Individuals who attend university are faced with a multitude of varied challenges once they leave the comforts of academia. The function of any university is purportedly to provide persons with the skills to confront these obstacles, and overcome them, resulting in financial success. This rudimentary understanding of universities is promoted in public education, which underestimates the greater potential of a university experience. Rather than merely equipping outgoing students with practical job skills that lead to individual happiness, universities have the potential to serve as a communal beacon for understanding and collective knowledge. This discrepancy in the function of higher education institutions underlines a challenge in understanding the differences between three central forms of education: civic, liberal and political. A civic education instills the virtues of the state into potential citizens, allowing them to become good citizens. A liberal education aims for a holistic understanding of individuals, articulating what it means to be a good human being. A political education enables those with a liberal education to extend their understanding to others, developing a greater body of knowledge with the goal of fostering a prosperous community of motivated individuals with whom to grow and discuss. This expanded notion of universities is often not achieved, and it is threatened by a multitude of factors both internal and external.
Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind, recounts his experience in the changing landscape of universities throughout the nineteen sixties as a teacher at Cornell, identifying a central failing in the accommodating trends of universities. Michael Oakeshott observes a failing of universities with respect to the form of political education. Oakeshott explains that the general empirical, positivist rendition of political education presented in universities forgoes a nuanced understanding of political action. This misaligns political education to strictly practical ends, obscuring the larger communal “truth” oriented goals. Kenneth Minogue notes similar concerns in his work, The Concept of a University, expressing doubt about the function of the modern university. He suggests that universities have strayed from the path of “truth”, failing to put the “theory into practice.” This is similar to Bloom’s worries, but differs in content, while reviewing the evolution of the social and practical functions of universities. The three authors demonstrate a passion for all three forms of education, emphasizing the cohesion needed to fulfill the potential of a comprehensive education. This education is functionally administered through discussions and questioning, by and from students as well as educators. The experience of questioning is the modus operandi of fostering education and is primarily useful for political education. A thorough understanding of how best to provide students with engaging questions furthers our understanding of political education, and how it maximizes civic and liberal education to their fullest potential.
Imparting knowledge to students should not be understood as merely providing a checklist of facts to be regurgitated. Rather, one needs to guide intelligent discussion and foster thought provoking insights. This furthers the ultimate goal of building a thriving political community. The process of answering and then providing questions for students to consider is the linchpin in developing this political community as it allows students to develop their own insights. However, the difficulty lies in assessing what students are struggling to understand because their own questioning may not articulate these issues. Free-form discussion provides the best format to assist students in their development, as its naturalistic, conversational tone allows for comfortable reflection. Additionally, it provides the possibility for fun, something students often complain is lacking after trying to engage in a poor lecture. Discussions engage students in every discipline better than any other method except the most excellent of lectures, and it is especially potent for a political education. Asking questions empowers students with a sense of agency and exploration, while an educator’s questions allow for a natural understanding of concepts. This mirrors classical philosophical discourse, while also grounding discussion in personal interaction which is inherent to all forms of politics. Mastering discussion and questioning allows an educator to maximize liberal education. Universities provide an ample environment in which to develop political education; however, if the university is lacking in quality, it will not be able to achieve this. Allan Bloom notes that while modern universities attempt to provide an education to students through a combination of lecture and communal activities, they fail to achieve their goal: “The university now offers no distinctive visage to the young person. He finds a democracy of the disciplines… This democracy is really an anarchy… In short there is no vision… The student gets no intimation that great mysteries might be revealed to him, that new and higher motives of action might be discovered within him, that a different and more human way of life can be harmoniously constructed by what he is going to learn.”[1] Bloom explains that universities originated in the classical Greek tradition of the Academy but have since become divorced from their foundations. The university is modeled after Socratic teachings in an effort to actualize the philosophic experience with a community of motivated individuals. However, the university does not succeed in this goal, and it risks losing its essence as a result: “The philosophic life is not the university. Until the nineteenth century most philosophers had nothing to do with universities, and perhaps the greatest abhorred them. One cannot imagine Socrates as a professor… But Socrates is of the essence of the university.”[2] Bloom recounts his understanding of the modern university to call attention to this problem and its larger implication for students entering higher education.
Bloom articulates his perspective on universities by first explaining how the American culture emphasizes individuality to the point of corrupting civic identity. This idea is explained with reference to Alexis de Tocqueville’s work Democracy in America, which explicates and predicts the effects of democracy on American civic education. Bloom explains that the civic education of America promotes the importance of each individual who regards him or herself as equal to all others. This results in a value system in which everyone’s value is relative in worth only to that individual, making the pursuit of an absolute “truth” difficult to comprehend. Bloom identifies the rampant “celebritism” of individuals who can articulate their worth to others: “Though the values, the horizons, the tables of good and evil that originate in the self cannot be said to be true or false, cannot be derived from the common feeling of mankind or justified by the universal standards of reason, they are not equal, contrary to what vulgar teachers of value theory believe… The individual value of one man becomes the polestar for many others whose own experience provides them with no guidance.”[3] Democracy in America, for Bloom, reinforces mediocrity of both students and educators, as each individual’s value system is considered important, thus resulting in an environment of un-challenging tolerance. This is threatening to the goals of a political education, as the occasional discomfort or “hard talk” serves only to advance the collective understanding of the community. Furthermore, this results in further stratification of individuals rather than bringing them together in a communal atmosphere, ironically contradicting the professed noble intentions of equality: “Simply, the university is not distinctive. Equality for us seems to culminate in the unwillingness and incapacity to make claims of superiority, particularly in the domains in which such claims have always been made… What we see happening in general happened here [in Universities] too; the insistent demand for greater community ended in greater isolation.”[4] Bloom provides an intelligent examination of the structure of the modern university, and how best to avoid furthering the downtrend he laments. Oakeshott, in comparison, discusses the impact of empirical evaluation on political education propagated by mainstream educational systems. Political education, when framed within an empirical perspective, loses its essence and is undervalued.
Political education must encompass more than a reductionist or entirely theoretical account of learning. Oakeshott avoids mischaracterizing politics as merely abstract knowledge or education, instead defining politics from a holistic understanding: “We should not, therefore, seek a definition of politics in order to deduce from it the character of political knowledge and education, but rather observe the kind of knowledge of education which is inherent in any understanding of political activity, and use this observation of improving our understanding of politics.”[5] This comprehensive approach identifies the fallacy of assuming that political activity always precedes political ideology, when in fact, the opposite can be true. Political ideology is derived from the understanding of concepts that must be discussed and investigated at length to gain a complete comprehension. Empirically deriving political ideology exclusively from empirical observation negates this cumulative understanding, and misconstrues political activity as being purely ideologically motivated. Analyzing political activity is not without merit or worth; it should be avoided when it is practiced exclusively, as opposed to doing so in conjunction with ideological analysis. Understanding the nature of political activity engages the student in sympathy, a necessary process for those who aspire to effectively demonstrate their political thinking. Oakeshott is concerned about devaluing political activity through empirical investigation, advocating for a balance between qualitative and quantitative investigation. The relationship between political ideology and political activity should be understood holistically, and in education should be communicated as such. Oakeshott elucidates the importance of this relationship, highlighting the necessity of considering viewpoints outside of one’s traditional political thinking: “The fruits of political education will appear in the manner in which we think and speak about politics and perhaps in the manner in which we conduct our political activity… The more profound our understanding of political activity, the less we shall be at the mercy of plausible but mistaken analogy… the more thoroughly we understand our own political tradition, the more readily its whole resources are available to us.”[6] Oakeshott’s essay warns of the danger of limiting one’s understanding of political thought through any one framework, challenging political education to utilize multiple methods.
Minogue develops his understanding of the university by demonstrating the inherent differences between general education, society, and the rise of the notion of the practical worth of a university education. Universities are limited by the societal understanding of their practical worth; university is viewed as merely a stage of life that will prepare the student for the rest of his career. Minogue maintains that this perspective corrupts the quality of universities by shifting their priorities from the understanding of knowledge to societal concerns: “For all views that the university does or ought to serve ‘society,’ that it ought to be the instrument of something external to the academic world, are devices for denying academic independence, and for imposing alien values upon it.” This emphasis on the practical value of a university misconstrues the purpose of academic learning, lessening both the quality of the students engaging in education and the educators fostering it. The educator becomes focused on the quantity of research output, rather than quality, and limits their understanding of knowledge by modeling their lectures on efficiency. The student, therefore, is not given a proper opportunity to engage in the communal understanding of the material because the format of his/her path is limited by the societal goals set for the university. Minogue explains that the student enters the university knowing virtually nothing, necessitating the need for excellent questioning, and excellent answers: “The undergraduate is a Socrates, whose wisdom consists in the fact that he knows nothing. He is therefore a questioner; nor does he stop at a first question, but as an exposition proceeds he must be a continual questioner… even the most corrupt undergraduate… cannot help, by the tasks which his presence involves, going some small way to maintaining academic vitality.”[7] Minogue identifies this problem not to condemn the worth of practical experience, but to highlight its discordance with academic investigation.
He elucidates this through the use of an extended metaphor involving a society contained in a single house. The “House” has many “Rooms” dedicated to the production of food, religious worship, and academia. The “Academic Room” collects objects to retain knowledge from the past, reviews literature, and hosts teaching sessions for the young and interested. This initial group of students are descended from the wise members of the “House” who see the worth in an independent “Room” dedicated to knowledge. Eventually the people who regularly inhabit all of the others “Rooms” of the “House” begin to expect their children to attend the “Academic Room”, in order to attain the associations of intelligence and worth given to those who attend the “Academic Room”. Furthermore, they expect the “Room” that adjudicates polices that govern the whole “House” to begin drafting policy on the “Academic Room”, ensuring it will facilitate these larger societal goals. Minogue’s metaphor demonstrates that the goals of a civic education, when put into practice, change the nature of the liberal education to fit its description, justified through an already corrupt political education possessed by the citizens of the “House” through their understanding of their individual political thinking: “…the Academic Room in the House has become crowded with a new collection of people who do not quite understand what the point of the room is. They are half impressed by what they have found, but a little baffled also… They believe the Room is out of date and in need of a shakeup. If they get their way, they will have made the Academic Room indistinguishable from the rest of the house.”[8] Minogue recognizes the importance of the university as a distinct institution, capable of achieving its goals when unhindered by the interests of the larger societal body. Furthermore, Minogue recognizes that the university must avoid ideological mandates, or risk committing the same errors as the rest of the “House”. The independent liberal education provided in academia is distinct in its pursuit of “truth” and thus must be left unbothered by larger societal concerns. The university can only hope to guide society through its understanding of knowledge.
It is clear that a delicate balance must be maintained between a civic, liberal and political education. Bloom articulates his understanding of the university to reinforce the importance of challenging students who enter the communal discussion, ensuring a truly diverse political community, and ultimately, superior citizens. Oakeshott notes that a comprehensive understanding of politics in academia results in the best understanding of political thought, as opposed to a strictly empirical or theological perspective. Minogue’s writings demonstrate an understanding of both these works, supporting the need for an independent education system to ensure the best liberal education through the articulation of the best political education. A good civic education naturally follows the proper implementation of liberal and political educations, as citizens are guided by the knowledge of the community of unconstrained academics. The improvement of society is necessarily tied to the development of an understanding of its own nature. Universities must continue to maintain their independent pursuit of knowledge, or face assimilation into the important, but ultimately misaligned, realm of civic education.
[1] Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 337.
Editor’s note: Brock McLeod graduated with a degree in Liberal Studies from VIU (formerly Malaspina University-College) and went on to became a passionate advocate for the kind of learning that we foster here, in which students engage in small seminar discussions, animated by great ideas and guided by beautiful and deep works of literature, philosophy, politics, art and science from the distant past to the present.
Brock McLeod surrounded by the books he loved to read and share.
Brock took this passion for reading great books, learning deeply, and discussing ideas with others back to his community. He began discussion groups in his home town, connected with civic leaders, and enhanced his community through the friendly but serious pursuit of great ideas. He and his wife, Heather, opened and ran an extremely successful organic farm near Duncan, BC. Even while he underwent treatments for cancer, he was active in the life of books, ideas, and conversation. He attended conferences when he could, and sat in on occasional Liberal Studies lectures at VIU. Sadly, Brock passed away in 2017.
The Brock McLeod Liberal Studies Award was established in his honour by Heather in accordance with Brock’s wishes. Proceeds from the fund will be used to generate scholarships for Liberal Studies students who, like Brock, can perceive and articulate the connection between deeper learning and better citizenship in a liberal democracy. Tax deductible donations to the fund are still being accepted by VIU (Note: in the “Designation” field of the online form, click “other” then type or paste “The Brock McLeod Liberal Studies Award” into the new field that opens up). The Department would like to give our thanks to Heather McLeod for establishing the fund, and to all those who have contributed and who continue to contribute. It will ensure Brock’s passion for liberal education continues into the future.
In addition to everything else he did, Brock was preparing chapters for a book about the connection between liberal education and liberal democracy. In the following essay, intended to be the second chapter of the book, Brock eloquently argues for the enduring importance of liberal education anchored in the great books. He sincerely hoped more of h
is fellow citizens would learn to love as much as he did this unique kind of education.
Permission to republish this chapter was graciously granted by Heather McLeod.
“On Liberal Education”
By Brock McLeod
“It’s a strange image,” he said, “and strange prisoners you’re telling of.” – Plato’s Republic (515a).
Neo: “Why do my eyes hurt?” Morpheus: “You’ve never used them before.” – The Matrix
In the 1999 blockbuster hit, The Matrix, humans are kept enslaved by machines that have artificial intelligence. The machines trick humans into believing they are free, when, in reality, they are prisoners whose minds have been hooked up to a virtual reality program to simulate freedom in a modern world. The machines enslave the humans in order to use their bodies as sources of energy. Morpheus, Neo’s liberator, holds up a battery to bring home the point. Later, Neo is referred to as “coppertop,” after the Duracell battery moniker.
The grand political message of The Matrix is that we, today, are enslaved. Corporations and their owners need us to work for them, or provide energy, in order for them to reap profits. Neo, for example, works for a “respectable software company” and when he shows up late, he is lectured by his boss about the needs of the corporation and his role in its success: “This company is one of the top software companies in the world because every single employee understands that they are part of a whole.” In order to keep us serving this system, we are led to believe that the laws and morals of our society are for our own good. They keep us free. In reality, according to The Matrix, they are the fetters of our minds, keeping us in service to someone else’s benefit. CIA agents, and other law enforcement, help to ensure that anyone who starts to work against the system is neutralized.
This idea, that we are serving the interests of the rich and powerful, is not a new one, however. It was expressed most forcefully, perhaps, in 1848 by Marx and Engels, in their Communist Manifesto. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that Marxist and Matrix look so similar. To Marx and Engels, the world had forever been divided into antagonistic classes, the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the oppressed. These groups go by different names throughout history according to Marx and Engels, such as “freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,” and finally, in Marx and Engels’ day, “Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” Throughout history, according to Marx and Engels, the rules were set in favour of the rulers, essentially using the people to generate wealth and leisure for themselves.
In order to justify this, they tricked the people. As Marx and Engels put it, exploitation was “veiled by
religious and political illusions.” Religion, in particular, helped dampen people’s desire for change, as it made them accept their suffering, leading Marx to state that religion is “the opium of
Morpheus
the people,” or, more popularly, the opiate of the masses. The name “Morpheus,” from The Matrix, one might note, is the name of the ancient Greek god of dreams. The word ‘morphine’ is derived from the word Morpheus. Morphine is an opiate. The computer-generated “dream world,” as Morpheus describes it, or Matrix, then, is the new opiate of the masses. Are the Wachowski’s suggesting that we now use video games to escape from our reality? Virtual reality, via Minecraft or Call of Duty, as the new opiate of the masses?
In any case, the idea of rulers exploiting the ruled by defining right and wrong in their interests is a recurring one. In fact, it goes back much further than Marx and Engels. In ancient Athens, around 380 BCE, Plato made a similar argument. When discussing, for example, the popular concept of “justice” in his day, “that of doing good to friends and harm to enemies,” Plato points out that the people who promoted that false definition were the rulers and the rich in society. So Plato, too, one could argue, is warning us that the Matrix has us.
Plato, however, used a different image. He said people are like prisoners in a cave with respect to knowing the truth about things, with “their legs and necks in bonds.” Instead of seeing real things in the daylight above the earth, people are only exposed to false images of things, shadows on a wall from a fire burning behind them. When exposed to the world above the cave, their eyes would hurt from the sudden exposure of the sun (truth), because, like Neo, they had never really used their eyes.
