Cornel West and Robert George Talk About the Purpose of a Liberal Education

good evening everyone and thank you for being here I'm Vicky Wilkins and I'm the Dean of the School of Public Affairs here at American University it's my great pleasure to welcome you here this evening for this exciting and important event we are so fortunate to have our distinguished visitors with us professor Robert George and professor Cornel West and it's truly an honor to be in their presence tonight and hear from them on these important topics as a school of public affairs we accept the responsibility that we need to convene important conversations about the nature of Education and the importance of free speech their values we hold as a school and as a university we'd like to thank our co-sponsors for sharing this commitment commitment and responsibility with us the Kennedy political union áyou College Republicans Alpha Phi Alpha and students for free expression and a special thanks goes to the Institute of Humane studies for helping us fund this evenings event I just want to take one minute for a very important and exciting announcement from the school of public affairs I'm proud to announce that we are creating the Lincoln Scholars Program this program will be a certificate program in liberal education for freshmen and sophomores s.p.a faculty have developed the program and we are hoping to bring our first class of scholars in for fall of 2019 this program is designed around three big pillars the first is that the program will make political and intellectual diversity a priority this is going to be a program where you will meet someone you disagree with where we're going to have liberals and conservatives religious students and secular students and a bunch of students who don't even fit in any of those categories coming together to learn students in the program will also read heard books and have small discussion based seminars around these readings some of the books are going to be the classics you might expect like Plato Shakespeare and Locke but you're also going to have more Contemporary books they're like Frederick Douglass w eb des bois and ralph ellison in addition the program is going to build an intellectual community that gathers around the seminar table but also outside of the classroom so we're hoping to offer each student in the program a small scholarship each year they complete and we'll be having guest speakers and hosting retreats for students in the program every year we're excited to bring this to a you and excited what it will mean for our students and our faculty to come together around these important topics and I don't want to turn over the floor until I give a huge thanks to the leadership of the School of Public Affairs political theory Institute I'd like to thank Tom Merrill for his leadership and Alan Levine thank you so much we appreciate all you do to bring us together thank you now enjoy the show good evening everyone my name is Otto Harris I'm the director of education initiatives for the new beta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated co-sponsor of this event and I will be introducing our keynote speakers Robert George Robert George is one of America's most profound legal scholars and public intellectuals his he is the author of many books including making men moral and conscious and his enemies he served on many government commissions including the President's Council on bioethics in the u.s. Commission on International Religious Freedom where he was the chairman currently he is the McCormack professor of jurisprudence in the Department of Politics at Princeton University and he is also the founding director of the James Madison program in American ideals and institutions Robert George Cornel West dr. Cornel West has held professorships as several top universities he is currently the professor emeritus at Princeton University and professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University he is the author of books such as race matters and democracy matters his most recent book black prophetic fire is about the visionary legacies of black leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries from protest to television appearances he makes sure to spread his message of love and justice everywhere he goes their moderator will be dr. Thomas W Merrill au zone professor Thomas marrow who is an associate professor of government and School of Public Affairs he is the director of special programs for the political theory Institute professor Merrill is the author and co-editor of several books including most recently the political theory of the Civil War I would like to thank professor Merrill for allowing me to give the introductions of such distinguished speakers I also like to thank Shana burden of kpu for allowing us to be a co-sponsor here and I also would like to thank Robert George and dr. Wes for coming to our University thank you Thank You Oz Neal Thank You Vicki and thanks to all of you for coming I am Tom Merrill and I'm gonna be moderating by which I think my job is to simply get out of the way of our our guess the other thing I thought about wearing a suit this morning but then I thought I'm gonna be on a stage with Robbie George and Cornel West and that would be a competition that I would not like to be so these guys have been doing this conversation at many different places in the country they've been preaching the gospel to many different schools and kinds of schools I think one thing that I'm hoping that we're gonna do here today is try to bring the conversation back to some of the things that are happening here at AU and have some questions that are coming out of our our experience here at AU and we're gonna try to do some things that are a little bit different than what they've done before just so that we that we shake things up a little bit so another way of saying that is we haven't rehearsed this I want I'm just gonna start with the obvious question for most of us here at AU for this topic which is most people come to AU because it's in Washington DC and because they're hoping that they're gonna get a job in Washington DC but they want to work on the hill or they want to work in the nonprofit sector right and that's great that's our bread and butter for what we do here at the University now that's creates a little bit of a problem when students are here because they think my main job is doing an internship and you're in your intro political theory class and you're trying to persuade them to read book 1 of the Republic and talking about for Semak s and the students look at me and they say why are you doing this why are you making me do this so my first question to our guests is what should I say to the students who don't book one of the Republic well first let me thank pins and Professor Maryland professor Levine for the opportunity to to the American University the first was about a decade ago and I see that the University was only gone from strength to strength so it's really an honor to be here and of course it is always an honor to be in conversation with my dear brother professor Cornel West Cornell is not only a dear friend and brother but he is an inspiration to me he is our nation's premier public intellectual whether of the left of the right he is our premier public intellectual and his work as a scholar and as a scholar who is engaged in public life and in public dialogue has certainly been an inspiration to me we began teaching together at Princeton in 2017 we've been at it now for 11 years and even though he has now abandoned me for Harvard we still continue to have these opportunities to get together and to reflect together and to challenge each other and to sometimes lock arm and arm in particular causes that we we share we disagree about a few things but we also agree very fundamentally about some other things we put out a statement a couple of years ago many of your faculty members and others around the country signed some students called truth seeking democracy and freedom of thought and expression and what we said there will be really the substance of much of our conversation here today we published something not long ago together on the witness the biblical witness of Reverend Martin Luther King we've worked together on a variety of a variety of projects and it's always a joy and and a pleasure and for me the reason for that has as much to do if not more to do with this man's integrity than with his formidable and powerful intellect if you're in the academic field you meet a lot of really smart people there are tons of really smart people but you don't meet in any field of endeavor academia business politics religion you name it you don't meet a lot of people when when push comes to shove they exemplify integrity and principle and that's what Cornell does and that's what makes them such an inspiration for me so my brother I'm so delighted again to be together now to your question professor Merrill education is about informing yourself it's about information it's about learning skills including reading and thinking skills reading critically thinking critically that's very important indeed it's indispensable and education certainly higher education has an important role to play in credentialing people and preparing them for careers I'm not here to deny any of that I'm here to affirm something that is that at the most fundamental level the kind that is available to you at the American University and available to our students at Harvard and Princeton and available to many other students around the country at many other state and private the most important thing is the availability of an opportunity to lead the examined life to think about the deep existential questions