandably becomes a source
of rage and an issue of constitutional
proportions when the d etermination is made by race. Protests over
segregated lunch counters had as
Volum e III, I ssue 2
*
Demgcrc~cY
and of Civil Disobedience.
Excerpted trorq "Why Racial Preference
is Illegal af)d lfT'lmoral. n Commentary,
June 1979. Reprinted with permission.
LET TE RS from Santa F e
pa ge seven teen
�For my part, the matter is simple:
I got into law school because I'm
black. And I can prove it.
As a senior at Stanford, I applied
to about a half dozen law schools.
Yale, where I would ultimately
enroll, came through fairly early
with an acceptance. So did all but
one of the others. The last school,
Harvard, dawdled and dawdled.
Finally, toward the end of the
admission season, I received a letter
of rejection.
Then within days, two different
Harvard officials and a professor
contacted me by telephone to apologize. They were quite frank in
their explanation for the "error." I
was told by one official that the
school had initially rejected me
because "we assumed from your
record that you were white." (The
words have always stuck in my
mind, a tantalizing reminder of
what is expected of me.) Suddenly
coy, he went on to say that the
school had obtained "additional
information that should have been
counted in your favor"-that is,
Harvard had discovered the color
of my skin. And if I had already made
a deposit to confirm my decision to
go elsewhere, well, that, I was told,
would "not be allowed" to stand in
my way should I enroll at Harvard.
Naturally, I was insulted by this
miracle. Stephen Carter, the white
male, was not good enough for the
Harvard Law School; Stephen
Carter, the black male, not only was
good enough, but rated agonized
telephone calls urging him to
attend. And Stephen Carter, color
unknown, must have been white:
How else could he have achieved
what he did in college? Except that
my college achievements were
obviously not sufficiently spectacular to merit acceptance had I been
white. In other words, my academic
record was too good for a black
Stanford undergraduate but not
good enough for a white Harvard
Law student. Because I turned out
to be black, however, Harvard was
quite happy to scrape me from
what it apparently considered the
bottom of the barrel.
My objective is not to single out
Harvard for special criticism; on the
contrary, I make no claim that a
white student with my record
would have been admitted to any
of the leading law schools. The
insult that I felt came from the pain
of being reminded so forcefully that
I was good enough for a top law
page eighteen
LETTERS from Santa Fe
RACIAL PREFERENCES?
SO WHAT?
by
Stephen L. Carter
Those of us who have graduated
from professional school over the
past 15 to 20 years and are not
white travel a career path that is
frequently bumpy with suspicions
that we did not earn the right to be
where we are. We bristle when others
raise what might be called the affirmative action question "Did you
get into a school because of a special program?" That prickly sensitivity reveals a rarely mentioned
cost of racial preferences. The cost I
have in mind is to the psyches of
the beneficiaries themselves, who
simultaneously want racial preferences to be preserved and to force
the world to pretend that no one
benefits from them. And therein
hangs a tale.
*
*
*
*
*
school only because I happened to
be black.
*
*
*
*
*
Naturally, I should not have
been insulted at all; that is what
racial preferences are for-racial
preference. But I was insulted and
went off to Yale instead, even
though I have now and had then
absolutely no reason to imagine
that Yale's judgment was based on
different criteria than Harvard's.
Because Yale is far more selective,
the chances are very good that I
was admitted at Yale for essentially
the same reason that I was admitted
at Harvard-the color of my skin
made up for evident deficiencies in
my academic record.
So I am unable to fool myself:
Without that leg up, the thumb on
the scale, the extra points due to skin
color~oose your own metaphor-I
would not be where I am today. And
I too must be able to say, "So what?"
and go on from there.
Whatever the pain it might
cause, the affirmative action question,
whether at Yale more than a decade
ago or at Chicago last year, should
come as no surprise. And if those of
us who have benefited from racial
preferences are not prepared to
treat the question in a serious
manner, to admit to the advantage
that we have been given, then we
are not after all the beneficiaries of
affirmative action: We are its victims.
Stephen L. Carter is a professor at Yale
Law School.
Excerpted from Reflections of an
Affinnative Action Baby© 1991. Reprinted
with permission from Basic Books, a
division of HarperCollins Inc.
Volume III, Issue 2
�INSIDE AMERICAN
EDUCATION
by
Thomas Sowell
Since the 1960s, another category
of preferentially admitted students
has been added-racial and ethnic
minorities. In the controversies
which have arisen around the issue
of preferential admissions by race
or ethnicity, those on both sides of
the issue have often argued as if the
circumstances-and especially the
academic failures-of minority students were unique social phenomena
with unique causes. In reality, there
is nothing uncommon about a high
failure rate among people preferentially admitted to college. This pattern
has long been common among
college athletes, whether they were
white or black. Even a highly privileged group like alumni sons at
Harvard, during the era when more
than half of those sons who applied
were admitted, were disproportionately represented among students
who flunked out.
In short, preferential admissions
tend to lead to substandard academic
performance, whether those admitted
are privileged or underprivileged.
What has been unique about students
preferentially admitted by race has
been the large numbers involved,
the magnitude of the preferences,
the magnitude of the hypocrisy, and
the magnitude of the academic and
social disasters which have followed.
"NEW RACISM" AND OLD
DOGMATISM
Increasing hostility toward
blacks and other racial minorities
Vo lu me III , I ssue 2
on college campuses has become so
widespread that the term "the new
racism" has been coined to describe
it. For example, a dean at
Middlebury College in Vermont
reported that for the first time in 19
years, she was now being asked by
white students not to assign them
black roommates. There have been
reports of similar trends in attitudes
elsewhere. A professor at the
University of California at Berkeley
observed: '1've been teaching at U.C.
Berkeley now for 18 years and it's
only within the last three or four
years that I've seen racist graffiti for
the first time." Another Berkeley
professor, recalling support for
the civil rights movement on the
campuses of the 1960s and 1970s,
commented: "Twenty years later,
what have we got? Hate mail and
racist talk."
Much uglier incidents, including
outright violence, have erupted on
many campuses where such behavior
was unheard of, just a decade or
two earlier. At the University of
Massachusetts, for example, white
students beat up a black student in
1986 and a large mob of whites
chased about 20 blacks . A wellknown college guide quotes a Tufts
University student as saying,
"Many of my friends wouldn't care
if they never saw a black person
again in their lives."
Racism, as such, is not new.
What is new are the frequency, the
places, and the class of the people
involved in an unprecedented
escalation of overt racial hostility
among middle class young people,
on predominantly liberal or radical
campuses. Painful and ugly as these
episodes a re, they should not be
surprising. A n umber of p eople
predicted such things many years
ago, when colleges' current racial
policies began to take shape. They
also predicted some of the other
bad consequences of those policies.
These predictions and warnings
were ignored, dismissed, or ridiculed
by those who believed the prevailing
dogmas on which academic racial
policies were based . Now that
these predictions are coming true,
the dogmatists insist that the only
solution is a more intensive application of their dogmas.
When the idea of special, preferential admissions for racial and
ethnic minorities became an issue
during the 1960s, two fundamentally
different ways of evaluating such
proposals emerged. One approach
was to discuss the goals of preferential
admissions, such as the benefits
assumed to be received by minority
students, by the groups from which
they came, by the institutions they
would attend, and by American
society as a whole. This became the
prevailing approach, which dominated both intellectual discourse
and academic policy-making.
Another approach was to ask:
What incentives and circumstances
were being created-for the minority
students, for their fellow students,
for college administrators, and for
others-and what were the likely
consequences of such incentives
and circumstances? When the issue
was approached in this way, many
negative potentials of preferential
policies became apparent. However,
relatively few people risked moral
condemnation by asking such questions in public, so that there was little
need for those with a goals-oriented
approach to answer them. Now history has answered those questions,
and these answers have provided
LETTERS from San ta F e
p age nin e t ee n
PREDICTIONS VERSUS DOGMAS
�both abundant and painful confirmation of the original misgivings,
based on examining the incentives
and constraints of the academic
racial policies.
The issue is not one of a simple,
direct reaction to preferential
admissions policy, though that by
itself generates considerable resentment. The many academic and
emotional ramifications of such
policies set in motion complex reactions which pit minority and nonminority students against each other,
and generate stresses and reactions
among the faculty, administrators,
and outside interests. Though many
colleges and universities have been
caught by surprise and have been
unable to cope with the unexpected
problems-or have responded in
ways which have created new and
worse problems-much of what has
happened has followed a scenario
set forth by critics more than two
decades ago, and much of the intervening time has seen a steady
building of tensions toward the
ugly episodes of recent years,
which have now been christened,
"the new racism."
What was at issue, then and now,
is not whether there should be larger
or smaller numbers of minority students attending college, but whether
preferential admissions policies
should be the mechanism for making
a college education available to
more minority students. There are
other ways of increasing the number
of minority students-not only in
theory, but as a matter of historical
fact . Between 1940 and 1947, for
example, there was a 64 percent
increase in the number of nonwhite students attending postsecondary institutions due to financial
aid under the G.I. Bill for veterans
returning from World War II. This
made a college education available
to the black masses for the first
time. During a corresponding period
of the 1960s-from 1960 to 1967there was a 49 percent increase in
the number of black students
attending college, but this later
increase was often accompanied by
preferential admissions policies,
while the earlier and larger percentage increase had been accomplished
simply through more financial support.
The point here is that a substantial increase in minority student
enrollment in higher education can
be achieved with or without preferential admissions policies. Money is
the crucial factor, given the lower
incomes of blacks and some other
minority groups. The case for preferential admissions policies must
therefore stand or fall on its own
merits, though the proponents of
such policies often argue as if preferential admissions were the only
possible way to increase substantially the numbers of minority students in college. Unfortunately,
proponents of preferential admissions policies have not only ignored
history; they have ignored much of
what has happened in the wake
of these polices.
Both false and true racial incidents reveal something of the
atmosphere on college campuses,
an atmosphere whose complex
crosscurrents derive ultimately
from the needless pressures generated
by double standards and double
talk, both of which poison the
atmosphere required for people to
get along. As race relations have
worsened in the wake of policies
designed to make them better, there
page tw e nty
LETTERS from Santa Fe
*
*
*
*
has been no rethinking of the original
assumptions on which these policies
were based.
*
*
*
*
*
The obvious self-serving nature
of the usual administrative responses
to racial incidents-free speech
restrictions, making ethnic studies
courses mandatory, larger quotas
for minority students and facultyprovide an impetus to new and
ever-escalating rounds of double
standards and racial backlash.
Where will this self-reinforcing spiral
end? ... The growing evidences of
racial hostility and sporadic outbreaks of violence which we in the
United States call "the new racism"
may be an early warning that we
are heading in the same direction as
other countries which have promoted
preferences and quotas longer and
more strongly. But the prevailing
dogmatism among academics suggests that the real meaning of these
early warnings may not be understood until long after it is too late.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution.
Excerpted from Inside American
Education , New York: Free Press,
1993. Reprinted with permission.
V o l ume Ill , I ss u e 2
�Volum e III, Issu e 2
LETT ERS from Santa F e
page tw en ty - on e
�COLOR-BLINDED
by
the Editors of The New Republic
lished by the Kluge Foundation
exclusively for minorities, though
the university says that no needy
student is denied aid.
But it is not clear that any of
these students would lose their
educational opportunity if purely
race-based scholarships were abolished. And it is clear that blacks
and Hispanics would continue to be
the major beneficiaries of scholarships awarded primarily on the
basis of need. Recognizing this,
some make a different argument.
Richard Rosser, president of the
National Association of lndependt:;p.t
Colleges and Universities, contends
that race-based scholarship,s''are a
university's way of saying to
minorities, "You are vahied. We
want you." But surely th.ere are
ways of saying that without
restricting scholarships to spt:;cific
races.
It is hard to argue that a scholarship restricted to blacks can be
acceptable if a scholarship restricted
to whites is not. On the other hand,
university catalogues are full of
scholarships based on inherited
characteristics unrelated to the
merit of the recipients-such as
scholarships for children of alumni,
or for people from Alaska or Guam,
or for the offspring of fire fighters.
On the most abstract level of
moral reasoning, there is no real difference between these distinctions
and the racial ones. But because
race is the most dangerous divide
in American society, any sort of
discrimination on the basis of race
carries the potential for damage to
the social fabric. America's u gly
history of negative discrimination,
which is the most powerful argument
in favor of "reverse" or "positive"
discrimination, is also the most
powerful argument against it.
The controversy is not only
about abstract principles but also
about practical public policy, and as
such it ought to b e informed by
empirical facts. . . . At Penn State,
under a program still in effect but
about to be modified, all minority
students who earn a 2.5 grade point
average receive $620 a year, and all
who earn a 2.75 average get $1,240,
regardless of need. Whites, regardless
of need, receive no such bonus.
Harvard does not give race-based
undergraduate scholarships, but
does provide full tuition, room, and
board to minority graduate students,
regardless of need. Columbia has a
$25 million scholarship fund estab-
The best [outcome] would be
the expansion of federally funded
scholarship aid to allow more
needy students, regardless of race,
to get an education. In practice, this
would do at least as much to
encourage and support a minority
presence at our colleges and universities as racially based scholarships.
It would have the added advantage
of not provoking the resentment
that racial discrimination, whatever
its goal, inevitably arouses.
The controversy over race-based
scholarships is of a familiar kind: in
a recessionary climate, people
increasingly divide themselves into
racial and ethnic teams to fight over
dwindling economic and social
goods. What is needed is not ever
more exquisitely calibrated m easurements of racial and ethnic entitle-
pa ge t w e nty - two
L ETTE R S from Sa nta F e
ment. What is needed is the will to
make the whole society both richer
and more equitable.
We need racial diversity on our
campuses, just as we need a diversity
of religions, political creeds, artistic
talents, and intellectual inclinations.
But the encouragement of that
diversity should be conditioned by
merit and by need, not by racial
exclusivity.
Excerpted from "Color-Blinded," January
7 & 14, 1991. Reprinted by permission
of The New Republic. (c) 1991, The
NewRepublic, Inc.
=~
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Vo lum e III, I ss u e 2
�RACE-TARGETED AID
Excerpted from a
news release on
-aid to disadvantaged students,
without regard to race or national
origin, even if the awards go
disproportionately to minority
students;
race-targeted aid,
issued by Richard W. Riley,
Secretary of Education,
February 17, 1994.
U.S. Secretary of Education
Richard W. Riley today announced
that the department is clarifying the
circumstances under which racetargeted financial assistance may be
used.
"We want the doors to postsecondary education to remain
open for minority students," Riley
said. "This policy helps to achieve
that goal in a manner that is consistent with the law. We have taken
into account the recent GAO
[General Accounting Office] report,
as well as extensive public comments,
and developed a policy that will
help ensure all students access to
higher education."
Shortly after taking office, Riley
expressed support for colleges and
universities that have accepted the
challenge of providing diversity on
their campuses. The secretary
directed his staff to prepare a policy
that would be fair to all students,
would be based on a study of current
scholarship practices, and would
guide colleges and universities to
successful compliance with the civil
rights statutes. The new policy
accomplishes all three goals.
Riley said his review concluded
that colleges can use financial aid to
remedy past discrimination and to
promote campus diversity without
violating federal anti-discrimination
laws.
Permissible under the final policy
guidance:
Volume III, Issue 2
-aid awarded on the basis of
race or national origin when
authorized by a particular federal
statute such as the Patricia
Roberts Harris Fellowship
Program;
-aid on the basis of race or
national origin to remedy past
discrimination;
-aid on the basis of race or
national origin if it is narrowly
tailored to achieve a diverse
student body at the college or
university;
race as an eligibility criterion is
a narrowly tailored part of
those efforts;
(3) historically black colleges
and universities may participate
in third-party programs for
black students that are also
open to other students at other
institutions.
The department expects most
colleges that target some of their
financial aid to minority students will
be able to justify their programs
under this guidance. However, if a
college or university has a student
aid program that cannot be justified,
it will have up to two years to bring
the program into compliance with
Title VI [of The Civil Rights Act of
1964).
-aid accepted by a school from
private sources and restricted
by race or national origin, if
used to remedy discrimination
or achieve diversity, consistent
with the other principles in the
guidance.
The policy guidance replaces a
proposed policy published by the
department in December 1991. The
major changes are:
(1) postsecondary institutions
need not wait for a formal
finding by a court, legislative
body or administrative agency
such as OCR before taking
steps to remedy their past discrimination;
(2) efforts to achieve diversity
need not be limited to using
race as one among several
competitive factors if the institution can justify that using
LETTERS from Santa Fe
page twenty-three
�A LETTER TO THE
SECRETARY OF
EDUCATION
St. John's College
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The President
March 22, 1994
What lesson do we
teach our students if
we say that their color
Mr. Richard Riley
Secretary of Education
United States Department
of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202-0100
makes them worthy of
a benefit-a benefit
denied to others
because they are a
different color? Does
this prepare them well
for the world of work
that they'll soon enter?
pa ge tw e nty-four
Dear Dick:
I was saddened to read about
your stand on minority scholarships.
Right now, because most of us still
believe in a nation where race
should be an irrelevant characteristic,
most colleges give students money
on the basis of need, or need and
merit, not on the basis of color.
With the blessing your office has
given to racial scholarships, I now
fear they'll become part of the norm
rather than, as now, the great
exception.
What lesson do we teach our
students if we say that their color
makes them worthy of a benefit-a
benefit denied to others because
they are a different color? Does this
prepare them well for the world of
work that they'll soon enter?
Moreover, it puts those of us who
proudly say in our college catalogues
that everything is "without regard
to race, creed, color, sex or national
origin" in a very awkward position.
Shall we now swallow our principles
LETTERS from Santa Fe
and act "with regard" to these characteristics? Will we be seen as racist
for trying hard not to take race into
account?
On a practical level, this action
will decrease racial diversity in
many places. If we stick to our
ideals of color-blindness and other
colleges and universities "buy"
people of color because of their color
through their scholarship programs,
do you think we can compete on an
even ground? The department's
actions now have the effect of
penalizing colleges for their highmindedness.
For ages, the general public has
looked to higher education to be a
light to society, a leader in helping
us reach the public good. Yet now,
just as we teach each other to put
color aside, to forget about rewarding
and punishing on the basis of race,
we have colleges and universities
saying and doing the opposite:
Dwell on race. Reward people on
the basis of race. Give them expectations that benefits are due to them
because of their race. And take
money that was meant to help the
poor go to college and give it away
on the basis of exactly those kinds
of distinctions we hoped to overcome. It is a seriously flawed policy.
Sincerely,
John Agresto
Volum e III, Issu e 2
�RESPONSE FROM THE
SECRETARY OF
EDUCATION
United States Department of
Education
The Secretary
April 26, 1994
President John Agresto
St. John's College
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
Dear John:
Thank you for your thoughtful
letter dated March 22, 1994, in
which you expressed your views
concerning the U.S. Department of
Education's (Department) guidance
on race-targeted financial aid. I also
appreciate your offer to print information on the department's policy
in your newsletter. Please feel free
to print this letter as a statement of
the department' s position.
I can assure you that the
department carefully considered
every aspect of this policy guidance
as it was developed, ta king into
account the concerns expressed by
students, higher education officials,
civil rights organizations, and other
parties interested in the subject. The
department reviewed nearly 600
written comments from the public
before issuing the final policy guidance, most of which supported the
use of race-targeted financial aid to
promote diversity and minority
access to postsecondary education.
The d epartment also considered the
findings made by the General
· Accounting Office (GAO) in a
Vo lum e JI! , I ss u e 2
report on minority-targeted scholarships released on January 14, 1994.
According to the GAO report, racetargeted scholarships constitute a
very small percentage of the scholarships awarded to students at postsecondary institutions, but are considered to be an important tool for
the recruitment and retention of
minority students.
The guidance identifies and
discusses five principles under
which the consideration of race or
national origin in the award of
financial aid is permissible. The
guidance does not require colleges to
adopt race-targeted aid programs; it
merely states the circumstances
under which such programs are
permissible under Title VI. These
principles apply to financial aid for
students of all races and national
origin groups.