Plato’s call to action is also different from that of Marx and the Wachowski brothers. While Marx and Engels called for people to “support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things” since they had nothing to lose but their chains, Plato was less revolutionary, in a sense. Even though he, too, envisioned a new social and political order, it was education, or philosophy, that Plato saw as the mechanism for people to lose their chains. That is, if the notions of right and wrong in society are compromised by the self-serving views of the rich and powerful, the goal should be to come to that realization and then seek for the real truth of the matter. What really is “justice,” if it is not what society would have us believe? For Plato, freeing people from the cave of ignorance is the revolution. That these freed people might one day replace the existing rulers was a nice dream, but not his main end.
I also think, to an extent, Plato was less cynical than Marx and the Wachowski’s. For while Plato recognized that some of the notions in society might be self-serving justifications for the powerful, he also recognized that false notions may be serving no one at all, neither rich nor poor, neither ruler nor ruled. That is, they may simply be the products of ignorance or prejudice, or the result of authors or screenwriters needing to make things sound dramatic, accidentally leading to false beliefs based on artistic images. In any case, these false notions get in the way both of people living good lives and of society being well-governed. For Plato, then, it was important that people thought for themselves about these things and came to their own conclusions. He was a champion of education, of helping people shed false notions and get at the truth.
Ultimately, this led to one of his most famous claims – one for which he has been variously ridiculed or condemned, as well as celebrated: “Unless,” I said, “the philosophers rule as kings, or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize… there is no rest from ills for the cities… nor I think for human kind…”. Now, this probably sounds as fanciful, and undemocratic, in our own day as it did in Plato’s, for the reputation of philosophers has not improved much; but I think it helps to understand what he means by “philosophers.” For to Plato, a philosopher was someone who could think clearly and was wise and prudent. So if we substitute these words in place of “philosopher” throughout his quote, and modernize others, we get: “Unless,” I said, “citizens who are wise and prudent, and who can think clearly, rule as prime ministers, or those now called prime ministers and cabinet ministers genuinely and adequately seek wisdom, think clearly and act prudently, there is no rest from ills for nations… nor I think for human kind…”.
Now, I hope this lays to rest the idea that what Plato proposed is fanciful. What Plato proposed is actually much more like common sense. Do we not want to be ruled by people who are smart, knowledgeable, and have shown themselves to be prudent and honourable in their conduct throughout their lives? Or would we rather be ruled by those who are foolish, imprudent and ignorant? Now, of course, there is, perhaps, one other complication that I have glossed over. For I have couched Plato’s quote in democratic terms. But it is not clear that, for Plato, the people should be the one’s to choose their leaders. In fact, he was convinced that the people themselves would never choose the wisest to rule them. This was, in part, why he thought it would take a fluke of history for philosophers to ever rule. It would be more of an accident that a philosopher would come to power than that the people would specifically choose one.
For Plato, and this is again where he sounds undemocratic, thought that the mass of people could never be wise: “Then it’s impossible,” I said, “that a multitude be philosophic.” 494a. If the voters are neither wise, nor prudent, nor can think clearly, what hope is there that they will not be fooled by populists and other candidates who are good at campaigning, leaving the wise and prudent candidate unrequited? Now, for many, this is where the story ends on Plato. They think he is totalitarian (see Karl Popper), or an enemy of democracy. But I think this is misreading Plato. For Plato’s Republic is aspirational. He recognizes that, in his day, it would be impossible to conceive of the people as wise and choosing a ruler well, but we shouldn’t necessarily take it that he thought it would be this way for all time. It might be a good time to note, too, that the democracy of his day voted to put his teacher, philosopher Socrates, to death for raising pesky questions and calling into question the society’s religious beliefs. What faith could we expect Plato to have in his fellows if they voted to murder the wisest man he knew?
So, I think we need to cut Plato some slack. For despite stating that it was near impossible for a philosopher to come to rule society, he still wrote a book which is arguably a manual in bringing about a revolution in education that could, one day, result in enough educated people to make wise decisions about rulers. That is, he hoped that one day, more people would receive a good education, or at least recognize those who did. And, as we know, educational levels in society have risen exponentially since Plato’s day, thanks in part, probably large part, to him and other authors throughout the ages making the case for the value of education. In Canada, for example, around half the working age population now has a university degree or college diploma. Granted, most of those graduating from these programs would not be considered “philosophers” by Plato’s standard, nor any other, but the extent to which people are enchained by false notions of justice, crime, health, economics, history, science and other areas of knowledge has surely been reduced, decimated even. Though this is not to say there isn’t still a lot of work to do, which leads us to our next idea for democratic reform.
What connection does all this talk about The Matrix, The Communist Manifesto and Plato’s Republic have to do with democratic reform? They are all valuable reminders about the connection between the ideas we have in our heads and our ability to lead a happy and free life, both because of their impact on our personal lives as well as on our political lives. That is, if the goal of a democracy is, in part, to leave us free to pursue happy lives, but both our ability to make good choices for ourselves and our ability to make good choices for our society, government, or democracy, is negatively impacted by false ideas of the good, or truth, then it is important that education plays a significant role in society. Sound education is no less important to get right as a society than what kind of voting system we have.
Different types of education, or their absence, lead to different kinds of citizens and different kinds of decisions about how our democracy should operate. If, as a society, we are supporting education for the people, shouldn’t we be concerned about making that education good? Shouldn’t we be concerned with whether the type of education we are supporting is conducive to the continued support and improvement of our society and democratic institutions, or whether it ignores or undermines them? I think we are losing sight of this notion and it is important that we reform things to get back to a more holistic view of education, one that recognizes its importance for democracy.
For instance, we seem to be losing sight of the fact that higher education should not just be about getting good jobs. But in our individualistic and commercial age, most post-secondary students choose their educational path based almost entirely on whether it will help them get a “good” job, and society is increasingly funding degrees based on the same thinking. What has happened to the idea that going to university should help free one from the illusions of the Matrix, or help one escape from the darkness and bondage of Plato’s Cave?
Even if a job is all a particular student wishes to get out of his or her education, however, there are advantages to society from an educated electorate. Society functions better and people are able to make better decisions about how to live their lives if they have ideas in their heads that are consistent with the truth, when their minds are free from false ideas. Take a student of criminology, for instance, who ends up working as a police officer or in the correctional system. They will be able to make better decisions about how to address crime in society, ideally taking measures to help prevent it, but, if not, then figuring out how better to catch criminals and then, perhaps, help them get back to a healthy relationship with society after incarceration. Other degrees have similar effects in other areas of society, from health to history to economics to science. In educating our society, we are not simply helping ensure people get good jobs or helping increase our GDP through innovation, though those are certainly worthy outcomes. We are also creating a more well-run society. A more human, or humane, society.
The Communist Manifesto, The Matrix and Plato’s Republic also help us see the world as a place that is not neutral with respect to ideas. Marx, Engels and the Wachowski’s, in fact, argue that the world is against us. Bad ideas are intentionally cultivated in our minds in order to help those in power maintain their positions or wealth. Plato, on the other hand, also shows us that bad ideas can simply be the byproducts of our culture. We like watching dramatic movies, but these inadvertently produce false images of reality in our minds, as does watching the nightly news. Our brains are wired to think that something is more true if we see it more often. People are often shocked how little crime we actually have in our society when you show them the statistics because it is so different than the picture we get in our minds from watching the nightly news, Criminal Minds and CSI. And, of course, unless you are really cynical, the reason there is so much crime on the news or in T.V. series is not because someone wants to intentionally mislead us about the statistics, but because we find it interesting and entertaining to watch shows about crime.
Now, this is not to say that there aren’t ideas out there and people promoting them that are favourable to certain people’s interests. Certain businesses, and some think tanks they fund, are likely to argue that free trade, in general, and free trade agreements, in particular, are good for our society. While, at the same time, unions and other businesses, and the think tanks they fund, are likely to argue against free trade or, at least, particular free trade agreements. What is the truth? And how do we determine where it lies? Without the tools to think for ourselves, and think well, society is at the mercy of those who wish to put ideas in our heads, regardless of the truth, regardless of whether it is good for society.
Another important lesson from The Matrix, The Republic and the Manifesto is that education has to be an active force in society in order to prevail. Neo and Morpheus, for example, have to return to the Matrix in order to free the minds of the others, while Plato’s philosophers need to descend to the Cave in order to unshackle those who remain there. People, the Wachowski’s and Plato are saying, need an intervening force in order to be mentally liberated. Education is that liberating force. If we are not actively struggling, as a society, like Neo, to fight off the ideas that control us, then we are losing to the machines, and the virtual reality they are pulling over our eyes.
People do not wake up of their own accord or, at least, not enough of them. Education is not a natural, self-generating phenomenon. It is an artificial intervention that we make into the minds of others in order to free them of false ideas. Yet, today, we tend to think of it as a personal choice, saying: “If a person feels the return from their investment in a degree is worth it in terms of their future earnings, then they will get an education. If not, then they may as well start their own business or go straight to a job or trade school.” Where is the calculation for democracy?
Let’s sum up. The stories in The Matrix and Plato’s Republic, in particular, help remind us about the link between education, personal liberty and the good society. They remind us that, when discussing education, or educational reform, it is not enough to focus solely on the extent to which an education will help a person get a job. We must also remember that the quality and quantity of educated individuals in society also impacts on our democracy and governance, and our freedom, not to mention one’s personal well-being outside of financial or career considerations. They also help us remember that the ideas that get into our heads are not neutral. Many of the ideas or beliefs we hold are false and are put there either intentionally by self-interested groups in our society or accidentally as a result of a culture that seeks to entertain or amuse us, among other reasons. They also remind us that we need to be actively seeking to replace bad ideas and false notions with good ones and the truth. In the absence of intervention, by society or parents or Churches or others, we generally do not become educated, for we do not self-educate. And, generally speaking, most people throughout adulthood do not systematically analyze the ideas and beliefs they hold, challenge them themselves, read difficult books or take any other steps to further the quality of their thought. Consequently, if we want people or citizens to engage in these types of activities, society needs to intervene.
Today, society is not unaware of this, and generally provides 13 years of free, and mandatory, schooling before people go out into the world. This education is directed at and does a good job of dispelling in people’s minds many of the basic false notions about our world, such as that the sun revolves around the earth. However, it is not enough to emancipate people fully from their false notions, nor does it cultivate habits of the mind that are necessary to remain free and free others. For this, we generally rely on a university education.
Depending on the program of study a person chooses to pursue at university, their false notions will continue to be shed, usually in one narrow subject area, such as geography, economics, history or medicine. In good programs, with good instructors, and especially in the arts, they will also begin to learn the habits of mind of the free person, gaining skills in analyzing whether notions are false or not, rather than relying on others to tell them this information. They may become inspired to become a lifelong learner, continually cleansing the existing ideas in their minds and carefully guarding the new ideas they allow in. But there is one program of study, in particular, which puts an enormous emphasis on these outcomes: liberal education.
By liberal education, I am not speaking of the liberal arts, those degrees in a single subject area, such as history, English, philosophy and others. As I mentioned, these degrees often take students farther than many other degrees in freeing their minds, but still not as far as a liberal education. Rather, I am talking about a degree in which a student engages with the major ideas and works across the spectrum of, typically, Western civilization, from history, English, philosophy and political science to mathematics, art, music and science, among others. Now, sometimes this is called a “general” education, as opposed to a specialized education, but I like to think of liberal education as specializing in something itself. Not in a specific subject, but in a specific outcome. A liberal education specializes in giving a person the knowledge, tools, habits and inspiration to free their minds, keep them free and help them free others. It specializes not only in helping you see the Matrix, but also in giving you the confidence and skills to alter it. It is kung fu for critical thinking. It is martial arts for writing and arguing. It is tai chi for confidence and inspiration. In short, it is the best system humans have ever devised for educating people, or freeing their minds.
I always struggle a bit in explaining liberal education, for it is both similar to other degree programs, particularly the arts, which makes it seem no different from other programs, and substantially unlike them. What may seem like moderate differences to a person looking from the outside are, in fact, quite radical differences. There are two main differences that set liberal education apart from other programs. The first is a wide variety of subject matter rather than one narrow area of study, which I have already mentioned. This I call the content. The second concerns the process, or method. And this is where liberal education really shines.
Delphi By Albert Tournaire
The centre of a liberal education is the student, not the professor. The centre of a liberal education is a small group discussion among students, not a lecture by a professor, though lectures may still be a part. The professor merely acts as a facilitator of the discussion among the students, rather than leading the discussion. This puts the responsibility for the discussion in the students’ laps, which is both empowering and demanding. Students all read the same book or poem or listen to the same musical piece. It is then up to them to discuss and discover what the author or composer is saying. It is up to you to figure out what you think about why Machiavelli suggests rulers should prefer to be feared than loved, or why Hobbes is so adamant about the need for monarchical governments. And it is up to you to try to persuade your peers of your perspective and then modify it in response to the insights of your classmates, and, finally, convince your professor of your perspective in written assignments. These small group discussions in which the students discuss things amongst themselves help motivate students to read very carefully. They give you practice in making the case for your perspective and the confidence that you know what you are talking about, as you have done the thinking yourself, rather than relying on the interpretation of your professor, which you simply try to memorize. This responsibility and freedom is incredibly liberating, exhilarating, and inspiring. The liberal studies seminar is a microcosm of democracy or, rather, democracy as it ought to be.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are some descriptions of people’s experiences in a liberal education program at Vancouver Island University in British Columbia, taken from the alumni website.
“For much of my life I have been a listener. In seminar I found I could hardly stop talking. I wanted to articulate the ideas, intuitions and questions bubbling up inside me. I learned that it was OK to disagree, to propose something I hadn’t thought through fully, not to have the ‘one right answer.’ This experience was so freeing.”
Selinde Krayenhoff
“As far as what the program has given me since completion – number one is confidence: confidence in myself; confidence in my ability to communicate in virtually any medium, and to live comfortably and peacefully in a diverse community. I’ve become a much better human being.
Jane Larsen
“Whenever I am asked what I studied at post-secondary school, my typical response is to exclaim ‘Liberal Studies!’ with such vigor and passion that people often take a step back. True story. My experiences as a LBST student were deeply profound and life-enriching. As I prepare for my future studies in law, I can say with confidence that my training in the LBST Department at V.I.U. gave me the foundation needed to achieve academic excellence. In my humble opinion, I believe that all citizens should have a Liberal Studies education!”
Katie Sutherland
“It is no exaggeration to say that the Liberal Studies program at VIU changed the course of my life. I entered the program filled with doubt about my academic abilities… As I left class that first day, I knew I was hooked… Discussing great ideas with our wonderful cohort kept me coming back week after week. Striving to improve my writing, discussion, and research skills was engaging and challenging. Searching for meaning and coming to understand diverse points of view have been invaluable to me as I have moved forward on my journey.”
Sheena Falconer
“I found my experience in the Liberal Studies Program to be liberating. I honed my ability to think critically, to think outside the box and to become more fearless about taking on new ideas. I learned to stand more solidly behind my own inspiration and to take more risks.”
Nancy Greene
“…interacting with the great stories and ideas of Western culture has helped me grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially. I cannot overstate the quality of the experience.”
Gary Hartford
“If life can be viewed as a long hallway with countless doors leading off to new experiences, I have yet to find one that my Liberal Studies degree hasn’t opened.”
Stefan Martin
And, finally, one of my favourites:
“The Liberal Studies program at VIU was life-changing for me. I approached books such as Plato’s Republic or Homer’s Odyssey without mediation from an ‘expert’. I learned that with careful reading and discussion with professors and other students, I could indeed grapple with the very difficult material and understand it for myself. These reading and discussion skills have been invaluable to me, both in my further education and in my professional life. I feel confident that I can read any text, and given enough time and thought can understand the messages within, whether I agree with them or not.
Also, Liberal Studies provided such a safe environment that I was able to really practice my listening and public speaking skills; dialogue with others, especially when we disagree, is essential to understanding and peace. These interpersonal skills have also served me very well in my work and education. I would recommend the Liberal Studies program to anyone, whether they are beginning their schooling or are simply interested in expanding their understanding. I believe that a Liberal Studies education helps to create inquisitive people and better citizens.”
Miki Klaver
Need I say more? I should note, too, that these students are regular people, by which I mean they are not all top Ivy League students. These are the experiences of Plato’s multitude, regular people in your community, some of whom were on their way to becoming teachers, others of whom had completed their careers and returned to school in their older age. I mention this to dispel any notion that only the smartest or most philosophic students can benefit from this type of education. This is education suitable for all people, for all citizens. I could go on describing what a liberal education aims at, but I think it would be hard to convey, any better than the personal descriptions above do, what the end of a liberal education is. For these descriptions embody it.
