Liberal arts as resting in the Good

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

(1/2021) In his Symposium, Plato’s Diotima says, "that is what is so bad about ignorance – that you think you know enough." In our world, and, it should be recalled, in the world of our ancestors, men have found self-comforting satisfaction in identifying their fellow men as ignorant. It seems that the good men, though, can be easily identified if they grant to the world in such fervent search of virtue the easily observable fact of their ignorance.

When college students in their freshman year enter this new place of physical and social being, they could find themselves in a place of emotional confusion, excitement or dread. They are open and excited for the possibilities because of their mostly pleasant pre-college experiences or they fear the potential because they know how much the actual has harmed them in the past. In either case, they have a general conception that people change during college, but they don’t know what this change means and the extent to which this personal shift will affect them.

If Plato is right, it seems to me that the college life should leave a deep impression on the graduate that says, "you were ignorant, you came here to learn, but at least now you know of your ignorance." The recognition of ignorance should be the defining distinction between the eager freshman and the hopefully self-aware graduate.

It seems that the most efficient way to impress this truth on college students is through the mode of education known as the "liberal arts." Josef Pieper, the noteworthy Thomistic philosopher of the 20th century, notes in his Leisure: The Basis of Culture that "the "liberality" or "freedom" of the liberal arts consists in their not being disposable for purposes, that they do not need to be legitimated by a social function, by being "work."" I hope the reader will excuse the lengthy reference to his quote, but the meaning of these words seems to be so essential for our times.

As historical descendants and beneficiaries of the industrial revolution, we are obsessed with the realm of human action that delivers a product; the sooner this product is realized, the better. This impulse to create quickly has only been further aggravated by the technological revolution. A practice of the liberal arts, then, at least under the framework that Pieper lays out, seems almost impossible in the modern world.

Perhaps this is why we need to follow this framework all the more diligently. These two revolutions that required the mechanization of human work have led to an efficiency and specialization revolution in every industry of labor; this revolution does not need to extend into the realm of higher education. When young people go to college, they should be provided a reprieve from the cult of productivity in the world around them. How are students to learn more intimately the truth of their ignorance if they are instructed to participate in mindless production? How could students possibly be expected to partake in the hard work of inspecting the human heart as a reflection of its Creator while granting a seemingly singular focus on the optimization of their résumés?

Indeed, the progress of the modern world has not successfully shunned the liberal arts; it has only made their necessity all the more obvious. Through the study of history, the liberal arts student learns that his struggles are not all that unique but that the potential for uniquely remarkable action lies within his response to these struggles. Through the study of politics, he learns the art of human interaction on every social level and the weight that men place on words and their meanings. Through the study of his native tongue or the tongues of antiquity, he learns how to use well the gift of the written word and the ways in which this gift has developed over the centuries. Through the study of rhetoric, he learns how to best utilize the spoken word as a means to participate with the grace of God and not as a spark for division. Through the study of philosophy, he learns about the reality of things, their nature and their end, their relation to one another and the ways that we can know them. Through the study of theology, he learns of the nature of God, His participation in the world today and the ways in which his ancestors treated this topic.

What could possibly be inappropriate about this project for our time? Looking back at the purposes of each of these disciplines, it becomes clear that among the hustle and bustle of our productive work, every discerning human person has considered, or someday will consider, the importance of these questions. These questions are pertinent to every person in every time and space because they are fundamentally human questions that, through the grace of God, deserve human answers. The questions and answers interact with one another; who doubts that one’s use of rhetorical ability should not be put into practice through the lens of a proper ethical framework? Does the awareness and encounter with history not impact how one views the nature of the human person? Everyone is asking these questions; the liberal arts teach the student how to ask them well. How many of the problems that we feverishly attempt to solve would have been previously resolved with a proper formulation of the right questions?

In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas says that "the essence of virtue consists more in the Good than in the difficult." Life in college should not be characterized by multiple individuals conquering difficult tasks but in a social order resting in the Good. In my two and a half years in college, I have experienced the rush of the former and the peace of the latter and I can say, both from the perspectives of principle and personal experience, that I much prefer the tranquility of rest in the Good for its own sake and for the sake of protection from the clamor of confusion.

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