As stated in the guidance, lalso
encourage the use by postsecondary
institutions of other efforts to
recruit and retain minority students,
which are not affected by the policy
guidance.
I understand and appreciate your
concerns, and I too look forward to
the day when no college will need
to consider race in order to provide
equal access and a diverse educational environment and experience.
Indeed, the department is strongly
committed to the goal of ensuring
equal access for all students
regardless of race, color, or national
origin, and has recognized this
para mount goal in i ts mission
statement. At this point in time, however, I do not believe that we have
achieved this important objective.
Due to a long history of discrimination and limited access to higher
education for many groups of students, I believe that it may still be
necessary for colleges to consider
LETT E R S from Santa F e
race under certain circumstances
when awarding financial aid, and
(as explained in the legal analysis
in the policy guidance) that the law
does support this limited consideration. Note also, however, that the
policy guidance explicitly calls for
periodic reassessment by colleges
of their race-targeted financial aid
programs to ensure that they are
used only when necessary to achieve
legally recognized objectives.
Thank you again for taking the
time to write and for sharing your
thoughts with me on this important
subject.
Yours sincerely,
Richard W. Riley
page tw e nty - f i ve
�RACE, SCHOLARSHIPS
AND THE AMERICAN
by
Lamar Alexander
... the most stubborn
barrier of all may be
the vel}' notion that
our rights and liberties
are somehow rooted
in groups, not in
individuals, so that
people should be
rewarded or restricted
on the basis of race.
page twenty-six
The Clinton Administration
recently ruled that colleges may
award scholarships based exclusively
on race. It made me think of my
late friend Alex Haley, who wrote
Roots and helped write The
Autobiography of Malcolm X.
One of Alex's most wonderful
stories was about his father Simon
and how he made his way through
college. Simon was the only child
"wasted" by his sharecropper
parents, that is, allowed to graduate
from high school rather than work in
the fields. After a difficult two years
at AT&T College in Greensboro,
N.C., Simon found a summer job as
a porter on the train between
Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Late one
night, a man having trouble sleeping
rang the bell to request a glass of
warm milk. Young Simon brought
it. An extended conversation ensued.
There was a good tip, but Simon
thought nothing more about it.
Simon returned to campus
reluctantly in the fall. Other students
were making fun of his one pair of
pants and shoes. It was a struggle
to make passing grades without
textbooks and while working outside jobs. He was about to give it
up. Then word came that the college
president wanted to see him.
Simon went to the administration
office. The president handed him
an envelope containing a $500
check, exactly enough to pay for his
LETTERS from Santa F e
tuition and expenses. The check
had come from the man on the
train.
When I was president of the
University of Tennessee, we wanted
to commemorate the story of "The
Man on the Train" with a Simon P.
Haley scholarship. Someone said,
"Alex, we'll make it for young
black men just like your father."
Alex thought for a minute, and
then he said "No. The scholarships
should be for everybody."
I remembered what Alex said
when President Bush appointed me
U.S. secretary of education in early
1991 and I found on my desk the
question: Does Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 permit a college
receiving federal aid to award or
deny scholarships solely on the race
of a student?
The statutory language seemed
clear enough: "No person in the
United States shall, on the ground
of race, color, or national origin, be
excluded from participation in, be
denied benefits of, or be subjected
to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal
financial assistance."
So I said no, college scholarships should be for everybody.
Now my successor, Dick Riley, has
"straightened out" that decision by
ruling that a college may, after all,
discriminate on the basis of race.
He doesn't mean it this way, but it's
an invitation to quotas and it's a
mistake.
Let's be clear: There is no disagreement about helping needy
students. Half of all U.S. college
students have a federal grant or
loan to help pay for college, almost
always based on financial need.
Such awards go disproportionately
to minorities. What's more, any
college president with a warm heart
Volume III, Issue 2
�and a little common sense has
many other ways under the law to
help a deserving student without
focusing on his or her skin color.
What we don't agree about is
whether U.S. national policy should
be that it's okay to choose one race
over another in the granting of
scholarships. I believe that this is
wrong.
Should, for example, the
University of California say to
Roosevelt High School seniors in
Los Angeles, "We have a scholarship for the Latino, but not for the
African-American, one for the Asian
student but not for the white student?"
The answer to such questions
goes straight to the heart of the
kind of university that we want.
And what kind of country we want.
Racial preferences and quotas
are almost never a good idea.
They're an especially bad idea on
college and university campuses,
too many of which are bewitched
by a cult of enforced diversity that
feeds straight into an ugly mood of
separatism and resentment.
I much prefer-most of us docam puses that attract people of
many different backgrounds. But
there are ample ways to achieve
that result without scholarships
based on race. (In fact, it is hard to
imagine a student eligible for a
race-exclusive scholarship who
might not be eligible for some other
scholarship based on need, or
merit, or upon an effort to create
campus diversity or to remedy past
discrimination, or even a scholarship that is funded privately or created specifically by federal law. My
decision in 1991 pointed out that
the law permits all of these
options.)
Growing up in the South, I
understand why many Americans
Volum e III , I ss ue 2
feel moved to offer race-based
financial aid. I have spent much of
my adult life-as college newspaper
editor, governor, university president
and citizen-creating ways to knock
down barriers that closed doors,
especially to black Americans.
But the most stubborn barrier
of all may be the very notion that
our rights and liberties are somehow
rooted in groups, not in individuals,
so that people should be rewarded
or restricted on the basis of race.
That's not the promise of
American life. Abraham Lincoln
did not speak of preferences based
on race. Martin Luther King, Jr.
said that men and women should
be judged by the content of their
character, not the color of their
skin. Our constitution speaks of
equal protection.
When we give that up, we give
up a great deal. There are too many
examples of how quotas become
ceilings and how preference for one
becomes denial for another.
Looking around the world, we can
see what happens to societies that
become preoccupied with race,
ethnicity or group.
Simon Haley discovered that,
especially in America, education is
the best way back toward the front
of the line. He graduated first in his
class from college and went on to
Cornell to pursue his master's
degree. He raised children who
include an architect, the current
chairman of the U.S. Postal Rate
Commission, a music teacher, and a
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. We
should be trying to create opportunities like Simon's for every young
American, regardless of race.
Instead, on this as on many other
matters, the Clinton Administration
is leading the country-with mounting speed and certainty-in exactly
LETTERS from Santa F e
the wrong direction . This time,
they're leading us away from the
dream of making one people from
many . Instead of bringing us
together, they're tugging us apart,
inevitably pitting us one against the
other. If that is what we are teaching, no wonder so many of our children and grandchildren are doubting the American Dream. It is hard
to see the promise of American life
if the leaders of our country cannot
remember what the promise is.
My friend Alex said it best.
Opportunities, such as scholarships,
should be for everybody.
Lamar Alexander has been U.S. secretary of education, president of the
University of Tennessee, and governor
of Tennessee.
Excerpted from "Of race, scholarships
and the American way," The Washington
Times, Wednesday, March 16, 1994.
Reprinted with permission.
pag e twenty-s eve n
�PODBERESKY V.
UNIVERSITY OF
denial of Podberesky' s motion for
summary judgment, and we
remand for entry of judgment in
favor of Podberesky.
MARYLAND AT COLLEGE
PARK
Let's end this issue of Letters with the
most recent minority-scholarship case,
Podberesky v. University of Maryland. In
upholding the right of Daniel Podberesky
not to be excluded from scholarship
competition because of his ethnicity
(Hispanic), the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit restated and reaffirmed the old American notion that,
except in the narrowest of circumstances, "race-neutral solutions" are to
be preferred to those that are raceexclusive. Whether this decision will
stand remains to be seen. -J.A.
Excerpted from
Daniel J. Podberesky v.
University of Maryland at College Park
October 27, 1994.
Mr. Widener, Circuit Judge:
The issue in this case is whether
the University of Maryland at
College Park may maintain a separate
scholarship program that it voluntarily
established for which only AfricanAmerican students are eligible.
Because we find that the district
court erred in finding that the university had sufficient evidence of present
effects of past discrimination to justify
the program and in finding that the
program is narrowly tailored to serve
its stated objectives, we reverse the
district court's grant of summary
judgment to the university. We further reverse the district court's
p age t wen ty - eig ht
L E T TE R S from S anta F e
*
*
*
*
*
As we have said before,
"Racial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently
suspect and thus call for the
most exacting judicial examination." Wygant v. Jackson
Board of Education, 476 U.S. 267,
273 (1986) (plurality opinion)
(quoting Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke,
438 U.S. 265, 291 (1978)
(Powell, J.)). The rationale for
this stringent standard is plain.
Of all the criteria by which
men and women can be
judged, the most pernicious is
that of race. The injustice of
judging human beings by the
color of their skin is so apparent
that racial classifications cannot
be rationalized by the casual
invocation of benign remedial
aims. City of Richmond v. f.A.
Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 500
(1989) . While the inequities
and indignities visited by past
discrimination are undeniable,
the use of race as a reparational
device risks perpetuating the
very race-consciousness such a
remedy purports to overcome.
... It thus remains our constitutional premise that race is an
impermissible arbiter of
human fortunes." Maryland
Troopers Ass'n v. Evans, 993 F.
2d 1072, 1076 (4th Cir. 1993).
*
*
*
*
*
We have established a two-step
analysis for determining whether a
particular race-conscious remedial
V o l u m e III , I ss u e 2
�measure can be sustained under the
Constitution: (1) the proponent of
the measure must demonstrate a
"strong basis in evidence for its
conclusion that remedial action [is]
necessary;" and (2) the remedial
measure must be narrowly tailored
to meet the remedial goal.
*
*
*
*
*
[W]e disagree with the district
court that the first effect, a poor
reputation in the African-American
community, and the fourth effect, a
climate on campus that is perceived
as being racially hostile, are sufficient,
standing alone, to justify the singlerace Banneker Program. As the district court's opinion makes clear,
any poor reputation the university
may have in the African-American
community is tied solely to knowledge of the university's discrimination before it admitted AfricanAmerican students. There is no
doubt that many Maryland residents,
as well as som e citizens in other
states, know the university's past
segregation, and that fact cannot be
denied. However, mere knowledge
of historical fact is not the kind of
present effect that can justify a raceexclusive remedy. If it were otherwise, as long as there are people
who have access to history books,
there will be programs such as this
one. Our d ecisions do not permit
such results.
The hostile climate effect proffered by the university suffers from
another flaw, however. The main
support for the university's assertion
that the campus climate is hostile
to African-American students is
contained in a survey of student
attitudes and reported results of
student focus groups. For an articulated effect to justify the program,
Volum e Ill , I ss ue 2
however, there must be a connection
between the past discrimination
and the effect. . .. The district court
appears to have found the connection
between the university's previous
discriminatory acts and the present
attitudes obvious, but we have not
so found it. The frequency and
regularity of the incidents, as well
as claimed instance of backlash to
remedial measures, do not necessarily
implicate past discrimination on the
part of the university, as opposed to
present societal discrimination,
which the district court implicitly held.
When we begin by assuming
that every predominately white
college or university discriminated
in the past, whether or not true, we
are no longer talking about the kind
of discrimination for which raceconscious remedy may be prescribed.
Instead, we are confronting societal
discrimination, which cannot be
used as a basis for supporting a
race-conscious remedy. There is no
doubt that racial tensions still exist
in American society, including the
campuses of our institutions of
higher learning. However, these
tensions and attitudes are not sufficient ground for employing a raceconscious remedy at the University
of Maryland.
court found that the statistics
showed that African-American
students had higher attrition rates
than any other identifiable group
on campus.
*
*
*
*
*
Even if we assumed that the
university had demonstrated that
African-Americans were underrepresented at the university and that
the higher attrition rate was related
to past discrimination, we could not
uphold the Banneker Program. It is
not narrowly tailored to remedy the
under representation and attrition
problems.
*
*
*
*
*
We turn next to the two effects
that rely on statistical data: under
representation of African-American
students at the university and low
retention and graduation rates for
African-American students. The
district court found that there was
strong evidence of African-American
underrepresentation in the university's e nte ring-student classes.
With respect to the low retention
a nd graduation rates, the district
The district court found that the
Banneker Program attracted "highachieving black students" to the
university, which "directly increases
the number of African-Americans
who are admitted and likely to stay
through graduation. Even more
importantly, the Program helps to
build a base of strong, supportive
alumni, combat racial stereotypes and
provide mentors and role models for
other African-American students.
Continuation of the Program thus
serves to enhance [the university's]
reputation in the African-American
community, increase the number of
African-American students w h o
might apply to the university,
improve the retention rate of those
African-American students who are
admitted and help ease racial tensions that exist on campus." In sum,
the district court found that the
Banneker Program is employed by
the university as an effective
recruiting tool tha t draws highachieving African-Americans to the
university. The district court fur-
LET TE R S f rom Sa nt a F e
page twenty - nine
*
*
*
*
*
�ther noted that the university's
"success in curing the vestiges of its
past discrimination depends upon
it attracting high-achieving AfricanAmericans to the College Park
campus." ... If the purpose of the
program was to draw only highachieving African-American students
to the university, it could not be
sustained. High-achievers, whether
African-American or not, are not
the group against which the university discriminated in the past.
*
*
*
*
*
The district court found the
program to be narrowly tailored to
increasing representation because
an increase in the number of highachieving African-American students
would remedy the under representation problem. The district court
so found because it reasoned that
the Banneker Scholars would serve
as mentors and role models for
other African-American students,
thereby attracting more AfricanAmerican students. The Supreme
Court has expressly rejected the
role-model theory as a basis for
implementing a race-conscious
remedy, as do we.
We are thus of opinion that, as
analyzed by the district court, the
program more resembles outright
racial balancing than a tailored
remedy program. As such, it is not
narrowly tailored to remedy past
discrimination. In fact, it is not
tailored at all.
*
*
*
*
Program. To the extent that the
district court's opinion can be read
as having found a connection
between the university's poor
reputation and hostile environment
and the Banneker Program, it is on
either a role model theory or a societal discrimination theory, neither
of which can be sustained. In addition, there is no connection between
the Banneker Program and shared
experience with family members,
African-American faculty members,
or jobs and housing. Even if there is
some connection between the two,
the university has not made any
attempt to show that it has tried,
without success, any race:.neutral
solutions to the retention 'problem.
Thus, the university's choke o(a
race-exclusive merit scholarship
program as a remedy C:al\;;,ot Be
sustained.
Because we find that the univ~i!Y
has not shown that its prog~q!s
and quota goals are narro,~ly
tailored, we reverse the di"strist
court's grant of summary judgment
to the university. We also reverse
the district court's denial df
Podberesky's summary judgment
motion.
*
The causes of the low retention
rates submitted both by Podberesky
and the university and found by
the district court have little, if anything, to do with the Banne ker
pag e t h irty
L ETTE R S f r om Santa F e
V o l um e Ill , I ssu e 2
�Join people from around the country this summer to read and discuss
some of the greatest literature, philosophy and opera of all time.
St.John's
College
Summer Classics is a one-to three-week residential education/vacation
Santa Fe, New Mexico
opportunity for adults from all backgrounds.
Seminars are conducted by members of the faculty each morning
from 10 a.m. to noon. In the afternoons and evenings participants
explore historic Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico.
Conference
Services
Week One - July 16 - 22
Homer, Iliad
Dostoevski, Crime and Punishment
Sophocles, The Theban Plays
Week Two - July 23 - 29
Opera, Salome, Fanciulla
Lincoln
Virgil, The Aeneid
Week Three - July 30 - August 5
Opera, Salome, Fanciulla
Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy
Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Located on 250 acres in the
Sangre de Cristo foothills overlooking Santa Fe, the St. John's College
campus is a quiet oasis, ideal for
conference activities. During the
summer months, June to August,
the college extends its meeting,
housing and dining facilities to offcampus programs. These programs
have included national and international educational meetings, music
institutes, scientific conferences and
special business and legislative
workshops. If you would like further information on our conference
facilities, or would like to plan your
next program with us, please write
the director of Conferences and
Symposia or call: (505) 984-6024
Fellowships Available For College Faculty
St. John' s College is now offering partial fellowships of up to $2900 for
summer graduate study, thanks to a major grant from the Lynde and
Harry Bradley Foundation. Fellowship recipients will attend summer sessions
of the St. John's College Graduate Institute in Santa Fe.
The fellowships provide the opportunity for college faculty from other
institutions to immerse themselves in a great books curriculum and in the
St. John's method of teaching.
To be eligible, a college must propose at least two faculty members to
attend each summer and cover part of the instructional costs. For further
information, please contact The Graduate Institute, St. John's College,
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501-4599; (505) 984-6082.
V olum e III , I ss u e 2
LETT E R S from Sant a F e
page th i rty - on e
�St. John's College:
An independent, non-sectarian, four-year liberal arts college.
Founded:
Established in 1696 in Annapolis, Maryland, as King William's School and chartered in 1784 as St. John's College.
Great Books Program adopted 1937. Second campus in Santa Fe opened in 1964.
Curriculum:
An integrated, four-year, all-required liberal arts and science program based on reading and discussing, in loosely
chronological order, the great books of Western civilization. The program also includes four years of foreign language,
four years of mathematics, three years of laboratory science, and one year of music.
Approach:
Tutorials, laboratories, and seminars requiring intense participation replace more traditional lectures. Classes are very small.
Student/Faculty ratio is 8:1.
Degrees Granted:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, Master of Arts in Eastern Classics.
Student Body:
Enrollment is limited to about 400 students on each campus. Current freshman class is made up of 55% men and 45%
women, from 37 states and several foreign countries. Sixty-five percent receive financial aid. Students may transfer
between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses.
Alumni Careers:
Education - 21 %, Business - 20%, Law - 10%, Visual and Performing Arts - 9%, Medicine - 7%, Science and
Engineering - 7%, Computer Science - 6%, Writing and Publishing - 5%.
Graduate Institute:
The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education is an interdisciplinary master's degree program based on the same
principles as the undergraduate program. Offered on both campuses year-round. Readers of the newsletter may be
especially interested in applying for our summer session. For more information please contact The Graduate Institute
in Santa Fe, 505/984-6082 or in Annapolis, 410/626-2541.
Graduate Program in Eastern Classics:
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Letters from Santa Fe
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A newsletter published by the Santa Fe President's Office that includes articles about liberal education.
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Letters from Santa Fe, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1994
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Letters from Santa Fe, St. John’s College—Santa Fe, New Mexico, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1994
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Agresto, John
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1994
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Ravitch, Diane
Cohen, Carl, 1931-
Carter, Stephen
Alexander, Lamar, 1940-
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Letters_from_SF_Vol_3_Issue_2_1994
Presidents
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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Time, Eternity, and the ‘Tyranny of History’ in Islamic Philosophy
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Audio recording of a lecture given by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad on September 28, 2022 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "An examination of the problem of time and eternity in the context of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) and the problems and paradoxes raised by this in Islamic philosophy. This is a long-standing debate not only in Islam but in other religious traditions which cultivated philosophy as well, especially the Christian and the Jewish traditions. The classic example of this debate in Islam is the famous exchange between Ibn Rushd (d. 595 H/1198 CE) and al-Ghazālī (d. 505 H/1111 CE). The latter is well-known to Western students of philosophy, but developments since that time remain virtually unknown to the Western world. We will take the exchange between Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazālī as our point of departure and examine the roots of the question before Islam as well as examine its development after Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazālī in the profoundly original doctrine of “non-temporal origination” formulated by Mīr Dāmād. The question also continues among Muslim scholars in modern times and a few examples will be offered."
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Ahmad, Saiyad Nizamuddin, 1966-
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St. John's College
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2022-09-28
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Islamic philosophy
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SF_AhmadS_Time_Eternity_and_the_Tyranny_of_History_2022-09-28
Friday night lecture
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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00:56:06
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Hegel on Reason in History
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered by Mark Alznauer, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Northwestern University, on September 20, 2019 as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Alznauer describes his lecture topic as follows: "Hegel says that the only presupposition that the philosopher brings to history is the simple thought of reason, that reason rules the world. In this lecture, I will compare Hegel’s philosophical histories (of the state, art, religion, and philosophy) to more empirical approaches, paying particular attention to the conceptual form of Hegel’s histories."