But before we leave our discussion of liberal education, I think it is worthwhile to go back to the other aspect of a liberal education, not its process – the class discussion – but its content. For the content is also uniquely useful to people as citizens of a democracy. As I mentioned previously, the content is not any one subject area, but a diversity of areas. Typically, it consists of the major works, such as books, poems, artworks, scientific and mathematical treatises and other important creations, of human endeavour. If the process of liberal education is class discussion, the content is classical. The classics have somewhat gone out of fashion, particularly as university disciplines increasingly fractured into subdisciplines, making the study of non-specialized areas of knowledge seem even more arcane. But there is good reason not to give up on the ‘classics’.
In order to help make this point, I would like to bring in a quote from G.K. Chesterton, an English essayist, among other things, from the early 1900s. This quote is often paraphrased as “don’t take a fence down unless you know the reason it was put up,” but it is worth going back to the full text:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
Chesterton’s paradox is that we must come to understand something’s usefulness before we can consider abandoning it for its uselessness. Chesterton is saying we must know and value the reasons for creating or maintaining laws, institutions and social customs before we can determine whether to get rid of, amend, or preserve them.
We are all, to some degree, Chesterton’s “deformers”. We look around ourselves and see laws, institutions and social customs that seem to be getting in our way rather than helping us along. We may work towards for their removal only to realize after the fact that we have removed a useful check on some harm. We often keep making the same mistakes throughout history. Our temptation is to look at the world and see a bunch of fences getting in the way of our ideal society. Not taking the time to look into the matter, we proceed to lobby for their removal. A few voices protest and we label them backwards-looking and wonder why they stand in the way of progress. But it often turns out when we attempt to move our society ahead, we end up taking it back – back to the problems we had before we put up the fence. That said, when we take the time to understand why the fences were put up, they sometimes do need to come down. If this is the case, then we need a way for citizens to familiarize themselves with the reasons fences were put up and to gauge whether they should remain. This is the content of a liberal education.
For a liberal education can be seen, in part, as a study in why the fences were put up – or torn down. A liberal education consists in thinking about the arguments thoughtful people have made in the past about fences. Throughout history, there have often been great debates about whether to put fences up or tear them down. It’s not always easy for us to grasp the importance of these fences without reading these original conversations. To what degree should we allow freedom of speech in society? What role should religion have in society and what relationship should it have to the state? What is justice? Why should vigilantism or revenge-killing be prohibited? What role does the institution of marriage play in society? What is the good life? How ought I treat others? By reading and discussing these conversations with a small group of people, we not only familiarize ourselves with many of society’s most important fences, but we strengthen our ability to assess and debate the need for other fences, including new ones created in our own day. The content of a liberal education, then, to put it more clearly, is not so much ‘classics,’ as conversations. Conversations, as well as arguments, expressions, and other creations, about what the good life is and what the good society requires.
Unfortunately, however, and ironically, a liberal education itself came to be seen as an unnecessary fence. The requirements of a liberal education were seen as an archaic barrier by educational reformers. With the increasing importance and contribution of science and technology to society, among other changes, a liberal education was viewed as a fence restraining students from getting down to business and getting prepared for jobs, or devoting themselves to the mastery of one specific body of knowledge. Some of this, of course, was warranted. But the pendulum swung too far one way.
Which is why I am arguing that for the sake of democracy, we need to bring liberal education back into better balance with our other educational ends. If, as we discussed previously, education is necessary to combat false notions in order to free us to lead good lives and achieve a just society, it is not responsible to leave decisions about education solely to market forces. Education is a civic, or communal, endeavour, as much or more so than it is a private endeavour. Just because our economy demands a certain type of education from our citizenry, does not mean that it also serves our democracy. So if the pendulum has swung towards education serving economic ends at the expense of democratic ends, we need to actively attempt to re-balance it. But this is difficult.
Liberal education is a hard sell. The benefits to the individual are extraordinary, but it is hard to convince people of this. Partly, this can be blamed on the fact that it is hard to convey the full value of a liberal education in words. It is one of those things that you have to experience to fully appreciate. One of my professors used to say that it is like trying to explain to a virgin what sex feels like. Thankfully, we don’t need to have someone convince us that we should want to have sex, so it doesn’t matter that we can’t explain it. Unfortunately, though, most of us don’t have an innate drive to enroll in a liberal education program. So we have to rely on words. But words can never do it justice. Ultimately, then, what this means is that we should not rely entirely on convincing students that it is good for them, for we will never achieve this fully. Rather, we may have to support liberal education in ways that make it more likely that students will choose it, even if they don’t understand its full benefits. I will discuss some of these ways after discussing the second reason is it will be difficult to re-balance liberal education with other forms.
For not only is it difficult for a student to fully appreciate the value of a liberal education without having received one, but it is also difficult because a good portion of the benefit goes, not to the student, but to society. Let’s imagine the thinking of a prospective student. They may think: “If I take a liberal education, I will be able to lead a much richer, freer, fulfilling life (though they won’t fully appreciate this before they have taken the degree) and I will also be of much greater value to my society. But I don’t get paid to be of value to my society, I get paid to be of value to a company, and what job can I get with this degree? If I had a teaching degree, I could a teaching job. If I had an engineering degree, I could get an engineering job. But what job do I qualify for with a liberal education degree?” As you can see, the traditional calculation many students use to determine their choice of degree does not leave the liberal education degree looking very appealing. But there is a way society can help to address this, which I will discuss further down.
For now, I want to raise the stakes even higher to help drive home the notion that we need to put liberal education back into proper balance in our educational institutions. Liberal education has always been important to the well-being of society and those who received it. But, today, it is even more important. I turn to Joseph Heath and his book Enlightenment 2.0 to help make this point.
In Enlightenment 2.0, Joseph Heath argues that the Enlightenment put too much faith in the individual’s ability to use reason, claiming: “Reason is not natural; it is profoundly unnatural (p.52, emphasis his).” He discusses a plethora of research from the past few decades to make his case, pointing out the many flaws in our brains and how they work. On top of this, he chronicles how the environments in which we use our brains, such as the commercial and political environments, have changed for the worse. Politicians and marketers increasingly try to take advantage of the weaknesses in our reasoning – or avoid it altogether, appealing to emotion or prejudice instead. Grocery stores, for example, have learned to place hard to resist treats near the check-outs, while the proliferation in political news channels and programs has led to political conversations taking place in soundbites on T.V. rather than in debates in legislatures.
This double whammy of imperfect reason and perfected marketing threatens our personal and political lives, according to Heath. We are now living in a world that has been specifically designed to be hostile to reason, or its use, leading Heath to observe: “People in the modern world are simply called upon to exercise far, far greater willpower and foresight than anyone ever had to in the past (p. 180)”.
So what do we do? According to Heath, we need to update the Enlightenment project. We need Enlightenment 2.0. The main idea he presents is that reason is not a stand alone tool. In order to make good use of the power of our brains and reason, we need to support the exercise of reason externally. This sounds odd, but it makes sense when you think about some examples. It also helps to more accurately describe what Heath is getting at. It is not so much reason that is being supported, as Heath would put it, but decision-making.
For example, one of the aids that Heath discusses is putting your alarm clock away from your bed in order to help avoid just hitting the snooze button and falling back asleep. If you place your alarm clock away from the bed, you will have to first get up in order to hit the snooze button. You are much less likely to go back to bed after you are already up than if you could just hit the snooze button lying down. Now, this is not so much a support for reason as it is a support for willpower. But the important thing is, it helps you make the decision that you wanted to make.
Another example Heath uses is the trick we can employ in order to help maintain a healthy weight. In Enlightenment 1.0, we would rely entirely on our willpower to make the decision each time we eat to not take too much food. But in Enlightenment 2.0, we will download that decision-making by first choosing a smaller plate (and getting rid of the large ones from the house). Our brains are happy as long as we fill our plate, so by using a smaller plate, we trick our brain into being satisfied with less food. Again, then, we are supporting our ability to make the decisions that we want.
These tricks and aids we can use to externally support our decision-making are called “kluges”. Heath also uses the term “scaffolding”. There are much larger kluges as well, such as institutions like parliaments and schools.
I mention Heath’s call for a rebooted Enlightenment particularly because of his analysis of a school as a kluge, or scaffolding, for learning. Heath points out: “Because “school” is more than just a curriculum, it is also a social setting (p. 312, emphasis his)”. In the real world, we would never be willing to listen to a friend or acquaintance propound on the theory of comparative advantage, which helps explain the benefits of free trade, or the theory of natural selection, which helps explain evolution, for half an hour or more. We would consider such people boring. Yet in the social setting of school, this is perfectly acceptable according to Heath, though sometimes still boring! In the social setting of a classroom, you have to put your hand up before speaking, which would be considered weird when discussing issues over drinks at the pub or in the bleachers at your kid’s soccer match. And it would be equally weird if your friends or acquaintances gave you a list of books and expected you to read them and then gave you their thoughts on how well you understood it by assigning you a grade afterwards. The social setting of school, according to Heath, is where these things are acceptable, making school a great kluge for learning, as we spend more time reading books, listening to instruction, and studying to make grades than we otherwise would without this institution. In fact, the difference is so stark that for many people, once they are done their formal education, they hardly ever read books again, let alone study the types of books they would have encountered in their university or college programs.
So Heath helps us to see that schools are kluges that help create the conditions for learning. Liberal education, then, can be seen as a kluge that helps create very particular conditions for learning, such as the small, student-led class discussion focused on important conversations about the good life and the good society. This results in very particular outcomes that are as advantageous to society as they are to the individual, including:
significantly increasing people’s ability to read.
significantly increasing people’s ability to write.
creating people who are much more likely to continue reading throughout their lives, including books which are challenging.
significantly increasing people’s listening, discussing and speaking skills.
creating people who are more open to new and unfamiliar ideas, as they are taught to seriously consider ideas which they normally wouldn’t consider at all.
increasing people’s confidence to provide their perspectives on matters, whether through writing letters to editors, books or speaking up at community meetings.
creating people who are more likely to try to understand something before they consider replacing or changing it.
creating people who are ambassadors for the value of education, particularly for liberal education.
creating people who are more likely to recognize that the ideas in their heads may not be good ones and that they have an interest and responsibility to root out the bad ones and carefully guard which new ones they allow in.
creating people who are better able to recognize ideas in their infancy, making them better able to resist bad ideas both in their personal lives and in their communities, much as a master gardener is better equipped to recognize weeds in their garden and deal with them when they are small.
and more.
Plato’s Symposium
Do we not want a greater number of our citizens, voters, politicians and neighbours at community meetings to have these characteristics? Do these characteristics not seem particularly relevant to the healthy functioning of a democracy, in particular, as opposed to forms of government that don’t require the active participation of their citizens? And if, as I am proposing in this book, we increase the opportunities for citizens to take on a more meaningful role in decision-making in society, wouldn’t we want to have more people with these habits and traits in society?
If so, then we need to figure out ways of increasing the number of liberal education graduates. What kind of kluges can we create in order to increase the likelihood that more people will obtain a liberal education, given the problems I identified above, such as students not seeing a direct connection to a job and not fully understanding its benefits until they experience it?
One way is to reduce the price. Cheaper televisions means that people are able to afford more of them, leading them to put one in the kitchen and another in the bedroom in addition to the one in the living room. But there are a couple of problems with this approach for liberal education. First, it may simply be too expensive to do so. For in order to make liberal education cheaper for students means taxpayers have to pick up more of the tab. To ask society to put even more money into education, particularly education that doesn’t lead directly to jobs, may not be politically feasible, even if it is desirable.
But there may be an even bigger problem on price. People respond to price changes differently depending on the type of product. Economists call it price elasticity. If the price of food goes up in general, people can’t just stop eating in order to reduce their costs. As a result, price increases for food in general don’t have much of an impact on the amount purchased. This is an example of an “inelastic” product, as the amount purchased doesn’t change much in response to price. On the other hand, products that are elastic see larger swings in amounts purchased in response to price changes. For example, when a high American dollar makes it expensive to holiday in the U.S., many Canadians will take vacations in Canada instead, decreasing the amount of trips to Hawaii or Disneyland. Of course, conversely, more Americans vacation in Canada when their dollar is strong, helping our tourism industry. Typically, items are elastic when there are alternatives, or substitutes, for the item which has gone up in price. A Canadian vacation can substitute for an American vacation, but one cannot substitute food with some alternative to food. Within the food category, however, there can be price elasticity on various products, so that when the price of beef rises, people will buy less beef and more chicken instead.
With respect to education, price elasticity is also at play. If education in general gets cheaper, people will buy more of it or, rather, more people will buy education. This is why governments typically want to keep tuition low, in order to encourage more people to get an education. However, within the category of education, price changes may have differing effects, just like with beef and chicken. If you are going to university, but don’t have a strong preference for a program, and would be happy with either anthropology, history or liberal studies, then making liberal studies cheaper would have the effect of increasing enrollment in liberal studies. But if you want to be an engineer, or a teacher or a psychologist, then you will have to take a degree in engineering, education or psychology, respectively. So making liberal education cheaper would have no effect on these students. So while making liberal education cheaper may have an effect on some students, it won’t have an effect on all.
Here are a couple of ways to address these challenges. First, with respect to the students without a strong preference, there are a couple of things universities and society could do. First, a simple nudge would be to make a liberal education the default choice of study for those students who don’t know what to take. Rather than guidance counsellors spending their time trying to find the right program for a person who isn’t sure what they want to study at university, simply make a liberal education the starting place for these students. If they decide to study something else later, their year or two in liberal studies will have given them an excellent foundation for their further studies. This also puts liberal education back in its historic role as the first program that students would take upon entering university before specializing into other areas, such as law. It is an action that is both economical, for if anything it will save administrative costs, as well as relatively easy, as no major changes to the university system are required. You’re simply changing your counselling directives.
In order to strengthen this idea, universities could also give credit for this time in liberal studies towards a subsequent degree. So, for instance, a person who takes liberal studies for two years and then decides to do a four-year history degree could be given one year’s worth of credits towards their history degree, making it a five year education altogether instead of a six-year education. For those unsure about what to take, this would also give them more assurance that they aren’t just “wasting” their time. They will know that this time will count for something (of course, it also counts for a lot else, but the prospective student may not realize this at the outset).
Furthermore, for the undecided students, price elasticity is at play, so making liberal education cheaper is worthwhile here. If taxpayers, through government, are unwilling to take on this added expense, then individuals could play a role by creating scholarships specifically for people pursuing a liberal education. Every scholarship could help convince another person to get a liberal education that otherwise wouldn’t, so it doesn’t need to be an all or nothing initiative. The more people who are convinced of the value of a liberal education and are willing and able to fund a scholarship, the better. I would specifically encourage those who are liberal studies graduates to consider this as an option when considering your charitable giving. Perhaps you could combine efforts with your graduating class to create a scholarship fund in the name of your class. I would also specifically encourage politicians, if they are looking for something to do with that large salary and pension that society gives them, to consider funding liberal education scholarships. What better example to set than to encourage the next generation of active citizens by helping fund an education specifically tailored to the needs of democracy?
Another nudge or kluge that could help increase prospective liberal education students to take the leap comes from an article in the Windsor Star, March 10, 2015, in which University of Windsor president Alan Wildeman is interviewed about the decline of the liberal arts and what to do about it. The article mentions Wildeman’s plan to put the problem to the student body for consideration, which is a nice touch. Before the event even took place, political science student and University of Windsor Students’ Alliance president Ronnie Haidar was already coming up with ideas, suggesting that students of liberal arts programs be given the same opportunities for internships and co-op placements as other programs, such as business and nursing. This is an effective idea, for one of the reasons that people are afraid to commit to liberal studies is their inability to see a link to the job market. By adding the option for co-op placements during their education or institutionalizing links to internships after graduation, people will be more likely to see that liberal education sets people up for good jobs, even if this is not its main purpose or specialty. This connection could be particularly important for wary parents who are funding their children’s education: the business degree looks relatively less pragmatic if the liberal arts degree leads to a similarly engaging, good-paying job in the civil service.
