Liberal Arts Education: What’s The Point? | Dr. Robert George and Dr. Cornel West

[Music] um now you Robbie come from the Roman Catholic tradition I think we can call you a Roman Catholic traditionalist and and a conservative you'd call yourself that while you Cornell come from the progressive Protestant Christian tradition and I think you'd accept the descriptor progressive and in certain meanings of that term at least and and even democratic socialists which you've called yourself so many people I think would be surprised that you two are such close friends and colleagues so I just wanted us to start maybe by asking each of you to to say briefly how you got to be friends and such close colleagues and what that friendship has meant to you over the years well that is a question Marie that we've been asked before but we've never had quite as special an opportunity to answer it as we have tonight and I'll explain that cryptic sentence just in a minute but before doing that I want to thank you and your wonderful team and the Danforth Center on religion and politics and the Veritas forum for the opportunity to be at this very distinguished University it's a real joy and I speak not only for myself but for Cornell to say would enjoy it is to be here with all of you we greatly admire what you are doing in the center and provost we greatly admire what you're doing the university especially to hold up the cause the much battered and maligned cause of liberal arts education so we're here because we want to support that that's the fundamental reason we're very grateful for the opportunity to to to be here now if I say things that are even wilder than what I usually say tonight it's because I had dental surgery yesterday and I'm on these very powerful painkillers tonight I'm the guy in the matrix at Cornell will correct anything anything that I say that's wrong now why do I say it's such a special evening to answer the question of how our friendship our fraternal bond was created well we had known each other at Princeton slightly in the 1990s we'd been in faculty seminars together discussion groups over at the Center for human values at Princeton University I always admired brother Cornell when we be in these seminars even when he was getting the wrong answers he was asking exactly the right questions and getting right to the bottom of things and pushing aside the ephemera and the trivia and the superficial to get at the heart of the matter and I admired that from the start you can't be around this guy for very long without realizing you're in the presence of a very deep thinker and anyone who's committed to the life of the mind recognizes a soul mate in that and so we fell in love that's the long and short of it now although we had known each other slightly it was a particular day around about 2006 when during my office hours Murray I got a knock on my door and I answered the door and there was a student a wonderful student one of my best students young man named Andrew Perlmutter he was a religion major I've had him in my courses turns out Cornell that had him in his courses I said Andrew what can I do for you and he said well professor George I'm involved in a new project here at Princeton a student project we're gonna create a new magazine on campus a magazine of culture and politics and the arts called the green light and in every issue we want to feature an interview of one professor by another professor and I said well enter that all sounds wonderful congratulations on the new magazine have you raised the money for TSO yes this is Princeton we've raised the money so I said well that's that's fine wonderful how can I help and he said well we've reached out to professor Cornel West to ask him to do the first interview to be the interviewer for the first issue and we invited him to suggest someone that he would like to interview and he said he'd like to interview you no I said well Andrew I'm very honored but let me get this right I want to make sure I understand correctly you ask professor West who he one interview can be an interview any member of this distinguished faculty and he said he wanted to interview me and Andrew said that's right and I said well I want you to send a message back to professor West I want you to tell professor West the professor George said but it is I who should be seeking baptism from you - which Andrew responded Andrew is a religion major but he wasn't and a wonderful student I mean an a-plus-plus student he wasn't quite up on the scripture side of things he responded by saying huh and I said well you just tell him tell press West that's what Professor Jordan said and he said okay I will but but will you do it and I said well I would absolutely be honored to do it so the appointed day came and here came to my office over in Corwin Hall are the Cornell and Andrew and a photographer and man that photographer earned his pay he must have taken two thousand fifty was snapping a week we were yakking and he was snapping and I tell you we hit every issue we talked about everything it wasn't an interview it was I don't know what you got Texas death match of some sort we were really rocking and rolling over all the deep issues contemporary political issues music you name it we were getting into everything now the interview was the they had one of these old-fashioned cassette tape recorders the interview was supposed to last for as long as we had the tape which I think was an hour or maybe two hours or something like that well anyway we went on for four hours even after the tape and run out photographer still snapping the tape and running at which point I looked at my watch and I said well brother Cornell this has been so wonderful you know we really need to get together more often and chat you know we need to we need to make this a regular regular thing and he said oh brother Robbie that'd be wonderful we really need to do that and I said well wanted to walk me down to my car I'm just parked down here on Prospect Avenue he said well yeah so we walked down together and got to my car and I stood there with my hand on the door handle for about a half-hour while we went on back and forth and then just providentially I think the Holy Spirit was involved in this perhaps system we got a note the senior members of the fact that they got a note from Nancy Malkiel who was the Dean of the college in those days is responsible for undergraduate curriculum and she