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Alznauer, Mark
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2019-09-20
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sound
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Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831
History--Philosophy
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English
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Alznauer_Mark_2019-09-20
Alumni
Friday night lecture
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Text
-
SPRING 1996
~-I
. . ~_.'
:
. '· '
. ·.' ·
�ENERG E I A: The activity in which anything is fully itself.
fi ...vou EVEpyELa(wv ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b)
SENIOR EDITOR
Christopher Anderson
JUNIOR EDITOR
Lydia Polgreen
FACULTY ADV I SO R
Abraham Schoener
S P EC I AL THANKS
To the Print Shop:
Marcia Baldwin
Chris Colby
Vernon Magee
Don Smith
also to:
Eva Brann
Jennifer Coonce
Lynette Dowty
Cindy Lutz
Seth Milliken
Adrienne Rogers
Jennifer Swaim
Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published once a year and distributed among the students,
faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all
members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like.
�TABLE OF CONTENTS
John Singleton
September 17, 1995 .............................................. 1
Carla Echevarria
Joyce's Ulysses: The Quest for Paternity ............. 2
Matthew Braithwaite
Magical Politics and the Perfection of Nature ...... 7
Jesse Berney
Haiku on the Motion of a Stretched String ........ 16
Eva Brann
Translation of Hermann Hesse's
An Evening At Home With Doctor Faustus ........ 17
Beatrice Robbins
Form of Language .............................................. 20
Dawn Star Shuman
They Do Not Understand: A Discussion of
the Heracleitus Fragment Number 12 ..... ........... 24
Janice Cater
"For He Unlocked the Hidden Treasuries of Truth"
Entertaining Ourselves with the Delightful
Contemplation of Newton's Principia ............... 26
Peter Smith
Heroism in Racine's Phedre ............................... 34
Alexa Van Dalsem
Lyric Narrative ................................................... 37
�September 17, 1995
By John Singleton
February 1996
First-born son and Sunday born,
Blue-lipped, in fits he kicked and hit,
A wingbeat flutter in my arms,
He sung to me in squeaks and clicks.
Like yeast and flour, the doughy flesh,
Rose round, lamb-soft, and toasty white,
His vernixed skin baked oven fresh,
Eyes fixed upon the simple light.
He'll go - and in his journey find,
A young man's passion, folly, joy.
A father measures his decline,
In set-jawed stances of the boy.
My own song then, I do extend.
A relic father to his son.
That wet lipped at the breast again
Hot fisted under sabbath sun:
Dance chanting in the star-lit night,
Stomp blessings 'round its fires,
Bend low beneath the kindred light,
Sons crowned, unbound, unbriered.
"Sing kindness in life's mystery,
Beat praises to adventure,
Sculpt rhythms to its history,
Painting beauty at its center."
�J 0 Y CE ' S ULYSSES : THE QUE ST F 0 R PATERNITY
Joyce's Ulysses: The Quest for Paternity
By Carla Echevarria
Of "many-faced" Odysseus' many faces, one of
those we glimpse least is that of him as a father.
Among his multiplicity of personas throughout the
Iliad and Odyssey are the sailor, the captain, the soldier, the trickster, the king, and of course, the mighty
hero. In the latter poem, we also get a chance to see
him as a husband: his long journey home and the
bloody battle to reclaim his household finally find their
conclusion in tl.ie arms of his beloved Penelope.
But what of Odysseus' relationship with his son,
Telemachus? Comparatively little is written about the
reunion of the father with the son he left as a child,
and found a young man. The result of their reunion is
not a profound "mingling in love," filled with nostalgia and story-telling, but a strategic military alliance.
They unite, but as soldiers, not family.
Joyce's Ulysses is a hero in a much-less-thanmighty sense, and he is not at all a sailor, a soldier, or
a king. But Leopold Bloom, at the end of the day,
holds at least the potential for fatherhood. His odyssey through the Dublin of June 16, 1904, past dead
men, drunks, whores, and Catholics, is one well worth
considering with an eye to this potential end.
When we first meet Bloom, he is the Odysseus of
he Calypso episode: chained in domestic servitude to
a goddess. Newly risen in the morning, his first concern is to prepare his wife's breakfast while she sleeps,
and serve it to her in bed before attending to his own
meal. It is clearly a regular morning ritual which Molly
no longer even appreciates. Over the course of the
morning, he displays signs of his marital servitude as
he takes great care in running small errands for his
wife: buying her favorite kind of soap at the druggist's,
even picking out a sufficiently smutty romance novel
to suit her reading tastes. While in another marriage
these might be construed as little gestures of love, the
fact that Bloom obviously does them out of habit and
that Molly obviously doesn't care transforms them
instead into shackles of slavery. Bloom must escape
this ''Calypso's island" in order to realize the goal of
his odyssey to fatherhood.
The episode that follows ends with Bloom taking
a bath. The organs corresponding to this episode in
Joyce's schema 1 are the genitals, and it is here that we
first get an explicit look at the sexual Bloom. His
organ of fatherhood is described as he sits contemplating it in the bath:
sheds much light upon a re-reading of this episode,
for it marks the beginning of Bloom's odyssey toward
fatherhood. At this point, he is "limp," and only the
"father of thousands" by a remote potential, one that
he brings closer to actualization by the end of the day.
The Nausicaa episode [Book II, Ch. 10] describes
a significant turning-point in Bloom's sexual process.
It is 8 p.m., at the end ,of Bloom's working-day, and
he has come to take a walk on the beach. An entire
conversation of non-verbal flirtation-from-afar that
takes place between him and the Nausicaa figure of
the episode, a young girl named Gerty MacDowell.
She coyly shows off her undergarments to him and
awakens his sexual desire. Joyce uses the description
of the fireworks display to hint at what is happening
to Bloom, as the tumescence technic of the episode
swells and climaxes with him:
And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind
blank and 0 ! then the Roman candle burst
and it was like a sigh of 0 ! and everyone
cried 0 ! 0 ! in raptures and it gushed out of
it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they
shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars
falling with golden, 0 so lovely! 0 so soft,
sweet, soft! [Book II, Ch. 10]
He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over
and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemon
yellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the
dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father
of thousands, a languid floating flower. [Book
II, Ch. 2]
We do not learn until much later that his "languid floating flower" has been languid for eleven years; he has
been impotent since the death of his infant son, Rudy,
at the age of eleven days. This information, however,
1In
his "schema" for Ulysses, Joyce lists the Title, Scene, Hour,
Organ, Art, Symbol, Color, and Character Correspondences that
correspond with each chapter, or episode, of the novel. For example, let us take the first episode of the Book II: it is Titled the
"Calypso" episode, and narrates a Scene which takes place in
Bloom's house at the Hour of 8 a.m. The Organ of the kidney
plays a prominent and interesting part in this episode, and because it concerns Bloom's domestic matters, the Art corresponding to it is economics. The Title alone makes it clear that the
central Symbol of the episode is the nymph. Joyce chooses to
identify this episode with the Color orange; he has written the
episode with a Technic he chooses to describe as a "mature narrative". And, finally, the Correspondences between Joyce's characters and Homer's are listed as: "Bloom= Odysseus, Molly =
Calypso".
glish, to Middle, to Elizabethan. The transitions are
seamless, and the reader feels as though he is witnessing somehing changing and growing with time, like a
child in the womb. It is the Oxen of the Sun episode,
and oxen are one of the age-old symbols of fertility. It
is in this episode that Bloom's quest for fatherhood finds
its first concrete object, in the form of Stephen Dedalus.
Stephen, whom Joyce's schema explicitly lists as
the Telemachus figure to Bloom's Odysseus, is in this
episode sitting in a waiting-room at the hospital drinking with some rowdy, young companions. What we
know about him has been established by the first three
chapters of the novel, which Joyce names the
Telemachia, and by the story of his early years as told
in A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. We know
him as a charismatic young man whose status as an
"artist" has yet to be firmly established; we have seen
into his mind, saturated with a mess of unorganized
bits of erudition, and acutely conscious of itself. But
his role as the "son" of Bloom is yet unclear (their
paths have not even crossed except in indirect encounter), and will only come to fruition over the course of
this evening which has just begun.
The conversation that the young men are having
over their drinks is largely concerned with sex and
pregnancy. At one point, Stephen condemns contraceptive intercourse and masturbation, asserting, in
Thomistic argument, that the true end of sex is parenthood: "Gramercy, what of those Godpossibled
souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sin
against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of
Life? For, sirs, our lust is brief. We are but means to
those small creatures within us and nature has other
ends than we."
The setting of this episode in a maternity hospital
serves a purpose other than symbolism: Bloom, hearing the cries of women in labor, recollects the birth of
his own son, Rudy, and it is the recollection that becomes an important segue into his paternal focus on
Stephen:
His onanism demonstrates that Bloom has regained his virile capacity for fertilization, and he is
one step closer to fatherhood.
From here, Bloom proceeds to the maternity ward
of the National Maternity Hospital on Holles street.
This episode [Book II, Ch. 11], one of the most stylistically difficult, opens with three incantations, each ·
reapeated thrice. They are delivered in the manner of
the Arval Hymn, a chant which was part of a ceremony
performed by the Fratres Arvales, priests of the Roman goddess of fertility. 2 This, along with the less
subtle hint of the maternity hospital, are Joyce's signals to the attentive reader that this chapter will deal
with fertility and reproduction.
.
This theme is reflected even in the technic which
Joyce uses. In an impressive display oflinguistic capacity, he has written the chapter in a style that evolves
slowly over the course of the episode, from Old En-
But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre
his word by cause he still had pity of the terror-causing shrieking of shrill women in their
labour and as he was minded of his good lady
Marion that had borne him an only manchild
which on his eleventh day had died and no
2
1 owe this information to Ulysses Annotated, by Don Gifford, p. 408.
3
�ENERGEIA
to "she." Bella/Circe is the central figure of this episode, and she represents the emasculating powers that
Bloom must face and overcome.
The madam herself switches back and forth between being Bella and Bello, and in her masculine
aspect she is cruel and tyrannical like the Homeric
goddess, holding dominion over Bloom with the
words, "Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in
earnest, a thing under the yoke." She then makes him
put on women's clothing of "shot silk". She and her
whores then hold Bloom down to the floor and torture
him with physical sadism as she recites a litany of his
womanlike weaknesses. These turn out to be multiple and rather surprising. Made to don a corset, petticoat, and garters, he confesses to being a cro~s
dresser: to having tried on his mother's clothes, and
to having been turned into a "true corsetlover" by playing a female impersonator in a high school play. He
is also revealed to have masochistic tendencies, linked
to his fear of women: "(Cowed.) Exuberant female.
Enormously I desiderate your domination." "The Sins
of the Past" parade by in a medley of voices, telling of
his deeds with whores and strumpets, his having masturbated in phone booths and over used-pieces of toilet paper, having written pencilled messages in pub1ic
places offering his wife's services "to all strong-membered males".
His subjugation to his wife is brought back to our
attention by Bello: "The missus is master. Petticoat
government." To this, Bloom can only reply, "That is
so." His gender reversal and Bella's is symbolic of
the reversal of traditional roles that has taken place in
his marriage. We are reminded of our very first look
at Bloom, eleven episodes ago, when he began his day
by bringing Molly breakfast in bed. Bello completes
the symbolism when he places a ring on the female
Bloom's finger and says, "With this ring I thee own."
The bizarre mess of hallucinations is finally shattered by Stephen, toward the end of the chapter, when
he shatters the chandelier with a blow of his ash plant.
With this sudden return of reality, Bloom regains his
masculi nity by taki ng control of the situation. Bello,
before whom the female Bloom once cowered in fear,
reverts to being Bella, and she in turn cowers before
the male Bloom, shrieking in fear when he raises the
ashplant as if to strike.
Having thus overcome the symbol of his emasculation in the form of Bello, Bloom is ready to take an
man of art could save so dark a destiny ...
and now sir Leopold that had of his body no
manchild for an heir looked upon him his
friend's son ... so grieved he also in no less
measure for young Stephen for that he lived
riotously with those wastrels and murdered
his goods with whores. [Book II, Ch. 11]
From Bloom's train of mental association, we can
see that Stephen is to somehow become a replacement Rudy, at least for one night. This, finally, is the
first explicit hint at the relationship between the two
men, predicting a crossing of paths which, by the end
of the evening, will have changed three lives forever.
From the hospital, Bloom follows Stephen and his
crew of "wastrels" to Dublin's red-light district, and
the Circe episode begins [Book II, Ch. 12]. It is probably the weirdest of all the episodes, written as a "hallucination" by Joyce's description, and it reads like a
surreal nightmare. Here, in the sordid setting of a lowclass brothel, we get a more intimate look into the
candid workings of both Bloom's psyche and
Stephen's, and the foundation of their relationship is
cemented.
Essential to paternity is masculinity, and one of
the most formidable obstacles in Bloom's path to fatherhood are the forces which seek to emasculate him.
In order for him to overcome his impotence and become a father, he must first overcome is emasculation
and become a man. The division between the sexes is
examined, contorted, ripped apart, and utterly done
away with in this episode, and it is the process by which
Bloom regains his manhood.
One of the most bizarre things about Bloom's
"hallucination" is the mess of gender-reversals that
take place in the episode, following the entrance of
the brothel's madam, Bella. She is the Circe figure of
the episode, and we are reminded that in Homer's epic,
Odysseus is warned by Hermes against this particular
goddess, "lest you find yourself unmanned by her".
In Homer's context, the warning is intended to mean
that Circe's magic turns men into swine, but in Joyce 's,
unmanned has a twofold meaning. Bella turns Bloom
not only from a man into a pig, but from a male into a
female. There are only the smallest, and rather confusing hints that this is so: Bloom falls to the ground
"on all fours" and cries "Truffles!", and at the same
time the personal pronoun pertaining to him switches
4
JOYCE'S ULYSSES: THE QUEST FOR PATERNITY
active, real step toward paternity. This he does by
rescuing Stephen from the redcoats who assault him.
As Bloom stands over the younger man, waiting for
Stephen to regain consciousness, a figure appears to
him, an eleven-year-old boy in a school uniform, reading a book. It is the figure of his son, Rudy, who died
at the age of eleven days, and is here seen by Bloom
at the age he would haV'e been had he lived. The white
lamb's wool coverlet that his mother knitted for his
burial is transformed into a white lambkin peeping out
of his waistcoat pocket. The delicate apparition hovers over Stephen, like the Holy Spirit above Christ in
the waters of Galilee, and serves to symbolically "baptize" Stephen and, finally, make Bloom a father.
Thus begins the Nostos, the homecoming [Book
III]. United with his father in Ithaca, Telemachus must
now help Odysseus conquer and slay the suitors who
overrun his household, that he may regain his position as master of his home.
Joyce spent a lot of time acquainting us with
Stephen Dedalus not because he is the essential figure
in this novel - else the novel might have been titled
Telemachus - but because he is the necessary component to Bloom's nostos. No other character in the
novel, not Buck Mulligan or Lynch or any other young
man, could have fulfilled the role that Stephen does in
Bloom's odyssey. This may be because of the reciprocative nature of their interaction: Stephen acquires
from his evening with Bloom something that no one
else could have given him, if only because no one else
would have been willing to be a father to him for one
night. In any case, the relationship that develops between Bloom and Stephen, adpotive father and son,
though it endures for only the remainder of the night,
would require an entire other essay to examine completely. I will not examine it incompletely here, because it is not the end of Bloom's odyssey toward fatherhood, but only the penultimate step.
Once father and son have stolen back into their
house, Telemachus bars the door behind them so that
the suitors may not escape. But most of the slaying is
left up to Odysseus. Likewise, after Bloom sneaks
into his house via the window (having forgotten his
keys), he lets Stephen in by the front door, and the
younger man locks the door behind him. But the "slaying" of the "suitors" is a task that Bloom must do alone.
The slaughter begins when Odysseus proves his
identity to the suitors by stringing the great bow that
none of them were able to string. Joyce lists the bow
in his schema as a symbol for reason, and it is through
reason - that is, rhetoric - that Bloom persuades
Stephen to quit the company of Buck Mulligan.
Mulligan corresponds in Joyce's schema to the first
suitor who is slain, Antinous. The second suitor who
is slain is Eurymachus, who corresponds to "Blazes"
Boyland, Molly's lover. Bloom "slays" Boylan in his
mind by rationally examining his emotional responses
to his own cuckoldry (envy, jealousy, abnegation, and
equanimity), and examining his options for retribution in a likewise very rational manner:
Assasination, never, as two wrongs did not
make one right. Duel by combat, no. Divorce,
not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed
ocular witness), not yet. Suit for damages by
legal influence or simulation of assault with
evidence of injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not
impossibly. [Book ill, Ch. 2]
Finally, he justifies the affair and his own feelings
by a process of reasoned "reflections" :
The preordained frangiblity of the hymen,
the presupposed intangibility of the thing in
itself. .. the fallaciously inferred debility of
the female, the muscularity of the male: the
variations of ethical codes. . .the continual
production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the
inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of
nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.
[Book III, Ch. 2]
Just as the aegis of Athena appears as a heavenly
portent in Odysseus' hall in the midst of all the slaying, Bloom and Stephen simultaneously observe a "celestial sign" in the form of "a star precipitated with
great apparent velocity across the firmament" as they
stand outside urinating.
When all the slaughter is done, Telemachus is sent
away and Odysseus fumigates his house, just as Bloom
does after Stephen's departure. Bloom has offered
him the guest bedroom of his house, but Stephen declines. They have made plans between them, for voice
lessons and Italian lessons, for "static, semistatic, and
5
�ENERGEIA
peripatetic intellectual dialogues" in the future, but
Bloom forsees difficulties in realizing these plans. He
recalls how:
once at a performance of Albert Hengler's
circus in the Rotunda, Rutland Square,
Dublin, an intuitive particoloured clown in
quest of paternity had penetrated from the
ring to a place in the auditorium where
Bloom, solitary, was seated and had publicly
declared to an exhilirated audience that he
(Bloom) was his (the clown's) papa. [Book
III, Ch ..2]
We learn that the clown was not, as a matter of
fact, Bloom's son. This memory is an illustration of
what Bloom calls "the irreparability of the past." The
past stands as it has happened, with Bloom's biological son dead and Stephen's biological father being
someone else. It is for this reason that Stephen and
Bloom go their separate ways at the end of the evening.
Bloom may "adopt" Stephen for one night, as he has,
but adoptive fatherhood is not true fatherhood, and
his odyssey is not quite over yet.
Throughout the slaughter, Penelope lies unaware,
sleeping. When she awakens and.Odysseus presents
himself to her, she is skeptical, and after ten years of
separation, is reluctant at first to accept the "beggar"
in rags as her lost husband. What finally secures her
belief is Odysseus' knowledge of the unique construction of their marital bed.
The final episode of the novel takes place in
Bloom's marital bed, where Molly lies sleeping. He
climbs into bed, she awakens, and they converse a little
before falling back asleep. Two very important things
happen, however, and together they constitute Bloom's
final step towards fatherhood.
The first of these is that Bloom, in kissing his
wife's rump, gets an erection. This would not be a
spectacular event, were we not alert to the fact that it
is the first he's had while lying with his wife in eleven
years. Traumatized by the death of his only son, Bloom
was unable to have sexual relations with Molly for
over a decade. This, his first instance of arousal in
her presence, signals the beginning of a new episode
of fatherhood for Bloom.
The second important event is that Bloom, before
he falls asleep, requests that Molly get him breakfast
in bed the next morning. As she falls asleep, she reflects that "he never did a thing like that before", and
we again remember how, for time immemorial it
seems, Bloom always brought Molly breakfast in bed.