Now, for those who have their minds made up and are pursuing a degree specifically because they need it to get a job, all hope is not lost. However, we move beyond the realm of nudges here and enter policies that will be more contested. I will not discuss the idea of requiring a liberal education, though that is, of course, a policy option. I am more focussed on ideas that are more politically palatable, even if we will soon be bumping up against the boundary of the palatable. One way to affect those who need to get a particular degree in order to qualify for their career, such as an education degree to be a teacher or an engineering degree to be an engineer, is to encourage them to “tack on” a liberal education degree. For wouldn’t it be better to have teachers and lawyers and architects and geneticists who have also studied the moral, political and artistic achievements of our society in addition to the requirements of their particular professions? While it may be unrealistic and, perhaps even undesirable, for every person to have these extra studies, it would certainly help to have more such people.
One way to incentivize this is to make it cheaper or easier for those who are also pursuing a liberal education to access these other degree programs. For example, many of these programs are competitive: how about giving extra admission points for those coming with a liberal education, or even a free pass, assuming grades are acceptable? Or how about making the degree cheaper to those who already have or who are concurrently obtaining a liberal education degree? In order to fund it, you could make the degree more expensive for those not obtaining a liberal education. Consequently, it wouldn’t be government funding the extra liberal education, but those who want to complete their degree quickly, for instance. Of course, if government doesn’t want any part of this then, again, privately funded scholarships could be linked to this double-degree idea. That is, for those considering funding new scholarships, they would be encouraged to fund scholarships for biology or engineering students who are also taking or have taken liberal studies, thereby lowering the costs for those students who would consider such a double-degree route.
Many of these ideas will work well in combination. Imagine a student, Jane, who wants to go to university but is unsure about what program to take. The liberal education default policy leads her to start a liberal studies degree. After her first year, she decides she would also like to get a creative writing degree. She remains in the liberal education program for a second year before starting her creative writing degree, knowing that she will get credit for one year of her creative writing degree anyway, and she takes advantage of the many scholarships for liberal studies students to help fund her second year. Throughout her creative writing degree, she takes advantage of co-op placements for liberal studies students or joint-degree students. These placements help her earn good income to fund her more lengthy degree and she learns that she does not want to make a career of working for the public affairs bureau of government, where she interned in the summer of her fourth year. Upon graduation, however, she is connected with the Art Gallery of Vancouver, who sees value in her creative writing skills and exposure to works of art through her liberal studies degree. Jane is pleased to have an opportunity to work with a creative team of people at the Gallery and has time to pursue her own writing on the side. She goes on to become an award-winning poet and novelist, and doesn’t forget to establish a scholarship for future liberal studies students.
Okay, perhaps I’m getting carried away now, but hopefully you get the picture. While any of these ideas to help encourage liberal studies in society could be implemented alone, and would have value in themselves, a combination of these policies could really make a difference. There are also, no doubt, many other ideas that people could come up with if they put their minds to it. I would encourage those who see value in liberal education to do so.
In conclusion, I would urge us to consider putting back up the fence of a liberal education, even if it is not a solid fence, but simply sections of fence oriented in a way that helps gently channel people towards a degree that is of great benefit to themselves and of equally great benefit to our democracy. On this, let us, as Chesterton advises, go away and think.
“If you discover a life better than ruling for those who are going to rule, it is possible that your well-governed city will come into being. For here alone will the really rich rule, rich not in gold but in those riches required by the happy man, rich in a good and prudent life (p. 199)”.
Patriotism is often associated with an unconditional love and support of one’s country, even at the expense of all other countries. A patriot in this form (an extreme patriot) can be dangerous and radical, at times using violence for the betterment of their country without exhausting all other means of achieving their aims; extreme patriotism is often decidedly detrimental to society. That being said, a different form of patriotism stands to be encouraged. Stephen Nathanson explores a form of patriotism called “moderate patriotism.” The moderate patriot, as he describes, has a loyalty and special affection for his country, but operates within the limits of morality. This means that if the moderate patriot’s country is undertaking immoral actions, the moderate patriot will not support his country. Moderate patriots are equally as partial to their country as extreme patriots, with all the same love for it. The moderate patriot, however, holds his country morally accountable, which in turn leads him less frequently to war when other means of peacemaking are attainable.
Extreme patriotism is an exclusive preference for one’s country that is subversive to morality, while moderate patriotism allows one to deeply love and prefer one’s own country while respecting moral obligations to humanity as a whole. Leo Tolstoy describes extreme patriotism as “the exclusive desire for the well-being of one’s own people” (Nathanson 536). Because the extreme patriot will not be opposed to the hostile treatment of other countries, when his country stands to benefit in some way, he is morally inferior to the moderate patriot. In contrast, moderate patriots do not turn a blind eye on morality while pursuing good for their country. In accordance with moderate patriotism, Zdenko Kodelja quotes Nathanson in saying that “the Golden Rule…does not say ‘do unto your fellow countrymen as you would have them do unto you’. It says ‘do unto others’, and the lack of a qualifying term shows that all others are meant” (537).
While the adherence of moderate patriotism to morality separates it from the dangerously preferential tendencies of extreme patriotism, Alsadair MacIntyre criticizes moderate patriots for not being genuinely patriotic (Nathanson 540). He questions the conviction with which they support their country when situations cause patriotic actions to conflict with morality. One example MacIntyre offers is a country’s conception of the “good life.” MacIntyre contends that moderate patriotism cannot be reconciled with a moral standpoint (Nathanson 543). He uses the example of the Iroquois Indians, explaining that the raids on their traditional enemies are an important part of their “good life” (Nathanson 543). Nathanson sums up MacIntyre’s argument: “moderate patriotism is empty, since it requires sacrificing one’s own community’s way of life if objective moral assessment shows it to be wrong” (543). He disagrees with MacIntyre, though, maintaining that moderate patriots can recognize the need to change certain aspects of their culture, but it does not mean they do not understand what is being lost, or that they will not work to try and find other ways to express the aspects of culture that need expressing (544). Nathanson contends that if, to the Iroquois, raids are an opportunity to prove the high achievements of valour and martial skill, then the moderate patriots who worked to stop the raids may also search for a different outlet to display the virtues of their culture (544). He continues that if actions of a certain country were exempt from moral criticism because they are essential for the good life, then “we would be unable to condemn slavery because the niceties of the plantation life required it” (544). These arguments suggest that moderate patriots do genuinely prefer and love their country, but they maintain that even their own country’s actions aren’t immune to moral scrutiny.
Tolstoy in 1897
In terms of the effects of morality on a country’s affairs, moderate patriotism is preferable to extreme patriotism in that it is much less conducive to war. Nathanson quotes Tolstoy in saying that “the root of war is the exclusive desire for the well-being of one’s own people: it is patriotism” (536). While Nathanson admits that Tolstoy is guilty of overstating when he says that war is the unequivocal product of patriotism, he maintains that the extreme patriot’s exclusive desire for the good of their own country can easily lead to war if it stands at odds with the good of other countries. Sigal Beth-Porath makes the observation that, with the encouragement of extreme patriotism, war can turn “the citizen” into “the solider” (317). Nathanson entertains the logical procession that if one cares only about one’s own country, and one’s country could benefit from possessing things that another country currently possesses, then what would stop one’s country from going to war to obtain those possessions in the name of the country’s good (541)? Moderate patriotism is not guilty of the same dangerous preferential tendencies as extreme patriotism. A moderate patriot, as Nathanson describes, can “sense that patriotism can be carried too far and that moral constraints do apply to actions taken on behalf of one’s country” (541). Here he posits that a moderate patriot can understand when their country’s actions can’t be morally justified, and will no longer support his country when that time comes. In this way, moderate patriotism works against some of the brutal wars fought for immoral reasons, wars that may have been started by an extreme patriotic mentality.
In relation to war, MacIntyre again criticizes moderate patriotism, using resource conflict as his example. He describes a situation in which two countries are both in need of a certain resource to survive, but there is only enough for one country. He predicts that, in this situation, moderate patriots would be unable to justify taking the resource because it isn’t morally right, while extreme patriots would be willing to go to war to secure the resource for their country (Nathanson 541). The inability to do whatever is necessary to preserve the well-being of their country leads MacIntyre to believe that moderate patriots would be unable to defend their country. Nathanson only partly agrees with MacIntyre’s appraisal of the situation. He points out that, in this situation, extreme patriots would not count the lives of the other country’s people as significant losses if they are able to secure the resource (Nathanson 541). They would unhesitatingly pursue the resource by any means necessary, including the possibility of war. In contrast to MacIntyre’s arguments, though, Nathanson does not feel that moderate patriots are necessarily useless defenders of their nation. Logically, the moderate patriot would first examine the claims to the resource made by both countries. If the opposing country’s claim is greater, offers Nathanson, then the moderate patriot might urge their community to make a sacrifice (542). If the moral strength of each country’s claim to the resource is the same, however, and only one country can survive, the moderate patriot would not logically be indifferent to which country dies; he would defend his country. The same principle is observable with a father and his child. If there are many seats on a carnival ride, a father is not going to fight another father to ensure that his child gets on first. Contrarily, if it is the last carnival ride of the day, and there is only one open seat, the father is not going to offer it to the other child; he is going to do what he can to make sure his child gets to enjoy the ride. We see in these examples that extreme patriotism can cause people to move too quickly to war; however, when defence of a country is needed in extreme situations, moderate patriots would be as effective as extreme patriots.
As clearly demonstrated, the moderate patriot’s capacity to love their country is much the same as a patriot of the extreme nature. The moderate patriot’s commitment to not only their country, but to moral justice leads them to take more care in conflict, and go to a greater length to avoid war with other countries than extreme patriots. The fact that moderate patriots do not follow their country blindly, but let their actions be guided by morality allows them to be greater stewards of their country as well as superior global citizens. Patriotism in its extreme form is dangerous and breeds violence, but in its moderate form, it is a welcomed virtue that allows people to feel deeply connected with their country without forgetting their ultimate and necessary connection to humanity as a whole.
Works Cited
Ben-Porath, Sigal. “Wartime Citizenship: An Argument for Shared Fate.” Ethnicities 11.3
(2011): 313-25. SAGE. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Kodelja, Zdenko. “Is Education for Patriotism Morally Required, Permitted or
Unacceptable?” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30.2 (2011): 127-40.
SpringerLink. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Nathanson, Stephen. “In Defense of ‘Moderate Patriotism’” Ethics 33.9 (1989): 535-52.
JSTOR. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Brunelleschi ~ Presumed depiction in “Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus,” Masaccio. Uploaded by Aislesalvotimeingh Created: June 24, 2015
By Jill Foster
With the rise of the Renaissance came the renewal of values with fresh inspiration sought for in classical antiquity, and the architecture of this time was no exception to this trend. By digging into the characteristics of classicism and its role in the Renaissance, this paper will argue that Filippo Brunelleschi’s architecture most clearly captures the Renaissance spirit of classicism through his marriage between ancient influenced proportions and 15th century Florentine values while using classical characteristics to create new spaces.
Before expanding on the ways that Brunelleschi best illustrates classicism, we must first outline the meaning of the term. According to William Fleming, classicism should be understood not only as the revival of antiquity but also as “a search for past examples to justify new practices” (211). For Fleming, it is not so much about reviving ancient ways as it is about surpassing them. By this definition classicism can be understood as drawing influence from ancient architecture, literature, and art and applying these elements to modern practices and values. This both redefines them and creates a new, and superior culture. That being said, in order to demonstrate how Brunelleschi best illustrates these features, there must first be an analysis of his revival of ancient architectural elements followed by how he repurposes and surpasses their features to marry antiquity with pre-existing values through innovation.
The Pantheon, Rome
In regards to classicism as the revival of antiquity, Brunelleschi had direct access to ancient buildings, having fled to Rome after losing the Baptistery door competition in 1402 (Turner 41). He diligently studied the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius (Fleming 212), and once he returned to Florence he then used his knowledge of the Pantheon, the Parthenon, and other ancient monuments to work on projects such as the dome of the Duomo, the Pazzi Chapel, San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito, all the while creating structures that had never been seen before (Fleming 192). The Roman Pantheon consists of a large dome, a porch, Corinthian grey granite columns with white marble capitals, a square patterned floor and a rotunda which has the exact same diameter as the height of its dome—it is believed to be the first building in which the interior was made to outshine the exterior (Cartwright “Pantheon”). The Greek Parthenon was created using a 4:9 ratio in which everything from the diameter of the columns in relation to the space between columns, the height of the building in relation to its width and the width of the inner cella in relation to its length are all consistent with this ratio—outlining a focus on perfectly straight symmetrical harmony (Cartwright “Parthenon”).
Parthenon, Athens (image by Steve Swayne)
It is fitting that Spiro Kostof categorizes classical ancient architecture quite simply as an initial measurement which is then used to determine all other proportions of the building (381) (a technique which from here on out will be referred to as rational proportions), and it is clear that Brunelleschi adopted these techniques in his buildings.
Brunelleschi’s churches, San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito, like the Parthenon, were built on this ancient technique of rational proportions in which the square formed beneath his domes in the intersection of the centre naves and transepts were repeatedly used throughout the spaces to determine the proportions of the buildings. This initial unit of measurement is repeated and can be clearly seen on the floors of the churches as he outlined each measurement with grey stone, whether for full units in the center nave or half units in the side aisles similar to the flooring seen in the Pantheon. Aside from rational proportions, Brunelleschi breaks away from the previous chaos and embellishment of the gothic style and revives the clarity and coherence of the ancient characteristics previously described.
San Lorenzo, Nave (showing proportional design)
These direct revivals of classical elements have been demonstrated in the Pazzi Chapel, San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito through the use of smooth, clean lines, perfectly symmetrical and parallel arches, evenly and consistently spaced columns, classical entablatures, Corinthian capitals and a peaceful two-toned colour pallet, in which grey represents the structural elements and white the non-structural features. In addition to what can be seen, while it was never actualized, Brunelleschi’s initial plan for Santo Spirito was to have each side chapel be seen from the outside in semicircles around the entire building as this was reminiscent of the ancient Roman temples Minerva Medica and San Vitale (Kostof 383). However, they were plastered over after Brunelleschi’s death, perhaps for differing too much from the other buildings already present in Florence. The exterior of both Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo being unfinished and plain is also reminiscent of the Pantheon’s focus on the perfection and rationality of its interior. Through these classical characteristics Brunelleschi replaced the mystery and ornamentation of the gothic style with direct reference to ancient simplicity, rationality and cohesion.
Santo Spirito, interior.
In addition to the blatant revival of antiquity and influence of classical styles, Brunelleschi also creates a marriage with the deeply embedded Christian values existing in Florence at this time; achieving Fleming’s definition of using past examples to justify new practices thus surpassing what came previously. Brunelleschi’s rational proportions pay honour to a rational God by illustrating perhaps the kind of perfect and simple spaces the divine ruler Himself would create. The ceilings also show this marriage through the Roman styled square tiling and Christian rosette imagery as seen in San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito. While the gothic style has also been viewed as marrying Christian themes with architecture, there is something altogether separate achieved by Brunelleschi’s classical approach through use of lavish and luxurious materials and highly ornamented detailing. The gothic style encourages the impression that by understanding beauty at its most extreme and expensive, one may perhaps better understand the perfect spiritual beauty and splendor of the divine realm. Though the structure is abstract and arbitrary, fitting whatever one can into a single space, this can be understood as architecture creating an emotional response to Christianity and paying honour to the regal king that is the Lord. Brunelleschi on the other hand, through his classical inspiration, plays with the intellectual experience of spirituality by having the perfectly executed rationality and simplicity of his building’s structure invoke an inherent feeling of calmness and cohesion that puts the mind at ease to better accommodate worship with this new understanding of a rational and intelligent God. While San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito also have additions of lavish gothic altarpieces, highly ornamented chapels, and 17th century paintings, these elements were not in Brunelleschi’s original plan and distract from the simplicity originally intended to showcase the precision and unity of classicism.
Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence)
Brunelleschi’s innovation did not end at the experience of rational Christianity through architecture. He also used classical influence to create something never seen or achieved before: the dome of the Duomo. While the dome illustrates and fits in best with the category of gothic architecture, it would not have been completed without Brunelleschi’s new found knowledge of ancient architecture and inspiration of the Pantheon’s dome. Fleming suggests that while the dome may be gothic in style it is Brunelleschi’s innovation of hiding the functional elements and his creation of a smooth silhouette that characterizes the new Renaissance style (192). The dome surpassed anything that had come before it, becoming iconic and essential to Florence’s civic identification. Brunelleschi, thus, with his classical influence established a symbol for a new Florence that valued innovation through rebirth.
