Classical Education, or, the Fearless Pursuit of Which Truths?

The New Yorker has a story this week about "classical education", focusing on middle and high schools, which reminded me that I had something to say about the "classical" curriculum being offered at the new University of Austin. 

In middle and high schools, "classical" education doesn't have much to do with the Greek and Roman classics. Instead it is about a vision of order: uniforms, quiet hallways, classrooms where respectful students memorize poems, diagram sentences, and learn facts about history rather than, I don't know, composing raps about slave revolts. On the one hand this is almost the perfect expression of one of contemporary conservatism's main themes, the fear of disorder; nothing speeds around conservative Twitter/X faster than a story about students assaulting their teacher. But on the other, some schools of this type do very well in poor neighborhoods, because it turns out that what many kids raised in very disorderly environments need is more order.

Besides, I loved memorizing poems, diagramming sentences, and participating in spelling bees.

Of course some of the current interest in education based on old books and old methods is just a reaction to various progressive foibles, and what some parents who send their children to such schools want is for them not to read stories about gay and trans people. But I have been doing my best to ignore that kind of trivia for fifty years now and propose to keep ignoring it, because I find it so peripheral to what education should be about. Education is too important to be left to people who want to fight about Heather's Two Mommies.

When we move to a higher level, whether that is college or the sort of elite prep school where kids really do read the Iliad, there is much more going on. At this level, one goal of a "classical" education is to get students away from their own lives and worlds and induce them to think in a more abstract, generalized way. Once they learn to do that, the theory goes, they can then apply their generalized reasoning skills and broad understanding of themes like justice and liberty to their own situations. There is a great deal of evidence from both the European and Chinese traditions that this can work. We have seen many, many people who were educated by reading 2,000-year-old books and went on to careers as political reformers and even revolutionaries (Jefferson, Robespierre, Talleyrand, Gladstone, Lenin, Yau Lit).

The classical model of education was always opposed, at least in the west (and after 1840 in China) by people who thought it was a gigantic waste of time. Better, the competing theory went, to immerse yourself in actual contemporary problems. This was related to the growing importance of science and engineering, which to many people seemed more useful subjects of study than Plato's ethics.

Which brings me to the University of Austin, a new university that is being opened with the expressed goal of fighting the takeover of American higher education by woke leftists. Their vision of education is "classical" in the sense of trying to get students away from contemporary concerns and toward a higher, more theoretical plane. From their description of the freshman curriculum:

Seminars will examine (among other subjects) the foundations of civilization and political life; the importance of law, virtue, order, beauty, meaningful work and leisure, and the sacred; the unique vibrancy of the American form of government and way of life; and the character and consequences of ideological tyranny. What is knowledge, and how does it differ from wisdom? What does it mean to say that we are modern? What is technology, and what are its intellectual presuppositions, social conditions, benefits, and dangers? Why do we suffer? Does death negate the meaning of life? Works studied will range from Homer, Euclid, Genesis, the Gospel of John, Ibn Tufayl, and Confucius to Descartes, Tocqueville, Orwell, Douglass, and O’Connor.

What I wanted to say when I first read this paragraph is that it is riven with contradictions at the deepest level. Other than being famous, what do these authors have in common? Consider the work from this list I happen to have looked into most recently, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, which translates as something like "Alive, Son of Awake." This medieval Arab work tells the story of a feral boy raised by a gazelle on a desert island, who teaches himself the language of birds and discovers the truths of philosophy by reasoning. In particular, he reasons his way to belief in one supreme god. He also becomes humankind's greatest astrologer, although I got lost in that part and skipped most of it. One might be tempted to call this mysticism, since it implies that an uneducated child, removed from the corruption of society, can work his way to divine understanding more readily than a scholar with a library full of old books. On the other hand, it is full of old philsophical ideas, especially Plato's.

Taken literally, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, is not an argument in favor of "classical" education. It is closer to the opposite, a sort of hippie faith in the innate creativity and goodness of children. It is also ridiculous. One assumes, then, that it is not being taught as a text the students are supposed to believe. 

So why is it being taught? Why are any of these books taught? Once upon a time people said that we assigned them because you needed some familiarity with them to be considered educated, but that is certainly not true now. Is it because they are good texts for introducing students to big ideas? Because the impressive names get students to pay attention in a way that books by Bill Smith and Ralph Jones would not? Because they make for good discussions? 