The event of Bloom's erection, a figurative return
to his marital bed after a long hiatus, is the culmination of the sexual process of revolution that has taken
place over the day: from his limpness in the bath, to
his masturbation on the beach, and finally to the beginnings of real sexual intimacy with a real woman,
his wife. His request for breakfast in bed is the culmination of the psychological process of revolution
that took place mainly in the Circe episode: the conversion of his marriage from a condition of domestic
servitude and inequality into a real union of love _ nd
a
partnership.
Bloom, with these apparently-inconsequential gestures, completes his odyssey and his homecoming. Just
as Odysseus must now rebuild his kingdom on Ithaca
and restore the familial bonds of his home, Bloom has
begun the rebuilding of the both the physical and psychological foundations necessary to raise a home. He
is ready to face a new marriage and a new fatherhood.
It will be a fatherhood not only in the adoptive sense,
but in the true, biological one. And as she drifts off to
sleep, Molly responds to this proposition,
yes I will Yes. •
6
Magical Politics and the Revelation and Perfection of Nature
By Matthew Braithwaite
The Tempest is a play the whose structure seems
knit together by political events. Prospero's betrayal
is the catalyst for the action of the play; his reinstatement its conclusion. Yet it is impossible to read the
play as the tale of a wronged duke regaining his dukedom. This is mostly because there is much of the play
that is more than political, and more to Prospero's actions than is necessary to his dukedom and Miranda's
marriage. Furthermore, his magical powers allow him
to achieve whatever ends he wishes with much less
delicacy than he in fact devotes. By being as delicate
as he is, Prospero manages wholly to avoid coercing
others to do his bidding: even Caliban gets a measure
of freedom. Prospero does form illusions and false
impressions as guides,,but the characters' actions are
their own. What is more, the situations Prospero creates prompt their actors more fully to express their
natures in their actions: his illusions allow the light of
truth to shine on whom they charm-a valuable gift
for a philosopher.
The decisions that most clearly enable this to happen are the division of the characters on Alonso's ship
into groups according to Prospero's aims, and the
manner in which Prospero appears to each group. To
Ferdinand he appears directly (since Ferdinand needs
no encouragement to fit into Prospero's plan; far from
it), and to Stephano and Trinculo through Caliban's
report. But he reserves his strongest use .o f magic for
Alonso (who needs prodding to find his conscience),
to whom he appears through the speech made by
Arie1's "figure of a harpy" .
The first scene of the play typifies Prospero' s treatment of Alonso and his company: he gives them pressures to endure, and all but Gonzalo take them poorly.
Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio are absurd in their
interference with the boatswain's office: they try to
command what they cannot, and obstruct those who
know better than they what to do. They are leaders
who, by not recognizing nature for the rightful authority during the tempest, show that they do not know
how to be led. When the boatswain says that they
"assist the storm" (l.i.14) 1 he is of course unaware that
the storm is Prospero's hand, but this is not lost on the
reader. This is the first of many wonderful such ironies: these three wicked men by their very character
cannot but assist the action of Prospero's justice upon
them. When they are exposed to "state of nature", it
becomes clear that Sebastian and Antonio do not have
nobility within them but thrust upon them, as their viciousness here and later shows. Despite Gonzalo's
urging them to behave as befits civilized men, it is
clear that they do not consider anyone's case to be as
their own.
From Prospero we shortly learn that their evil has
some history to it. The political arts that Prospero disdained, he cast upon Antonio, in whom they "awak'd
an evil nature" (I.ii.93):
Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who t' advance, and who
To trash for overtopping, new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd em,
Or else new form' d 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the ' state
To what tune pleas'd his ear (I.ii.79-85)
What Antonio learned, that is, were the arts of favor;
and with them he re-created Prospero's court in his
own image. The license granted Antonio by this power
is like that granted by the island: in most men, law
1
All quotations are taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, Vol. II,
G. Blakemore Evans, ed. All citations to the play are made within
the text in standard form. I am grateful to Dean Brann for her
guidance; and particularly for the suggestion that I write on a
work of literature, which, taken, has provided good instruction.
�ENERGEIA
fects nature, has so done, or merely gives the appearance thereof. Prospero's exchange with Gonzalo shows
that he is acutely and painfully aware of the horrors
that a civilized veneer can conceal:
may be relied on as a counterweight to wrongful desires; but a ruler must rely on conscience to serve in
that office, and Antonio has none. Like Caliban, he
gives free reign to his desires (though they are of a
different kind than Caliban's), subject only to practical obstacles; and so, like Caliban, he is slavish-the
most unfitting condition for a-ruler. If Gonzalo's statement that "our case is as theirs" (l.i.55) is metaphorical, meaning that the state of the subjects is as the
state of the sovereign (as we might suspect from
Prospero's metaphor of subjects being "new created"
in the sovereign 's image), the case of Antonio 's Milan
is truly miserable.
The most terrible example of Antonio and
Sebastian showing their true colors comes when
Prospero puts all but this evil pair to sleep. Prospero
clearly anticipates what in fact occurs, as is clear from
Ariel's words to Gonzalo:
Gon. Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of
Our human generation you shall find
Many, nay, almost any.
Pros. (Aside.) Honest lord,
Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
Are worse than devils.(III.iii.32-6)
The illusion created by Prospero for these "three
men of sin" that they are sole survivors on a desolate
island is completed by Ariel's appearance in III.iii.
Alonso, despairing of ever finding Ferdinand, is prepared to enter into the dream that Prospero has made
for him: that nature has requited his past injustices
through the death of his son. Though this is not, strictly,
true, one might well wonder if it makes a difference.
Gonzalo, despite his not having seen Ariel, sees nothing peculiar or inexplicable about Alonso's guilt. Nor
does Alonso himself think his own guilt to be a temporary insanity, as his penitence does not vanish with
Ferdinand's restoration: he has undergone, Scroogelike, a curative dream. Unlike his brother, Alonso is
not beyond redemption, and it is this that Prospero's
illusions cause him to reveal. When Prospero breaks
his charms, Alonso has expiated his guilt, and is
minded as Prospero wishes him to be, suggesting himself the very solution to all problems that Prospero
has planned:
My master through his art foresees the danger
That you, his friend, are in, and sends me forth
(For else his project dies) to keep them living.
(II.i.297-9)
Exactly as one might expect, Antonio's evil wells
to the surface, and resonates in Sebastian. Both in
this scheme and in his betrayal of Prospero, Antonio
counts on two things: the absence of strong men opposing him, and the means to crush any opposition
swiftly and decisively. In deposing his brother, the
first of these requirements is met by Prospero's preoccupation with study and by the malleability of his
subordinates; the second by Naples' army. In plotting
to do away with Alonso, he counts on being able to do
in Gonzalo as well (whom he had previously ridiculed,
but here takes seriously), and again on the weakness
of his victims' subordinates. The things Antonio fears
are men of strong conscience and outraged mobs.
What the island provides is a means of avoiding these
difficulties: there Gonzalo is easily killed, and a tearful Sebastian can tell the Neapolitan army and citizenry that his brother and nephew perished at sea. That
is to say, by its isolation the island gives aid chiefly to
the concealment (rather than to the perpetration) of an
evil deed. The fact that Gonzalo's waking does not
weaken Antonio's resolve suggests exactly this; that
by means of the freedom its isolation provides, the
island tests whether nurture, taken as that which per-
A daughter?
0 heavens, that they were living both i Naples,
The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish
Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
Where my son lies. (V.i.148-52)
But of course this neat end, which moves
Prospero's cherished daughter into the world, and in
so doing, restores Milan from its "most ignoble stooping", is like Alonso's penitence in respect of its cause:
though Prospero creates a setting in which the two
may fall in love, it is their own natures that draw them
together.
Ferdinand's isolation, like that of Antonio and
Sebastian, gives him a degree of liberty. He takes
8
MAGICAL POLITICS
Miranda for his bride, as he says, "when I could not
ask my father for his advice; nor thought I had one"
(V.i.190-1) (the pain of which thought Ariel's music
has softened). Miranda, for her part, is encouraged by
Prospero to disobey his commands and show her love
for Ferdinand: his own laborious trial tries her also.
Though Miranda thinks her father sleeps when she
converses with Ferdinand (III.i), both of them withstand their supposed freedom from his eyes with propriety. Indeed, Ferdinand's first request to Miranda is
that she "will some good instruction give on how I
may bear me here" (I.ii.425-6). Ferdinand carries his
nobility with him, and so Miranda's reaction to him,
Prospero knows, though, that she cannot forever
inhabit his artificially pure and dream-like world; that
he must release Miranda from being a daughter so that
she may become a queen. His statement that she is
ignorant of what she is (which fact she is aware of)
means, I think, that Miranda belongs also to the world
and that he can no longer keep her from it. Ferdinand's
wish that they may keep Prospero's wise company in
his island paradise is impossible, if for no other reason than that it denies a duty to rule. Miranda's upbringing on this island is, as Prospero says, blessed.
To him the world of the political is suspect, since it
conceals nature and breeds falsehoods: how could his
child know the true from the false in such a setting
when even he did not? Better to let her be exposed to
truths: the only imperfections which Miranda has seen
are Caliban's, and his nature is not evil, but simply not
human. Nothing of Caliban is concealed; his very appearance speaks his nature. Against him Miranda can
measure what it means to be a perfected human being.
So by experi~nce Miranda knows the distinction between animal and cultivated, about which it is impossible to be deceived; but she is not for her innocence
ignorant of the subtler corruptions particular to political man, as her question to Prosper_o, "Wherefore did
they not that hour destroy us?" (l.ii.137-8) shows.
Miranda is free from the clouded vision engendered
by the political world, and this may help her survive
in it. The forthrightness of her mind may be seen in
Ferdinand's courtship of her. They speak between
themselves with directness and purity. Miranda's admonition, "Hence, bashful cunning, and prompt me,
plain and holy innocence!" (III.i.81-2), is the prerogative of her nature. She and Ferdinand are such as
to banish suspicion and banter from each other's minds:
to see is to love.
Prospero's illusion for Ferdinand and Miranda is
the same as that he creates for Antonio and Sebastian:
freedom from watchful eyes. But the plain difference
between the two pairs is captured perfectly m
Ferdinand's defense of his virtue:
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
(l.ii.457-9)
and his to her, show great clarity of mind, though some
might cynically remark that it is only Miranda's naivete
that makes her speak thus, and that it was a lucky thing
for her that the first young man she set eyes on was
Ferdinand. This suggestion has an unfortunate hereditary parallel in the fault which lost Prospero his
dukedom. But this is too ugly a thought to be true; it
is both better and more plausible to take their "changing eyes" as the result of beautifully clear perception:
they see each other's spirits made flesh in each other's
appearances.
It might at first seem paradoxical to say that
Miranda exhibits this kind of sight. She is, after all,
entirely innocent of human affairs. But her wholeness
and intelligence say that she is not as ignorant as her
isolated upbringing might suggest. Prospero has devoted no small amount of care to his daughter's education, and the education of a scholar and magician
must be rich with teaching stories and dreams, and
other noble lies. Miranda has been in some measure
formed by Prospero's Art; she is a created thing, of
whom Prospero is justly proud:
Here, afore heaven,
I ratify this my rich gift. 0 Ferdinand,
Do not smile at me that I boast her off,
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise
And make it halt behind her. (IV.i.7-11)
... the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honor into lust... (IV.i .25-8)
And in fact, both pairs were given "the most
9
�ENERGEIA
opportune place" to act wickedly, but while opportunity exposes baseness in Antonio, it makes Ferdinand's
purity and devotion all the stronger. Prospero's description of Caliban as "a born devil, on whose nature
nurture can never stick" (IV.i.188-9) illustrates the
difference between these types neatly: it is clear that
nurture has done more than stick to Miranda and
Ferdinand. While Antonio's evil is concealed by his
civilized garments, Ferdinand's and Miranda's natures
incorporate the perfection of nurture, and so require
no revealing. This last can be said also of Caliban, for
when he is given opportunity he reveals nothing of
himself that was not obvious. Caliban and Miranda
are antitheses: the one animal and the other perfected,
but both true. But while Prospero calls Caliban a devil,
he rightly calls Antonio worse than a devil, because
he is nurture perverted. So Caliban is at the center the
play, for against him its foulest evil and most perfect
beauty are both opposed ..
Caliban has a deep connection to the island. Not
only was he born there, but he is, we assume, left alone
there at the end of the play. Where Prospero and
Miranda are guests on the island, Caliban is its sole
native. He knows the island's every corner, so much
so that the island provides for his sustenance. He is
infused with the island's nature. Strangely, misshapen
creature that he is, he speaks beautifully. Even his
curses are delivered in neatly-turned phrases. While
uncivilized and crude, Caliban is capable of feeling,
and is a lover of beauty, as this wonderful passage
reveals:
Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight
and hurt not. /Sometimes a thousand
twangling instruments /Will hum about
mine ears; and sometime voices, /That if I
then had wak'd after long sleep, /Will
make me sleep again, and then in dreaming, /The clouds methought would open,
and show riches /Ready to drop upon me,
that when I wak' d /I cried to dream again.
(Ill.ii.135-43)
It is no mere beast that dreams and takes delight in
music. What is, in a small way, tragic about these
capacities is that Caliban is not sensitive merely to
natural beauty, but also to human beauty. He has an
expression of wonder for nearly everyone in the play:
"These be fine things, and if they be not sprites. That's
a brave god, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to
him." (Il.ii.116-7); "But she so far surpasseth
Sycorax as great'st does least." (IIl.ii.102-3); "O
Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed! How fine my
master is!" (V.i.261-2). But if he finds beauty in
Stephano, it can only be in comparison to his own
ugliness. He is driven to serve Stephano simply because he sees him as something wondrously superior
to himself (though, to his credit, he eventually escapes
this misapprehension). Though it may be tempting to
call Caliban a natural slave because of this, natural
slavery requires that it be better for the one in question to be ruled. But Caliban is no better for Prospero's
rule over him, since the latter's "humanly taken pains"
cannot soften Caliban's inhuman nature. The idea of
natural slavery depends on rule improving on the state
of nature, but a human nature seems to be required to
be susceptible to this improvement. When Prospero
embarks for Naples, and Caliban is left alone as he
was before Prospero came, he will be just as he was
before, but with consciousness of his own inferiority
and of beauties he will never attain. If ever enlightenment were cruel it is so here.
The apparent contradiction between this picture
of Caliban on the one hand, and that of the ill-mannered and bestial slave on the other, wants explanation. Certainly it is not merely an animal that speaks
in unrhymed iambic pentameters. Caliban owes what
he is to three things: his bestial nature, which he inherits; the island on which he grew up; and his association with Prospero and Miranda. Caliban has had
from these two the gift of language. Though he says
that his only profit from it is cursing, this is far from
the truth. Without speech, there would be nothing curious
about Caliban: the creature Miranda describes (l.ii.355)
sounds truly like an unreasoning brute, an animal.
The reverence we have for speech causes us habitually to assume that the abilities which we see expressed in speech, such as reason and poetry, are inseparable from the faculty itself. In Caliban, we find
speech separate from humanity, so it pays to examine
what in Caliban is due to speech, and what is independent of it. Such a division would also be the division
between things that (in speaking creatures generally)
are learned, and things that are required to be susceptible to that learning.
10
MAGICAL POLITICS
Caliban first describes Prospero's teaching him
language thus:
different from an animal, but does merely that make him
rational as we understand the term to apply to ourselves?
If there is anyone in the play who typifies the man
in whom reason has its rightful place, it is Prospero.
His first words, "be collected", neatly summarize his
behavior throughout. Even in seeing Miranda's and
Ferdinand's love for each other he maintains his reserve, saying that he cannot be so glad as they because of the requirements of his designs. But his exchange with Ariel shows he is far from immunity to
passion:
[Thou wouldst] teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night; (l.ii.334-6)
If the most fundamental act of language, that of naming, had to be taught to Caliban, then Sycorax must
have died when he was very young, else she would
have done this. But more interesting is that Caliban's
own account of his learning language stresses his ability to name. Miranda's account is similar:
Ari. Him that you term'd, sir, "the good old
Lord Gonzalo", /His tears run down his
beard like winter's drops /From eaves of
reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em
/That if you now beheld them, your affections /Would become tender.
Pros. Dost thou think so, spirit?
Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.
Pros. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art
but air, a touch, a feeling /Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, /One of their
kind, that relish all as sharply /Passion as
they, be kindlier mov'd that thou art?
/Though with their high wrongs I am
strook to th' quick, /Yet, with my nobler
reason, gainst my fury /Do I take
part.(V.i.15-27)
When thou didst not, savage,
know thine own meaning, but wouldst
gabble like I A thing most brutish, I
endow'd thy purposes /With words that
made them known. (l.ii.355-8)
So both accounts of Caliban's learning, in other words,
describe his being given words for what he already
has. But Miranda says that prior to being given language, Caliban did not "know his own meaning". It
seems to me that this is the first of at least three aspects of Caliban concerning which the influence of
language ought to be investigated. The second is his
human aspect, expressed by such abilities as emotion
and dreaming. The third is his rationality-is there
any sense in which Caliban can be called rational?
Concerning these things, it is useful to rephrase
the above conclusion more formally: Miranda implies
that prior to language Caliban is capable of intent.
Similarly, Caliban's own words ("how to name the
bigger light...") suggest that prior to language, he was
capable of seeing things for things and (hopefully this
is not stretching a point) of seeing relations between
things: the roots of rational behavior. And Caliban's
plotting against Prospero (IIl.ii.87-103) looks a great
deal like the genuine article. One could, however,
observe that animals exhibit behavior that seems rational in the same way: if a wolf seldom attacks waking victims, can't we say that it forms unspoken syllogisms, for example "defenseless animals are easier
to kill, a sleeping animal is defenseless, therefore a
sleeping animal is easier to kill"? In other words, how
is instinct given language different from what we call
rationality? Caliban's use of language makes him
In this speech Prospero is held in the grip of two passions, fury and sympathy, with reason occupying its
proper role as arbitrator: the very paradigm of human
rationality. But the very fact of his sympathy is worth
noting, since Prospero has somewhat turned his back
on humanity. The chapters of his life with which the
play acquaints us are his solitude with his books, his
solitude on the island, and the solitude of his eventual
retirement to Milan. The first _ these was clearly
of
willful; and though his banishment was not, neither
does he look forward to his return to society with any
apparent relish-understandably so, since Prospero has
no very great reason to be fond of humanity in general (though he certainly holds some of its particulars
dear), for he is acutely and painfully aware of the spectrum of human natures that runs from Gonzalo to Antonio. This speech makes it difficult blithely to attach
to Prospero that most odious of scholarly stereotypes,
11
�ENERGEIA
the unfeeling automaton. Prospero more resembles
the philosopher-king, in that most of his joys in humanity, though lesser than those of the intellect, are
not precluded by the latter (and like the philosopherking, he evades his duty to rule).
Miranda, in contrast to her father, has none of the
gloom or cynicism that presumptively underlie his
withdrawal. Humanity's novelty to her makes it as
wondrous to her as to Caliban. Her reactions to the
dark underbelly of mankind are therefore a strange
mix of youthful emotion and innocence made potent
by a mature intellect. Her joy in her "brave new world"
is a gift of Prospero's upbringing, which may save her
from his disillusionment. Ferdinand is another, for he
and Miranda are two of a kind, and so will keep each
other from receding from the world. But Prospero
has no equals to call his companions, only his daughter and the insubstantial Ariel (who shares his secret
designs but not his humanity).
In addition to all this, Miranda has a genuine love
of humanity. Though Prospero's stories leave evil
known to her, her first words to him show that she is
perfectly unreserved with "the very virtue of compassion" (I.ii.27). Taken literally, as we are precisely to
do ("I have suffered with those that I saw suffer"
(I.ii.5)-the most precise evidence the subject admits
of), compassion could be called the fundamental social instinct. It is certainly remarkable in Miranda,
since she has only known the society of her father and
Caliban. It is doubly remarkable in that her life has
been uncommonly free from suffering. Her compassion, which we could say is due to something like
nurture (acting on a good nature), is exactly what is
absent in Caliban.