Filippo Brunelleschi, cutaway of the Dome of Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore)
Following this trend of innovation and surpassing the old, not only did Brunelleschi’s work inspire the use of carefully pre-determined architectural plans and a break from viewing an architect as a craftsman rather than an artist, but he also deliberately used his ancient styled proportions and symmetry to invent a new type of one-point perspective in a three dimensional space (Kostof 405). Kostof, referring to Brunelleschi, states that “he wanted his buildings experienced as if they were projected on a perspective grid, as if the user were walking into a painted picture” (382). It was this innovation, according to Kostof, that set Brunelleschi’s work apart from classical architecture, which never had this concept of fixed perspectives in mind (382). Additionally, according to Alberti, when an architect understands linear perspective and mathematics and has knowledge of ancient sources he becomes the master of universal law and comes closer to the divine (Kostof 408). It becomes clear that Alberti himself believed Brunelleschi was such an architect because his dedication to him in On Painting suggests that the innovation of ancient times will not be lost when men such as Brunelleschi continue to reignite the spirit of classicism (35). While many classical spaces were inspired by Brunelleschi, such as Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library and Medici Sacristy, and while these are innovative, these spaces add to what Brunelleschi had already accomplished in his new Renaissance style, which paved the way for new innovations sparked by his resurgence of classicism.
Furthermore, Brunelleschi’s architecture best exhibits the spirit of classicism through not only his direct reference and use of classical techniques such as Corinthian capitals, ancient entablatures, two-toned colour pallet and rational proportions but also his breakthrough to meld the old with the new through innovation. Brunelleschi’s use of ancient architecture to create a new meaning of a rational and intelligent God, his creation of the dome and his invention of one-point perspective in three dimensional spaces are just a few ways that Brunelleschi not only revived the classical elements of the past but also surpassed already present works. In this way he helped pioneer the new Renaissance style and a new identity for Florence.
Work Cited
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. Trans. Cecil Grayson. London: Penguin, 1991. Print.
Cartwright, Mark. “Pantheon.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 12 Jun. 2013. Web. 01 July 2016. < http://www.ancient.eu/Pantheon/>.
Cartwright, Mark. “Parthenon.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 01 July 2016. < http://www.ancient.eu/Parthenon/>.
Fleming, William. “The Florentine Renaissance Style.” Arts and Ideas: 6th Ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. 191-215. Print.
Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Print.
Turner, A. Richard. Renaissance Florence: The Invention of New Art. London: Lawrence King Publishing Limited, 1997. Print.
Satire as a genre is born from general dissatisfaction and disillusionment with humanity as a whole. It is a critique of society, often in such a way as to make humans and their actions laughable or absurd. The public reaction to satire led to the formation of the Theatre of the Absurd, which portrayed satirists’ worldviews in such a way as to be in contrast with the realistic plays of the time (Esslin 293). Ionesco was an iconic satirist in his lifetime and wrote several absurdist plays, one of which is called Rhinoceros.
Rhinoceros is set in a small French town, which inexplicably becomes overrun with rhinoceroses. The main character, Berenger, is a drunkard, who is unhappy in life, and so alcohol is his solace. He is close friends with a man named Jean, who is a self-proclaimed man of culture. The play opens with the two men having a heated discussion over Berenger’s poor attitude and lack of will-power, and it is in this part of the play that the first rhinoceros is seen. Soon after, another rhinoceros is seen, and debate begins between the two men and other witnesses as to whether this rhinoceros is the same as the first, or a different one entirely. They do not reach a conclusion. One rhinoceros leads to another, and it is revealed that townspeople are transforming into the animals. At first, everybody is appalled by this. However, one by one, each succumb to the appeal of joining the ever-increasing herd of rhinoceroses in the town, until only Berenger remains human. Berenger is terrified of transforming into a rhinoceros, and stands strong in his individuality until the end of the play.
As with much of the absurdist theatre, the commentary that Ionesco makes on society is hidden underneath layers of bizarre stereotypes and numerous unanswered questions. At closer inspection, however, the object of Ionesco’s satire is quite directly embodied by one of the characters within the play. Botard, Berenger’s callous left-wing coworker, says to his boss, Mr Papillon, “[T]he fact that I despise religion, doesn’t mean I don’t esteem it highly” (Ionesco 51). He says this to appease his employer, after disrespecting religion only moments earlier. In this respect, Botard is being very ingratiating, or in other words, two-faced. It is this quality of being two-faced that motivates the play. Ionesco is commenting on the human ability to be insincere, and to go back on one’s word. All the characters, except Berenger, exhibit this quality, and they all eventually transform into a rhinoceros, at which point they have literally become two-faced.
The arrival of the rhinoceroses came as an understandable shock to the townspeople. In Act One, when the rhinoceroses were first seen, Berenger tried to logically explain their presence in the town. “Perhaps the rhinoceros escaped from the zoo,” he said (Ionesco 20), but Jean reminds him that they have had no zoos since the “the plague … ages ago” (20). Berenger then offers the explanation that the rhinoceros had escaped from a travelling circus, or had been hiding in the surrounding swamps (20-21). Jean contradicts him on both these points, as travelling circuses had been banned in their town, and they are situated in a very arid area of France, and so there were no swamps for the rhinoceros to hide in (20-21). Jean declares that “It [the rhinoceros] shouldn’t be allowed!” (19).
In the first scene of Act Two, the debate and condemnation surrounding the rhinoceroses continues. Botard is indignant that the rhinoceros do not exist at all, and claims that they are a myth (Ionesco 54). In an effort to describe the rhinoceros to Botard, Daisy, the typist and Berenger’s love interest, refers to them as “a very big ugly animal” (51). When it is revealed that their coworker, Mr Boeuf, has turned into a rhinoceros, the comments do not get any kinder. Dudard comments that “it’s probably not tame” (60), and Mr Papillion very swiftly fires Mr Boeuf. They speak of Mrs Boeuf being able to divorce her husband, and claim to be the injured party, and they look to try and replace Mr Boeuf’s role in the office, as he is “no use to [them] anymore” (63).
Until this point, anti-rhinoceros opinions were made perfectly clear. It is in the second scene of Act Two that attitudes begin to shift. In this scene, Berenger visits Jean, to make amends for the fight they had the previous day, and to check up on him, as he is unwell. Jean has a headache, a fever, and a small bump on his forehead. The day before, Jean had been adamant about his dislike for the rhinoceroses, however during Berenger’s visit it is revealed that this is no longer true. After Berenger informs Jean that their co-worker has turned into a rhinoceros, Jean says that “he’s probably all the better for it” (Ionesco 78). This is very disconcerting to Berenger. Jean goes on to say how he thinks that humanity’s morals are flawed beyond repair, and perhaps they should be more like the rhinoceroses, and follow the laws of nature, instead (79). Jean finally declares that “humanism is all washed up!” (80), and very shortly afterwards transforms into a rhinoceros. In the span of one day, Jean had transitioned from an outspoken opponent of the rhinoceroses, into a willing beast himself.
The drastic switch in view continues and develops in the final act of the play. At this point, Berenger has secluded himself to his home, as the herd of rhinoceroses outside continues to grow. He is paranoid that his headache, caused by drink and stress, is the beginnings of his own transformation into a rhinoceros, something he fears greatly. He is visited by his co-worker, Dudard, and they discuss the events. Berenger refers to the transformations as a “nervous disease” (89). Dudard comments that “certain illnesses are good for you” (89). Dudard later reveals that Mr Papillon has transitioned into rhinoceroses. This shocks Berenger, as he viewed Mr Papillon as a man of good standing, who was above the nonsensical goings-on. Dudard asks Berenger to try and be more light-hearted about the situation. Berenger says that Dudard will be “siding with the rhinoceroses before long”, to which Dudard replies, “[n]o, no, not at all” (97). However, shortly afterwards, Daisy arrives to visit Berenger, which makes Dudard unhappy. He leaves quite quickly, and then transforms into a rhinoceros.
When Daisy arrives, she brings news that Botard has also become a rhinoceros. Berenger finds this difficult to believe, as Botard has been so avidly against the entire concept. Daisy says that Botard claimed to be “mov[ing] with the times” (Ionesco 103). The scene progresses with Daisy and Berenger confessing their love for one another, and deciding to come together as a united front of humanity in a world consumed by animals. Unfortunately, this is short lived. Daisy is soon no longer concerned with the dust and noise that the rhinoceroses make, and is more fixated on “adapt[ing] [. . .] and get[ting] on with them” (118). She grows more and more unhappy with Berenger’s harsh views of the herd, and says to him, “[t]hose are real people. They look happy. They’re content to be what they are. They don’t look insane. They look very natural. They were right to do what they did” (119). She even goes as far as to say later that the rhinoceroses are “like gods” (121). It is not very long before the couple completely fall apart over their different opinions, and Daisy leaves to become a rhinoceros.
Jean, Botard, and Mr Papillon changed their minds on the matter of rhinoceroses within the span of a day. They acted against the opinions they had previously held, making hippocrates of them all. Even more extreme, Dudard and Daisy changed their minds within the span of a few moments, making them perhaps the most fickle characters of all.
Rhinoceros is a play of extremes. All the characters have a strong, vocalized opinions on the rhinoceros at all times. This makes it quite clear how drastically attitudes changed over the course of three acts, moving from avid opposition, to support and inclusion. The townspeople decided to overlook the absurdity of the rhinoceroses being in the town and the damage that they had caused. It could be said this was the entirety of Ionesco’s objective in writing this play, as such an open critique of the human capacity to be so mercurial and insincere is not an insignificant comment to make. However, taking into account the time period in which this play was written, it is near impossible to ignore where Ionesco’s disbelief in humanity was sparked, and the additional layer of criticism to this satire.
The play was originally published in 1959, but Ionesco had been living in France since 1938 and was present for the German occupation of France from 1940-1944. During this period of time, he saw many French people adapt to the occupation in ways he did not agree with. At first, they rejected the German regimes as barbaric and overbearing, but over time they became normalized and accepted. Many French people joined the French Communist Party and showed support for Nazism. This was also a time of considerable racial tension in France, which was another contributing factor to aspects of this play. All these ideas were portrayed metaphorically throughout Rhinoceros.
The reaction to the rhinoceros was much like that to the German occupation in 1940. The French people were overcome by “outrage” (Quinney 46), as the idea that the German forces could overpower them and their country was as absurd to them as the presence of the rhinoceroses were to the people in the play. During the occupation, the French people were surprised to not be immediately “shot down in the streets” (Quinney 47). Similarly, the townspeople in Rhinoceros were scared and appalled at the presence of the rhinoceroses, in Act One, as discussed above. The intrusion of the rhinoceroses was representative of the intrusion of the German forces.
Then, there was the aspect of the increasing number of rhinoceroses, which was indicative of this increasing number of German supporters within France. At the beginning of the play, the rhinoceroses had no support. There was, however, a large element of conformity, and to an extent mob-mentality, among the townspeople. There is extreme pressure on Berenger to conform, and in two ways. The first, is to become a cultured man, like Jean, The second, is to participate in the hysteria surrounding the first appearances of the rhinoceroses. All the characters, except for Berenger, speak in cliches through the first act, with exclamations such as,“Well, of all things!” which is frequently repeated. This is exhibitive of a lack of individual thought from the majority of the townspeople, who would rather rely on overused turns of phrase which they know to be acceptable opinions to voice rather than speak openly in opposition and run the risk of being berated, as Berenger had been. This play shows “both comically, and nightmarishly, the phenomenon of ideological contagion, and the surrender of human individuality and intelligence to herd-like conformity” (Calinescu 395), regardless of whether the widely-held opinions are aligned with the individual’s ideas, or not.
The same motion towards a homogenized mindset was seen during the Occupation. The French people worked towards collaboration with the German forces, and this particular collaboration was not forced upon the people, but was in many ways a conscious choice to adhere to a new way of life (Lemmes 158). This aspect of choice is important to note, as it differentiates between succumbing to the stronghold of an occupying force, and deciding that the occupying force offers something enticing, or more preferable, than what already stands, even if that offer directly opposes a current way of life.
Perhaps, if Berenger’s French town had been overrun with butterflies, a much more amicable alternative to the beasts that they were faced with, he would have minded it considerably less when his friends and coworkers transformed into them. This was not the case, however, and his town was instead confronted with large, unruly creatures, who left a great deal of damage in their wake. This was true as well, to the German occupying forces. The Nazi regime was infamously unforgiving towards Jewish people, and also towards people of colour. This racist undertone was addressed quite deliberately in the first act of the play, as the term “Asiatic mongol” was used derogatorily towards Berenger (Ionesco 38). This was a thinly veiled nod at the Nazi propaganda that was circulated during the occupation, which portrayed the Jewish people as having horns (Quinney 45). Ionesco was quite deliberate in choosing an aggressive animal, as the group of people he wishes them to represent were extremely animalistic in their violence.
The political angle of the play speaks to how Ionesco found his own friends and colleagues equally as two-faced, and hypocritical when faced with the German forces in wartime France. He found their lack of willpower disheartening, enough so to make him question the capacity that humans had for individual thought altogether.
Berenger remains steadfast throughout Rhinoceros. He was an individual in Act One, and remained so through to the end of the play. It is quite clear in understanding the position Ionesco was in while writing this play, that he found a voice in Berenger, and that he considered himself the steadfast individual in his own situation. To Ionesco, Berenger was the superior party in the altercation. Berenger concluded the play with a passionate and empowering monologue on fighting for what one believes is right.
The question remains, however, if this kind of action is really superior at all. It is quite clear that Berenger has no true plans on how to proceed against the rhinoceroses, other than with a vague idea of violence. And in his solitude, there is no one to guide him. He is an untamed individual who has quite “blindly denounced collectivism” (Danner 213), and at what cost? If it is absurd to join the collective mind, how is it not also absurd to be relentlessly defiant? Berenger began the play with a sort of unconcerned apathy towards the rhinoceroses, and yet ends the play in angry opposition to them. Does this not also make him a hypocrite? The rhinoceroses, in all their destructive ugliness, are content, where Berenger is not. Perhaps he would have been wiser to conform, in the hopes of finding happiness in companionship. Or perhaps he was right, and one can only find true satisfaction by maintaining their individual beliefs. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles /And by opposing end them” (Shakespeare 3.1.1751-1753)”, we do not know. Whether it is nobler to be blatantly animalistic, or gallantly human, we also do not know.
Works Cited
Calinescu, Matei. “Ionesco and Rhinoceros: Personal and Political Backgrounds.” East European Politics and Societies, vol. 9, no. 3, 1995, pp. 393-432.
Danner, G. Richard. “Bérenger’s Dubious Defense of Humanity in Rhinocéros.” The French Review, vol. 53, no. 2, 1979, pp. 207–214.
Esslin, Martin. “The Theatre of the Absurd.” The Tulane Drama Review, vol. 4, no. 4 May 1960, pp. 3-15
In a world full of people driven by social interaction, it is difficult to ignore how heavily one can be influenced by the media that surrounds them. This essay examines Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and its use in teaching—or rather the lack thereof, as this essay will address the occurrences of the book being banned in schools. The paper focuses on the banning of The Absolutely True Diary, the outcome for the audience, and how that could affect certain subgroups, including the children of alcoholics and Native American youth. It also notes the reactions to book banning, both from the youth audience and from Alexie himself. Examining these reactions can lead to the conclusion that the banning of literature to young audiences creates a disconnect between some youths and the people they see represented in the media they are permitted to consume. The allowed selection of reading leaves some young readers with no sense of identification with characters they are allowed to read, as the characters are only those that our culture deems to be fit for mass media. This concept is important as the lack of a sense of belonging has been linked by major sociological theorists, such as Émile Durkheim, to higher suicide rates. This essay suggests that by identifying ties between media, isolation, and suicide, our culture can cease to narrow that which our children are permitted to read and identify with, in the hopes of broadening their sense of belonging.
The Absolutely True Diary has faced censorship in the school districts of several states, such as Missouri, Wyoming, Washington, and Idaho. The book was banned for its mention of mature thematic elements, such as masturbation, and its use of racist slurs and coarse language (Stillman, par. 4). These topics were deemed inappropriate for the youth audience to which the book was aimed. However, this concept of what it means to be “appropriate” is a subjective quality that is different to each culture, as well as to each individual.
The decision to censor a book is determined by teachers and parents, people who will be affected in minor ways or not at all by the book’s reading. The two parties who are directly tied to the book’s circulation, students and the author, are rarely, if at all, consulted on their views in the decision. When they are considered, however, they tend to disagree with the choice to ban the novel. In an interview held with six children, ages ranging from six to twelve, when asked their opinions towards book banning in general, it became clear that their ideas did not always reflect those of their parents or instructors. The study concluded that:
these children, unlike many adults, were not concerned about homosexuality, [and] sex, … in children’s books. They also showed sensitivity to the idea that the perception of inappropriate content is subjective, understanding that what one person finds controversial or offensive can be enjoyed by many others. (Isajlovic-Terry 41)
This, paired with several statements from the students that a banned book was more desirable (41), meant that a ban was almost counterproductive. The children “ultimately felt that they could decide for themselves and act to get those materials” (41), and that a banning could not stop them from exploring what it was that they wished to read.