Do any of them contain some sort of truth that we want students to absorb?

Consider that the U. of Austin offers these two mottoes in parallel:

WE FEARLESSLY PURSUE THE TRUTH
At UATX, we recognize the existence of truth. We seek truth so that we may flourish.

WE CHAMPION ACADEMIC FREEDOM
At UATX, students, faculty and scholars have the right to pursue their academic interests and deliberate freely, without fear of censorship or retribution.

It seems to me that these two statements directly contradict one another. If you believe in the truth, and think that having it leads to flourishing, why do you tolerate falseness? And why do you assign classic works that nobody agrees with any more? Ibn Tufayl may be ridiculous (as I think), but he is far from the worst author in the "Great Books" curriculum. From Aristotle's defense of slavery to Lenin's preaching of violence as a sacred calling, the western tradition is really pretty awful. The Iliad is about how great it is to kill people. If the Gospel of John is true and promotes flourishing, what possible reason could there be to read the Iliad?

What if some student, professor or scholar thinks that the "American form of government and way of life" are not "uniquely vibrant," but monstrous and horrific? What if some student, professor, or scholar thinks contemporary America is a Satan-besotted doomscape due for righteous cleansing by God any day now? What if somebody is a woke Marxist?

Two contradictory visions of education are on offer here and, I think, two contradictory visions of America. In one there is the Truth, and we struggle to understand it and align our lives to it so that we may flourish. Everything else is, by definintion, false. This is the way Jesuit education used to work: yes, a fair amount of intellectual exploration, but always in the service of Catholicism. Some of the conservative intellectuals who have been in the news lately seem to share this perspective, like Sohrab Ahmari, who has argued that since freedom and democracy have made America a godless wasteland, we should discard them. 

You cannot, in a deep, philosophical sense, be for both unfettered debate and a nation that flourishes because it adheres to a certain truth. And you cannot, I submit, simultaneously value the western canon, believe fervently in free inquiry, and operate a university that has any real connection to modern conservatism.

To the extent that the UATX curriculum tries to straddle this divide, it is incoherent. Of course, it might still function ok; the whole program of American higher education is incoherent. But I wonder if UATX can maintain the enthusiasm of its supporters while pursuing both academic freedom and conservatism.

Which gets me back to the two visions of America I alluded to back in November. One kind of American patriotism maintains that there are good and bad Americans. The good ones stand for God, Country, Military Sacrifice, the Constitution, football, barbecue, driving big cars, and Standing On Your Own Feet. The bad ones, well, you know who they are.

I adhere to a different model of patriotism. I think America is great because it holds all kinds of people who agree about nothing. I like the country the way it is, and I would hate to see it evolve into anyone's idea of perfection. This extends to how I feel about education. I like assigning old books partly because they are full of ideas I find horrific. My own educational plan would include subjecting my students to Aquinas on why masturbation is worse than rape, Lenin on revolution, the Iliad or the Hagakure on war, and so on. I think education should shake people up.

But I would be the first to admit that I don't know the truth about the Big Questions, and that my way of teaching probably doesn't help anyone else work that out, either.

I have met various conservatives, going all the way back to Party of the Right guys at Yale, who told me that they celebrate unfettered debate because it inevitably leads to conservatism. I think that's nuts. So far as I can see, unfettered debate inevitably leads to disagreement. If UATX really pursues a policy of complete academic freedom, they are going to end up with Marxists, Maoists, Woke Liberals, Race theorists, Libertarians, and probably Holocaust deniers.

I submit that you cannot simultaneously value the western canon, believe fervently in free inquiry, and operate a university that has any real connection to modern conservatism. I mean, hardly any of the authors in either the UATX list or the similar list at St. Johns believed in democracy; most of them would have been frankly horrified by America. (On the other hand the curriculum for Directed Studies at Yale includes more democrats.)

I suspect that what the rich people backing UATX want is the middle school model, education that is orderly, patriotic, anti-hippie, anti-woke. Some of the professors involved probably do want genuine free inquiry, including taking Marxism or polyamory seriously as ideas. As I said, it is certainly possible that UATX can come into being and thrive despite this contradiction.

But to the extent that UATX really promotes the Fearless Pursuit of the Truth, it will promote, not order or conservatism, but violent disagreement.