Caliban is driven by desire, and if he has a conscience it is surely vestigial, being bothered by attempts
at neither rape nor murder. But we are obviously not
meant to take Caliban as an evil nemesis, since his
attempt to do away with Prospero is entered into with
drunken buffoons: the contemplation of murder is
mingled with the comic relief. Caliban's animal nature, the way his actions flow directly from his desires, is precisely what mitigates his contemplation of
murder, even as carefully as he plans it (Ill.ii.8795). If an act is not just unless it is done with just
intent, then we may say that an act is not evil unless it
is done with evil intent. And if one cannot intend to
act justly without some knowledge of the just, one
cannot have evil intention without some knowledge
of evil.
Most would agree that evil acts are so by nature.
We take it that this implies that all men know what an
evil act is. That is, to say that evil acts are so by nature is equivalent to saying that man naturally knows
what acts are evil, or more generally, that man naturally knows what is by nature. But Caliban clearly
does not have this knowledge (or has it in a different
way), since he seems wholly to lack evil intent. This
prompts the question of what difference between
Caliban's nature and man's nature underlies his ignorance and our knowledge. Reflexively, one leaps to
suggest man's rationality as the distinction. But
Caliban appears to confound this idea, as he is in some
way rational, and yet does not seem to know what is
by nature. Then we must say whether man is rational
in a sense that Caliban is not, or whether knowing by
nature what is by nature is due to some other property
that belongs to man but not to Caliban.
If we were to adopt the first of these alternatives,
namely, to conclude that Caliban is not rational in the
proper sense, there arises a difficulty. If his rationality is to be distinguished from that of man, it must be
done on grounds other than that of the ability to reason (since he appears to have that), and it seems like
there are only two (related) options: the objects to
which he applies reason, and the manner in which his
reason is applied. The first of these alternatives certainly looks inviting, since one would imagine that
there are objects about which Caliban would have difficulty reasoning. The difference could perhaps be
captured by defining proper rationality as the capacity to reason abstractly, or as the capacity for intellection. The second of these alternatives is likewise appealing, since one could say that reasoning applied
only to the satisfaction of desire is merely animal instinct given language, and so define proper rationality
as the ability to reason with the desire to know. The
two alternatives are nearly equivalent, so they may
both stand as the consequence of assuming that
Caliban, though he can reason, is not rational in the
fullest sense. But neither illuminates why man knows
by nature what is by nature, since when we say that
man by nature knows what is evil, we do not have in
mind a reasoning process, but as said before, something like an instinct for what is by nature. The ability
to reason abstractly, therefore, or the ability to reason
12
MAGICAL POLITICS
desiring to obtain knowledge, does not completely
account for man's advantage over Caliban.
The other alternative, then, is to name the property of man, deficient in Caliban, which allows him to
know by nature what is by nature. Since we see
Caliban's deficiency in this regard manifested in his
asocial nature, it seems right to examine compassion,
taken as the fundamental social virtue. Compassion
(in the sense of knowledge of the likeness of others to
oneself), when found in a rational creature, can be seen
as a kind of knowledge: it makes the likeness of other
men to oneself an intelligible fact, from which reason
may proceed; in other words, compassion is what permits man knowledge of his own nature. It is the source
of man's capacity for intellection about man. And so
I think if compassion is natural in man, it is what permits man to know what is by nature (inasmuch as it
permits him to know his own nature). But Caliban is
not a man, and he knows it. Therefore, lacking compassion, he is not.by nature social, and so good and
evil natures (which belong to man as social) have no
meaning with respect to him: he has potential for
neither.
This makes it seem that Caliban is not fully conscious of himself: whereas man is naturally introspective, Caliban is not. Thus it may be that it was more
right than it first appeared to suggest that human rationality is distinguished by its objects or its motivation. Caliban's lack of understanding of his nature is
perhaps the strongest argument that he is not human,
for when we speak of being rational, we mean rational and conscious of that rationality. If ther~ is any
sense in which Caliban is rational, it is not a self-conscious one: he has neither the means nor the inclination to reason about himself. So it seems that he does
not "know his own meaning", but only his purposes.
Language puts Caliban somewhere between a syllogistic wolf and the self-consciously ration.al being (for
a mere animal could not have understood the necessity of seizing Prospero's books) in that understanding language only gives him access to more information. Since he only uses the information gained from
language to vent his desires, he is not rational in the
same way that man is. Something like awareness of
nature is probably still at the heart of this: man delights in language and reason for their own sake (rather
than merely to serve desire) exactly because he is
aware of these faculties in himself.
In one respect, Antonio is much like Caliban, in
that neither has a conscience to obstruct the satisfaction of his desires. But while Caliban has no pretensions to humanity (though perhaps he has hopes),
Antonio tries to hide his lack of human compassion
under the skin of a social creature. In his speech to
Sebastian he shows that he understands himself perfectly on this point:
Here lies your brother,
No better than the earth he lies upon,
If he were that which now he's like-that 's
dead, /Whom I with this obedient steel,
three inches of it, /Can lay to bed for ever;
whiles you, doing thus,/To the perpetual
wink for aye might put /This ancient
morsel, this Sir Prudence, who /Should not
upbraid our course. For all the rest,
They '11 take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
They' 11 tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour. (Il.i.280-9)
Prospero's comment on Antonio, "You, brother mine,
that entertain' d ambition, ex pell' d remorse and
nature ... Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee, unnatural as thou art." (V.i.75-9) illuminates this disparity. "Unnatural" is precisely the right
word, for the compassion that causes men to act well
to each other (and so makes man social) is exactly
absent in Antonio and Sebastian. Despite this, they
preserve the appearance (but not the reality) of a social creature, using it to satisfy a desire that is peculiarly social: power. This concealment, which Prospero
undoes, is perhaps the most awful perversion of civilized man.
Miranda and Antonio are opposites in that they
represent high perfection and low corruption, but are
alike in that they are "nurtured". In other important
respects, however, Miranda is very like Caliban. Both
are the offspring of magicians expelled from human
society, and both have had nearly no contact with
mankind as a result of having been brought up on the
island. Their island is a paradise: it furnishes fresh
water and food (as we know from Caliban's account
of his services to King Stephano), and the climate is
presumed hospitable. Nothing in Caliban's various
accounts suggests that the island's magical properties
result from Prospero, so we assume they belong to the
13
�ENERGEIA
island itself. I recall no mention of any remotely harmful thing residing there- nor, in fact, of any animals
whatsoever, save small edibles. There are only magical creatures, who fill the island with music and sound.
The foremost feature of the island is thus, I think, its
unreality, and this taints Miranda, making her perfection strange. Despite her embodiment of the finest
characteristics of nurture, she, unlike Antonio, is not
the product of any society, but of Prospero's careful
education:
Here in this island we arri v' d, and here
Have I, thy schoolmaster, make thee more
profit Than other princess' can, that have
more time For vainer hours, and tutors not
so careful. (I.ii .171--4)
In its general form, this resembles the suggestion I
think implicit in the Republic that the perfection of
nature comes about through a deliberate act of reason
(in this case Prospero's), and not by chance: not simply by nurture, but by design. As Prospero intends
her to rule (and hopefully better than he), this care is
doubly appropriate. Both he and his brother "new create" others with an eye on political aims, but while
Antonio 's creation breeds vice, Prospero's stories have
bred a virtuous ruler. This perfection of nature through
reason is the aim of Prospero's Art, as Ariel's speech
to the "three men of sin" indicates:
But remember,
(For that's my business to you) that you three
From Milan did supplant good Prospero,
Expose' d unto the sea (which hath requit it)
Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed
The pow'rs, delaying (not forgetting), have
Incens' d the seas and shores-yea, all the creatures,
Against your peace. (IIl.iii.68-75)
Prospero, that is, has animated the hand of nature according to the demands of justice and reason, motivated by love for his daughter. While nature of her
own strength will reward sloth, overindulgence, and
the like, the "cankered mind" finds its reward from
such human (and hence unreliable) sources as law and
vengeance. Ironically, Alonso calls the events of the
play's end "unnatural", the more unnatural viciousness of Antonio and Sebastian having escaped him.
Contrary to his opinion, the nature of The Tempest,
embodied by Ariel, is both animate and has a conscience, though perhaps it is apolitical: Antonio's betrayal has its natural reward only in the slavishness it
requires; its temporal reward must come from
Prospero. It is nature's conscience that makes it at
once susceptible to Prospero's guidance, and, sadly,
unreal.
It may be this that accounts for Prospero's tone at
the end of the play. He doesn't seem exactly sad, but
he doesn't seem truly happy either. Mostly, he seems
ready to die. His famous speech:
You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors
(As I foretold you) were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous
palaces, The solemn temples, the great
globe itself; Yea, all which it inherit, shall
dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded /Leave not a rack behind. We
are such stuff I As dreams are made on; and
our little life /Is rounded with a
sleep.(IV.i.146--58)
is tinged with the unmistakable melancholy of a lonely
man. Prospero cares for two things in all the world:
Milan and his daughter. But Prospero knows that he
must return Miranda to the world of men, where he
cannot himself live. As he acknowledges, he is at the
end of the play engaged in a departure which will mean
the end of his life . His great human drama is so dedicated also to ensuring that the things that are important to him are well and orderly disposed. Prospero
appears to be substantially unchanged from the time,
twelve years past, that his "library was dukedom large
enough" (I.ii. I 09-10).
Prospero's return to society entails the renunciation of his magic, which does not belong to the world
of men, and by means of which he found a satisfying
kingdom in the island. By his magic, natural power
serves the just rule of man's reason, transmuting
Alonso's submerged guilt into redemptive penitence,
Ferdinand's and Miranda 's apparent nobility into
graceful matrimony, Antonio's and Sebastian's hid-
14
M AGIC A L POLITICS
that no long~r need serve him, nor will; to fall back on
the hands of humanity, which will hopefully bear the
careworn mage gently to his grave. His island has
been a meeting place for nature and nurture, wherein
all the possibilities are explored: the perfection of
Miranda, and the imperfection of Caliban; the hopelessness of Antonio's evil, and the hope implied by
Alonso's penitence and Gonzalo's nobility. The two
worlds never really meet: Prospero is left with the
memory of a paradise that could not fully be a kingdom, since nature's spirits belong ultimately to her,
not to man; and Caliban is left with the memories of
"brave spirits" that he can never become, and of a beautiful woman whom he cannot love. We can picture
the two of them ending their lonesome days in their
respective kingdoms, the brief touch of which leaves
each impossibly wanting what belongs to the other's
world. •
den and hollow inhumanity into clear and gruesome
treachery, and Prospero's own banishment into the
opportunity to achieve these ends. In the island, "temporal royalties" and what may be termed "philosophical royalties" are one. Miranda's question, "What foul
play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed
was't we did?" (l.ii.60-1) seems to imply that nobody would willingly relinquish temporal rule, but also
that ruling the less "temporal" kingdom of the island
surpasses it. Though Prospero always held the source
of rightful authority in Milan (the love of his people),
he effectively relinquished temporal rule by putting it
in Antonio's hands, thinking that love and trust would
protect him. In Milan, Prospero had to choose between the two sorts of royalties, but on the island he
does not. The practical administration of that kingdom requires only the application of true Art and learning. 2 Magic is the means to all this, the agents of which
Prospero addresses as:
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes,
and groves, I And ye that on the sands with
printless foot /Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him /When he comes back,
you demi-puppets that /By moonshine do
the green sour ringlets make, /Whereof the
ewe not bites; and you whose pastime /Is
to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew... (V.i.33--40)
There are no elves of cities, it seems, nor sprites of
houses and fairies of roads. As the agents of magical
power withdraw from the concentrations of men, Prospero
must do so also to rule the perfect kingdom, a kingdom
which is consequently small-though while it endures,
an ideal, where music may be had for nothing.
Prospero's island does not depend on him for its
essence; and there is certainly something to Caliban's
claim that he is an usurper, for Caliban belongs there
more surely than he. Prospero's tenure on the island
is inevitably temporary-it serves a purpose, but he
must leave ; and leave there the instruments of magic
2
0f course, the island is made in the image of other rulers also.
To Prospero's rule of reason we may compare Gonzalo's kingdom (II.i.144-69) of innocent and ignorant primitives,
Stephano's coalition of murderous but essentially carefree drunkards, and Caliban's simple and undemanding anarchy.
15
�The Motion of a Stretched String:
A Series of Haiku and Equations
An Evening At Home With Doctor Faustus 1
By Jesse Berney
By Hermann Hesse
Translated by Eva T.H. Brann
The taut striMg vibrates.
We must describe its motion.
But how? Equati011s.
We describe two curoes.
Two ratios are the same,
Formed by ordinates.
On these string-like curves
Displacement and curvature
Are in proportion.
Acceleration
Of any point on the curve
Is as curvature.
2
2
2
d y/dx ad y/dt
2
All points on the string
Reach the axis at one time.
How is this explained?
It is like our curves:
Displacement and curvature
Are in proportion.
A function of "x,"
The curve is sinusoidal:
Crest to trough to crest.
d2y/dx2 = -k y
y
:i=
A sin(kx)
Our function describes
The string still in one instant,
Not its whole motion.
Acceleration
Proportional to distance,
A function of "t"
Combine our functions.
Our equation now has both
Time and displacement.
Curves move down a line.
This is a function of both
Displacement and time.
The speed of this "wave"
Is determined by the string:
Its tension and mass.
More derivations
Discover all the constants.
Complete equation.
d 2y/dt 2 = -roy ; y = B cos(cot)
f(Jt,t) = C sin(kx) cos( rot)
y = g(x-ut)
Doctor Johann Faustus was sitting in his dining
room together with his friend Doctor Eisenhart (the
great-grand-father, incidentally, of the physician who
later on became so famous 2 ). The sumptuous evening
meal had been removed. From the heavy gilded goblets rose the bouquet of an old Rhine wine. The two
musicians who had performed at dinner had just disappeared - a lutenist and a flautist.
"Well, now I will give you the promised sampling," said Doctor Fa~stus and poured a draught of
the old wine down his gullet, which had grown somewhat fat. He was no longer a young man; it was two
or three years before his frightful end.
"As I already told you, my assistant sometimes
produces these droll apparatuses, by means of which
one can see and hear this and that - things far off
from us, or long passed away, or yet in the future.
Today let us try out the future. The fellow seems to
have invented something very amusing and curious,
you know. So just as he has often shown us, in magic
mirrors, the heroes and beauties of the past, he has
now invented something for the ears, a sound funnel.
It allows us to hear the noises which will be heard in
the distant future in just the same spot in which the
sound apparatus is positioned."
"Might it perhaps be, my dear friend, that you
serving spirit is swindling you a little?"
"I don't think so," said Faustus. "For black magic
the future is not at all unattainable. As you know, we
1
u 2 = S/µ
1928-30. In translating it, I disclaim any reflection on the sounds
enveloping our quad on a balmy spring afternoon.
2
f(x,t) = C cos(cot) sin(2n/A.)x
This vignette was revised by H. H. for publication in the years
A reputed quack who lived from 1663-1727 and was
memorialized in a German children's song as "the Doctor
Eisenhart who cured the folk by his own art." When I was little
I confused him with the serial killer of wives, Bluebeard, who
was invented about that time.
have always proceeded on the assumption that events
on earth are, without exception, subject to the law of
cause and effect. Therefore nothing about the future
can be changed, anymore than about the past: The
future too is fixed through the law of causality. Thus
it is already there, only we do not yet see it and taste it.
As the mathematician and the astronomer can calculate the occurrence of an eclipse accurately far in advance, just so any other part of the future we please
could be made visible and audible to us, if we had
invented a method for it. As it happens,
Mephistopheles has invented a sort of di vining rod
for the ear; he has built a trap in which tones are captured. We have tried it out repeatedly. Sometimes, to
be sure, nothing becomes audible at all, because we
just happened to come on a void in the future, on a
point of time at which nothing audible is taking place
in our room. At other times we have heard all kinds
of things; for example, we once heard some people,
who will live in the far future, speak of a poem in
which are sung the deeds of Doctor Faustus, that is,
my own. But enough; let us try it out."
At his call the domestic spirit appeared in his customary gray monk's cowl. He set a small machine
with a sound funnel on the table and urgently enjoined
the gentlemen to refrain from all comment during the
whole process. Then he cranked the machine, which
began to work with a low, soft buzzing.
For a long time nothing was heard but this suspenseful buzzing, to which the two doctors listened
expectantly. Then suddenly a tone, never before heard,
shrilled forth: an evil, devilish howling, of which it
was impossible to say whether it stemmed from a serpent-monster or perhaps from a raging demon. Impatient, warning, angry, commanding, the evil tone
screamed, repeating itself in short, fierce pulses, as if
a hunted dragon had come whistling through the room.
Doctor Eisenhart grew pale and breathed in relief when
�ENERGEIA
the horrid scream, having frequently repeated itself at
ever increasing range, faded into the distance.
There followed a silence, but then another sound
became audible: a male voice, coming as from a great
distance, in an urgently preaching tone. The listeners
could understand fragments of the speech and take
them down on writing tablets that had been placed
ready to hand, for example the sentences: " ... and so,
following the shining example of America, the ideal
of economic enterprise marches irresistibly toward its
victorious perfection and realization. .. .While on the
one hand the standard of living of the worker has
reached a height never heretofore experienced, ... and
we can say without presumptuousness that by means
of present-day production techniques the childlike
dreams of paradise dreamed by earlier ages are more
than ... "
Again silence. Then came a new voice, a deep,
earnest voice, which spoke thus: "Ladies and gentlemen, I request you lend an ear to a new poem, a creation of the great Nicholas Underwhelm3 of whom it
may well be said that he, as no one else, has turned
inside out the innermost recesses of our time, has most
wisely discerned the sense and non-sense of our existence:
He holds the chimney in his hands.
From either cheek a flipper's hung.
According as the mercury stands,
He climbs the ladders without rung.
So up along long ladders climbs
He. Clouds are lining for his cloak
He longs to save a life betimes.
He's overcome with nolicroak.
Doctor Faustus was able to write down the larger
part of this poem. Eisenhart too took notes assiduously.
A sleepy voice, without doubt the voice of an older
woman or a spinster now became audible. It said:
"Boring program! As if the radio had been invented
for that! Well, at least here comes some music."
And, indeed, some music now broke out, a wild,
lascivious music with a very steady beat, now blaring,
3
The poem by Underwhelm ("Unterschwang") is in the style of
Christian Morgenstern, a zany surrealistic poet writing early in
the twentieth century.
now languishing, a totally unfamiliar, alien, indecent,
malevolent music of howling, quacking, and cackling
wind instruments, vibrating with the banging of gongs,
overridden now and then by a singing, howling vocalization, which ejaculated words and verses \nan unknown language. In between, at regular intervals, was
emitted the mystifying verse:
The world will marvel at your hair
If you use Go go for its care!
That first, malevolent, furious,, warning tone, too,
that dragon-howling full of torment and rage, audibly
interjected itself from time to time.
When the domestic spirit had, with a smile,
brought his machine to a stop, the two scholars looked
at each other curiously, with a painful feeling of embarrassment and shame, as if they had unintentionally
become the witnesses of an indecent and forbidden
occurrence. Both of them reviewed their notes and
showed them to each other.
Finally Faustus said: "What do you think of it?"
Doctor Eisenhart drank a long draught from his
beaker. He looked at the floor and remained thoughtful and silent for a long time. Finally he said more to
himself that to his friend: "It is horrifying. There cannot be any doubt about the fact that that humanity out
of whose life we just heard a sampling is insane. These
are our progeny, the sons of our sons, the great-grandchildren of our great-grand-children whom we heard
saying such dubious, sad, confused things, who emit
such dread-inducing screams, who sing such unintelligible idiot verses. Our progeny, friend Faustus, will
terminate in insanity."