said to the senior faculty you know we need more of you to teach freshmen seminars Freshman Seminar is very important part of our program we don't have enough senior faculty teaching we we promise our our newly admitted students or the students we're trying to attract the Princeton trying to get them to not go to Washington you come to Princeton we uh we we attract them by saying oh you come and you're immediately even freshman year be working with the most senior distinguished members of our faculty and then the trouble is that's not really happening that much so we'd appreciate some of you senior people being willing to teach freshman seminars well the light bulb went off over my head and I thought wouldn't it be wonderful if brother Cornell and I could get together every week for a freshman seminar and teach 16 or 18 of these wonderful bright young men and women and so I got in touch with Cornell and said I don't know if you've looked at your mail Cornell sometimes misses those things he's busy and his boots he's on the phone we got all kinds of stuff so we really ought to do with a Freshman Seminar together and he said oh brother Robbie that's a great idea let's do that what should it be about so I had the idea well let's do a kind of great books approach we have 12-week semesters at Princeton let's do a book a week you pick six of them and I'll pick six of them and let's make make them books that were important in our own intellectual and spiritual Odysseys and and and no secondary sources we're not going to teach philology classes we're not going to we want that students to actually engage the authors in his direct a manner as possible so we ended up teaching Sophocles Antigone Plato's gorgeous I think was gorgeous that semester st. Augustine's Confessions and all the way Marx and Hayek and John Dewey a democratic see us Louis the abolition of man and it was just a wonderful experience and for that experience we had and then we just went on to do it and then we were taking our show on on on the road and then we started writing together and it's just been a beautiful wonderful thing something far beyond a friendship I have to say I'm so grateful and for all that we have Andrew Perlmutter - thank you if anything we have done is of any value to anybody in this room I would ask you to join me in thanking the parents of Andrew Perlmutter for Andrew Perlmutter they are here mr. mr. Palmer he's off getting rich pay up into the Silicon Valley tell him to remember Princeton brother Cornell brother Andrew he's a very special brother very much so but I want to begin first by saluting what a magisterial scholar you are what a visionary administrator you are of course your magnificent colleague and with you and brother Lee I I can't imagine a more high-quality duo yeah committed to the life of the mind in the Academy van Murray and Lee let's give it up for both of these took both of us to treat I'm cutting the key I'm telling the truth I wanted to meet my dear brother Holden here he's from John Coltrane country North Carolina the loneliest monk country we were talking about those two giants but his his leadership as well is beloved by Patty is the fan a new faculty member here I see my dear sister Valerie distinguished theorists that she is sister Deborah sister sandy all of you all who will facilitated our coming we have a good time wherever we go we could be off you'd have a little coffee I'd have a little Kanye our families are so very close they're melted together in that way that's why he it's it's not really just a friendship that he's really my brother I love this brother and I think all of us have to recognize the ways in which love and respect are not reducible to politics that you can revel in somebody's humanity even when he's wrong Oh indeed and you can learn from somebody you have agreement with but most importantly that my dear brother has enriched my life in a magnificent way not just intellectually but morally spiritually my my beloved daughter Zayn Tunis in many ways I'm nice and he's an uncle and I could go on and on and on but I think given where we are now in the culture it's really going to be more and more a question of will we muster the courage to think for ourselves the hope for ourselves and to love for ourselves you see we should never ask anybody for permission who you love ask people permission as to what you think or ask people permission but what you hope for you see I come from a people hated for 400 years and talked the world so much about love and you can't love unless you're free you can't be free unless you're willing to be courageous and take a risk and be vulnerable but go to the edge of life's abyss and then decide who you are which is the saying what we try to do find our voice says that's why I start with jazz can't be a jazz woman like we just lost one to Nancy who Wilson unless you find your voice but we live in a culture there's too many echo chambers copy this conform to this adjust to this accomodate to that where are the originals not the copies but the real things who think for themselves and love for themselves and hope for themselves no we know you can't do that without tradition traditions are inescapable unavoidable but traditions are something that you both must recover and you must recover we just let that sit for a while no we are Washington University experienced TS Eliot and his grandfather up here yeah hello William Greenlee Eliot that's for real but but most importantly it's about trying to come together at the deepest human level and Latin whoo mundo which means burial were beings on the way to burial do will we have the courage to think to love to laugh to connect the way in which we decide to do it based on integrity honesty decency and generosity it's one of the greatest achievements in life is to be a person of integrity and I come from the prophetic legacy of Jerusalem so I'm not that impressed by Alexander the Great my conception of greatness was he or she who was willing to serve sacrifice try to empower and enable others to begin full and end up empty because you've emptied yourself with your cultivated gifts to make others and the world better than what you found it that sounds so simplistic but it is profoundly subversive in our historical moment and it never ever ever goes out of fashion truth beauty goodness love justice integrity no matter what the fads the fashion though fools never go out of