An interview was also conducted with Sherman Alexie, investigating his reaction to the controversy his work seemed to spur. Alexie stated that, when writing, he “didn’t think about the reaction[s] people would have to it” (Fraser 60). The bans were not in any way positive to Alexie, as it limited the audience to which he could reach. Alexie said:
There is a whole other population out there I want to reach. And so for me, what kind of art can I create that gets to them? I don’t want to have an elitist career. I’ve won awards, I’ve gotten a lot of attention, I’ve been in The New Yorker, and I’m very happy with all of that. I’m very proud. But I would consider myself a failure if more people didn’t read me. I’d rather be accessible than win a MacArthur. (qtd. in Berglund xvi)
This demonstrated that to Alexie the ability to reach more of the population is the ultimate goal, something that is severely hindered when his work is banned from large groups of youth.
This idea of a narrowed audience leads into the problem of who makes up this refined audience. Alexie is very driven in his intent to reach audiences that include the stereotypes he fit into as a child: the child of an alcoholic, as well as a young Native American (Berglund). Alexie’s goal is to provide media to which these children can relate, written by someone who experienced the situations first hand and can both empathize with the reader as well as explain the world they are involved in. There must be these elements of relativity between the author and his readers, especially those who make up minority groups that do not generally feature in mass media. Alexie argues that “if Indian literature can’t be read by the average 12-year-old kid living on the reservation, what the hell good is it? You couldn’t take any of [Vizenor’s] books to the rez and teach them, without extreme protestation. What is an Indian kid going to do with the first paragraph of any of those books?” (Berglund xvi), explaining why Native youth were his target audience. Within this quote, one could extract Alexie’s underlying message of how youth that cannot find books that hold characters to which they can relate will feel the same form of isolation that he felt as a youth. The Absolutely True Diary provides a source of identity with characters by the two major subcultures that Alexie belonged to in his youth, a young Native American and a child of alcoholics.
The Absolutely True Diary tells the story of a young Native American boy named Junior who struggles with his sense of self both as an individual and as a Native person. In an interview with Joshua B. Nelson, Alexie describes the situations of these Native American youth as “social pressures, the social rules inside the Indian world … [are] something that outsiders rarely understand” (42). This lack of worldly understanding can leave a young Native American teen to feel isolated in a world of whitewashed media. The Absolutely True Diary explicitly states moments in which Junior feels alone in his world, like a cultural phenomenon that does not fit completely into life on the rez or into life in the neighbouring town. This can be seen when Junior says “[he feels] like two different people inside of one body … like a magician slicing [him]self in half, with Junior living on the north side of the Spokane River and Arnold living on the south” (Alexie).
There are times in The Absolutely True Diary when Junior is more than just emotionally alone; he is also physically an abnormality in the environment. An example of this is his arrival to Reardan school “whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making [him] the only other Indian in town” (56). However, as Junior grows and develops through the course of the book he finds that there are others around him with whom he can relate and bond. This leads later in the book to a realization, where Junior says that “I might be a lonely Indian boy. But I was not alone in my loneliness” (217). This sense of camaraderie with those around him gave Junior strength. Though Junior may just be a character, he is also a representative of very real children who may have no one to relate to and so feel lonely in the world. Through novels such as Alexie’s, these children may be able to find characters to identify with that also give them the same feeling of not being secluded.
Alexie has also stated that “as a child [he was] reared in the midst of alcoholism in the harsh economic realities of rural reservation life” (Berglund xi); so when Alexie is writing the novel that his twelve-year old self lacked, he is writing to children in this same situation. The novel itself provides several examples of alcoholism in a variety of its forms, which can be displayed in the comparison of two major alcoholic characters in the novel: Junior’s father, and Rowdy’s father. Junior’s father, while an alcoholic, is a good man who cares for and loves his family in the best ways he can, and Junior describes him as “an undependable drunk … He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could” (189). This is a stark contrast to descriptions of Rowdy’s father, who is also an alcoholic but is an abusive drunk who beats his son and his wife, described as always “drinking hard and throwing hard punches” (16).
This inclusion of more than just the stereotyped abusive alcoholic gave rise to Alexie’s inclusion of the line, “[t]here are all kinds of addicts, I guess” (107). In the novel there are several situations that arise due to the effects of alcohol. Alexie is opening his audience up once again, so children who are living under the influence of alcoholism are not limited to the one stereotype to which they are expected to relate. Situations are as individual as the people who experience them, and Alexie is making efforts to ensure that the situations in his work allow for as many people as possible to find some sense of identification in the material that they read.
Through the examination of the subgroups addressed above, it can be noted that the overall result of a lack of representation in the media and a lack of characters or icons to relate to creates a sense of isolation in the young readers who cannot find themselves in the work they read. This sense of loneliness has been linked to suicide rates by historical sociological theorist, Émile Durkheim. Durkheim concludes that suicide could be linked to “the degree to which individuals [are] connected or committed to society,” and that “too weak a connection to society could produce suicide as well” (Steckley 14). As this essay has described, lack of representation in the media can leave youth who are not members of the dominant culture feeling isolated, without that “connection to society.” The theory that this isolation would result in high youth suicide within the Native American community is, sadly, supported with research. A 2012 study has shown that “the rate of suicide for American Indian and Alaska Natives is far higher than that of any other ethnic group in the United States—70% higher than the rate for the general population of the United States” (Dorgan 213). In this case Durkheim’s theory is proven true; cultures who can find no sense of solidarity within the world tend to display greater risks of suicide. The censorship breeds loneliness, and this loneliness can have fatal consequences.
A sense of oneself and who we are in regards to the rest of the world is an integral part of youth development and growth. However, more and more in our culture superior parties such as parents and teachers step in to limit the tools that a child has to learn about the world, about who they are, and about who they are not. In cases such as those with Native American youth, where the isolation is already so intense that the suicide rates have skyrocketed to an unthinkable level, perhaps we must take note of how this sweeping eradication of minority cultures in the media is affecting the people who make up these cultures. Maybe through this connection we can begin to take steps away from book censorship. If a teen is to grow up with an awareness of the world and who they are capable of being, we as the generation in control of the material they have access to must do everything in our power to expand their access in order for them to be able to reach their wildest dreams.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2007. Print.
Berglund, Jeff. “Introduction.” Sherman Alexie: A Collection of Critical Essays. Eds. Jeff Berglund and Jan Roush. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: University of Utah Press, 2010. xi-xxxix. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 2 December 2015.
Dorgan, Byron L. “The Tragedy of Native American Youth Suicide.” Psychological Services 7.3 (2010): 213-8. Web.
Fraser, Joelle. “An Interview with Sherman Alexie.” Iowa Review (Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City) 30.3 (2000): 59. Web.
Grassian, Daniel. Understanding Sherman Alexie. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Web.
Isajlovic-Terry, Natasha, and Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie. “An Exploratory Study Of Children’s Views Of Censorship.” Children & Libraries: The Journal Of The Association For Library Service To Children 10.1 (2012): 38-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Nelson, Joshua B. “‘Humor Is My Green Card’: A Conversation With Sherman Alexie.” World Literature Today 84.4 (2010): 39-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Steckley, J., and G. Kirby Letts. (2013). Elements of Sociology. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
Stillman, Adam. “The Absolutely True Diary … Absolutely Banned.” CedarRepublican.com. September 15, 2010. Accessed December 3, 2015.
Marguerite Agniel in a Buddha position, J. de Mirjian, c.1929
Ann Radcliffe was canonized at her passing in 1823. Her genius was recognized in her lifetime; she was made a legacy by her death. In Ann Radcliffe: Romanticism and the Gothic Townshend and Wright assert she was “one of the British nation’s most creative voices” (3). Her blend of Gothic and Romanticism made her the “originator of a literary school” that continues today (3). The unifying theme Radcliffe identified in Gothic and Romantic fiction is embedded in the sublime experience. Alison Milbank explains that argument continues about whether Radcliffe was simply skillfully employing the existing tropes of the sublime, or whether she was originating something with her use of it. The most original factor concerning the sublime experience in A Sicilian Romance is its developmental faculty; the most spiritually accomplished, angelic characters undergo extraordinarily high and prolonged degrees of sublimity. This portrays a subsequent addition to the existing tropes of the sublime. This effect can be explained by Eastern modes of transcendence—namely meditation—explaining how clarity of mind, or the effect of the sublime experience, promotes acuity and wellbeing through cognitive development.
Milbank explains two contradictory interpretations of Radcliffe’s work: one understands her creations having “originating power” and maintains she is “as uncanny as her own literary productions”; the other understands Radcliffe as simply employing a list of tropes associated with existing theories of the sublime (ix). The first class describes her as nothing less than an “inspired prophetess” (ix). The second class, according to Milbank, would have to ignore Radcliffe’s “response to the nexus of ideas on psychology” to defend their position (x, my emphasis). The psychological response to the sublime will be the focus of this paper.
Robert Doran’s Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant sharply engages a comprehensive theoretical history of the sublime (2015). His work presents the concept of sublimity as “the most enduring and consequential aesthetics of modern thought” (27). He focuses on “defining a secular concept of transcendence” by turning to Longinus, Burke, Kant and others—exploring the development of theoretical sublimity (27). Doran likens Longinus’ “transcendence” to a “mystical religious experience” (41). Whereas Burke grounds his sublimity in human terror, Longinus affirms the sublime involves “being at once overwhelmed and elevated” (41). Burke agrees wholeheartedly that the effect overwhelms the mind. Being “overwhelmed” involves being “overpowered” by the source (OED). This is a key element to my argument. One facet which all the theories of sublimity agree upon is that sublime experience suspends mental faculties; one aspect where all meditation practices meet is the suspension of thought.
In Critique of Judgement Kant calls the sublime a negative experience, explaining that lack of experience is what makes the state freeing. This is a state of ultimate receptivity, explained in Eastern traditions, is being in touch with the infinite and eternal. Kant’s definition proposes that as long as reason is not satisfied, it is sublime. This is where the parallel to meditation is found. Meditation, throughout its many methods and uses, primarily transcends thought. Radcliffe herself discusses this state, and uses the word “confounding” to describe the sublime affective force “in which the mind can find nothing” (Supernatural 67). Kant explains, “the imagination” enjoying a sublime state “feels itself to be unbounded precisely because of [the] elimination of the limits of sensibility” as it perceives a “presentation of the infinite” which “expands the soul” (5:274). Expansion may suggest development, but no graduating effect is considered by Kant or the classic theorists.
The Marquis’ daughters are said to be “thus lovely and thus veiled in obscurity” at the onset of the narrative. They are “happy for they knew not enough of the world to seriously regret it.” Although the girls are naturally inclined towards good character, we are told that “an expansion of mind and refinement of thought” was required of them “which is the result of high cultivation” (7, my emphases). The young nobles have the very best education. What could Radcliffe want cultivated beyond this? The count Vereza, the veritable knight in shining armour, is more developed than Julia and her sister at the onset. He is described as “graceful yet manly,” and “his countenance” is said to “[express] a happy union of spirit, dignity, and benevolence” accountable to his possessing a “sublimity of thought” (11, my emphasis). He has a quality of sublimity, or clarity, of thought; a union of spirit, which is to say a free-flowing, intuitive, and open state.
All of the characters in A Sicilian Romance who endure the sublime and grow heightened from it share one common trait: they remain in control of themselves, receptive, whilst enduring. There is a complex irony at play within the response to the sublime. Although submission is required to attain the elevation of mind-spirit that the sublime offers, so is maintaining control. The sublime is differentiated from obscurity. Meditation is controlled improvement. This is the cultivation—the sublimity of mind, unity of spirit—which Radcliffe prescribes for her characters. Radcliffe’s sublime differs from that of the traditional theorists in that there is a permanence of virtues attained by embracing this state; it harkens to Eastern traditions. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, through the example of Zen Buddhism, explains Eastern transcendence as “a perfection of personhood” attained through transcending thought—methodically by meditation or a shocking, sublime, instant enlightenment (i).
Doran explains that when one is mentally overpowered one gains the sense of divinity, “ekstasis” (41). To the Dalai Lama, this state of divinity is “Buddah Nature,” (n.p.). The eventual outcome of the sublime experience to Longinus is “kairos” or the climactic moment of peak experience. Doran explicitly states that to interpret “kairos” as a kind of fulfillment, would clearly contradict “the momentary meaning of the word” (44). The difference between Longinus’ transcendence and the Eastern outlook is the possibility of cognitive evolution.
The Dalai Lama explains that “through practice, a human being” can perfect oneself through a “purification of one’s own mental state” (n.p.). Using meditation, “destructive things can be removed from the mind” and “the highest enlightened mental state” can be achieved (n.p., my emphasis). The effect of transcendence to Longinus is the corresponding state of “hypsos” it imparts. “Hypsos” is translated by Doran as metaphorically surpassing “one’s mental capacity or state of mind, going beyond normal human limits” to be closer to a “divine” state (39). He says that to Longinus “hypsos” and the Latin “sublime” “are virtually identical.” Both can be related figuratively to “an elevated thought or an elevated mind” (39). The act of experiencing the sublime is elevating—godly—by Doran’s explanation, and a source of divinity. Being in clarity is explained in the same terms by the Dalai Lama: “to elevate.” Both meditation and sublimity produce this heightened mental state. This state does not necessitate immediate fulfillment, yet we seek it out; Eastern philosophy would argue it is developmental.
Berkeley’s Professor of Buddhist Studies Robert Sharf describes the state of “samadhi” as the ultimate path in meditation, synonymous with equivalent end goals in other belief systems (935). Samadhi is “the highest state of meditation, in which the distinctions between subject and object disappear and unity with creation is attained” (OED). There are two major bodies of meditative exercise: one promotes total receptivity, a state of no-mind, and is observation without reflection; the other is total concentration disregarding distraction. Most practitioners use both, often together.
A mind full of activity is the opposite of clarity, and divided allegiances of spirit obfuscate unity. When the Duke and his men are seeking refuge in the woods they are described as “bewildered in the wilds,” and this is when they hear the bell of a monastery—a divine symbol of sanctity. They receive clarity in bewilderment. Coming out of receptivity and surmising the idea to discern, divide, and direct towards— “the way they judged led to the monastery” —they lose their way (Radcliffe 89, my emphases). Reason does not help—it hinders them. Divisions of mind and spirit undo characters in this novel. When the Duke is wounded “the effect of his wound [is] heightened by the agitation of his mind,” which proves a detriment to his health (95).
In the dungeon, Ferdinand “seem[s] to acquire the valour of despair,” loaning him a high virtue in a time of sublime submission (99). In the woods, Madame is “insensibly led on” through the sublime landscape which “elevated the mind of the beholder” (104, my emphasis). When she hears Julia, the sound “awaken[s] all her attention,” putting the sublime state to use, allowing her “captivated … heart” to be led towards that which called her like an “enchantment” (104-5, my emphasis). Madame Menon “seemed without interest and without motive for exertion” to find Julia (103, my emphasis).
Milbank claims these occurrences depict “weakness” being “transformed into power,” but the text explicitly demonstrates that it is more accurately receptivity and trust—intuition—which delivers Madame (xix). The Duke, with his firm, heady intentions, cannot find his way through the sublime landscape (93-94). Milbank explains that the “Duke’s refusal to accept a position of vulnerability makes him unable to benefit” (xviii). I would clarify this statement by pointing out that the vulnerability the Duke lacks is receptivity. As Radcliffe demonstrates, the causality of being receptive, if done properly—with agency— brings attainment.
Edmund Burke recognizes “certain powers and properties” of the sublime “that work a change in the mind” but he struggles to explain further (209, my emphasis). He explains how “pain and terror” that are not “carried to violence” or threaten “destruction” produce “emotions [which] clear the parts” and “are capable of producing delight … tinged with terror,” precisely because the mind enjoys being in clarity (217, my emphasis). The “highest degree” of sublimity is “astonishment” (217, Burke’s emphasis): “that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended,” a description identical to meditation (130). Burke’s definition requires a forced mental pause. Seated meditation, however, can engage a state of sublimity willfully (Sharf 935).