"I don't want to assert that so definitely," Faustus
said. "Your point of view has nothing unlikely about
it, to be sure, but still it is more pessimistic than necessary. Just because here, in one single, limited spot
on earth, such wild, despairing, indecent and indubitably insane tones are heard, that does not actually
have to mean that all of humanity has become mentally ill. It could, after all, be the case that on this spot
where we happen to be a madhouse will be located in
a few centuries and that we got to hear fragments from
it. Or it could be that a party of total drunks treated us
to their brain-storms. Just think of the bellowing of a
merry crowd, perhaps at a carnival. That sounds quite
similar. But what takes me aback are those other tones,
18
AN EVENING AT HOME WITH DOCTOR FAUSTUS
those screams, which cannot have been produced either by human voices or by musical instruments. They
sound, so it seems to me, absolutely devilish. It can
only be demons that utter such tones."
He turned to Mephistopheles: "Would you possibly know something about this? Can you tell us what
sort of tones we have just heard?"
"We have indeed heard," said the domestic spirit
and smiled, "demonic tones. The earth, gentlemen,
half of which is, to be sure, already today the property
of the devil, will within a certain time belong to him
altogether and will form a part, a province of hell. You
have expressed yourself somewhat harshly and negatively about the tonal and verbal language of this
earthly hell. To me, however, it seems at any rate noteworthy and nice that in hell too there will be music
and poetry. That is the function of Belial, to whom
this whole department reports. I think he does his job
rather nicely." •
19
�FORM OF LANGUAGE
The Form of language
By Beatrice Robbins
Socrates claims thatthought is internal discourse.
(Thea. 189e) Therefore, language is as necessary to
thought as it is to conversation. But not all words
mean the same things to all people. A word might
have a standard definition which, given the existence
of the Platonic forms, is wrong. So it seems that the
intent of almost every dialogue is the creation of true
language.
A term is picked: be it justice, knowledge, or table.
The rest of the dialogue is spent on comparing per.:.
sonal definitions and eliminating false notions in an
attempt to find each word's true definition. This perfect definition, were it ever to be found, would, by
virtue of its truth, be accepted by and mean the same
thing to everyone present. The word in question would
be truly standardized, and from there thought would
evolve towards understanding truth.
The need to standardize language is demonstrated
by the dialogues being multi-person conversations, not
monologues. Because each participant is an individual
there is no assurance that any particular word has the
same meaning for him as for anyone else. One knows
his own definition of the term in question, but because
language is not completely standardized, he can not
know exactly what the word means to anyone else.
The Sophist' s Stranger explains the problem thus:
At present you see, all that you and I
possess in common is the name. The thing
to which each of us gives that name we
may perhaps have privately before our
minds, but it is always desirable to have
reached an agreement about the thing itself
by means of explicit statements, rather than
be content to use the same word without
formulating what it means (Soph. 218c) 1•
1
Quotes from The Sophist, Theatetus, and Timaeus are to be found
in: Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Edith Hamilton,
ed.,(New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1989). Sophist - pp.
958-1017, Theatetus - pp. 847-919, Timaeus - pp. 1153-1211.
For the discussion to work as an interchange of
ideas, the terms involved must mean the same thing
to all those involved. To reach any meaningful conclusion, the thought and communication must be done
with terms for which the standardized definition is the
true definition. This need leads to the format of and
material in the dialogues, most noticeably in the
Theatetus and the Sophist.
,
In each dialogue, the quest for each true, standard
definition begins with a question. Socrates provides
examples: "But if our guest wil1 allow me, I should
like to ask him what his countrymen thought and how
they used these names ... sophist, statesman, philosopher (Soph. 217)," and, "Then knowledge and wisdom are the same things (Thea. 145e)." The question clearly and simply provides the terms which are
to be the focus of the dialogue, and asks for their definitions. Because this is the obvious commencement
of philosophical dialectic, one might claim that at this
point thought begins.
Perception, however, must be prior to thought of
any type. Before one begins to think he must have
something to think about. It need not be a sight, as
suggested in the Timaeus, where vision is recognized
as the foundation of philosophy (Tim.47a-b), although
sight seems the most easily acceptable of the perceptions. Smell, taste, and hearing work just as well . That
the perception is is the only necessity; there is nothing else to spark man's though process. Only after he
has perceived something can he name it and begin to
inquire about its nature. Thought will be further affected by later perceptions. Perception never stops
causing and mutating thought. But it is from questioning the original perception that thought begins.
Philosophy 's reliance on perception raises the
problem of the forms: how can man inquire about the
forms when he surely can not perceive them? No
man's inquiries can start with the forms. He can ask,
"What is Justice?" only after having perceived and
identified some act or acts of justice or injustice as
such. Whether or not he identifies them correctly is
we' follow or get left behind (Soph. 243b)." In other
words, Euclid is using terms whose standard definitions are not commonly understood. And, even the
modern notion of defining a plane by three non-colinear points is confusing. For to understand that idea,
one must understand exactly what a point is. So, while
higher math and geometry are standardized, at their
roots one finds the same problem that Theatetus,
Socrates, and language face:
irrelevant at this stage; he has merely found something
about which he can begin to inquire. And, after recognizing that same property inherent in many actions,
he might begin to guess at the existence of imperceptible forms to provide an explanation for the various
perceived similarities.
Perhaps the overwhelming dependence in perception is responsible for a general dependence in metaphors. When a concept seems to elevated, vague, or
difficult to grasp, it is often made easier to understand
by metaphorical transformation into perceivable images. Because metaphors force one to call an image
of a concrete entity to mind, it becomes possible to
'see' the relationship in question. From that internal
perception, thought about the abstraction develops.
For the same reason, some concepts are so elevated
one can only begin to attempt their comprehension
through metaphor. Hence, Socrates uses them constantly in The Republic's allegories of the cave and
the divided line.
The need of metaphor, while painfully apparent,
is troublesome to one attempting to standardize a true
language. For, what could be farther from using each
word as its one true meaning demands than using a
seemingly random selection of words to illustrate various other, unrelated words? Metaphors are nothing
more than a "common use of words and phrases, which
the vulgar twist into any sense they please (Thea .
168c )" . In a true and standardized language, there
would be neither metaphors, nor any need of them.
Math may be taken as the closest thing to a model
for standardized human language. The closest one may
come to a figure of speech is an analogy, or ratio, between like terms. Terms are either precisely defined
or defined as unknowns. There is only one meaning
of scalene triangle. It is a triangle with no sides equal.
There is only one meaning of triangle: a three sided
figure on one plane. But, what is the exact definition
of a plane? Euclid calls it "a surface which lies evenly
with the straight lines on itself (Elem . bk. 1, def. 7)2,"
for which he, like the great ancient philosophers, might
be faulted with "showing too little consideration for
ordinary people like ourselves ... (and) pursuing his
own argument to the conclusion without caring whether
the first elements of which we and all other
things consist are such that no account can
. be given of them. Each of them just by
itself can only be named; we cannot
attribute to it anything further. .. (Thea.
201e-202)
This, too, is one of the paradoxes of language. The
most simple concepts, the elements, are undefinable
but necessary to all that follows.
Perhaps this similarity between the language of
math and philo.sophy is one of the reasons Socrates
puts the mathematical world 'immediately before the
philosophical on his divided line (Republic . 510a5 llc)3. Perhaps, also, one must learn from the standardization present in the maths what he is searching
for with philosophy. Math shows one mostly standardized language in a purely theoretical world, while,
through philosophy one hopes to gain a standardized,
true language which will work even in its starting
place, the perceivable world.
But the dependence on perception remains, presenting a difficulty. In the Sophist, the Stranger suggests that:
"thinking and discourse are the same thing,
except what we call thinking is precisely, the
inward dialogue carried on by the mind with
itself without spoken sound. (Soph. 263e)"
And in the Theatetus, Socrates himself claims that
the process of thinking is:
"a discourse that the mind carries on with
itself about any subject it is considering ...
2
Euclid, Elements,translated by Sir Thomas L. Heath, Robert
McHenry, ed., In Great Books of the Western World, vol 10,
3
Plato, Republic, translated by Allan Bloom, (New York,
HarperCollins, 1991. ), 190-191
(USA, Encyclopedia Brittanica Inc, 1990).
21
�ENERGEIA
when the mind is thinking, it is simply
talking to itself, asking questions and
answering them, and saying yes and no ...
So I should describe thinking as discourse,
and judgment as a statement pronounced,
not aloud to someone else, but silently to
oneself. (Thea. 189e-l 90)"
In other words, by Socrates' definition at least,
thought is purely internal dialogue. As said briefly
before, if this is so, thought demands language. Man
must have a language in order to identify, name, and
ponder his perceptions. But he must have perceptions
before he can develop a language naming them. Perceptions give rise to names. Man saw rock, food, fire,
before he began to try to communicate their existence
to his fellow creatures. But surely as he was able to
recognize his food for himself before he was able to
name it. Isn't that thought?
Perhaps rather than being thought, the recognition
of food is an instinct or the beginning of an action.
Urges to action and reason, although often coincidental, are not the same thing. One dances by muscle
memory, eats and dodges oncoming cars by instinct.
Impulses to action are not decisions. No internal dialectic is involved,. They are immediate reactions to
the situation, an ability shared by all men and most
animals. Thought, however, even if it be thought towards an action, is a slow, deliberative process:
"Knowledge does not reside in the impressions, but
in our reflection upon them (Thea. 186d)." But what
provoked man to develop language, and how could
he think to do it without already having begun?
Further, accepting the definition of thought as being internal dialectic, how does one account for the
strange difficulty of explaining ideas to others? Even
Socrates must "try to put (his idea) into words. (Thea.
165e)" This simple phrase suggests that ideas or
thoughts are not recognized in coherent groups of
words but need to be structured into them to be communicated, which does not follow if the mind thinks
by "simply talking to itself (Thea. 190)." That the
mind thinks in its own variation of the common language is only a partly valid explanation. One must
speak the language he thinks in. The two processes
feed off each other; neither can develop without the
other. On the other hand, it is not necessary that the
mind use with itself exactly the same manner of speech
that it uses when communicating with others. External language must be much more standardized than
internal language, because, while one is sure to understand one's own thoughts, for others to understand
these same thoughts as they were conceived they must
understand the organization of and the terms used.
Hence the need for the standardizing tools of grammar, punctuation, and common vocabulary. The more
abstract and complicated the thought is, the greater
the need for precise, comprehensible language. Man
can not point at Truth the way he .can at food. He
must be able to comprehend it with thought and explain it with words.
The better standardized the language, the greater
the chance the explanation will be understood. Hypothetically, truly standardized language, meaning language in which the one true definition for each word
was know and understood, would allow perfect knowledge. Because it would be the only possible perfect,
exact language, it would be the form of language. As
such, it would allow absolute knowledge of the forms.
One would actually know what Virtue was. One would
know all Truth.
But, as previously stated, language can never be
truly standardized because it is based on ideas too fundamental to be explained. Just as Theatetus has far
more difficulty in explaining letters than syllables, so
one can explain a sentence or paragraph far more easily than the terms it uses. And, other words must be
used to explain the terms in question, creating the need
for further explanations in an ever-growing, meaningobscuring cycle.
Additionally, because language is a human, bodily
function, it can not ever actually 'reach' the forms.
Humans, being a conglomeration of both body and
soul, are not perfect creatures and can never reach
perfect understanding, "We have intercourse with becoming by means of the body through sense, whereas
we have intercourse with real being by means of the
soul through reflection (Soph. 248)." Reflection, or
internal dialectic, is the only way to use the soul. But,
the perfect soul is shackled by the imperfect body, and
so, the form of language as well as the rest of the forms,
can never be reached. Language can never be completely true and completely standardized.
Completely standardized language in the modem
sense is not 'true language'. It is what computers
speak. It is inhuman language for the lowest common
22
FORM OF LANGUAGE
denominator. The emphasis is on standardization and
not on truth. All that matters is that everyone understand the one definition for each term in the same way.
What the definition is has little significance. And,
because it allows no room for spontaneous expressions,
for emotion, for the ever-changing connotations of
words, it can only be the almost meaningless language
of machines, a dead language. Attic Greek is far more
standardized in the twentieth century than any current
language, but one must use his own language to define Greek terms. So, while most Greek words have
an accepted English definition, the translations themselves are part of the ever mutating English language,
and thus are not completely standardized. No spoken
human language can be because human thought is not
stagnant. One grow, encounters and perceives new
images and ideas, and his though process changes. No
two people go through exactly the same metamorphosis, so no two manners of thought, and thus, no two
personal dialects, can be exactly alike. And so, while
Socrates strives towards both standardization and truth,
even his lesser goal is an impossibility.
"True" language, too, that seems the goal of philosophy, must be eternally static. Rather than subhuman, it must somehow be superhuman. "True" language can easily be imagined as the language of the
gods. But, for the same reasons completely standardized human language is impossible, completely true
language is impossible. "True" language faces the
additional difficulty of at once being responsible for ·
and acquiring absolute knowledge. To create the language of the gods, the form of language, one must
know all perfectly. To fully know all, one must use
the form of language. So, the best one can hope to do
is as Socrates does: attempt to purify and make more
true his own, ever-changing language while reaching
towards the forms.
The problem of thought dependent on language is
a clear paradox: neither can exist without the other,
neither can begin without the other. Dialectic is the
best path towards the forms, but grows from base perceptions. Language is necessary to thought, but must
evolve with mankind. But if language evolves, how
can it hope to reach the changeless, eternal forms?
The effort is doomed, but necessary and noble. One
must attempt to understand. "To rob us with discourse
would be to rob us of philosophy. That would be the
most serious consequence. (Soph. 260)" •
23
�THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND
They Do Not Understand:
A Discussion of the Heracleitus Fragment Number 12
By Dawn Star Shuman
The translation of the Heracleitus fragment number 12 in the series of fragments read for Freshman
Language may not be the most difficult of these fragments. However, the nuances of meaning in some of
the words are lovely, and the understanding of these
nuances makes the meaning of the entire sentence both
clearer and more complex.
The sentence is as follows in Greek and in my
English translatlon:
ou ~uvLCiaw ws 8LacpEpoµEvov EauT0
6µoAOYEL. TTaALVTOVOS apµov(a WO"TTEp
TO~OU KaL AUTTES
They do not understand that in being rent
asunder a thing agrees with itself; just like
the back-stretched harmony of a bow and
of a lyre..
This sentence makes sense grammatically, both as
a translation of the Greek and as fluent English. What
may not be immediately apparent is that it also makes
very good sense as a statement of an idea. Some questions about the idea might be: how does a thing agree
with itself? What is this thing? What kind of understanding are they failing in? The answers to these
kinds of questions lead to a possible explanation of
what the sentence means.
cvvLCiaw is a form of the verb CJ'UV-L11µL, meaning
"to bring or set together, in hostile sense ... mataph. to
perceive, hear... 2. to understand." 1 This adds the
idea of opposition to the more basic sense of perception and understanding. In this sense, understanding
Except where otherwise noted, definitions for the Greek come from:
Intennediate Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott, 7 ed.
1
might be the setting together of a prior knowledge in
a person's mind with a fact or perception of the
outside world and thereby coming to a new idea or
knowledge about a thing.
It is important to detail the relationships between
the three verbs in the first part of the sentence.
~uvLCiaLV is the main finite verb. 6µo)..oyE'Lis also a
finite verb which is modified by the circumstantial participle 8LacpEpoµEvov . The manual gives the meanings of6µ0)..oyE'L1s "agree, admit, or allow." Although
I do believe it to be the most concise translation, there
is something awkward about saying that a thing agrees
with itself in English. It carries the sense of something maintaining internal consistency. But another
possible meaning of 6µo)..oyEL is "simply to make an
agreement, come to terms ... with another." With that
meaning, agreement with itself might imply a process
of reaching internal consistency rather than maintaining it. It is clear that Heracleitus is attributing this
process of agreement directly to the circumstance of
being rent asunder, not simply describing two concurrent events.
I have translated apµov(a as harmony. This meaning is given in the Lexicon as the third possibility.
Harmony in English does have some of the same connotations as apµov(a: in Greek, and I feel it is important to notice them. One meaning in Greek is "a fastening to keep ship-planks together, a clamp ... a joining, joint, between a ship's planks." This kind of joining is literally what is necessary for a stretched bow or
lyre to remain whole. Another meaning given is "a
covenant, agreement, settled government, order." In
a bow, this might be a metaphorical covenant between
the frame and the bowstring not to part.
These meanings are consistent with the English
connotations of harmony, which can mean "1. agreement; accord; harmonious relations. 2. a consistent,
orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts;
congruity ." 2
Beyond the details of what each word means by
itself is what they all mean together. I do not know
who They are, but I do believe I understand how
Heracleitus means that they do not understand. Understanding is the setting together of two possibly contradictory things in a person's mind and through examination finding their common purpose or meaning.
A question that cannot be answered by looking at the
text is what this thing is. Because the sentences in
general are aphorisms, it seems likely that the thing is
supposed to represent any particular thing a person
might think of, including the people who do not understand. They do not understand how it is that they
themselves could ever understand in his meaning of
the word.
Being rent asunder is compared to a bow being
back-stretched. Thi~ means that the rending is not a
destruction but something that allows the thing to do
what it is supposed to do. When a bow is stretched,
the wood and string are wrenched apart and a strong
fastening at the point of connection is what allows the
bow to impart energy to an arrow. What the thing is
supposed to do depends upon the thing. They do not
admit that they themselves can only be and function
as whole things, as units, because they contain contradictory parts or ideas which play against each other.
I am willing to admit that possibility, and to really consider it by comparing the differing ideas on the subject, which They apparently were not.•
2
Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English
Language, s. v. "harmony"
I
fl
25
�".F O R HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH"
ton puts forth the fundamental aspect of his method:
In this philosophy [experimental philosophy] particular propositions are [deduced2]
from the phenomena, and afterward rendered
general by induction. (Ibid, 547)
"For He Unlocked the Hidden Treasures of Truth"
Entertaining Ourselves with the Delightful Contemplation of Newton's Principia
By Janice Cater
With his preface to the first edition of the Principia
Newton gives to the student of his system unusual insight into his ideas of geometry and mathematics as a
whole. He says in this preface that his purpose in
writing is to explain mathematically the natural forces
of the world. In putting forth this statement of intent,
he implies that he believes natural forces are governed
by mathematics, for what purpose would it serve to
explain something mathematically that is not in fact
ruled by mathematics? Such an explanation would be
no more than an interesting account, one no more valid
than any other.
This important aspect of Newton's thought is frequently misunderstood. Often his approach is described as giving only a mathematical analogue to
nature. By this analysis his method has three parts:
first, a presentation of nature simplified and idealized,
creating a system in geometric space in which mathematical entities move in mathematical time according to specific conditions expressible as mathematical laws or relations. Consequences are deduced by
mathematical techniques and then transferred to the
physical world. Second, a comparison of these results with experiential data and the results from such
data. Successive attempts at correction of the original
mathematical construct, which in turn alter the second stage, lead to a more accurate representation.
Third, an application of the results of stages one and
two to natural philosophy, in order to elaborate the
entire system of the world. This stage applies results
to the entire system rather than to individual objects,
i.e., applying them to all planets rather than just to Jupiter. Even objects which are very dissimilar are included. For example, the same laws govern the forces
of the planets in orbit as do the motions of falling bodies on earth.
While the above account is perhaps a plausible
reading of the Principia, it does not truly capture the
spirit of the work or of the man behind it. From his
words in the Preface and his letters to Oldenberg and
Cotes, it is clear that Newton has something greater in
mind. He believes that mathematics rules the world,
that it is universal and basic to all beings. Hence, an
explication of the system of the world must necessarily be a mathematical one. The Principia is not a mathematical reduction of the world, neither, however, can
it be called an exact replica. A careful examination of
this work provides ample evidence for attributing to
Newton the belief that he had set out the only true
method of describing the system of the world.
In defense of this reading of the Principia, an account of Newton's method is crucial. While any sort
of in depth inquiry into his method would yield volumes of findings, we can, for the moment, be satisfied with an identification of several major characteristics of his style. He says in the Preface:
I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am
induced by many reasons to suspect that they
may all depend upon certain forces .... These
forces being unknown, philosophers have
hitherto attempted the search of Nature in
vain; but I hope the principles here laid down
will afford some light either to this or some
truer philosophy (Principia, xviii). 1
The method of "reasoning from mechanical principles"
is at the very core of his entire endeavor. Introduced
in only a few words here in the Preface, its meaning is
revealed only through statements of his method found
elsewhere. At the end of the General Scholium, New-
But hitherto I have not been able to discover
the cause of those properties of gravity from
phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for
whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical,
whether of occult qualities or mechanical,
have no place in experimental philosophy.