of meaning and value where do we come from what's the significance of a human life what is our nature what is our destiny do we have a dignity that is something special something above what we might describe to inanimate objects what a plants or animals human beings have any specific us worth more than merely material things are those are critical questions critical questions that every human being should raise and people raise them and have worked them whether or not they had available to them a oral arts education but you who are students here have available to you a liberal arts education and when I say available I use that word advisedly it's available but that doesn't mean you'll get it whether you get it is up to you whether you seize the opportunities they can force you into a class where you read Plato's Republic and learn who racemic us was but they can't actually make you explore the question that as an issue or set of questions that issue between Socrates and through Simitis in the Republic and those questions are the most important questions and they can't be answered by learning information or acquiring skills even the skills of critical thinking you can treat those texts like museum pieces you can do philology but that's not invited to do if you're getting if you're taking advantage of the opportunity the availability of a liberal arts education if you're doing that you are engaging with those authors through a Simic as' and Socrates are your interlocutors in a conversation where you're trying to figure out what it's all about education what my brother information and skills now we won't be able to hear you know I'm doubled up if you're getting that then well I'll tell you how you know whether you're getting it are you being challenged in your fundamental beliefs in your political and religious and moral beliefs no matter what they are no matter whether you're a theist or an atheist whether you're a Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or Sikh whether you are progressive or a conservative if you are not being challenged on those fundamental issues if you are not being made uncomfortable if not you are not being unsettled if there are not professors and fellow students who are doing that for you then you are not getting an education not getting a liberal education and if you're getting a liberal education by the time you are juniors and certainly by the time you are seniors you will be raising those challenging questions and unsettling yourself you won't have to relax it still be good to have friends around and faculty around you're challenging from all sorts of different perspectives but if you're getting it you will find yourself moved to challenge and unsettle yourself now to say what I just said means that you are paying What's it cost are $64,000 who you are paying that to be made very uncomfortable your parents are paying that or your scholarship is paying that or the the generous donors to the American University I would encourage any who are here to thank you for your generosity of this institution encourage you to continue that generosity but they are paying for you to be made very uncomfortable because that is what an education is about you probably know that old that old saying that old aphorism that it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied well that that saying captures a profound truth to lead a truly human life in the highest sense means to be uncomfortable and to be challenging yourself and questioning no matter where you are I'll just make a final point before I hand it over to Cornell and that is none of this means none of this questioning means that you should adopt the stance of moral relativism or skepticism or sort of mechanism that too should be subjected to criticism and scrutiny and challenge that position to nor does it mean that you should not be engaged politically religiously or that you should not aspire to work for whatever you believe justice is whether you're on the conservative side or the progressive side or whatever doesn't mean then you can do these things you can lead the examined life and be engaged Cornell does it I try to do it but what it does mean is that you will always be open to the challenge and you will never see the challenge as an assault that your fundamental love will be for truth the truth about justice the truth about what is right truth itself you will understand truth not merely as an instrument and you will certainly understand education not merely as an instrument to something else getting a good job or even bringing about justice you'll understand truth as something inherently enriching of you as a person and of your fellow human beings you will understand the value of truth for its own sake and because you love truth you will love truth more than you love opinions that is the vaccine the immune system to prevent you prevent me prevent Cornell from falling so deeply in love with our own opinions that we refuse to be or will not want to be challenged that is the recipe for avoiding dogmatism be engaged but don't be dogmatic the challenge be allow yourself to be challenged demand that this University challenge you demand it to be it's big it's best self in doing that even while you fight for what you do believe in when you worship God as you do understand God or not if you do not believe in God but always with an openness to being challenged into getting at the truth you can be comfortable you can rest comfortably if that's what you want to do in any opinion you can feel good about yourself you can be satisfied in that sense with any opinion what a religious opinion political opinion moral opinion you can get comfortable with that but you shouldn't get you shouldn't be you should constantly be challenging constantly be open okay over to you brother the testing testing yes I mean first thing I haven't just blessed to be here American University you all have done such wonderful things in forces for good I'm sure in various ways each and every one of you want to begin by saluting my brother professor Merrill distinguished political theorist Eddie is the sister Dean who Elkins at salute your courageous leadership in this place I know you just got on a plane to Los Angeles made a direct route here that's a reflection of your deep dedication where's brother student Harris where is it areas yeah indeed I want to salute you as well when you march in May what's the date for graduation oh you got it down haha Andy that's a beautiful day for all the doors graduate and I haven't had a chance to meet my dear brother Phil Aviva's good to see you my brother very much so each time I'm blessed to be on the same stage with my dear brother I'm just full of fire people people don't understand the ways in which love is so much different politics that you can actually revel in somebody else's humanity their humor their intellect their sense of being human and still believe he's wrong on some things if he believes I'm wrong on something but we overlap in front of mental waves in terms of rights and liberties and so forth and so on but our families spend time together we're able to socialize together not just kind of superficial socialization among the chattering classes but I'm talking about the deeper kinds of friendships and the Aristotelian sense and which is for the sake of the other and that cuts much deeper than any agreement on policy and you need to say that these days we live us as polarized times you lose sense of the humanity of the other and you see it within families you see it within communities within the same religious group certain Buddhists can't talk to something Buddha's certain Jews can't talk to other Jews certain Catholics can't talk to other Catholics I'm the Holy Ghost Baptist whole egos doesn't kick in too often sometimes some Baptist can't talk to other Baptists and so forth and so on and you see the challenge of that book one and the reason why the Socratic legacy of Athens is so rich but usually so fragile so weak so feeble it's because when you come to a place like Washington DC this is the power center of the country of the Empire and if everything is about power the first casualty is truth and the second casualty is goodness and the third casualty is beauty and if you're religious like me and brother Robby the fourth casual casualty is the holy and what the symbols represent it especially that younger generation we're eager to Socrates tell us what justice really how do you believe the great treasures of the tradition of the past to the younger generation who are obsessed with power and status and wealth and money 2018 USA can't wait to go to college and noted a gang access to that diploma that enables you to live large and some Vennela suburb titillated by your mansion and obsessed with your status now I'm not talking about anybody in here but there's something there's some students oh well I say the same thing it Princeton Harvard and so forth you see and what we are trying to do is to say lo and behold Socrates not the Sophos the careerists obsessed with the next opportunity but Socrates with calling with vocation not just profession with a love of truth and goodness and beauty it beckons him to live a certain kind of life to cut radically against the grain that is not to say you can be a professional with a Socratic Sensibility but it's difficult to preserve those sensibilities in professional contexts because so much of us about mobility power status honor in every generation has to fight this battle every generation is it well brother well isn't it true that Socrates is up with the hemlock and for Simba cos goes away with much energy yes it is that's part of what Paideia deep education is all about not cheap schooling deep