fashion and if we can't recover those then we slide down a slippery slope that chaos and all the polarization all the balkanization all that hatred and contempt and envy and resentment and so forth and so on how do we push it back brother Robbie and I just out of both love and friendship decided let's take this on a road we've been to chocolate side of the Dallas Erykah Badu's kids that's right in huh school you see we've been on vanilla sides of town sometimes in very high places with big money same challenge integrity honesty decency what kind of human being you're going to be before the worms get your body well I think you're already talking about the values that you know we really want to get into and I want us to get into this question of liberal arts education I know both of you have a lot to say and you've got a room here filled with students and faculty and people who care deeply about education so I guess I would ask you all since you you did teach a course together maybe you want to talk a little bit about that but really more broadly what you do see as the point and purpose of a liberal arts education well we've talked together on a number of occasions it wasn't just a one-off thing once Andrew brought us together we we kept it rolling what's the point of a liberal arts education it's not to make you rich that probably doesn't surprise you it's not to make you impressive at cocktail parties with your knowledge of Shakespeare and ability that to quote Sophocles it's not to give you high status or standing now there's nothing wrong with any of those things I like entertaining cocktail party conversation I want you to get a great job and make a lot of money remember watch you I get that right and and in itself there's nothing wrong with seeking to elevate yourself seeking to be respected to have high standing to be a person who has influence use it for the good but those are not the fundamental purposes of a liberal arts education now I'm gonna put it to you in the polite way Cornell is not gonna be so polite here's the polite answer the purpose of a liberal arts education is to enable the learner enable you in me to lead an examined life purpose of a liberal arts education is to unsettle us to cause us to question our beliefs and to form our beliefs based on reflection deliberation Reason judgment which means that we always have to be open to the possibility that we are what wrong absolutely which means we have to recognize the hardest part of all our own phal ability now if I ask and I won't do what I don't want to put anybody on the spot if I ask is there anybody in this room who is certain that he or she is not wrong about anything you believe no hands would go up you all recognize your faul ability we up here recognize our fellow there I know right now I am wrong about some things Cornell keeps telling me that but I know I'm but here's the problem I don't know which ones they are there's a little paradox here right if you take me through all my beliefs each one I hold under the description of being true I that's why I believe it I didn't believe it was true I wouldn't believe it at all and yet I know they can't all be right I know I have to be wrong on some things so how do I deal with that well if I value truth above opinion if I value truth in the way Socrates values truth and teaches us to value truth as being something so precious that we're willing to give up the complacency of being settled the ease of being settled to get at the truth then what I need is an interlocutor he may be a living human being maybe somebody I'm reading in a book I need someone who will challenge me who will unsettle me and not just in the trivial beliefs not just in the secondarily important beliefs but in my deepest most cherished even identity forming beliefs now that's hard that's hard to open yourself up to that kind of examination and self-examination and that's because we are naturally complacent and comfortable with our opinions we build our sense of self out of those opinions we build communities with other people who are like-minded and share opinions and we value those relationships and we don't want to put them at risk we want to be known as a team player as a right-thinking people person whether that is actually a left thinking person or a right thinking person we want to be you know a person who thinks the correct things for our group and we certainly have difficulty imagining what it would even be like to be the kind of person who disagrees with us because we kind of don't like those kinds of people we think there's something wrong with those kinds of people so that recognition of FAL ability is critical to one of the virtues that we need to lead the examined life which is what liberal arts education is all about and that is the virtue of humility intellectual humility the recognition not just notionally yeah I must be wrong about something but the the deep existential conviction that I could very well be wrong I am certainly been talking about some things I could very well be wrong about some important things the kinds of things that are so important that we wrap our emotions tightly around them notice that about us human beings all of us we wrap our emotions very tightly around our convictions now in itself again that's not a bad thing if we didn't have some emotional commitment to our convictions we wouldn't do anything you know we wouldn't get the baby fed get the children off to school we wouldn't pursue our vocation or our calling in life we we wouldn't work for causes that we believe in so there's nothing wrong in principle with having our emotions wrapped around our convictions even fairly tightly but if we wrap them too tightly we become dogmatists we become tribal we tend to think anybody who disagrees with me or my group or my tribe or my clan is either a fool or a fraud in any event it's a bad person and we demonize now there's something else we need we're talking about this earlier today there's something else we need if we are to have that virtue of courage which we need a poor to leave the examined life another virtue that's got to be imparted by a true liberal arts education and that's the virtue of courage not the courage to face somebody else the courage to confront yourself the courage to be your own best critic the courage to render yourself vulnerable to changes even in deep conviction and this means you actually have to buy into an old