(Ibid, 547)
The process of deducing propositions from phenomena and then rendering them general by induction is
very important in the Principia. It elucidates the distinction Newton makes between the physical and the
rational. While he clearly values both components as
necessary to science, he has extremely strong views
on their respective roles. Comprised of two parts, the
deductive process begins with phenomena, the visible
and humanly accessible world. Through analysis of
the general principles one conclusions both certain and
necessary are drawn 3 • This step gives the boundaries
of the particular inquiry, setting the stage for the thorough mathematical investigation. The next step is inductive; through synthesis, from the specific principles
uncovered and proved through the mathematics, one
arrives at general principles. Newton works from the
physical world, to the rational, and back to the physical; while each is necessary, the roles are quite distinct.
Also present throughout his works is appreciation
for geometry as a science Newton's; he clearly values
the accuracy of its method. To him, it is the only logical way to attack the problem of accounting for natural phenomena. Unlike his contemporaries, Newton
was quite wary of using hypotheses. He is often quoted
as saying "hypotheses non fingo" - I frame no hypotheses. This statement can be quite misleading, for he
did in fac use hypotheses. (The Optics, in particular,
is full of them.) No science can progress, no knowledge can be gained without hypotheses. With due attention to Newton's own words, howe~er, his true
meaning becomes clear.
The passage in question reads:
This passage does indeed seem to be disavowing all
hypotheses within experimental philosophy. However,
he is speaking of the causes of gravity. Since Newton
can deduce nothing of the sort from phenomena, he is
not free to continue along such a line of reasoning.
The strength of such reasoning lies in the certainty
and necessity that comes with deduction from phenomena. Replacing this step with an hypothesis could
not possibly lead to any definite knowledge. In a letter to Oldenberg, Newton elaborates his manner of
using hypotheses:
... For the best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first, to inquire diligently into the properties of things and to establish those properties by experiments, and
to proceed later to hypotheses for the explanation of things themselves. For hypotheses
ought to be applied only in the explanation
of the properties of things, and not made use
of in determining them; except in so far as
they may furnish experiments (Thayer, 5) 4 •
He continues, a little later, to warn of what may follow misuse of hypotheses:
And if anyone offers conjectures about the
truth of things from the mere possibility of
hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation
anything certain can be determined in any
science; since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties. (Ibid, 5)
2
replaces Matte's inferred; from the Latin, "In hac philosophia
Propositiones deducuntur ex phrenomenis, et redduntur gerenales
per inductionem."
3
Sir Issac Newton, Principia, Cajori revision of the Motte trans-
1
lation, 2 vols. (Berkley, University of California Press, Ltd., 1962)
this in contrast to inference, where the formal process is less
clear or present.
"Newton's Philosophy of Nature, Thayer, H.S., ed., (Hafner Press,
New York, 1974), p.5
27
�ENERGEIA
In a letter to Cotes, Newton is even more explicit about
his use of the word hypothesis:
And the word 'hypothesis' is ... used to signify only such a proposition as is not a phenomenon nor deduced from any phenomena,
but assumed or supposed - without any experimental proof. (Ibid, 6)
Newton recognizes the role hypotheses can be made
to play in science and he places the proper restrictions
to their use. As he says above, one should begin by ·
investigating the properties of objects, carefully establishing their behavior through experiment. After one
has done this, hypotheses may be formed to explain
these behaviors. Experimental facts must invariably
take precedence over any hypotheses which happen
to come into conflict with them. Those hypotheses
which seem incapable of proof by experiment must be
viewed as highly suspicious. The distinction between
exact experimental results and mere suggestions derived from hypotheses must be foremost in one's mind
at all times. When found to be in irreconcilable conflict with experimental fact, they must be scrupulously
eradicated.
The strict guidelines Newton sets for himself are
presented frequently. In the Rules of Reasoning in
Philosophy in Book Three, we discover another such
statement. These four rules are not astounding, in fact
one would assume that any good scientist proceeds
following principles such as the ones laid out here.
Rule 1 orders one to keep all explanations simple, and
to avoid unnecessary complications of such explanations . Rule 2 requires that the same causes or explanations must be applied to the same phenomena. Rule
3 states that the qualities of bodies derived from experiments are to be regarded as universal. It is in the
explication of the third rule that we find another passage attesting to Newton's extremely high opinion of
experimentation. As he says here:
For since the qualities of bodies are only
known to us by experiments, we are to hold
for universal all such as universally agree
with experiments, and such as are not liable
to diminution can never be quite taken away.
We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams
and vain fictions of our own devising; nor
are we to recede from the analogy of Nature,
which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself (Principia, 398).
Having a more complete understanding of the strict
use of hypotheses, the relationship between the rational and the physical, and the process of deduction from
phenomena and subsequent generalization through
induction, a clear idea of "reasoning from mechanical
principles" is still lacking. The Preface, though merely
sketching Newton's ideas and goals for the Principia,
does offer a remarkable amount of insight into the role
of geometry as it relates to such "reasoning from mechanical principles." Here Newton goes to great
lengths to show how mechanics and geometry relate
to each other.
He begins by making a distinction between the
aims of the ancients and those of the moderns. The
ancients, he says, valued the science of mechanics
more than any other in the investigation of natural
phenomena, while the moderns attempted to fit the
naturally occurring phenomena into the bounds of
mathematics. Mechanics, as understood by the ancients, was a twofold science, comprising both practical and rational components. The rational proceeded
by demonstration, the practical by construction and
observation. For the ancients all manual arts fell under the heading of practical mechanics, for these arts
are not perfectly accurate. Perfect accuracy became
for them the property of geometry, distinguishing this
science from mechanics in its accuracy only. Newton
asserts that this lack of accuracy in mechanics (as opposed to geometry) is due to the artists, not the art.
Were there such a thing as a perfect mechanic, he·necessarily would be perfectly accurate. He also asserts
that the description of lines and angles belongs to
mechanics rather than to geometry. Geometry is concerned with the properties of these objects, not the
physical production of the objects themselves. He calls
it the "glory of geometry" that it is able to produce so
much in spite of so heavy a reliance on the production
of these lines and angles by an entirely different science. Geometry, for Newton, is founded on mechanics; one must use mechanics to produce the lines and
angles which are required for the study of geometry.
Geometry becomes, then, a part of universal mechanics, namely that part which "accurately proposes and
28
"FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH"
demonstrates the art of measuring." Since the manual
arts are concerned primarily with the moving of bodies, geometry is often used to speak of their magnitudes, and mechanics of their motion. In this way,
rational mechanics then becomes the science of motions resulting from forces. However, Newton is concerned with only that part ofrational mechanics which
deals with natural powers.
In explaining the relationship between the two
sciences, Newton clearly says that mechanics is the
starting point for geometry. Now, geometry is perfect, yet mechanics is not necessarily so, being subject to all of the imperfections of the mechanic. However, a system that begins with an imperfect foundation cannot yield perfect results. In a letter to Cotes,
Newton mentions first principles (and their relation
to hypotheses) briefly.
... [A]s in geometry, the word 'hypothesis'
is not taken in so large a sense as to include
the axioms and postulates; so, in experimental philosophy, it is not to be taken in so large
a sense as to include the first principles or
axioms, which I call the laws of motion.
These principles are deduced from phenomena and made general by induction, which is
the highest evidence that a proposition can
have in this philosophy (Thayer, 6).
Since in the Preface Newton claims mechanics
provides the foundations of geometry, the laws of motion, which he here names as first principles, must have
some relation to mechanics. Because mechanics is
the science of the forces which cause motion in bodies, the laws of motion must belong either to mechanics itself, or to geometry, which describes and measures their motion. But, as mentioned earlier, geometry takes its foundations from mechanics in the form
of the actual production of lines and circles. The resolution of these two seemingly different concepts of
the starting points of geometry (mechanics and the
laws of motion) is not yet evident.
One possible solution lies in an examination of
another mathematician and philosopher, Pascal. In
his work "On the Geometrical Mind" Pascal proposes a treatment of geometry and its first principles
which offers unusual insight into Newton's own beliefs. In respect to scientific and perfect demonstra-
tion of truth, Pascal says:
I can give no clearer idea of the procedure
we should follow to make our demonstrations convincing than by expounding the
method observed in geometry (Pascal, 430). 5
He believes that the only method more rigorous and
complete is one that man could never use, for "what
goes beyond geometry goes beyond man" (Ibid, 430).
This method would involve defining every term and
proving every proposition. Simply because he is finite, man cannot participate in this ultimate method of
finding truth. The first terms defined would require
other terms; the first propositions would rely on prior
propositions; in other words, he could never arrive at
the first propositions or terms. Even though man is
incapable of partaking in this perfect order or method,
he should not surmise that any sense of order is outside of his capabilities.
While geometry is certainly less convincing than
this perfect order, Pascal claims that it is by no means
less certain. By this distinction, Pascal only means to
point out that geometry falls below the perfect order
in failing to define or prove everything. However, this
limitation does not weaken the certainty we acsribe to
its findings. Geometry is certain in that it only assumes
those missing proofs given perfectly clearly by natural light; nature steps in to fill the void left by discourse. Thus, it is perfectly true as well. Geometry
does not attempt to define the things that are clear and
understood by all men but seeks to define all of the
rest.
It is obvious that there exist words which cannot
be defined. For example, we cannot define any term
without using the words it is. Even a definition of
being would utilize these two words. Since defining a
term by using the term itself fails to yield a valid definition, we must conclude that there exist words which
we, as men, cannot define. Nature makes up for this
defect in us by providing a common concept of these
words. If she had not, we would be unable to speak to
each other, for we would have no basis for agreement
5
Blaise Pascal, On the Geometrical Mind, Richard Scofield, trans.,
In Pascal, Britannica Great Books Series, v. 33, (Chicago,
Encyclopredia Britannica, Inc., 1952).
29
�ENERGEIA
about the words we use. These terms given by nature
are used with the same assurance as those we have
had explained to us.
Therefore, all of the terms used in geometry are
perfectly intelligible either by the natural light or by
the definitions given. This is the way in which geometry avoids falling into error in respect of either defining terms or proving propositions. Again, it defines
only those terms which need to be defined, and proves
only those propositions which are not evident. When
in geometry man traces his steps back to the first truths
that can be known, he stops there and requires that
they be granted since geometry has nothing clearer to
prove them with. Thus, all of the propositions in geometry are perfectly demonstrated either by the natural light or by proofs. Since nature supplies all that
discourse cannot give, the order of geometry is just as
perfect as anything of which man can partake.
A telling example of Pascal's first principles is
the (fouble infinity. For Pascal, the most important of
all the properties that are common to everything is,
constituted by the two infinities which are
found everywhere, the infinitely great and
the infinitely small (Ibid, 434).
However great a space there may be, we can always
conceive of one greater, and also, however small a
space there may be, we can always conceive of one
that is smaller. Whatever space we take, there will
always be one greater and one lesser, so that everything lies between nothing and infinity, always remaining infinitely far from each extreme. This cannot be
demonstrated, yet it is one of the foundations of geometry.
While geometry can neither define its objects nor
prove its principles, it is neither deficient in clarity
nor in truth. Man has no knowledge more basic than
this double infinity or any that surpasses it in clarity.
Even so, since man cannot completely understand the
infinite, he is often reluctant to admit its existence as
well as its properties.
Pascal claims that those who do not admit of the
infinite divisibility of space will not be able to proceed in geometry. Those who do, however,
can admire the greatness and the power of
nature in that double infinity which surrounds
us on every side, and learn by the consideration of such marvels to know themselves,
seeing themselves placed between an infinity and a nothing of extension, between an
infinity and a nothip.g of number, between
an infinity and a nothing of motion, between
an infinity and a nothing of time . Whereupon we can learn to assess ourselves at our
just value and to make reflections worth more
than all the rest of geometry itself (Ibid, 439).
In this examination of geometry as a demonstration of
truth, Pascal is not just defending the validity of its
methods, he is saying something important about the
nature of man.
Man is incapable of perfect knowledge precisely
because he is trapped between the two infinities. He
is unable to prove first principles and know without a
doubt that they can be extended to the truly infinite.
This understanding of geometry's foundations produces an imperfect system, one that is based on first
principles that can't be defined. Thus, as a whole, it
relies on common acceptance, not on a common understanding. Pascal says that there is no geometer who
does not believe that space is infinitely divisible, yet
there is no geometer who understands an infinite division. This gap between acceptance and understanding is, in Pascal's mind, not a flaw in geometry itself,
but in man.
Pascal's treatment of the first principles is certainly
an interesting one. In building any system of thought,
one must start with at least one first principle. This
starting point must stand on its own, or whatever came
before it would be the first principle, and so on . In
order to avoid this infinite regression, the starting point
needs to be something common to everyone. Pascal,
of course, posits that these first principles are implanted
by nature in all men, so that they come from inside.
The question of first principles is an important one.
While Pascal's treatment of first principles certainly
differs from Newton's in respect to source or origin,
there are definite similarities. For Newton, geometry
begins with mechanics, the actual physical production of the figures. These figures, borrowed from without, correspond to the indefinable beginnings of Pascal. To Pascal, man is imperfect, God is perfect. Geometry is imperfect, but it is the most perfect science
that men have. Since geometry is imperfect, it draws
30
"FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH"
on certain indefinable terms and unproveable principles for its foundations. Now, Newton does not concern himself with the idea of first principles formally.
Rather, his preoccupation with the distinction between
mechanics and geometry seems to hint at questions of
origin. But, in contrast with Pascal, to Newton geometry is, in fact, perfect; the beginnings are supplied
by something no less perfect than the actual science.
In contrasting the two views ot: geometry and the
world, three distinct divisions arise. The first of these
divisions is founding principles. For Pascal, these are
granted by God and are therefore perfect. From this
perfect foundation springs the second division, the
system, or geometry. Pascal believes that since it
springs from indefinable and unproveable elements
(albeit perfect ones) from without, this system is necessarily imperfect. Yet it is the closest man comes to
accurately describing the third division, the world. This
is the actual God-given, God-granted world from
which man derives his imperfect model.
For Newton, these three divisions are not as distinct as they are for Pascal. Newton begins with the
belief that the world was created by the perfect mechanic, of whom he speaks in the Preface, namely God. ·
This perfect mechanic, working with perfect accuracy,
produced and set into motion the natural forces of the
world. The orbits of the planets, the motions of fall ing bodies, all follow the precise mathematical laws
He ordained. The first principles of this system, which
Newton refers to as the laws of motion in the previously cited letter to Cotes, are directly related to mechanics. For example, the first law states:
Every body continues in its state of rest or of
uniform motion in a right line unless it is
compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it (Pricipia, 13).
This law may be interpreted as the production of a
perfectly straight or right line. The continuation of
this law further provides for the description of the
parabola as well as the other conic sections as they
can be seen in the planetary orbits:
sion are continually drawn aside from rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation otherwise than as it is retarded by the air. The
greater bodies of the planets and comets,
meeting with less resistance in freer spaces,
preserve their motions both progressive and
circular for a longer time (Ibid, 13).
These laws serve as the rules for generation of both
the actual world created by the perfect mechanic, God,
and the system proposed by Newton. In contrast to
Pascal's first principles, which are logical, Newton's
are natural and physical. Experimental philosophy
itself allows for their discovery. Confidence is engendered by experience and the accuracy of the mathematics. For example, the parabolic motion of falling bodies depends on both the inertial and accelerative components set forth in the first two laws of motion. This motion can be seen experimentally as well
as demonstrated geometrically.
Since God created the world, it is perfect. The
first principles by which He did so must necessarily
also be perfect. God used mechanics to set the world
in motion. Since Newton also uses mechanics as the
foundation of his system, this system too begins with
perfect first principles. If the first principles are perfect, and the method used is perfect also, how can the
system itself fall short of perfection?
Newton is very emphatic about the perfection of
the perfect mechanic; any doubts must be referred to
us, not to Him. Newton does not claim that the system of the world he comes up with is perfect, rather
that his method is. The system is not necessarily completely accurate, and he allows for refinements. In
the Preface, speaking of the forces by which particles
of bodies are impelled to and repelled from each other,
he says:
These forces being unknown, philosophers
have hitherto attempted the search of Nature
in vain; but I hope the principles here laid
down will afford some light either to this or
some truer philosophy (Ibid, xviii).
Projectiles continue in their motions, so far
as they are not retarded by the resistance of
the air or impelled downward by the force
of gravity. A top, whose parts by their cohe-
He has given an account of the general forces
which dictate motion in the world. He has provided
the fundamentals; all else is particular.
This clarification Newton provides between the
31
�ENERGEIA
system and the method elucidates the very subtle distinction between what wondrous things Newton has
done and what lesser things are commonly ascribed
to him. Proposition sixty-six (Ibid, 173) demonstrates
our inability as men to see the whole system. We may
treat mathematically all the things which we perceive,
and-this itself is no small task, yet we cannot account
for those things we do not perceive. Newton here gives
a proof of our limits of understanding. (The very fact
that he can demonstrate and prove the limits of our
scope affords much credibility to his method.) All
apparent uncertainties about the world are merely a
result of our lack of ability to see the whole.
In this way, one sees that while Newton is not
merely proposing a simplified mathematical analogue
of the world, neither is he putting forth a direct representation of it. He believes that the world is governed
by mathematical forces which move it in a perfectly
mathematical fashion, and sets forth, therefore, a compl'etely mathematical analysis of it. He is explaining
the world through the only method capable of producing truth. In this respect, his system is not a simplified mathematical analogue to something more
complex and not mathematical. However, it is true
that we, as men, fall short of God in our abilities to
perceive and understand the universe as a whole. We
are able to grasp only parts at a time, and therefore,
whatever system we devise to explain the whole will
indubitably fall short of the truth . Nonetheless, Newton does give us truth after a fashion - his method.
And this seems to be the most important distinction between the two mathematicians/philosophers:
namely, the degree of perfection each of the divisions
entails. Pascal, troubled by the question of the origin
of first principles in a not-quite-perfect system, is led
to question man's own perfection. To him, the benefits of geometry are obvious; geometry leads to truth.
In agreeing with him, though, we must concede our
imperfections and consign ourselves to an eternal
struggle to decrease the ignorance we have of our own
world. Our limited understanding of the double infinity leads us either to despair in the futility of scientific inquiry, or to pursue moderation in our attempts
to explain the world. We are barred from true knowledge, and are able only to admire and delight in the
workings of an incomprehensible universe. All we are
left with is the task of focusing on ourselves and our
surroundings, hopefully learning, as Pascal says, "to
assess ourselves at our just value and to make reflections worth more than all the rest of geometry itself'
(Pascal, 439).
Newton, on the other hand, clearly believes that
we can have true knowledge of both ourselves and the
world. His veneration of geometry is evident throughout the work, and is found to be excessive nowhere.
He proves to us the strengths or, as he calls it in the
Preface, the glory, of geometry. We too are taught to
revere this science for its accuracy as well as the enormous scope of its findings; we come to understand it
as Newton does, as the science, inextricably linked to
mechanics, which accurately describes the natural
forces of the world. It should not be overlooked that
our views of God and the world are irrevocably
changed as well, for though the Principia is a geometrical treatise, it is not so narrow in scope, and is
rightly entitled the "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." After a careful examination of this
work we come to agree with Cotes's words from his
Preface to the second edition:
"FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH"
thence incited the more profoundly to reverence and adore the great Maker and Lord of
all. He must be blind who from the most
wise and excellent contrivances of things
cannot see the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of their Almighty Creator, and he must
be mad and senseless who refuses to acknowledge them (Principia, xxxii-xxxiii)
We see now that Newton leads us, through a sincere
and careful mathematical inquiry, to an informed participation in the glory of a most perfect universe.•
Fair and equal judges will therefore give sentence in favor of this most exce-llent method
of philosophy, which is founded on experiments and observations. And it can hardly
be said or imagined, what light, what splendor, hath accrued to that method from this
admirable work of our illustrious author,
whose happy and sublime genius, resolving
the most difficult problems, and reaching to
discoveries of which the mind of man was
thought incapable before, is deservedly admired by all those who are somewhat more
than superficially versed in these matte s.