education the formation of attending the things that matter rather than the superficial things the cultivation of a critical consciousness that renders you oftentimes cutting against the grain not just politically or religiously or ideologically but essentially the battle inside of you that you have to be honest about it's not a matter of looking at somebody else or seeing low and behold there goes a white supremacist as we saw in Charlottesville but it's also a matter of Sir how do I deal with the white supremacy inside of me because I grew up in America and there's white supremacy inside a black folk as well as vanilla folk as well as brown folk and red folks it's part of what it is to be modern and American same is true with patriarchy the same is true more homophobic transphobia how do you fight these things inside of you so Socrates is saying to the younger generation the circus might might makes right power determines the morality you see whoever has the cannons determines what ethics are the golden rule is cast out and whoever has the goal dictates the rules the grant of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say if you view life as a golden rush the gold rush you're gonna end up worshipping the goal in Cannes that's part of the legacy of Jerusalem how do you keep track of the idols their idolatry that gets in the way of the quest for truth and goodness and beauty this is not just rhetoric this is not just rhetoric the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak the truth about your own life has to do but what do you do with your suffering will it be expressed in such a way that you trash the most vulnerable and refuse to confront the most powerful will you demonize other folks that don't look like you do you have the capacity to keep track of human beings outside of national borders so that a baby in Yemen and a baby in Gaza and a baby in Tel Aviv and a baby in Baltimore has exactly the same value these are the kind of challenges and none of us ever fully embody it we fall short try again fail again fail better that's our dear brother Samuel Beckett he's absolutely right try again fail again fail better so when we talk about that first chapter the first thing to say to young folk is this is no game you recall how therus America's walks away he doesn't even care what the real conclusion is the Socrates tells him this is no game this is about my life I've got one life to live for womb to tome everything's at stake this is not a matter of some abstract gesturing that makes me look smart in the culture of smartness let the phones be smart you got to learn how to be wise Socrates is about wisdom it's not about smartness the Socrates and lo and behold he's not really interested in the deep dialog he just wants a superficial chatter that allow me to be head of my in-group so that I can have my upward mobility in my in-group whatever it is conservative centrist liberal left whatever religious whatever it is no think for yourself learn how to love the truth and goodness and beauty learn how to love your neighbor I'm a Christian I'm kind of love my enemies that's a difficult one I need a whole lot of thick grace but we won't get theological at the moment but this is real this is what Martin King was about it's what fannie lou hamer was about this is what shaped me and Shiloh Baptist Church on the chocolate side a Sacramento California I hated black people who taught the world so much about what love really is from below and if we lose that tradition lose that legacy it's all about for Symmachus so all about might makes right it's all about survival of the slickest survival of those who can lie the best survival of those who are able to hide their criminality behind their mendacity much is at stake our lives of future of America democracy may be given the ecological catastrophy the future of the planet is at stake as well is that enough brother West I would think so far I'm not sure how to follow up on that you want to say something yeah so I want to give Cornell an opportunity to say to this audience some things that I find myself very powerful first just a point about vocation and profession so what's the difference what's the difference sometimes the term vocation is just used as a synonym for profession a vocation is a calling and what's fundamental about a vocational calling is that it's a calling to serve it's a calling to serve others now people are called to different things not everybody's called to the same thing vocation is I'm a Catholic vocations a big term within the Catholic Church and when I was a little boy I remember that the term became synonymous with a religious vocation with being a priest or being a nun the consecrated life but that was a mistake on Catholic terms even back then because the sound understanding religiously and I think we can secularize this and it means the same thing is that everybody has a vocation everybody has a calling and part of that exploration that goes into the examined life is figuring out what am I called to do given the distinctive talents opportunities the distinctive skills the circumstances the resources that are available to me how am I being called to serve others it might be in a law firm it might be in a big prestigious corporate law firm it might be but there's where you have to keep Cornell's warning in mind you very well might be tempted to dress up whatever your pout your desire for comfort and wealth and statuses in the language of vocation in the language of serving the self-critical attitude needs to be there if you're to avoid falling into that trap so vocation and profession but now Cornell would like to toss you the question what is liberal arts education fundamentally for what is it training you for it's teaching you to do what to learn how to die now there it is learn how today can we put that as a learning outcome but no but it's a process you see when Plato says philosophy love of wisdom as a meditation on a preparation for death with a great Montaigne says to philosophizes to learn how to die Seneca says he or she who learns how to die unlearn slavery it is a process because when you critically examine yourself and give up certain assumptions or presuppositions that's a form of death and there is no maturation there's no development there's no growth without that kind of death Dorothy Day one of the great prophetic figures of the 20th century and in her eulogy for model of the King junior April 5th 1968 Catholic day worker Martin Luther King jr. learned how to die every day because it's an echo in the New Testament but Jewish brother named Paul who wrote letters to Rome said Christians must die daily now what does that mean that education of the endless process of a quest for truth if you involve the requests for truth then parts of their ignorance must learn how to die no matter how to learn it you are Nicholas of Kools that talked about learning ignorance didn't it and we need to hear that dialogue among our professors I'm gonna learn it you are we keeping track of your ignorance we keeping track of your blindnesses maybe the paradigm that you've been socialized into is missing certain insights or downplaying other people's suffering you need to broaden out each and every one of us I shot do with parochialism and provincialism and we all have to learn how to die to parentally attempt to expand and grow and I love what you say when you talk about vocation being democratized and we would tell our young people that do not graduate without reading the Emerson's American scholar ordered Divinity School address because he talks about the diversity of every person undergoing education in the quest for moral spiritual excellence which is distinctively yours just like a jazz musician your voice only just like your fingerprint it's all yours and then after that I want you to read the two essays in Munich max favors from politics as vocation and science of vocation in 1917 1919 essays there's something in the best of the past that must be mobilized and deployed in order to keep alive the best in the present the fighting for cause is not just about victory it's about keeping alive the best the same is true with Amos and Isaiah and the prophetic legacy of Jerusalem how do you keep alive that best but it takes courage because it's coming at you you are standing under judgment your country stands on the judgment we as human being stand on the judgment and then there's always Eugene O'Neill sitting in how Harry hopes alone and Iceman Cometh that says don't expect too much out of human beings you can't create a marble temple out of a mixture of mud and manure human nature is so wretched yawning have the will to cultivate a quest for truth will to cultivate the quest for goodness it's all about power all the way down that's Eugene O'Neill's challenge that's part of being educated that's why nihilism taught to be something you wrestle with the way Jacob wrestled with the angel of night in the 32nd chapter of Genesis it doesn't go away would you agree with that a hundred percent and this means facing up to the challenge of those who challenge our belief that there is something greater more important more holy than power the challenge coming from someone like Nietzsche if you haven't read Nietzsche especially those of us who are religiously devout if we haven't read the greatest atheist of the modern times if we haven't let him challenge us if we haven't genuinely confronted him I don't mean just read through second pass a test genuinely taken on board his powerful critique of belief his defense of the idea that it's all about power in the end you were not living the examine life so I have a question well maybe I'll start with a question for you Robi so this is