adage that is profoundly true but very difficult for us really to believe and that is the adage that it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied that means we're not after happiness the point of a liberal arts education is not to make you happy at least in the modern contemporary sense of happiness which connotes a pleasant state of mind of a smile on your face that might be induced by the stuff I'm taking right now or getting on Bob nose experience machine remember that coin the experience machine gives you all the pleasant experience log in but you don't actually do anything no no it's not that's not the goal now if we take the richer older conception of happiness what Aristotle called odium Ania dye ammonia the the flourishing of the human being the all-round integral fulfillment of the human being now we're getting closer to it but that means we're willing to lead a life in which we don't rest complacently where we're challenging and being challenged where we're challenging ourselves and being our own best critic and we don't have the satisfaction of having a dogma now this is not against religion there's a place for dogmas but it means that even your religious beliefs have to be open to question we can't shut down the person who wants to challenge them even on the basis that my most fundamental identity is formed by my religion we need to be open because even about things like that we could be wrong now some people here Cornell and I say what I'm saying and they say that's elitist that kind of education that kind of pursuit of the examined life trying to give students more than information and skills that will prepare them for a career but something more what Cornell calls Paideia deep education that that immerses them in the great existential questions of meaning and value that's elitist because after all who but the top sliver can afford that yeah the kids to go to Washington you were Princeton or Harvard or Stanford or Yale or Williams or Swarthmore they can but what about the great masses people even those who go to colleges what about the people at community colleges well I want everybody to lead the examine life now I know not everybody can have an education can afford an education can afford the time or the money to go for a true liberal arts education of the sort that's offered here but there's no reason even at our community couple even in our high schools that we cannot impart to our young people more than vocational skills more than information and skills those are important those are valuable getting a job is important I want that to happen too I want to have good jobs I want you to have high status all that stuff but there can be more for everybody but it takes a commitment on the part of the intellectual class and on the part of the leadership class in any society to say we're gonna make that available even if in limited ways in most cases we're gonna make that available in all of our colleges and universities even in community colleges a student who may be doing a vocational course in something like nursing which is a wonderful profession still has distribution requirements and things like humanities and Social Sciences every single one of those courses should contribute to making that individual a lover of wisdom a philosopher in the in the literal sense a lover of window fill Oh Sophia a lover of wisdom and a lifelong learner and a critical thinker and his or her own best critic now what are we experiencing now in higher education well the economics of it the overall economic system the the pressures that we are experiencing from those who support higher education god bless them we love them what we do without them the pressure of parents the pressure kids sometimes bring on themselves is to instrumentalize professionalize move in the direction of vocational education i noticed sometimes even when you have people who are defending the humanities they will defend them by instrumentalizing them they'll say well you should be a philosophy major or an English literature major a history major those are good even though they're not tied directly to vocations because they will teach you to be a critical thinker and that's what the merger that's what the investment banks and the hedge funds are looking for now again if you want to work for a merchant bank or an investment bank or a hedge fund that's fine I'm not here to criticize that but that's again not fundamentally what liberal arts education humanistic education is all about and that's not fundamentally its purpose the purpose truly is the examined life and the examined life is not just a life for guys with PhDs who teach courses and run around the country preaching it's for plumbers and carpenters and nurses and insurance salesmen and corporate executives and hedge fund managers and everybody and by the way as hard as it is not to instrumentalize our liberal arts education we shouldn't instrumental I said even two things that we think are especially noble say well if I if I'm a philosophy major that'll teach me be a critical thinker and then I'll be a better social justice activist fine be a social justice F that's great but don't instrumentalize your education you need to be wrestling and be being challenged by Plato and by Shakespeare and by Jane Austin it's not instrumentalized to anything now we Americans have a lot of trouble with this and a lot of our success has been because we tend to be very practical people we have a kind of utilitarian approach to life and it's paid off big-time economically and we shouldn't look down on that or say that's a bad thing or deprecated it but we need to keep it in perspective we need to sharpen up our ability to think about what the ends should be and not just think about means not just think about instruments we're great at instrumental reasoning that's wonderful but how do we think about the things that are not instrumental the things that are intrinsic in their value like truth and love of truth like friendship like the critical appreciation of art and music like the development of profound skills whether in ballet or chess or football or a range of other sorts of things what about faith religious faith faith in God what about those things that are not reducible to means to other things but are the ends to which other things are means it's hard for us to give that up but a liberal arts education well done will help us to do it it'll give