The astonishment Burke describes (where the mind is so entirely full of one object that it cannot comprehend another) is akin to a focus oriented meditation. Burke defines “greatness of dimension” or “vastness” as “a powerful cause of the sublime” (147). Sharf uses methods where concentration on the “four immeasurable states” obliterate the mind’s ability to perceive any measure and bewilder the practitioner into sublimity (941). “Another source of the sublime” to Burke “is infinity,” which can be mimicked by repetition: if “we repeat any idea frequently,” just as in a “succession of noises,” their echoes “beat” and “roar in the imagination long after the first sounds have ceased to affect it,” robbing the mind of its faculties by filling it with something meaningless (148-9). This is identical to Sharf’s description of “recitation” practices where focus is given to repeating mantras over and over or “breathing” meditations where you watch the breath ad-infitum until there is no thought left.
Stephanie Lou, following a study of Richard Davidson, explains how “meditative practice can physically change brain functioning” in progressive ways (a). Davidson’s study focused on measuring gamma waves—the “most important electrical brain waves”—of practitioners (2). Conducted on Tibetan monks recommended by the Dalai Lama, the study was controlled by students without meditation experience: “The meditation novices showed only a slight increase in gamma wave activity while meditating, while some of the monks produced gamma wave activity more powerful and of higher amplitude than any previously reported in a healthy person in the neuroscience literature” (2, my emphasis). In the neuroscience paper “Buddha’s Brain,” Davidson admits that “over the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the long-term practitioners had actually altered the structure and function of their brains” (i). The progressive element in the novel is accurate according to neuroscience; Radcliffe is a prophet.
Julia arguably benefits most in the book. She is presented as someone who willfully indulges in the sublime experience. She seeks “solitude in the woods” when she is longing for Vereza (42). She takes her lute to her “favorite spot” to enter the focused meditation which playing music requires, a “favorite” spot implying she does so on a regular basis (42). Julia struggles, but inevitably follows her intuition—she challenges her father and her betrothed. The other women in the book all allow their agency to escape them at critical points. Julia is not only a victim to sublimity, but also has agency, and develops fully due to the active way she engages; she employs the paradoxical combination of receptivity and control that Eastern transcendence requires.
The developmental effects of exposure to sublimity, or clarity, continue to work regardless. When Hippolitus’ sister eventually perishes, after enduring what she calls an unusual amount of terror, Julia tells us that her “countenance seemed to characterize the beauty of an inspired saint” (123). When the Marchioness, after years of torture, thinks Julia and her mother would not escape the cell she, “with a placid resignation which seemed to exalt her above humanity,” prays (182, my emphasis). The response to the sublime is, as Milbank notes, the primary differentiating principle marking Radcliffe as a prophet. Everyone who endures sublimity is happy. However, Julia and Hippolitus—those shown to express the virtues attained by, and the willingness to focus and grow from, sublime clarity—are the only characters to earn a fairytale ending. Through embracing the ironic state of active receptivity, willing openness, focus on clarity, and practice—one may achieve what Radcliffe calls “moral retribution” where we are guaranteed “the surest claim to the protection of heaven,” on earth (199).
Works Cited
Alison, Archibald. Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste. Edinburgh: JJG and G Robinson, London, 1789. Print.
Burke, Edmund. “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.” The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Vol. I[-IV]. Boston: John West, 75, Cornhill, and O.C. Greenleaf, 3, Court Street. 1806-[1807]. Print.
Burwick, Frederick. “Ann Radcliffe, Prose.” The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature.Vol. A-G. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 1091-1098. Print.
Dalai Lama. “The Dalai Lama: ‘On Buddha Nature’” The Buddha. PBS, 9 Mar. 2010. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Davidson, Richard, and Antoine Lutz. “Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation.” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 25.1 (2008): 174-76. US National Library of Medicine. Web. 14 Jan. 2016.
Doran, Robert. Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge: University P, 2015. Print.
Kane, Sarah Kim. “The Sublime, the Beautiful and the Picturesque in the Works of Ann Radcliffe.” ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Global (1999). Web. 14 Nov. 2015.
Lutz, A., L. L. Greischar, N. B. Rawlings, M. Ricard, and R. J. Davidson. “Long-term Meditators Self-Induce High-Amplitude Gamma Synchrony During Mental Practice.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101.46 (2004): 16369-6373. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.
Milbank, Alison. “Introduction.” A Sicilian Romance. Ann Radcliffe. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Nagatomo, Shigenori. “Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy.” Ed. Edward N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2015). Stanford University. Web. 7 Jan. 2015.
Radcliffe, Ann. A Sicilian Romance. Ed. Alison Milbank. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Radcliffe, Ann. “On the Supernatural in Poetry.” Gothic Horror: A Guide for Students and Readers. Ed. Clive Bloom. 2nd ed. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 60-69. Print.
“Oxford English Dictionary.” Oed.com. Oxford University Press. Web. 5 Dec. 2015.
Sharf, Robert. “Mindfulness and Mindlessness in Early Chan.” Philosophy East and West 64.4 (2014): 933-64. Print.
Townshend, Dale, and Angela Wright. “Cultural Contexts.” Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic. New York: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.
Jean-Étienne Liotard, La Belle Chocolatière, c. 1743-44
1791, French feminist Olympe de Gouges critiqued patriarchy by writing Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. She was accused of treason and executed. This was not long after Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in 1754, was awarded second place for his response to the Academy of Dijon essay question: “What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?” His response, Discourse on Inequality, explains how men had progressed from a “natural state” into the artificial form of modern society within Rousseau’s time, which he claims is characterized by moral and political inequality. However, Rousseau does not address the gender inequality sanctioned through law at that period in history, which prohibited women from political, economic, and certain sexual rights. In Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau describes the role of Woman as central, due to reproduction, to the maintenance of Man. His text shows women’s responsibility to sex in two ways. Women are described by Rousseau as honourable when they have careful control over sex, embodied as “the chaste guardians of our [society’s] morals and all the gentle bonds of peace,” whereas they are viewed as destructive when “loose” (12). This essay explores how Rousseau’s construction of the Genevan Woman ensures inequality even as he claims to explain the foundations and state of inequality. I will explore this construction as a compound process: first, women are placed in an inferior position (without rights) by men. Second, Woman is constructed to embody particular (“feminine”) characteristics, such as gentleness and virtuousness, that serve to reproduce the very structures of inequality that hinder them. Finally, I explore the limited sexual power that women had in this era, specifically within the honourable confines of chaste servitude. In every instance, women are valued primarily in relation to men, for the well-being and maintenance of the state.
Rousseau analyzes the state of inequality in modern society by reaching back historically to theorize man in his “state of nature.” This is less of an attempt to be strictly factual (24) and more so an ambitious attempt at explaining how the current society, in all its laws, morals, and institutions, may have come to be. Rousseau’s description of man in the state of nature is a conjectural attempt to answer the question by following “a few lines of … hypothetical and conditional reasoning” (15-24). He declares that he has “ventured a few guesses, less in the hope of answering the question than for the purpose of clarifying it and reducing it to its true proportions” (15).
Rousseau begins his story by explaining that for the human species there are two forms of inequality: natural (physical) and moral (or political) inequality (23). He describes natural inequality as “differences in age, health, physical strength, and traits of the mind and soul” (23). He claims that the “source of natural inequality . . . is expressed by the very definition of the word” (23) and that this natural inequality has been solidified by institutional inequality (52). He dwells on the emergence of moral inequality, which “depends on a sort of convention and is established, or at least sanctioned, by the consent of men” (23). For Rousseau, moral inequality involves possessing more or less wealth, honour, power, and potential for domination (23). This establishment of law by men highlights the progression of natural inequality into structural processes of moral inequality by Rousseau’s period in history. Women were not considered citizens (121) and were denied political rights to consent to or reject the law. While Rousseau doesn’t seem to explicitly promote women as inferior, he also does not challenge this notion and in fact refers to women later in the text as “the sex that ought to obey” (49). Once gender inequality has been established, what better way to maintain it than to prescribe for women responsibilities, expectations, and customs that will reproduce it?
Does Woman Make Man?
Rousseau then considers the role of Woman in Geneva. To him, Woman is the precious half of the population, an honourable one who “assures the happiness of the other and whose sweetness and goodness maintain its peace and good morals” (11). In addition, the “destiny of [women] will always be to govern our destiny” (11). Afforded with status and citizenship, men deny these rights and privileges to women. “Man” stands in for everyone when it is the interest of men, but Woman is created to explain why women do not get the same advantages as men. In this case, language is used to praise women’s servitude and at the same time to obscure the structural inequalities in place. Without political or economic rights, women were in a vulnerable position, and this particular construction of Woman is demonstrated by Rousseau’s text, a construction which has historically served to reproduce inequality from generation to generation.
Woman: Another Word for Unequal
Rousseau writes that the Genevan Woman must possess predefined qualities. The Genevan Woman is to be modest, graceful, amiable, virtuous, innocent, and subtle in her words and deeds (11-12). Rousseau states that these feminine characteristics maintain public well-being, specifically in that the “barbarous man” cannot resist the “voice of honour and reason in the mouth of a gentle wife” (11). Rousseau addresses women by demanding of them to “[a]lways remain as you are, the chaste guardians of our morals and the gentle bonds of peace” (12). Rousseau claims women are peacekeepers; however, this is an encouragement to continue to reproduce the moral structure of inequality that women are born into. The good Genevan Woman is instructed to promote concord between the citizens through marriage of families that are divided (12). In other words, women were to be traded as property to satisfy social debts and obligations, and Rousseau’s implication is that because this maintains peace it is virtuous and honourable. But this suggests that only through marriage may women maintain peace, and so their power as peacekeepers is only by servitude through marriage, once again in relation to men. Finally, women have the virtuous duty to discourage, through their sweet and modest nature, “the excesses that our young people pick up in other countries” (12). In other words, it is a woman’s job to socialize youth so as not to threaten the morals that have been established in modern Genevan society.
Sex Power
Let us look for instances in Rousseau’s work in which women do in fact have power. Once again, it is under strict guidelines, for their “chaste power, exercised only within the marriage bond, makes itself felt only for the glory of the state and the well-being of the public” (11). Women may use their power of sex and desire, strictly sanctioned by marriage, to honour the state and mediate morals, but once again only in relation to men. This becomes glaringly evident when Rousseau warns youth against acquiring “childish manners and ridiculous airs … from loose women” (12). In Rousseau’s time loose meant unfixed, free, unchaste, immoral (“Loose”). Thus even women’s sexual power is limited, and the paradox that women “deserve to be in command in Geneva” (11) can only refer to a chaste, virtuous, and limited form of power. The use of this sexual power might be considered political in its effects; but if so, it is indirect.
Rousseau theorizes a particular form of sexual desire that developed in modern society:
Among the passions stirring the human heart, there is one that is burning and impetuous, and makes one sex necessary for the other, a terrible passion that braves every danger, defies every obstacle, and in its fury seems destined to destroy the very human race it is designed to preserve. What will become of men, who are prey to unbridled and brutal rage, without shame, without modesty, without restraint, fighting every day over their loves at the cost of their lives? (48)
Rousseau believes that in the “natural state” of man, sexual desire was physical and served only to “unite the one sex with the other” (49). But he suggests that this desire was the result of combined ideas of merit and beauty which were fostered by imagination. Rousseau believes this desire is a corrupted, unnatural sentiment, which he calls the “moral side of love” (49). This moral love is possessive as it “shapes desire… [and] makes the desire for the chosen object more forceful” (49). In Rousseau’s narrative, it becomes the role of Woman to mediate this forceful sexual desire through her chaste power. This requires the strategic and careful denial of sex until the bonds of marriage, as this moral love is “honoured by women with much care and skill” (49). Rousseau considers this important because he sees sexual desire as a threat to the well-being of the public; without women’s careful control of their female sexual power, this desire evoked in men threatens to instigate “the vengeance of husbands” (50) and lead to duels, murders, and “even worse deeds” (51). And so, it is up to women to mediate this, “in order to establish their power over men and so make dominant the sex that ought to obey” (49). In Rousseau’s modern society, sex is evidently women’s most substantial form of power; however, since they were bound to a chaste moral code, they were only free to exercise their power in relation to men within the bonds of marriage. Thus, women were oppressed by not only denial of political and economic power at that historical period, but also constricted to a very limited and particular sexual power, as Rousseau suggests in his text.
Conclusion
Simone de Beauvoir writes in The Second Sex that, “[i]f we examine some of the books on women, we see that one of the most frequently held points of view is that of public good or general interest: in reality, this is taken to mean the interest of society as each one wishes to maintain or establish it” (16). While Rousseau’s is not a book on women, specifically, I would argue that a piece written on inequality is not thoroughly critical without including an analysis of gender relations. Among the many ideas Rousseau explores in the Discourse on Inequality, it seems he has unfortunately disregarded this significant inequality. Perhaps he truly believed women to be naturally inferior. Maybe he was so corrupted by modern Genevan society that he failed to see a very substantial social inequality of that time. Rousseau’s possible lack of clarity is particularly fascinating, because he is known to have criticized other social theorists for being unable to see clearly what was “natural” and true. He does provide a fascinating exploration of many societal concepts: namely, the moral consequences that emerge from the invention of property (greed, envy, vanity misery, jealousy) (55), as well as the structural inequalities formed by the mutual enslavement of master and slave (78), which Rousseau sees as (in his time) “the ultimate degree of inequality to which all the other [inequalities] lead to until new revolutions dissolve the government altogether or bring it closer to legitimacy” (79). However, I do feel that Rousseau’s oversight of gender inequality somewhat undermines the thoughtfulness in these other explorations within his text. Overall, I find the construction of Woman laid out in Rousseau’s text to be strict and confined in a way that seems to both ensure women’s servitude and oppression, and also work to reproduce this inequality for future generations.
Notes
I capitalize “Woman” in reference to the construction of women in this period, as opposed to “women” which refers to women of that time period in general.
Works Cited
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. NY: Random House, 2011. Print.
Can the feminist approach to epistemology only work in a relativistic framework that rejects the traditional concept of objectivity? Feminist standpoint epistemology seeks to create a stronger objectivity by rejecting the traditional concept of objectivity, yet not becoming a relativistic epistemology either. In her article Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is “Strong Objectivity?”, Sandra Harding, a prominent advocate of feminist standpoint theory, addresses this topic explicitly and argues that the objective strength of standpoint theory is its belief that knowledge is socially situated. Harding, like most standpoint epistemologists, is making three central claims: 1) knowledge is socially situated 2) marginalized groups have an advantage in being able to spot biases that the dominant group cannot see, and 3) knowledge should be built upon the marginalized perspectives (Bowell para. 1). For the purposes of this paper we will look primarily at Sandra Harding’s response to the question of whether or not feminist standpoint theory can work within an objective framework rather than a relativistic one. Harding’s article deals with the relationship between standpoint theory and what can be called “traditional science”. We can define “traditional science” as science that focuses on the examination of the object of research solely. Standpoint theory, in contrast, insists on the examination of the researcher as well as examining the object of research. Before we can deal with the question of relativism and objectivity, let us take a look at Harding’s definition of standpoint epistemology.
Frontispiece depicting Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle – a female scientist of the Early Modern era
Harding argues that knowledge is socially situated (353). In other words, who we are as knowers affects what we can know. Specifically, Harding uses the example of spontaneous feminist empiricists (354) to demonstrate the dependency of research results to the social situation of the researchers. Harding defines the original spontaneous feminist empiricism as the “‘spontaneous consciousness’ of feminist researchers in biology and social sciences who were trying to explain what was and wasn’t different about their research process in comparison with the standard procedures in their field” (354). Harding, while not ideologically aligned with the spontaneous feminist empiricist, notes that research done by spontaneous feminist empiricists was often able “to produce less partial and distorted results” (352) than research done by males. Harding therefore argues that the knowledge these feminist empiricists were able to produce was scientifically superior to that of their counterparts, precisely because of the feminist’s socially situated standpoint. Hence the feminist endeavour of spotting androcentric assumptions in the production of knowledge is simply “good science” and can help “maximize objectivity” (356).
Objectivity, for Harding, seems to be more attainable if people are aware of their own social situation. Harding criticizes the concept of neutral objectivity. Harding refers to this concept as, in a phrased coined by Donna Haraway, the “God-trick” (360), which is when researchers attempt to observe the universe with a complete impartiality that is supposedly bias free – what Thomas Nagel calls “the view from nowhere” (Crumley 213). Harding admits that while traditional science is good at eliminating social values so that experiments can have the same results across cultures, she also claims that “the scientific method provides no rules …for even identifying… social concerns and interests that are shared by all (or virtually all) of the observers” (Harding 360). For standpoint epistemologists the scientific endeavour, as it is now, is flawed because it was created by people from particular social situation who had influence and power (355).