powerful stuff right and this is the stuff that our students need to learn but I want to ask you a question about conservative students in particular we've been we know each other for quite some time we're colleagues in the Bush administration wait right with know each other since then and we know a lot of conservative folks conservatives I guess I'm interested in the phenomenon what you might call the conservative provocateur that we've seen quite a bit in the past few years and the way that it goes to something like this all conservatives complain about political correctness it's almost the definition and so a student will come to you and they'll say well I'm not being allowed to say this thing that I really believe can I say it you know say okay well what is it and they'll say well they'll have something that's vaguely annoying and you think okay well we could probably tolerate this thing that you want to say and then they come back right back right in that same moment and they're like well what about this other thing that's even more annoying right and you get into the cycle where they keep coming back and asking for more and more and pretty soon you get to a point where they're saying something that is profoundly offensive right and you feel like a little bit like a very unpleasant version of the game mother mae-eye right where you're all this escalator where somebody's gonna and it seems to be that the point is to say something that it's gonna be offensive to somebody so I guess I'm wondering what if your sense is like mine but it seems to me I mean is it it seems to me there's a sign of thing afoot and not for good on the conservative side of things but I guess the more important question for this conversation is isn't that a kind of misunderstanding of what liberal education is maybe even a kind of corruption of what liberal education is you tell us what to think about that I think is to provoke someone just to provoke them is understandable in certain circumstances where you feel such a an oppression of ideology you feel that there's such a groupthink going on that you're just motivated to say something outrageous in order to shake things up it's understandable but that's really not what I'm talking about when I mean confront each other challenge each other allow each other to be challenged allow allow yourself to be challenged conservative students or liberal students they've got to allow themselves to be challenged in a way that makes it possible that they're not going to end up on the same side where they began I've analogized in conversations with Cornell before the situation too getting on a train not knowing where you're going to get off the train and maybe not even knowing that you might not even recognize yourself or your old friends might not even record ideological allies might not even recognize you when you get off that train because there's something about the journey that has been transformative now you don't need me to tell you that there is a battle going on within conservatism now for what conservatism is what it means Donald Trump has made that happen and it's a big fight and I think conservatives need to take that very seriously and I from my point of view very important that the right side win this but there's also the need for conservative students to challenge their liberal peers but not or progressive peers but not by just gratuitous provocation by exposing them doing the service of exposing their conservative their progressive peers to the best that has been thought and said to use Matthew Arnold's language on the conservative side so I want to know from my conservative students first before we even the progressive students okay well have you read Edmund Burke have you or not if you haven't then come back and ask me the question after you've read reflections on the revolution in France now have you read Friedrich Hayek Cornell and I have taught him in our courses together well if you haven't you're not gonna have a lot to say to your progressive friends about a lot of very important issues you should do the service of provoking if why provoking we mean the Socratic gadfly kind of provoking that's based on deep thinking and understanding and reading the best that has been thought and said but provoking just to provoke no that's a burlesque of what liberal education should be about and everything I've said about conservative students applies on the other side as well to liberal students now I would say to Liberal students this ain't basically the same thing I say to conservative students if I'm with a group of progressive students usually they have read at least something by Marx usually not capital that's a that's a heavy lift you know but but they've read something maybe the manifesto with angles maybe the Gotha program maybe on the Jewish but they're you know there's there's something there but I have the same question have you read Burke have you read Hayek and if the answer is no than I asked then I say well how do you know you're a progressive you don't know yet you haven't read the stuff that would enable you to decide between the competing points of view on a whole range of very important questions so our students should be reading mark whether they're conservatives or progressive should be reading marks but also reading Burke they should be reading Dewey but they should also be reading CS Lewis they should be reading Rawls but they should also be reading MacIntyre that's what an education is all about you want a question Cornell no tell them the truth but I think it's easier said than done it's easier said than done it it takes a lot of fortitude you know fortitude is more than courage see a Nazi soldier can be courageous and still be a thug and a gangster I saw some very courageous neo-nazis in Charlotte's field who wanted to crush us like cockroaches and I admired the courage I just didn't want to necessarily be the victim but they didn't have any fortitude in terms there was not a moral and spiritual dimension to their courage the cause that they were committed to was a thuggish cause of hatred and contempt and domination so that on the one end of the sense in which what Robbie is talking about is like the conclusion of a practical Aristotelian syllogism which is not a proposition but it's an action and a life lived so way of being in the world and the only way you can cultivate a way of being in the world it's the cultivated way of being in the world to live it over and over through practices do a certain kind of habit and so forth and we're living at a time where conformity and orthodoxy and rigidity is so overwhelming that people tend to want to fit into those rather than be true to something bigger than all of us which is truth and goodness and beauty and that's why the conversation has to be brought a variety of different voices I come from a people whose anthem the black people's lift every voice now what does it mean to lift every voice well the voice is different than an echo I'm just gonna be an echo and a copy you're not gonna add to the conversation we want to know what you think don't just reflect with somebody else thinking we want thermostats who shaped the climate of opinion we don't want thermometers just reflective you can run into conservatives just here the Fox News points no I want a conversation I just don't want pontification rendering these neoliberal just hit MSNBC points no leave that for Ray I want to you know know what you got to say and goes on and on and on how do you actually become jazz like and when you're jazz like you got enough discipline so you can improvise and find your own voice do you learn something from Rachel didn't you learn something for Fox News you mean you can learn something from Fox News well it's gonna take a long time listen very very very closely yes you can and of course Fox News is nowhere near the edmund burke's in the Chesterton there's others who are highly sophisticated conservative thinker or brother Robby himself and so that's one of the problems these days we think about conservatives do you think of the dumbed down version you don't think of sophisticated conservatism or you think of what it is to be a leftist like myself you think of the dumbed down version of leftism you don't think of more subtle versions that are open to criticism and acknowledging that one can be wrong in that regard and we're seeing this now with the with the mark Lamont Hill situation how do we have a robust conversation on a set of issues that are so delicate it's so difficult how do you have a double love so you come into the conversation saying I'm gonna love Palestinian brothers sisters away I'm gonna love Jewish brothers sisters I'm gonna love Jewish brothers as well the Palestinian brothers which means I'm gonna try to empathize and get inside of their skin what is it really to be part of a unique history of Jewish brothers and sisters 2,000 years spit on despised persecuted subjugated pogroms ghettos Holocaust and so forth the need for security deep suspicions of anybody who would call into question security would one out of three of them being killed just less than a hundred years later an underdog mentality and then shift to 1948 in 1967 well lo and behold now you've got a people with an underdog mentality no longer the underdogs in a particular region of the world in which there's Palestinians who have been subjugated and the debate between our Jewish brothers and sisters Jabotinsky on the one hand let's dominate we can't trust anybody Echo's our throw Silica's Albert Einstein ahah kaha Judah Magnus and others no as Jews we must coexist we have a prophetic legacy we must learn to live with we must create some kind of community that cuts beyond group and tried