us information it'll give us intellectual skills but it will also impart to us an inculcate in us virtues like humility virtues like courage that will enable us to take on the tough but ultimately most rewarding task of all of living the examined life arts education is fundamentally about learning how to die I said I'd put it politely to me because it raises the question what is a good life it raises a question what does it mean to be human what kind of person will I choose to be in my short time in time and space and no one gets out of time and space alive that's one death sentence and learning how to die and we talk about this all the time in our classes learning how to die is mustering the courage to examine yourself criticize yourself mustering the courage to examine your society and criticize your society and world and there is no growth no development there is no maturity without that kind of examination and when you let a certain assumption go a certain prejudice go that's the form of death just let the bell ring for a little bit I appreciate that time because rebirth renewable regeneration intellectual arm or awakening that's what liberal arts education is about we live in a culture that has reduced wisdom to smartness everybody want to be so smart you can hardly watch television watch the number of times focal television use the word obviously obviously obviously obviously obviously obviously that is a signifier that they're part of the smart set because most of us now obvious at all we looking for an argument let the phones be smart we got to be wise Philo Sophia love of wisdom the greatest of all early modern European philosophers Montaigne said to philosophizes to learn how to die he or she who learns how to die unlearn slavery how do we be free well part of the challenge here is James Baldwin's letter to his nephew most powerful sentence for me in that letter is don't comma be afraid that's what he tells his young person it reminds me of Mary Ellen Pleasant is the first black woman millionaire before madam Jay Walker she gave John Brown almost a million dollars to live on for ten years and she used to start every lecture I'd rather be a corpse than a cow a Martin Luther King jr. I'd rather be dead then afraid we live in a culture of not just escalating greed and hatred but fear and the manipulation of those fears usually the scapegoat the most vulnerable like our brothers and sisters on the border or poor people or working people around a black array or gays or lesbians or trans any vulnerable people is so easy to do that because it doesn't take any courage to do that the courage has to come in a Socratic way raising the questions such as you willing to give up certain assumptions in order to learn how to live now I come out of the prophetic legacy of Jerusalem what Paul says Christians must die daily that was a eulogy of Dorothy day from one Luther King jr. April 5th 1968 Catholic Worker more Luther King jr. learned how to die daily what was it about that brother he wasn't a God he wasn't a deity but he questioned himself he grew he matured and he loved enough to learn how to empty himself to donate himself to give himself when he was in the coffin the doctor said this is the body of a 69 year old and he was only 39 years old it was like the end of our green concept what a brother can't walk or breathe because he's given it we just lost brother and nipsey he learned how to die before he died because he gained so much he grew he read he learned how to laugh and love and sacrifice that reality is getting weaker and weaker that's why they talk about liberal arts education is not some abstract academic conversation for the chattering classes who want to feel as if they're so smart on the way to being rich no liberal arts education means whether in fact we are going to be able to sustain the best of our traditions and keep alive with fragile experiment in democracy against the backdrop of our Empire the backdrop of our predatory capitalism the backdrop of our white supremacy and male supremacy and so forth that's what that state that's what's at stake and when you think about piety and piety is not uncritical difference the dogma Testament it's not blind obedience the doctrine going back to Plato's Euthyphro on the John Dewey on the George Santayana it's keeping track of the sources of good in our lives and what we fall back on our dependence on those rich deep courageous voices of the dead and they die twice if we don't keep it alive because they're after lives are no longer operating in us it was like standing in front of your mother's coffin you got to find a statistics ask yourself the question now Who am I really all that love she put in me our the best of her afterlife the operative in my life well I love the truth in beauty and goodness at the level that she did and if I didn't that's all right I failed Becket his right try it again failed again fail better that's the Lapps Protestant Irish brother Samuel Beckett he understood what it is to learn how to die in order to learn how to live better and the only way we do it is by means of example we can't just pontificate and transmit propositions to people it's like a conclusion of a practical Aristotelian syllogism it's not a proposition it's a life lived it's a way of being in the world its actions beads practices always fallible and finite but still trying to make available discourage that brother Robbie is talking about and we can't do it alone I mean we got these myths in America about being self-made I say yeah I guess you gave birth to yourself too well you just don't know I'm free but I've been independent for a long time okay okay all right picked up your language too on your own [Applause] so childishly American fetishizing this autonomous individualism individuality back to jazz voice crucial different from childish individualism individuality always comes from a woman's womb love a family and community and Moss and synagogue and church music and sports and so forth and teachers and professors and brothers falling back to be accountable and answerable so that this issue of liberal arts is probably one of the most fundamental of our taught but is it true for every generation because every generation consists of human beings and this is where brother Bobby and I have deep philosophical debates about this because I'm very sure Karndean and well this just say Kierkegaard is with jacobian very