The gates are now set open, and by the passage he has revealed we may freely enter into
the know ledge of the hidden secrets and wonders of natural things. He has so clearly laid
open and set before our eyes the most beautiful frame of the System of the World, that
if King Alphonso were now alive, he would
not complain for want of the graces either of
simplicity or of harmony in it. Therefore we
may now more nearly behold the beauties of
Nature, and entertain ourselves with the delightful contemplation; and, which is the best
and most valuable fruit of philosophy, be
32
33
�PHEDRE
Heroism in Racine's Phedre
By Peter Smith
Yes, prince, I languish, I burn for Theseus:
I love him, but not as hell saw him,
The fickle lover of a thousand different objects,
Who would dishonor the marriage bed of Death;
But faithful, but bold, and even a little savage,
Charming, young, drawing all hearts after him,
Such as one depicts our gods, or such as I see you
now.
He had your bearing, your eyes, your speech;
Your noble modesty reddened his face,
When he crossed the waves to our Crete,
Worthy subject of the vows of Minos' daughters.
What were you doing then? Why, without
Hippolytus,
Did he assemble the elite heroes of Greece?
Why, too young still, couldn't you then
Board the ship which took him to our shores?
You would have slain Crete's monster,
Despite the windings of his enormous lair.
To unfold the uncertain mystery,
My sister would have armed you with the fatal
thread.
But no: in this scheme, I would have gone before
her;
Love would have inspired this thought in me first;
It is me, prince, it's me, whose useful aid
Taught you of the Labyrinth's twistings:
With what cares I would have held dear this lovely
head!
A thread not enough to reassure your lover,
Companion in the peril which you sought,
I would have wanted to walk before you;
And Phedre descended into the Labyrinth with you
Would have, with you, returned or be lost.
(Act II, Scene 5)
eration and pious chastity are starkly contrasted with
the uncontrollable lusts which plague Phaedra. He
falls in love, it is true, but nicely. It makes sense, of
course, that Racine should see the proud restraint
which Hippolytus exhibits as the means of conquering one's passions. And just so that the analogy is
made perfectly clear even to those who were not
paying close attention during the first four acts,
Hippolytus is made, in the finale, to battle the beast
nobly in front of the wedding chapel, symbol of
honorable, chaste, and divinely sanctioned love.
With his heavy-handed use of metaphor Racine
forces this understanding of man's battle with passion into the somewhat unwilling Labyrinth myth
with which he is, after all, constrained to work. It
does not always seem to fit though. What does it
mean for Phaedra to lead the hero into the Labyrinth? Racine presents us with the image of a lecherous old woman enticing an innocent, luring him
into the darkness of perversity. Her promise to teach
him the turnings of the Labyrinth takes on a horrible and vivid significance, but it is a significance
irreconcilable with the myth. There is a discrepancy
on two different, but related, points. First, is the
matter of the seduction: it is backwards. Theseus
seduced the innocent Ariadne (and later abandoned
her), and not the other way around. Secondly, it is
only because of the knowledge she gives him, because of the fact that she betrays to him the secrets
of her family, "du fil fatal efit arme votre main",
that Theseus is able to kill the Minotaur.
It is Ariadne's thread which suggests an alternate understanding of the hero, and a reexamination of the character of Theseus. That which makes
it difficult for the young Hippolytus to see Theseus
as hero explains the necessity of the seduction of
Ariadne as preface to his battle with the Minotaur.
In the eyes of his son (in the first scene) and Phaedra
(in her speech), Theseus' penchant for playing the
role of "volage adorateur" and his crimes against
"trop credules esprits que sa flamme a tromp~s",
tarnish the memory of his heroic deeds, but in the
myth these seductions are closely bound to the idea
of Theseus as a hero. Theseus was able to descend
into the Labyrinth not because he was pure of heart,
but because he was an initiate of the island's profane mysteries. He could kill the Minotaur not because of his strength and courage, but because he
What is most striking about this passage is how
Hippolytus usurps his father's position, not only as
object of Phaedra's love, but also as hero. It is
Hippolytus who should have descended into the
Labyrinth. It is Hippolytus who should have killed
the Minotaur and freed Athens. The fact that Phaedra
ascribes to him the deeds of Theseus gives insight
into Racine's reworking of the myth, and into his
understanding of the hero.
The image of the Labyrinth is an obvious one
and central to the play. The story of its origin, of
Pasiphae and the bull, of passion and bestial lust,
hangs over the characters like a prophecy. It is the
product of an ancient curse which dooms the descendants of the sun; the sun who looked upon, and
revealed, the sins of a goddess. Their punishment ,
Phaedra's punishment, is unspeakable, subterranean
desire. The torture is made more horrible for Phaedra
because of the other half of her ancestry: she is the
daughter not only of Pasiphae, but of Pasiphae and
Minos. She is afflicted with remorse, the union of
sin with the consciousness of guilt, of insatiable lust
with divine, all-seeing, all-judging conscience. This
monstrous union of man and beast is depicted for
us in the image of the Minotaur, Phaedra's halfbrother.
But if this is how we are to read the metaphor of
monstrosity in Racine's play, how are we to understand the character of the hero, the monster-slayer?
Theseus, as he appears on stage, is of little help. He
is bumbling, incompetent and helpless. Until the final scene he has no idea of what is going on around
him, and seems, for that little bit of the play he is
actually in, more of a plot device than a character.
In order to understand the nature of the hero one
must tum toward the double image of Hippolytus
Theseus being led into the darkness by Phaedra
Ariadne.
It is not difficult to see Hippolytus in this role.
The imagery of the play, not only in this passage,
points towards him as the monster-slayer, and in
speech after speech his virtues are recounted. Racine
writes Hippolytus as a bland paradigm of manly
virtue, a character very different from the ambiguous and slightly repellent Amazon that appears in
Euripides' play. He is proud and honorable, but in
this play, only "un peu farouche". His sober mod-
35
�ENERGEIA
was able entice Ariadne into revealing her secrets
to him. It is also interesting to note that not only in
his Cretan escapade are his heroic deeds linked_
to
his conquest of women (if in the final analysis we
can even make the distinction between the two).
Theseus is able to save Athens from the Amazons
who threatened it by coercing their queen, Antiope,
the mother of Hippolytus, into committing an act
of betrayal similar to that of Ariadne. Both of the
threats to his kingdom come in the form of a woman
(the product of Pasiphae's awesome lusts, and the
proud and unbowing Amazon), and Theseus overcomes these threats not in combat, but with an act of
seduction. This is the nature of Theseus' heroism.
Racine ignores neither of these two heroes, but
plays them off against each other, which is what
makes Phaedra's speech so interesting. Even if, in
the end, he seems to see Hippolytus as the hero,
justifying his claim that this play, more than any
other he wrote, exalts virtue, the decision is yet an
ambiguous one. The fact that in loving Aricie he
becomes her captive, that in finally battling the
monster he becomes entangled in the twisting reins,
leaves open the question as to whether the man who
contemplates the storm standing safely on the quiet
shore can really call himself its master. •
Lyric Narration
By Alexa Van Dalsem
"Sing, goddess, of the destructive wrath of Achilles,
son of Peleus ... " begins the Iliad, and through vivid
language the reader is swept into the emotion and story
of Achilles. The words provoke sympathetic sensations and pry upon the memory and imagination to
relate a hero's tale. For from simple words, spoken or
written, placed in careful succession upon the mind,
one may experience countless lives and events and
ideas. Being social, communicative animals, humans
strive to communicate with others, most immediately
through words and when words cannot suffice, perhaps through dance, art, theater, or music. In the studying and listening of the second movement of
Beethoven's Symphony No.7 the music plays into a
storyline, evoking different emotions in the parade of
musical measures, combining to tell a story, such as
the first words of the Iliad. Like a narrator's words,
music is a storyteller.
The oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horns introduce
the second movement as if ending a section of music,
holding their notes for three measures. C makes an
appearance as 3 in the oboe and bassoon, and E as 5 in
the oboe and horns, outnumbering the A's in the clarinet and bassoon. The introduction has a feeling of
being almost complete, not quite hitting home, leading to the entrance of the main character, who I call
Kedos, represented by the lone notes of measures three
and four, theme (a), a slow, precisely measured, melancholy beat (measures 3-26). The A-minor key gives
the notes the familiar minor-key sadness. Measures
11-18 repeat from measure 19 on, but more quietly.
Having victoriously concluded a war the stately Kedos
leaves the battle land, walking in solemnity and solitude grieved of lost lives and his homeland. Coming
upon a divinely lit clearing, he does not slow his steps,
but approaches quietly, not wishing to be noticed by
nor to disturb the figure dancing in the light.
The viola and cello take up the melody, theme(~),
36
dancing behind (a) as a less solemn tune (measures
27-50). (~)moves up to the second violin, urging (a)
to the first violin as the two tunes intertwine, the beat
becoming momentarily less prominent (measures 5174). As(~) proceeds to the first violin, (a) is driven
into the wind instruments in a crescendo of (a), made
more prominent by the high pitch of the tones overriding, but not wholly hiding, the continued(~) melody
in the first violin, and the contrast of the seeming lightness of the preceding section. In sympathy(~) plays
along with (a) (measures 75-9.8), dropping off for a
moment at 99-100 for (a). Despite his precautions,
the figure turns towards Kedos, dancing around him,
winding her song amidst his melancholy. Softly she
sings of happiness, beguiling him to join her, to forget
his pain for lightness. Tempted by her promises and
the rays of joy laid against his sadness, prodded by
the sharp pangs of his pain, Kedos tries to dance, to
mingle with her song. But in his pain he can only
erupt into the song of his sorrows, weeping and singing as she sings with him, dancing in sympathy, as he
tries to purge his mind of the past. Enchanted by her
continued song, Kedos ends his weeping, forgetting
sorrow, and eases into her dance.
After the crescendo and fall off of (a) , (~) picks up
a lighter tune in a lighter key, A minor, in the clarinet
and bassoon. The original rhythm of (a) continues in
a variation by the bass, but pizzicato, so that the role
of the pounding dominant beat is lessened (measures
101-42). Ending the tune,(~) reverts to A minor in
measure 139 and begins a downward scale, to .spill
into a full tumbling scale, covered by winds and strings
from the flute to the bass (measures 144-48). A pair
of eighth notes hang suspended at the end to be answered by two more sets of eighths (149). Having relieved Kedos 'pain, eased his piercing cries into soulful looks, she sings of her life, of the happiness he
would find with her further soothing his wounds with
�ENERGEIA
tales of continued gaiety and merriment. She ends
her song with arms outstretched towards him, asking
if he will join her in the lightness, suspended as she
wonders if she has convinced his pain to escape into
her dance. He cannot but assent, wrapped in her enchanted song.
(p) returns in measure 150, still accompanied by
the pizzicato bass beat. Measures 176-77 hold a short
set of saddened tones that give way again to a soothing tune, leading into the fugue. The fugue subject as
appears in measures 183-86 is another variation of (a),
using the same rhythm in a smoother sequence of
notes. The fugue having begun with two string instruments widens to all four string instruments, comes
to include the wind instruments, and builds to another
crescendo of music for a return of the solemn pounding (a) theme (measures 214-23), repeating a part of
what the flutes so plaintively declared in measures 7598 . Falling into the lightness, Kedos and she dance,
signing her notes of glorious, lulling melody. Under
her enchantment his pain finds rest, resurfacing in
fleeting instances to be blanketed by her swift hands.
She wove his pain into light, relieving his soul with
masks made of his sadness. As he dances his light
ascends, as she sings he flies, floating only among her
notes to be gripped by his unyielding pain. Falling to
ground, he cries in familiar anguish as memory triumphs over her presence, seized with realization of
his dances 'futility, of the enchanted mask resting upon
his face.
As (a) repeats in measures 214-23, so does the
melodic variation of (p) of measures 101-42 return,
again to A major, futilely trying to dispel the reinstated
sadness (measures 224-51). The sad (a) struggles over
(p), returning softly in measures 243-45 to A minor
and the original beat, and is more strongly reinstated
in the following measures, becoming climactically
loud (by all instruments except strings) as (a) returns,
softly (only by the strings), loudly, softly, as if to reveal two contrary views of a situation (measures 24753). The succeeding beat series of quarter note, two
eighths, and two quarter notes is played by pairs of
the wind instruments in succession (flute and oboe,
oboe and clarinet, etc.), to be supported and answered
by all four strings in pizzicato, and then repeated (measures 255-70). Finally, the winds consent (measure
271) and the strings, returning to area, speed off to the
end. Trying once again to dispel Ke dos' pain, an-
swering to his repeated cry, she sings her song' of
gaiety and merriment, enclosing his soul in her leaves
of easement. But his melancholy winds shu.ffie her
leaves to the ground, and as if to convince himself he
exclaims, "I have t'o go," a yearning to stay lingering
in his eyes, but convinced by his own words. Calmed
by his conviction, he found his pain echoed in her slowing song, in her consent. Little to reply, he disappeared
beyond the boundary of her faded light.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this story resembles
that of Odysseus and Calypso. As Homer's epic poetics composed the tale of Odysseus, so does music hold
the ability to compose a tale. Listening to music, I
often put phrases of words with the music, naturally
matching the tones with words. Songs intentionally
combine music that expresses emotions to simiiar
emotions expressed by the words (or vice versa).
Palestrina used voices formed around words to produce a musical composition, expressing sentiments
through words and music. An in the Kyrie of the Missa
Papae Marcelli, the singing of the "Kyrie" is shortened compared to the elongated "eleison," as if calling attention to the Lord and then singing in supplication for mercy, lengthening the word so that it reaches
the Lord and giving "eleison" importance as if the
Lord's attention can be easily gotten, but his mercy
requires more effort. Together and separately music
and words express a story or emotion or can portray a
scene.
According to Aristotle, " ... that which has a beginning and a middle and an end is a whole." (Pqetics
VII.27) Musical compositions and written stories,
being complete and whole like tragedy, should have a
beginning, middle, and end in which to contain a story,
and methods of revealing the building, climax, and
resolution within those boundaries-words through
suspenseful and climactic literal illustrations and music through the soundings of instruments. In the second movement Beethoven denotes when instruments
should become loud or soft, when to crescendo and
other such dynamics to set a scene or mood. Music
from the beginning (a) overlaps the end of the fugue
in stretto, building to a powerful reinstatement of (a),
to give a booming and dynamic entry to a familiar
tune. While (a) rested beneath(~) and hid within its
variations, it could never disappear. Its reentry sneaks
up on the listener and hits the ear with grand resolution at its return. (a) and(~) of the second movement
38
LYRIC NARRATION
differ through dynamics as well-( a) being more of a
march, stately and solemn, using the same rhythm
every two measures, with each note pronounced.
Whereas(~) flows into a dance rhythm, creating a song
theme through varied notes, many tied together to
soften the evident beat of (a). Dynamics of music describe a scene and actions as words and phrases describe a scene in a story.
As words invoke images of characters which are
carried in the mind throughout a story, the use in music of different instruments or tunes defines characters. The musical characters interact as the instruments
and tunes interact, playing separately or together, one
perhaps louder or higher in pitch that the other, to reveal different qualities and positions of the characters. Beethoven's use of two tunes (the beginning
stately (a) and the added flowing(~) which play together, and sound separately, and build over one another, sets apart two characters acting together as the
music acts together. Shiitz's St. Matthew Passion similarly distinguishes the characters, having the Evangelist and Jesus as single singers with music and words
presented more as speaking than song, sung by musically different voices. The High Priests and Learned
Ones as well as Jesus' Disciples sing with multiple
voices to represent a group of people, differentiating
the Evangelist, Jesus, and the followers. In music,
characters are described through musical qualities,
which act as words ion character descriptions by playing on the emotions conjured up by the musical qualities.
Both words and music evoke one's emotions, letting the mind hold the story within itself, to experience vicariously sadness and joy, trouble and resoluti on, being the· foundation for humans to participate
in stories. Different keys easily set the tone, as the
beginning key of A minor of the second movement
gives the music sadness and the intermittent A-major
sections give the music a lighter, less solemn air. The
regular beat of (a) reminds the listener of marching,
giving the tune solemnity and stateliness. The melodic (~) , on the other hand, with notes tied together,
trickling up and down scales in notes of smaller time
increments, sounds like a dance, resulting in a tune
with a tendency towards happiness. Without these
memories or sympathies, one can only see words or
music, without truly reading or listening, failing to fly
above the tones. Like written compositions, music
combines musical elements as a form of expression,
resulting not only in a musical composition but an
expression of emotion, resembling a story. •
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<em>Energeia</em>
Description
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<em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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energeia
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ii, 39 pages
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Christopher (senior editor)
Title
A name given to the resource
Energeia, Spring 1996
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1996
Description
An account of the resource
Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1996.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Energeia Spring 1996
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Energeia
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
12 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 40 #5
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor in Chief)
Grauberd, Jonathan (Editor in Chief)
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII Issue 05
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-16
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 05 of The Gadfly. Published November 16, 2016. (Misnumbered as Vol. XLI, Issue 05.)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/de22ef3a76cbd4a97f57080582b4db12.pdf
02205061e954b8f44213e7d30dea9be7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 40 #6
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor in Chief)
Grauberd, Jonathan (Editor in Chief)
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII Issue 06
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-13
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 06 of The Gadfly (Special Issue: Badfly). Published December 13, 2016. (Misnumbered as Vol. XLII, Issue 06).
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Badfly
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 40 #7
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor in Chief)
Grauberd, Jonathan (Editor in Chief)
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII Issue 07
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-22
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 07 of The Gadfly. Published January 22, 2017. (Misnumbered as Vol. XLIII, Issue 07).
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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85dfaa42e26454a09d4b992d4d946c17
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
12 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadlfy, Vol. XXXVIII Issue 08
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 08 of The Gadfly. Published February 21, 2017. (Misnumbered as Vol. XLIV, Issue 8)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Grauberd, Jonathan (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 44 Issue 8 February 21, 2017
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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47e84756d2162ca5195d827da9141b4f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXIX Issue 11
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXIX, Issue 11 of The Gadfly. Special Issue: Croquet. Published April 14, 2018. (Misnumbered as Vol. XXXVIV, Issue 11).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Berreles-Luna, Athena (Editor-in-Chief)
Pelham, Rose (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 39 Issue 11 April 14, 2018
Croquet
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXIX Issue 09
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXIX, Issue 09 of The Gadfly. Published February 11, 2018. (Misnumbered as Vol. XXXIX, Issue 09).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Berreles-Luna, Athena (Editor-in-Chief)
Pelham, Rose (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 39 Issue 09 February 11, 2018
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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4f9edcb6046127ed2b302787b7b62acd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXIX Issue 02
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXIX, Issue 02 of The Gadfly. Published September 20, 2017. (Misnumbered as Vol. XXXVIV, Issue 02).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 39 Issue 02 September 20, 2017
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXIX Issue 01
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXIX, Issue 01 of The Gadfly. Published September 6, 2017. (Misnumbered as Vol. XXXVIV, Issue 01).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 39 Issue 01 September 6, 2017
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII, Issue 11
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11 of The Gadfly. Published May 2, 2017.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 38 Issue 11 May 2, 2017
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
12 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII, Issue 10
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10 of The Gadfly. Published April 20, 2017. Special Issue: Croquet.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 28 Issue 10 April 20, 2017
Croquet
Gadfly
Student publication
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
12 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVIII, Issue 09
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 09 of The Gadfly. Published April 11, 2017.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Kira (Editor-in-Chief)
Grauberd, Jonathan (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Vol. 38 Issue 9 April 11, 2017
Gadfly
Student publication
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