is that even feasible that's a serious discussion especially when people's lives are at stake well let's have a conversation about that in such a way that it's not anti-jewish and in this hatred anti Palestinian hatred keeps track of the humanity across the board but also keeps track of the structures of domination in place of occupation however whatever forming patriarchy or whatever it is how do we have that dialog in the United States how do we have it in Tel Aviv how do you have it in Gaza how do you have in the West Bank how does that Socratic energy to be enacted what kind of prophetic witness will there be is there even any chance of non-violent prophetic witness left in such a situation or will it just be violence across the board these are the kinds of very very crucial issues and what brother Robin are saying is it's very important that the voices be lifted but each voice must be rendered accountable answerable in serious dialogue based on evidence argument data vision and so on and I think you know right now it could be an even a positive thing that we have this kind of discussion in regard to this particular issue with brother Marc Lamont Hill but he's just a catalyst he's just a catalyst dr. George can you do you want to talk a little bit about Marc Lamont Hill and fill in I think a lot of people might not know but since I know you've been tweeting about it the other form of our conversation well I don't know about other people but when I say that I am for academic freedom and freedom of speech I mean it and I mean it for people across the spectrum that's what I believe when brother Cornell and I put out our statement on truth seeking democracy and free thought an expression we meant what we said there and that means there needs to be a very robust dialogue and we need to defend the right to participate in that dialogue in a robust way of people who disagree with us now sometimes people are gonna go over the line there's no question about that sometimes people are going to say things that are hurtful and that they shouldn't say or they're going to use phrases or they want to associate with people they shouldn't be associating with and all of that should be subjected to criticism absolutely should be subjected to criticism but that's different from firing people for their advocacy especially in the context of a university where there should be academic freedom and so although on the substantive policy questions should there be a one-state solution or a two-state solution Marc Lamont Hill and I are not on the same page brother Cornell and I are not on the same page we believe a lot in common Jewish baby in a Palestinian baby are of exactly equal value everybody's rights have to be protected but we disagree on some policy things Cornell said those are delicate questions important and delicate questions but despite my differences with Marc Lamont Hill I immediately said that I myself personally would organize a protest if Temple University fired him now it's not just Israel I said I imagine Marc Lamont Hill and I disagree about almost everything we probably about more stuff than Cornell and I disagree but that doesn't mean that I should stand aside while his academic freedom rights and free speech rights are denied in fact it should be people on the other side who are the first in line to defend the rights of their intellectual ideological adverse adversaries I wasn't doing anything special in rushing to Marc Lamont Hill Lamont Hills defense at least I shouldn't be interpreted that way I was just doing what I should have been doing in the same way that people on the Left should be in the forefront when the free speech rights are the academic freedom rights on this campus or any campus of conservatives are called into question academic freedom belongs to people on the left it belongs to people on the right it belongs to people who want a one-state solution people of the two-state solution pro-life pro-choice it belongs to everybody and it belongs to everybody equally and we've got to protect it it's a very very delicate thing and without it if we let it go if we don't honor it all that challenging that I was talking about that's essential that's central to education can't happen it can't happen if people feel they have to keep their mouth shut not say what's really on their minds for fear of being vilified being attacked being fired then that challenging isn't going on I mean if you are fundamental but I don't care again whether you're left to right whether you're with Marc Lamont Hill or with somebody on the other side if you're fundamental beliefs are not being challenged if there are not professors challenging your fundamental beliefs no matter what they are your most cherished belief your most identity forming beliefs they're not challenging go to the president of this university and demand a refund because you're not getting an education I won't ask you to raise hands but I you know I could ask you to raise hands and say how many of you have had professors who have challenged your fundamental political opinions all the way down if you haven't pay a visit to the president how many of you have had your fundamental moral beliefs on key issues on hot-button issues challenged by members of the faculty if not you deserve a refund no I'm trusting that that because I know some faculty members here there are faculty members available to you who will challenge your beliefs but then the next step is the onus is on you if you avoid those professors shame on you you should be flocking to their classes I want to ask dr. West a question about race and how race intersects with this liberal education thing I don't think I'm gonna surprise anyone if I say we Americans have a hard time talking about race and that oftentimes in the university right and I play myself sometimes for this we get into a defensive Crouch where we don't talk about stuff we'd rather talk about almost anything else other times we go to the opposite extreme and we act like well here's the answer I'm gonna give you a worksheet you can fill out the worksheet I'll give you the answer key and that's the end of the story do you think liberal education can help us have those conversations about race and if so how I think part of it has to do with the voices that are available I've heard talk about this wonderful class on on inequality it'll be available to freshly you just read the boys just take him home wrestle with him read some James Baldwin let Tony Morrison rock your soul and unsettle your mind in such a way they'll remind you of what the tablet did and what Dante's Inferno did and that's a way of acknowledging the degree to which anytime you talk about the quest for truth in the United States you're gonna have to come to terms with the vicious legacy of white supremacy and simply because the country itself has had a weak wheel to truth let alone a weak will to justice when it comes to white supremacy oftentimes you yourself as a student will be exposed to voices arguments visions so the important thing to keep in mind is anytime you talk about race is true for gender it's true for class it's true for Empire these are not diversity issues see we got these bureaucrats running around it's chattering about diversity I can't stand that I've never told a diversity course in my life I got a calling to engage in the quest for truth smalti' knowledge small key to try to leave you in a little bit of suffering and misery bored of worms getting my body so if I'm teaching course about truth as it relates to black folk oh my god you're in the diversity but if you teach about the Irish oh you're talking about the human condition that's what true Eugene O'Neill talks about a human condition Lorraine Hansberry talks about race Shakespeare talks about the human condition Toni Morrison talks about race Alice Walker talks about gender no all of them are human beings talking about truth goodness knowledge beauty from certain context and if whatever color they are whatever gender they are whatever sexual orientation they are that's not an authority for truth you got to think it through you got to put your argument forward and so forth so when in fact we talk about issues of race in America it's just been so difficult because white supremacy cuts so deep yeah we rather take the easy way out with just the cynical well I really don't have to talk about it doesn't affect me that very much at all you don't think so how you don't think that mass incarceration you don't think the decrepit schools you don't think the levels of poverty on the other side of town and not linked to your destiny didn't didn't Lincoln say didn't Martin say our destinies are linked together sooner or later we hang together I hang separately chickens come home to roost you know that's another way of saying much is at stake when you're talking about liberal education as it relates to any form of losing track of humanity of people to be indigenous peoples it could be trans precious trans folk it could be gays and lesbians Jews Arabs Muslims Palestinians Dollard peoples and India so-called Untouchables and so forth all up in human beings part of our curriculum concerned about truth goodness beauty in that sense so the first thing is the D ghettoize it you see to me this is not something special going on over here for chocolate folk oh no this is fundamental to the mission of this institution any institution of our learning now if Institute of higher learning says we really deep down have no interest in the quest for truth in knowledge we just into something else shut the place down they wasting the money but as long as they tied the truth you got a hook lo and behold you like to broaden your discourse bring in the voices the