Wallace Spearmon Ian which is about how wretched we really are what it means to be the kind of primates with language obsessed power status and honor and territory now of course is a Christian we just call it sin and keep moving it's called it's in the diff keep moving keep moving but there's also a dignity and a sanctity because we're all made in the image and likeness of a god which means we have potentiality which means no moment of our wretchedness fundamentally defines fully who we are and if it provides us with the possibility of brothers and sisters of different colors of genders and nations and sexual orientations because they're made in the same image and likeness no matter how stuck they are at a particular moment liberal arts education how do you learn how to live in if we end up like Hamlet one of the smartest of all literary protagonists in the history of the modern world but never learns how to love meaning what can she know vulnerability can't take a risk no joy just pleasure there's so much of culture as a joyless quest for insatiable pleasure well that's so much of American culture these days manipulation titillation stimulation superficial spectacle and our young people unfortunately are bombarded with it every day that's one of the differences between now brother Robin even was I think you much longer than we are but you right over your dad when they age in terms of the degeneration either younger generation I just don't know sometimes how young sisters of all colors really make it in this market driven culture obsessed with spectacle and image and money money money and status and not really able to sustain those long deep connection that produced joy rather than pleasure the enduring realities of what it is to be human even in the music you can see it you know my god if I was looking for a soundtrack for black freedom and he worker freedom and women's freedom poor people's freedom where would I go give me Curtis Mayfield give me a Luthor Vandross give me the dramatics and the Delfonics hmm because there's a sweetness and the tenderness that's integral to learning how to die in order to learn how to live and that sweetness and tenderness is more and more being lost it's all about control conquest subordination always ready to try a little tenderness that's not saying my name say my name say my name there are a different orientation of the world in terms of how you live your life liberal arts education is inseparable from wrestling with those questions and every human being has to come to terms we don't care how many stem courses you take if you're on the block in the alley a living high in some gated community you've got to come to terms with death in various forms disease disappointment disillusionment despair despondency catastrophe is on its way to your house you're gonna have to come to terms with forms of catastrophe then you discover who you really are no matter how much money you have no matter how much status you have you must how much education in the narrow formal sense you have and so thank God that you all are wrestling with that the washington university has a very rich history of raising these kind of course but washington university itself needs to be Socrates to a public sphere where we can agree to disagree intensely and yet still end up recognizing the human beings who had disagree deities on the top and demons on below human beings who would disagree and you also discover that you have a number of things you do agree about well thank you both for these answers I want to ask you one more question before we open it up and and it really follows yes yes and I think it's on a lot of people's minds which is campus protests and the the various campus protests that there have been we talked about this a little earlier today but I wanted you to have a chance to talk about it with our audience that in 2017 one of the big campus protests was when charles murray was shouted down at Middlebury College I'm sure a lot of folks remember that and two of you issued a joint statement after that which really supported free speech on campus and that's been a very strong position you've both take and even even despite your disagreements and there been a lot of different types of campus protests watched you had a protest of sorts that played out in the student newspaper over conservatives and are they welcome on campus a lot of the protests have to do with racism I think and folks who really don't want racist speakers coming I just wanted to give you all a chance to talk briefly about campus protests you know what's behind some of those and and and you know how can we move beyond this impasse that we seem to be added in those so we can wait for the bells again you may have figured out we're not good at briefly I want to say that I agree with an awful lot of what Cornell said especially the true parts I just thought that was that was great i problematize some things but the idea which you know I tried to put in the polite sense of leading the examine life and Cornell brought home with learning to die being the point of liberal arts education when you get hold of that deep truth you're there you're there and then it's from that point forward it's just the Socratic Enterprise of carrying it out now at Middlebury not only were two speakers charles murray and the progressive professor Allison Stanger who was his interlocutor for the evening not only were two speakers shouted down not only were they not permitted to express their views and make their arguments not only was the audience denied an opportunity to hear these competing points of view Allison Stanger was assaulted and suffered a concussion and other injuries from which she has been recovering for two years I was just happened to be with her at a dinner in Washington DC last week and she has now fully recovered but that's - that's two years and she only recovered recently she was very severely injured and and and and we eggheads we professors in electrodes rather rather like our heads so brain injuries are really bad from our point of view and it was a terrible thing that that happened now Cornell and I put out the statement I believe it was March of 2017 and it was about campus free speech and protests but it was also about civic life the statement was called democracy truth seeking and freedom of thought and expression we think that democratic norms as well as the norms of truth-seeking that