Harding argues that the system within which female empiricists are operating (traditional science) is one that lacks space and methods for researchers to reflect on their social situation, leaving them blind to their inherent biases. How then can people identify their own biases? Harding argues that marginalized groups have an advantage over others in spotting biases (357). The author likens standpoint epistemology in the production of knowledge to Marxism in politics with its production of goods by the marginalized workers. Harding argues that dominant groups are so engrossed in their dominance and power that they are blind to their own assumptions (357). For example, the Marxist worker would be acutely aware of the owner’s assumptions and biases. Similarly, according to Harding, feminist researchers would be similarly aware of biases in the scientific community since the scientific community has historically been dominated by men and androcentric assumptions (355). For Harding, having women in science is helpful as in the case of the spontaneous feminist empiricists, but ultimately not enough: for feminist standpoint epistemologists the system needs to be changed to incorporate marginalized groups.
Harding, in keeping with the view of standpoint epistemology, argues that the starting place for producing knowledge should come from the standpoint of marginalized groups. Harding contrasts spontaneous feminist empiricism to standpoint theory, and writes:
[s]tandpoint theorists think that this is only part of the problem. They point out that retroactively, and with the help of the insights of the women’s movement, one can see these sexist or androcentric practices in the disciplines. However, the methods and norms in the disciplines are too weak to permit researchers systematically to identify and eliminate from the results of research those social values, interests, and agendas that are shared by the entire scientific community or virtually all of it. (355)
For the standpoint theorists the prevailing knowledge production community is “too weak” to systematically uncover and eliminate all of its “social values, interests, and agendas” (355). Thus to “maximize objectivity” in research (356), the scientific community needs to incorporate the standpoint of marginalized groups such as feminists. Having people from various backgrounds participating in the knowledge production community might be beneficial for the scientific method, providing the inclusion of various perspectives. Presumably Harding would be open to drawing from a variety of groups to meet the goal of what she calls “good science”— science that is less distorted and partial.
Although Harding is critiquing dominant knowledge production communities, she does not reject the importance of science in her standpoint theory. Her critique of “bad science” shows us that she is not rejecting science itself. To have “bad science” Harding must have a notion of what “good science” is. In other words, “good science” must have normative standards with which to critique “bad science.” For Harding “bad science” is the more distorted and partial scientific research that resulted from androcentric assumption (355). Harding seems to be using science to help elucidate how social situations within the scientific community affect scientific assumptions, practices, and outcomes. Harding is accepting at least some notion of objectivity, although she also seems to reject our ability to be bias free.
Harding is not an absolutist about knowledge: rather, her approach differs from a traditional approach to epistemology and thinkers like Descartes who looked solely at the objects of inquiry rather than there own social situation. For Harding, both the researcher and the research subject should be critically examined, because for her a purely objective analysis of the universe by an impartial thinker is a myth. Descartes on the other hand, retreated into his mind in the belief that he could see the world objectively. Descartes attempted to use a priori reasoning to discover universal principles that were, for him, unrelated to any social situation or even the physical world. For Harding we are intimately connected to our social situation and the physical world and cannot separate ourselves from them.
Harding’s theorising, while outside the approach to philosophy of thinkers like Descartes, does not fall into the category of relativistic epistemology. Harding is not a postmodern feminist since she argues for a starting point (standpoint) for knowledge, whereas some postmodern feminists might be against the notion of a standpoint. Standpoint theory’s starting point for knowledge production requires that the knowledge producer reflects on the relationships between sex and class, for example, and specifically draws on marginalized groups. Harding argues for objectivity, but she thinks we have too many biases to see reality as it really is. For Harding, standpoint theory can minimize our biases, though not eliminate them completely; the theorist is aware that her standpoint theory is a work in progress that “will be replaced by more useful epistemologies in the future – the fate of all human products” (364). Harding is not an absolutist, or relativistic: neither is she strictly a skeptic.
Feminist standpoint epistemology uses a multitude of perspectives to gain a foundation for knowledge and so avoids becoming skepticism. Feminist standpoint epistemologists believe that there are cognitive gaps between “evidence and theory” (Crumley 215). Harding, like other feminists, thinks that gaps between evidence and theory are filled with our own social values, agendas, and politics (Harding 360). This way of thinking is very much like the skepticism of David Hume, who thought inductive reasoning was produced by gaps in our cognition filled with nothing more than our own past experiences and subjective projections (Crumley 47). If standpoint epistemologists argue, like Hume, that there are gaps in our cognition which are filled with social values and imagination, then what prevents standpoint epistemologists from being skeptics and therefore making anti-knowledge claims? Insofar as it moves us closer to truth, filling the cognitive gaps with the social values of one marginalized group would be no better than filling it with the social values of another. Yet, perhaps unlike strict skeptics, Harding argues that we can move closer to maximizing objectivity (361). For example, she thinks that the sciences can reveal truths about the world, e.g. her notion of “good science.” For Harding, in the absence of having an objective view (God’s eye view) of the universe, what is necessary to produce knowledge is the inclusion of as many perspectives as possible when creating knowledge; this variety of perspectives might then be molded into our knowledge communities. Prioritizing a multitude of perspectives discourages the dominant socially situated perspectives that, without the multitude, otherwise gain too much authority in the production of knowledge which ultimately produces “bad science.” Being aware of social biases will help one find security in one’s knowledge-producing pursuits, and, as previously stated, minimize one’s biases while producing more objective knowledge.
Feminist standpoint epistemology holds that knowledge is socially situated and argues that marginalized groups have an advantage in spotting unexamined assumptions and biases in the knowledge production community. Thus for standpoint epistemologists traditionally dominant knowledge communities (i.e. scientific communities) need to be adapted to include otherwise marginalized perspectives. The incorporation of marginalized perspectives will lead to greater and more accurate objectivity. Feminist standpoint epistemology diverges from the epistemology of detached absolutism and skepticism, while not being a relativistic epistemology either. Ultimately standpoint theory augments inquiry by broadening its scope and by adding a level of self-reflection and interrogation to any knowledge producing community.
Works Cited
Crumley II, Jack S. An Introduction to Epistemology. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2009. Print.
Bowell, T. “Feminist Standpoint Theory.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. n.d. Web. April 16 2016.
Harding, Sandra. “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is ‘Strong Objectivity’?” Knowledge and Inquiry: Readings in Epistemology. Ed. K. Brad Wray. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2007. 352-384. Print.
When one says that something is a historical event, one is saying that it is important and therefore worthy to be included in history. But what happens to all of the events that are deemed unworthy of such consideration? Do they lie outside history? Or is it our conception of history that is to blame? Author W.G. Sebald deeply considers these questions in his tragic novel Austerlitz. Throughout the novel, it is reiterated by different characters that humanity’s conventional conception of history – that it is a linear progression of events that can be objectively known – is incorrect, and that history is rather an accumulation of interpretations and subjective experiences. By means of a stylistic choice, Sebald himself also demonstrates how unreliable our conception of history can be by regularly projecting the false history of his characters onto the photographs of real people, muddling the line between fiction and historical fact. Furthermore, while characters in the novel believe that they can obtain the knowledge of what happened to them and their relatives in the past, the circumstances that they are left with at the end of the novel say otherwise. In Austerlitz, Sebald shows how the truths regarding the past often remain beyond our grasp.
Austerlitz focuses on the history of its main character, Jacques Austerlitz, as told by him and as passed on through the perspective of an unnamed and seemingly translucent narrator. During one of his many self-reflective conversations with the novel’s narrator, Austerlitz recalls the influence that a teacher had on him in his youth. The teacher had explained to Austerlitz the likely origin of his name during a history lesson about the Battle of Austerlitz. In that lesson, the teacher delves into the question of whether or not there is accuracy in our conception of history. Regarding the Battle of Austerlitz, the teacher states that “it would take an endless length of time to describe the events of such a day properly” and that “[a]ll of us, even when we think we have noted every tiny detail, resort to set pieces which have already been staged often enough by others. We try to reproduce the reality, but the harder we try, the more we find the pictures that make up the stock-in-trade of the spectacle of history forcing themselves upon us” (71). Essentially, the teacher argues that our conception of what occurred in the past is heavily guided by the popular interpretations of the present, and that these popular interpretations are not entirely accurate. Their lack of accuracy is due to the fact that they could not possibly translate all of the subjective experiences of what it felt like to exist in that moment; because of this, we can only ever have a dim, altered sense of what took place in the past, instead of a realistic one. The narrator also addresses this notion that subjective experiences live frail and often short lives: “How little we can hold in the mind,” he thinks to himself, “how everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life, how the world is, as it were draining itself, in that the history of countless places and objects which themselves have no power of memory is never heard, never described or passed on” (24). The narrator thus states that some histories that people create with “places and objects” will perish along with the people who held them. In other words, there is an inevitable loss of subjective experiences, and these lost experiences are chunks of our history. This belief that we have a skewed sense of our past, one which can never be rectified, is echoed by Sebald’s use of photographs in the novel.
In the modern era, perhaps the most popular way to make an experience tangible and thereby more enduring is to take a photograph of it. However, photographs, like memories and history in general, are vulnerable to misinterpretation. Sebald acknowledges and emphasizes this vulnerability throughout his novel by taking actual photographs of people from the past and weaving them into the fictional past of his novel. One such photograph is of a young Austerlitz with his rugger team. Austerlitz describes the photograph while talking to the narrator about a good friend that he had made during his time spent at private school. “From the first day,” Austerlitz says, “when he asked me for one of the new photographs of the rugger team where I featured to the extreme right of the front row, I realized that Gerald felt as isolated as I did” (74-75). Sebald takes this photograph, which out of its original context would otherwise appear to be simply a group of young, mostly happy rugger players, and heavily colors it with meaning, altering the reader’s interpretation of it. The reader is forced to interpret it as a snapshot of a very lonely period in the life of the man whom the reader believes to be Austerlitz. However, this interpretation is very likely to be far from the reality this photograph is capturing. By constantly forcing his reader to form an insufficient perspective on photographs of the past, Sebald shows how easy it is to lose the reality of what took place in the past. While we may attempt to save the truths of our past through photographs or other means, Sebald expresses how this attempt will ultimately be futile through his main character Austerlitz.
The main focus of the novel is Austerlitz’s self-imposed quest to unearth truths regarding his parents and experiences he had in the past. During moments throughout the novel it seems as though he will succeed; however, at the end of the novel, Austerlitz is left empty-handed and still searching. Some of Austerlitz’s last words to the narrator are hopeful, but they seem to predict the outcome of his search. “I am going to continue looking for my father,” Austerlitz says, “and for Marie de Verneuil as well” (292). Since Austerlitz’s story ends with him continuing on with his search, it suggests that any effort to obtain the truths of the past will, in the end, remain unsatisfied. Austerlitz’s failure to discover the truth about what happened to his parents is echoed during the last moments that the reader has with the narrator, in which the narrator starts reading a book that was given to him by Austerlitz the day they met. The book is a personal account written by Dan Jacobson who, like Austerlitz, is searching for a distant relative but who, also like Austerlitz, does not succeed. “[I]t was truly terrifying,” the man in the book writes regarding his failed search, “to realize that there was no transition, only this dividing line, with ordinary life on one side and its unimaginable opposite on the other. The chasm into which no ray of light could penetrate,” the narrator reflects, “was Jacobson’s image of the vanished past of his family and his people” (297). As the narrator acknowledges, Jacobson thus states that if there is no transition between life and death but only a dividing line, then there is no real bridge between what was and what is. The uncanny resemblance between Austerlitz’s failed search and the failed search of this book’s author supports the idea that what has passed away can never be fully resurrected by the people who exist in the present. Furthermore, the last encounter between the narrator and Austerlitz curiously takes place in a graveyard, as if hinting at the inevitable loss that we all must experience while alive, and how we are all destined to become a part of humanity’s lost history.
Sebald struggles to answer the following questions: can the moments of the past truly be preserved by the people in the present? And if not, what happens to those moments? Is something still a part of history if it is not remembered? How should we define history? The novel refutes the idea that history is a chain of events, and asserts that instead history is a collection of subjective experiences, and that not all of these experiences will be remembered correctly, if at all. As the photographs in the novel demonstrate, due to our lack of knowledge regarding the subjective experiences felt in the past, we will inevitably try to imbue the past with our own false meaning. Our inability to hold onto all of the subjective experiences of the past is emphasized by the failed attempts of Austerlitz and Jacobson to rekindle parts of their past. Austerlitz illustrates how some experiences will drift forever into the past, forever unknown by anyone in the present or future, and that these experiences, whether we’re conscious of them or not, will remain a part of our history.
Works Cited
Sebald, Winfried Georg. Austerlitz. New York: Modern Library, 2011. Print.
This is similar to Bloom’s worries, but differs in content, while reviewing the evolution of the social and practical functions of universities. The three authors demonstrate a passion for all three forms of education, emphasizing the cohesion needed to fulfill the potential of a comprehensive education. This education is functionally administered through discussions and questioning, by and from students as well as educators. The experience of questioning is the modus operandi of fostering education and is primarily useful for political education. A thorough understanding of how best to provide students with engaging questions furthers our understanding of political education, and how it maximizes civic and liberal education to their fullest potential.
This mirrors classical philosophical discourse, while also grounding discussion in personal interaction which is inherent to all forms of politics. Mastering discussion and questioning allows an educator to maximize liberal education. Universities provide an ample environment in which to develop political education; however, if the university is lacking in quality, it will not be able to achieve this. Allan Bloom notes that while modern universities attempt to provide an education to students through a combination of lecture and communal activities, they fail to achieve their goal: “The university now offers no distinctive visage to the young person. He finds a democracy of the disciplines… This democracy is really an anarchy… In short there is no vision… The student gets no intimation that great mysteries might be revealed to him, that new and higher motives of action might be discovered within him, that a different and more human way of life can be harmoniously constructed by what he is going to learn.”[1] Bloom explains that universities originated in the classical Greek tradition of the Academy but have since become divorced from their foundations. The university is modeled after Socratic teachings in an effort to actualize the philosophic experience with a community of motivated individuals. However, the university does not succeed in this goal, and it risks losing its essence as a result: “The philosophic life is not the university. Until the nineteenth century most philosophers had nothing to do with universities, and perhaps the greatest abhorred them. One cannot imagine Socrates as a professor… But Socrates is of the essence of the university.”[2] Bloom recounts his understanding of the modern university to call attention to this problem and its larger implication for students entering higher education.
value system in which everyone’s value is relative in worth only to that individual, making the pursuit of an absolute “truth” difficult to comprehend. Bloom identifies the rampant “celebritism” of individuals who can articulate their worth to others: “Though the values, the horizons, the tables of good and evil that originate in the self cannot be said to be true or false, cannot be derived from the common feeling of mankind or justified by the universal standards of reason, they are not equal, contrary to what vulgar teachers of value theory believe… The individual value of one man becomes the polestar for many others whose own experience provides them with no guidance.”[3] Democracy in America, for Bloom, reinforces mediocrity of both students and educators, as each individual’s value system is considered important, thus resulting in an environment of un-challenging tolerance. This is threatening to the goals of a political education, as the occasional discomfort or “hard talk” serves only to advance the collective understanding of the community. Furthermore, this results in further stratification of individuals rather than bringing them together in a communal atmosphere, ironically contradicting the professed noble intentions of equality: “Simply, the university is not distinctive. Equality for us seems to culminate in the unwillingness and incapacity to make claims of superiority, particularly in the domains in which such claims have always been made… What we see happening in general happened here [in Universities] too; the insistent demand for greater community ended in greater isolation.”[4] Bloom provides an intelligent examination of the structure of the modern university, and how best to avoid furthering the downtrend he laments. Oakeshott, in comparison, discusses the impact of empirical evaluation on political education propagated by mainstream educational systems. Political education, when framed within an empirical perspective, loses its essence and is undervalued.
The student, therefore, is not given a proper opportunity to engage in the communal understanding of the material because the format of his/her path is limited by the societal goals set for the university. Minogue explains that the student enters the university knowing virtually nothing, necessitating the need for excellent questioning, and excellent answers: “The undergraduate is a Socrates, whose wisdom consists in the fact that he knows nothing. He is therefore a questioner; nor does he stop at a first question, but as an exposition proceeds he must be a continual questioner… even the most corrupt undergraduate… cannot help, by the tasks which his presence involves, going some small way to maintaining academic vitality.”[7] Minogue identifies this problem not to condemn the worth of practical experience, but to highlight its discordance with academic investigation.