arguments so I'm hoping that we're gonna have time for questions I'm not sure if we what the microphone situation is we do have some microphones and we are going to be taking some questions so and I guess I will okay so we have some microphones so before we start taking questions I'm gonna just remind you of certain facts if you'd like to talk with Robbie George about the status of the embryo we would love to have you come some other time and have that conversation if you want to talk about with Cornel West about democratic socialism we'd also love you to come some other time right now we're having a conversation about liberal education and things that are happening on campus our common culture that's the focus here so reminders also remember that it should be a question with a question mark and it should be short because there are lots of people who want to speak I have a question for brother Cornell there we go yeah it's prompted really by the the last set of comments which I hadn't heard you make before and I'm grateful to Tom for for prompting them and my question is do you think the decision to move in the direction of establishing cultural studies departments of various sorts played an important role in the ghettoization of authors like Toni Morrison Du Bois Baldwin and we do the same if we go to other sort of Gender Studies and all sorts of things like that I mean you should be reading Baldwin in comparative literature and English literature ellipsis you should be reading Du Bois in political science and in philosophy if we if we regard those authors as authors that we study in the Black Studies Department or the African American Studies department then it seems like almost a license to say well that's being taken care of elsewhere we don't need to take care of and political science department comparative literature department English literature department sociology department and so forth I think you've got the institutional history the ways in which these departments had to emerge given the entrenchment of what was in place when we understand that in terms of the white supremacy demel supremacy and so forth the important thing now is how the courses are taught that's the key and you can teach any course in any department but if you do it in that sophisticated pedagogical way in which context a multi-layered their arguments are subtle and you're making the relations between present and past without falling into a present ISM or losing sight of the best of the past then you're still going to be able to give what the students ought to have I've taught in prisons for 37 years we don't worry about diversity courses in the prison we start with Plato we do Agustin we do Lorraine Hansberry their favorite play is always Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett they want to spend two weeks on that then we go to Tony Morrison didn't we go to James Baldwin you see but it's how its taught the quality of the conversation and the broadening of their minds hearts and souls but I mean now it's a larger issue in terms of the you know the French occupation of the American mind that took place in the eighties the narrowing the intellectual provincialism the loss even of American electro tradition of the Whitman's in the marrow kaisers and Edmund Wilson's and and a whole host of others that's a larger discussion of what happened in terms of the contraction that took place in terms of intellectual engagement even to talk critiques of colonialism and post-colonial and so forth without reading Marx and read my dear brother homi Bhabha and I love Bartolome Ababa but you don't start with that brother when you're talking about post colonialism you start with Marx you starts with hops and you start with linen you start with Rosenberg you start with those who provide at the very context of understanding what colonialism and imperialism was not Foucault if I won't start with Foucault I was blessed well I got a long spell when I taught in a parent Zuko's name one more time I said read him closely and then move on don't get stuck because it just becomes a matter of status in the chatter rather than substance into thinking I want to put a yellow highlighter on something that Cornell said a moment ago and that is the importance of giving these authors we're talking about two boys so we're talking about Walker we're talking about Tony Morrison we're talking about Baldwin we're talking about Malcolm X we're talking about Martin Luther King giving these authors the the dignity of treating them like you would treat any other author which means subjecting their thought and their work and their witness to critical scrutiny and I have seen this man do it because we have done we have taught together we do we taught together we have talked to boys we taught souls of black folk together and Du Bois gets the same critical scrutiny from Cornell that Dewey gets and that Lewis gets and that Newman gets in that Matthew Arnold gets and going all the way back to Plato even a figure like King who we so often deified and Cornell and I have have have held King up in our in our public writing together as a profound witness for justice and truth and yet he had his flaws and yet he has its life and they have to be subjected to inquiry and scrutiny as well if we de fi these figures we do not do them justice we had a powerful moment Cornell you will remember it in one of our seminars together when we exposed our students to Malcolm X's critique of King in the house Negro speech some of you will remember what I'm talking about here in which he doesn't even mention King's name and we played the speech the video of the speech for the students and then we ask the students who was Malcolm X talking about who was the target and because of the deification of a figure like King of course the last thing on their minds was that had in mind King and yet that is exactly who he had in mind what we did there in that moment was edge occasion they learn something there's something important about the profound debate between these two figures critical figures in the struggle for racial justice in the 1960s that's what needs to go on we've got a question down here now looming over this conversation I dare say as in fact I think it looms over all such conversations is the shadow of Allan bloom who wrote a book on liberal education called the closing of the American mind as I'm sure you all know in the book he makes a rather provocative I think point that the generation of sort of American college students at the best universities before the 1960s had less of what he sees is this kind of cancerous moral relativism then students that have filled those halls since I think Ross Douthat in the New York Times has recently made sort of a similar point now the tricky thing here is that as this the the tricky thing for this argument I think is that it what makes it so controversial is that it says that as this sort of American you know young intellectual elite essentially as it has gotten more diversity has also gotten more morally relativistic so I wondered what each of your thoughts were on that this provocative claim bloom for his translations of the Republic in this translation that we meal on education when you read Saul Bellow's book about bloom you say hmm that relativistic narcissistic cancer cut much deeper than we thought which is the same Socrates you start at home you don't start by just pointing the finger at the younger generation you can get there but it's gonna be so cranek you're going to say we have all been shaped by this market driven culture that generates addiction to idols what are the ways in which is operating in me so I am like on a continuum with those students that were because lo and behold no one ultimately escaped this is one of the reason why the artists are so very important there's no accident that bloom himself when he translates Plato play was an artist not just political theorist Rousseau was an artist and an artist is concerned about wrestling with the fears insecurities and anxieties inside one's own soul and maybe that wrestling will be insightful to those outside what happened and that text was it create an intellectual polarization and got a lot of name-calling and you're an itch in and you're a Strauss in and so for let's get beneath the labels Strauss has something to say a whole lot to say not always right Nietzsche got a hell of a lot to say usually wrong but that's alright because when you're that powerfully wrong you got a role in function to play in the conversation and it never goes away I really say wrong it's just difficult challenge they have to wrestle with so in that sense I would be very suspicious of trying to ossify or petrify a moment and project it but if you begin the way Socrates and Montaigne and Rousseau and kick a guard and Ellison and Tony beginning with self and then connected to larger zeitgeist claims the spirit of the age and so forth I think it's much better in in terms of facilitating a conversation I don't know what you say about well it's a powerful book no question about it and anybody who hasn't read it should read it and probably this is a good moment we're on for about 30 years since publication I suppose for those of us who read it way back when then or at least had it on our coffee tables when it was fashionable to have it on our coffee tables should go back and have another another look at it I have not done that recently so I'm working here from memory now clearly his critique of what much much of what goes on in the culture is on the mark his critique of contemporary music a lot to say for it relativism absolutely he foresaw that that that we would end up with a very toxic combination of relativism a kind of me generation