governing university work wire that there be robust free speech not because people have some abstract autonomy based right to say whatever they want it's this is not some dogmatic doctrinaire libertarian argument no we believe in the importance for free speech both for the conduct of Republican democracy and for the truth-seeking enterprise of the university for the simple reason that without freedom of thought freedom of expression freedom of discussion you cannot seek the truth and you cannot run a democracy you can run other kinds of public orders you-you-you can have a despotism maybe it'll be a but maybe you'll be lucky it'll be a benign despotism what you cannot have is a democracy what you cannot have is what our founding fathers prefer to use the term Republican to de nominate Republic a republic now why is that the case well it's the case because both democracy Republican government and truth-seeking work why are the dialectical engagement of truth seekers and of citizens they both require that we seek the truth that we seek justice together knowing that in the nature of things these are difficult issues on which reasonable people of goodwill disagree and there's no hope at getting to the truth the matters if it matters if the interlocutors are dogmatists if they're not open to challenge open to correction open to changing the minds if they're not exhibiting those virtues that I indicated earlier and that Cornell indicated are at the heart of liberal arts education both what we're trying to practice and what we're trying to teach our students to practice as lifelong learners it just won't work now does that mean we're against protests no we say in the letter that the right to protest is sacrosanct because that's free speech too now that doesn't mean the right to shop down somebody so that that person can't be heard that doesn't mean the right to hold signs up so that the speaker's visit just blocked and you can't see him no that's not free speech but the right peacefully to protest that is SEC we're saying where would we be without that think of Kings protests and in Albany and in Birmingham in places like that but we also say this in the letter and let me commend it to you for reflection this evening matter might not agree with it but I ask you to think about it if you're protesting if that's your focus if you're out there chanting and going around with signs and so forth what you can't be doing at the same time is listening so if there's somebody with something worth saying you are going to miss that something and it will be especially a bad loss for you if what you miss is something that would have challenged your fundamental beliefs on this issue or that or in that domain or this that's what you need that speaker who is challenging you that speakers not your enemy that's your best friend if you value truth above opinion if you would rather get to the truth even if that means a you're complacent with that makes you somebody in your group that is part of the agreed-upon principles of this friendship or something like that but if you really are Socratic if you're a truth seeker that's your friend you regard that person as your friend who's challenging you John Stuart Mill whom Cornell and I have both admired and taught points out that there are really three possibilities when people disagree one is that I'm wrong and let's say Cornell's right I like that leave for the Maltese well in that case if by listening to his argument I moved from error to truth or nearer the truth he's conveyed he's given me the greatest benefit anybody could have if truth has the value that Socrates and that I and the brother Cornell think it has what a gift that is now there's no possibility I'm partially right and partially wrong and he's partially right and partially well well in that case I still want to listen not protest I still want to listen I still want to not just tolerate and hear I want to actually listen and engage so that I can move the part that I'm an error in over into the truth call him but then there's the third possibility I'm right and he's wrong now why should I tolerate his speech more than tolerate why should I listen to why should I engage him if I'm confident that I'm right about this mill has a very important point here and it's so often missed even if I am right I will benefit from deepening my appreciation of why I am right by listening to the arguments advanced by an intelligent well-informed well disposed person who doesn't see it the same way I do he might be able to move me from merely knowing that something is face to knowing or knowing more deeply why it is the case how it is the case what the larger deeper maybe even lasting significant significance of it being the cases I'm benefited even if we're in a conversation where he doesn't move me at all I remain confident that I'm right he's still deepened my understanding this dialogue of dialectical dialogical engagement has deepened me understand my understand so there's absolutely nothing to lose so then the question becomes well aren't there limits though aren't there limits to free speech well there are some limits obviously incitement is one of them incitement to violence is a is a limit and are there borderline cases absolutely we all know that there are borderline cases in our jurisprudential tradition and in the jurisprudential traditions of other nations that we regard as basically free nations where we're political freedom is respected the tendency is to err on the side of freedom but there are limits but incitement means something pretty immediate that is immediate risk created by this speaker that the mob is going to go out and attack the corn farmers that was the classic you know the kind of case so the corn farmers have the corn the mob is hungry I get up and I incite the mob to attack the corn farmers and they go out and they kill a couple of corn farmers that's that's incitement that's what our law understands is an incitement that's where a philosophical tradition you weren't ordinarily means by and some so yes there are limits but there's another limit that's important but more subtle you want high quality interlocutors there is no value in listening to a demagogue right there is no value in listening to a ranter or a shouter whether that person is on the right or on the left so in our statement Cornel and I pointed out that we should be prepared to engage and to engage respectfully