anything goes if it feels good do it culture with a kind of absolutism that condemns anybody who criticizes that so the Plato the Socrates is always going to be vulnerable to the absolutism of those who proclaim relativism all that is on the mark and it's it's very powerful but what Cornel says I'm afraid is absolutely right about about Blum himself and one of the things that that you worry about in reading the book is whether Blum himself is willing to engage and critique the most sophisticated forms of the relativism that in their unsophisticated forms he is so eager to call out in its vulgar forms he's willing to call it out but is he willing to actually question and challenge it in its deeper forms or is his worry merely that this relativism abroad in the culture while probably rooted in some truth about reality that ultimately there is no objective source of meaning is dangerous to social institutions it it's something that we have to uphold a noble why in order to prevent society from being torn apart by it it's not clear to me that that's not blooms of you know I can't stick him with it he's a he's a subtle and I have to say in some ways evasive writer but I noticed that when push comes to shove he doesn't actually take on Nietzsche he's willing to note that these these these young people that he's critics critical of their music he's critical of their dress he's critical over their language he's kwhitaker over their attitudes and he any and he says that you know behind all this is a kind of Nietzschean ism but is he willing to take on Nietzsche so now I want to know okay what's wrong with Nietzsche I've got some ideas about what's wrong with Nietzsche as powerful and compelling as I think he is in so many ways but does bloom or his bloom himself and put it all though take this all the way down is it bloom himself at the end of the day anij in who just doesn't want ordinary people to live as if Nietzsche was right because that's gonna be chaos so do we have an elitism where Nietzsche is skepticism is for the elite people like Blum himself but belief faith the idea that there is moral truth that's for the masses religion that's for the masses so that we can have some kind of a decent socially harmonious society I can't depend on bloom but I will say that when I was in high school I read that book and at gob eager the University of Chicago so that's a fact that other questions I do my question is from a student's perspective like how how can we overcome this this inevitable barrier between not just the students and the professors but like the students in the context and the barrier lies in the the fact this is thought the society like requires us all requires our our innate like ability to learn and our ability to kind of identify with the context and like how our success is tied to this are great and like how can we overcome that and and like attempt to challenge and like to begin challenging ourselves and understanding this deeper meaning and overcoming these concepts if we are constantly burdened like with like trying to overcome the fact that our grade is gonna like be affected and how can we like kind of deep early like deep early how can we understand these concepts like knowing that our grade would be effective whether or not we can kind of understand that should I take a stab at that my brother no I appreciate that though this is my alpha brother to that day those six brother I gotta get all the way on the edge of my seat for this oh yeah no but you see the difference between coming to a classroom learning how to die that's on the quest to greatness coming to a classroom how do I get a good grade that's on the quest for success now the challenge is how do you try to stay on both tracks simultaneously but understand there's different dynamics of each track Miles Davis dropped out of Juilliard didn't he was that a bad thing at the moment it was and that brother start blowing his horn and listening to Charlie Parker he learned how to die in Birdland it became great some folks staying Julie are you know who actually went to Juilliard was a pianist for the Funkadelics in Parliament I used to travel with him brother Bernie he graduated from Juilliard - George Clinton and fought the world up he was on the way to greatness break it down for brother Rob but the crucial thing is is that so many folks in our society they lose sight of greatness for success and to be great is in no way identical with success I know successful vocalist who cannot sing in tune who make millions of dollars and that can coat shakes in is great Frank Sinatra does so - Sarah Vaughn so does Aretha hold lord have mercy exactly they were great greatness greatness is a very feeble thing in any historical moment but Professor when you come in the classes they want you to be a great human being and then a successful person but also a citizen who can put public interests in common good beyond just private interest in one's own individual game you see what I'm saying there and that's a wrestling and you need others for that you need your friends your partner's your family the folk in your master synagogues and churches and other civic institutions to keep you accountable that's one thing our deep friendship we keep each other accountable and it's a beautiful thing and you can see the strength and the fortitude and the determination that is reinforced when you have those kinds of loves coming at you so it's a very very important question for all of you I'm glad you put it you're gonna have a degree from the American University you will eat you'll be all right now it's perfectly fine I I'm not saying there's anything wrong I don't even think Cornell was anything wrong with aspiring to be chief operating officer or a chief executive officer of Google or a United States Senator or governor or a university president or the head of your activist organization whether you're a conservative or progressive all those things are fine to aspire to that's fine and and and if that's what you're interested in I hope you get there I'm pulling for you but not at any cost now the easy thing to say is and this is certainly true but it's only it but it's easy which is don't get there dishonestly don't get there by cheating your mother tell you that should be absolutely right about that but more than that don't get there if it means sacrificing even short of cheating and lying and that sacrificing elements key elements of your humanity if it means you have to lay aside the leading of the examined life if it if it you you need to be willing to sacrifice to live the richest and deepest life that you can live even if that sacrifice means you're not gonna be CEO or CEO of Google you're not gonna be United States so you're not gonna be university president maybe you'll get there maybe the sacrifice won't be demanded I don't know only God knows that but if it is you have to be prepared to to pay it something else I would say to you all of you Cornell talked about how the Conservatives these days they all listen to Fox News the progressives they all listen to MSNBC we're all in our silos listening being reinforced in whatever it is we believe please cultivate friendships cultivate friendships like ours with people you disagree with if you're progressive and secular reach out you find an evangelical protestant christian friend and you listen to don't just don't just preach at them listen to them and let them get to know you and how you ended up where you are if you're that evangelical Christian you reach out to a secular progressive friend make a friend cultivate that relation get to know people and it goes without saying across the racial divide and so forth but build trust with people so that you can challenge each other and hold each other accountable 'ti if you haven't built trust if you haven't built a relationship then the challenge is gonna feel like an assault and a lot of what goes on on college campuses and the provocation everything it feels like an assault because there's no trust there's no relationships but if you build a relationship a deep friendship you love the other person you appreciate them you understand their contributions then you can challenge each other and hold each other accountable they're there there's not a person in this room who can including me who can't benefit from more cultivation of friendship and building of trust with people you disagree with about very fundamental things and who will challenge you and allow you to challenge them so in discussing the importance of a liberal education how do we confront the ableism that is often living inside of that and the standardized process of testing and education them is the admissions ticket to liberal education institutions that often actively discriminates against students with physical and learning disabilities who would in no doubt excel in your classrooms and excel when discussing the very topics we've discussed tonight appreciate that question we've got when I talked about any ideology that loses sight of the humanity of people that ableism is as wrong as evil as any of the isms that lose sight of humanity of people ageism I especially can experience that as I get older in them but I mean this is very serious in this regard but it's a matter of intellectual moral political pressure brought to bear in terms of the organization of space and the ways in which people have access to that space and dot dot dot dot dot so I would say that that your point is a very very crucial one it's not a matter of just adding on it's not adding an ism it's a deepening of a human embrace and that's what it's so crucial for so of course I believe everything that Cornell said about the importance of not losing sight of people's humanity no matter what but I believe I think it's empirically verifiable that people have different levels of ability and I think that can and should be taken into account in the educational system now do we do it perfectly no we don't even do it close to perfectly and part of that problem we are now beginning to overcome just with learning just with knowledge so that we do not classify people as less capable of learning in virtue of certain learning disabilities that they have that can be overcome or can be met or accommodations that we can make that enable them to live up to their potential I love having really super talented students in my classes I love that any professor will tell you that he or she does if not they're either a saint or they're lying to you okay that's great it's wonderful the levels of conversation you can have or just unbelievable so I like teaching at Princeton I know I would like teaching at the American University Cornell likes teaching at Harvard he like teaching at Princeton even better and he's welcome back but what it's important for me to recognize and what's important for the educational system to recognize for our institutions to recognize is that there are students who are capable of being parts of those conversations for whom accommodations need to be made to make it possible for them and so our standardized testing is not as it's currently maintained a good tool because sometimes people are weeded out who really should be part of that conversation now there there are people who shouldn't be at Princeton because they're really not able to do the work that we require at Princeton or that the American University the work that is required here now I want everybody to lead an examined life and I'm one of these people I'm a really radical view about this it's very fashionable today to say well not everybody should go to college I've got the really unfair because I think everybody should go to college even people whose careers and vocations are in areas where you don't need a college education to do that and that's because I don't see a college education as instrumental to getting a job I see it as enhancing making available to us richer opportunities for leading the examined life and that goes for everybody but there's a legitimate stratification institutionally and sometimes within institutions that just takes into account the reality that people have different talents and different levels of achievement and ability and ability to participate in conversations at different levels we've got a question right here we got a question right here in the front thank you so dr. Wes you said you taught in prisons for like I think 37 years and my education on a college level started in prison and I'm scheduled to graduate in May from Goucher College thank you the question I have for you be to the second chance at the Pell Grant it's about 60 I think colleges and universities nationwide now how do we broaden that because it's a large people in our society that's left out and not giving that opportunity to get education and I know as he just explained my life is examined now through the courses that I've taken in school and I think we need to provide that to more people nationwide so how do we broaden and give more people opportunities whether it's at the community college level or four-year institution throughout the United States and I appreciate that powerful question I salute your witness no Brotherhood did your reputation precedes you that the word got out that your powerful defense of a liberal education set such a high standard that Ravi and I need you to really do some serious work to get close to it and that's precisely because just like when Socrates encounters the Symmachus that when you encounter the life of the mind it ain't no game everything's at stake the formation of yourself your soul your mind and memories of those who came before and the vision of what is to come unborn as well as a born and so once one has that kind of a substantial investment a deep personal investment then Waiting for Godot is something that folk want to see two weeks rather than just one and it's not a matter who Samuel Beckett is you don't even know who Samuel Beckett is all I know is Dee Dee and gogo make a whole lot of sense to me in this cell trying to create some kind of communication the breakdown of it the distrust to the need for solidarity that goes on and on and that magnificent claim and so in that regard for me the important thing is actually how to recognize the degree to which those who have been viewed as on the outskirts of Education become the very starting point for what a real value of education is and their voices your voice and other voices become heard and so the Tudor degree to which I mean what we did in wrong way would step program wouldn't take the classes and gang assets to the degrees de pinna green program we had in Garden City in Trenton state we were talking where's my Trenton brother areas right there yeah exactly would a Trenton state prison where we where we taught every week it's those kind of thing what we're trying to do right now Norfolk with Malcolm X was right outside of Boston to make sure the critical mind the energy and the Socratic elements come to the fore behind bars because those bars actually are shattered symbolically intellectually artistically even though you're still inside and in the end of course all of us have a deficit in time and space so it's not as if you're gonna get out of time and space alive so you've got to come to terms with those other kinds of bars in terms of dread and death and despair and disappointment catastrophe and calamity and all the things that go into the death sentence that we you human beings and mortals mortals have but I salute your work and your witness in your example yeah and I want to say God bless you and also salute you for your example and for the witness you bear one of the points that I think needs to be made is that I say this is a Christian but I think this is something that people of all faiths should be able to affirm and that is nobody should be written off nobody nobody you know we human beings as Cornell said quoting that we fail and then we just try to fail better you know probably a lot of good reasons I should have been in prison I wasn't you were right I mean how many of us have looked for Steen wow it's not very not very many we fail and we try to do better so III think attention to people who are in prison or who have been in prison and making opportunities for this kind of education not just skill acquisition that's important we need people need jobs not just information that's important too but actually liberal education that's why I salute Cornell for his work in the prisons on this very stuff what he's teaching is not computer science he goes into prison and he teaches Plato and st. Augustine and Machiavelli and Hobbes you know he gives students in the prisons the access to that kind of learning now Cornell did me the honor of inviting me to go to Rahway with him to teach on st. Agustin which I said I'd be delighted to do and I was very interested in in just having a sense of what that experience is like interacting with men and then the administration vetoed my you remember this court yeah they be they vetoed they they vetoed my my coming but one of the things that has always struck me about that is the life of Malcolm X and not just the prison component what that part of is a lesson about transformation so so let's look at mr. little let's look at Malcolm ax he starts out on the streets he starts out in trouble he starts out with a serious thuggish Ness he finds God to rely Mohammed he becomes a Muslim become serious about his faith nation of his loan transforms his life helps him to transform the lives of many others but then he sees some things that he doesn't like going on including Elijah Muhammad and that causes him to rethink to challenge his beliefs and he leaves great risk great cost and then he doesn't abandon his Muslim faith he looks for ways to enrich it and he makes the Hajj to Mecca which is a transformative experience so he's transformed again for a third time really now he could have been written off it was in prison but fortunately he was able to lead a life that had these transformations and enrichments and to bear a certain very important kind of witness you know including the witness that he bore when he said on the Hajj I began to realize that race really doesn't matter all that much Cornell wrote a book called race matters it does matter Malcolm X's message here his race doesn't matter all that much it's our humanity fundamentally that does matter now there are reasons why Malcolm X hadn't seen that before we can understand that but that experience was transformative he was open to it had he been closed to it never would happened he was open to it and it happened well we are all on a journey we are all capable of improvement we are all capable of transformation our journey will be different from his mine will be different from yours but we're all on it if we don't shut it down if we don't close our minds closed ourselves off to that kind of transformation and liberal education is a way of ensuring that we don't close it down that we don't become dogmatic friends the time has flown we are now past our time and we have a wonderful reception and opportunity for us to socialize with our guests so I just want to say the two of you are our teachers and we want to say thank you to both of you for spending this time with us we are very grateful please join me in thanking professor George

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Length: 92min 7sec (5527 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018