anybody who's prepared to do business in the proper currency of intellectual discourse a currency consisting of Evan reasons and arguments if a person is prepared to do business in that currency we should be willing to engage even on issues where we're absolutely sure we're right even on issues that we think are terribly terribly terribly important even on issues when we think fundamental justice is at stake even where wish OU's we think life and death is at stake I need to listen to my colleague Cornell's former colleague professor Griffiths former colleague at at Princeton Peter Singer even when he defends a position on the morality of killing newborn infants infanticide not just abortion infanticide I need to listen to him and defend his right to advocate his view on our campus which I have done when the disability rights people have come to Princeton and chained themselves to the gates and demanded that Professor singer have his tenure revoked and be terminated at the University because professor singer is not a demagogue he's not a shouter and a hater I think he is profoundly wrong on the permissibility of killing newborn infants or severely cognitively disabled people or what have you and yet I have learned more from engaging with Peter listening to his arguments which are serious trying to figure out where the defect if there is a defect in those arguments where that defect is trying to formulate my own responses to his very probing questions I've learned more than I have from people on my own side than just talking with people on my own side his challenges have educated me as they educate our students now do I hope everyone will adopt his view no I thought my view don't kill babies but do I think he has a right and not just again an abstract right do I think he contributes something to the intellectual enterprise do I want him to be protested no I want him to be listened to here's the problem we tend to assume that people who disagree with us about fundamental matters about life-and-death matters about matters of existential importance matters of fundamental justice human rights they disagree with us they must be people they're not just wrong they're demonic we demonize and that means we close our minds and we lose and the educational process loses I hope here at Washington University you are confronted you students whether those of you who are progressives and those of you are conservatives and those of you who are in the middle and those of you who don't fit anywhere on the spectrum I hope you are confronted on a regular basis not just by visiting speakers but by members of your faculty representing a wide spectrum views if you're progressives I hope there are conservatives here will confront you if you are conservatives I'm guessing there are some progressives who will come front you but if you're not being confronted and being challenged even in your fundamental beliefs or your fear being allowed to be complacent Provost is sitting right up here you might want to ask him for your parents money back because you're not being educated not in the liberal arts ideal sense of Education that Washington you and Princeton and Harvard in these other places profess to be committed to the truth of the matter is and here's the profound difficult thing for all of us to believe because we're so invested in our own convictions we have wrapped our emotions so tight around our convictions the fact of the matter is on all the interesting issues certainly today reasonable people of goodwill can and do disagree there are arguments to be made on the competing sides and if we just define hater or bigot or bad guy or fool or ignoramus or elitist so broadly whether on the right of the Left we define those things so broadly that we exclude anybody who doesn't basically agree with us we have fallen into conformism groupthink we've given up on the Socratic enterprise we're wasting our time we're going through the motions of a liberal arts education yes we note and then we'll open it up for voices that we won't call in response but I think brother Robbie's point about quality is very important very important indeed that the Washington University for example you only got a set number of weeks each and every semester you have a semester system rather than quarter each and every semester but let's say somebody says well we want to bring in a right-wing brother sister fine bring in the most sophisticated right-wing thinker who has arguments that gonna push people you don't have three years to have quality mediocrity and then just downright dumbness you don't have time for them you want to be able to engage the most powerful perspective from the right same is true from the center same is true from the left so you have to be able to cultivate capacities for judgment to bring in the voices that will present the kind of arguments that will unsettle others and one does not in any way have to accept conclusions to learn something from someone in arguments when they disagree with you and take for example the curriculum itself we were talking about the debate here about whether conservatives are welcome I not you so just wait a minute conservatives are welcome are you reading Plato at Washington University you can't get more right wing than Plato we're not gonna ban Plato just because most of us would disagree with his conclusions it is his free play of mind the quality of the arguments to give and take that we engage in he's not gonna end up with democratic conclusions he's gonna end up with freedom conclusions a man was great wing in the most fundamental way Dostoevsky my god one of the finest of the finest of the finest shot through with anti Jewish hatred to find a Russian writer except Chekhov who's not shot through with anti-jewish hatred do we stop reading Dostoevsky we keep track of that evil and also see his free play of mine in Brothers Karamazov Crime and Punishment David Hume probably the finest English philosopher in the language that we speak white supremacist deep used by intellectuals to defend the Confederacy does that mean we lose sight of the free play of mind and David Hume because he's deeply white supremes I could go on and on and on our independence what does it say about our precious indigenous brothers and sisters savages savages savages shame on your brother Thomas Jefferson 200 and some years later in retrospect does that mean we can't learn anything from a slaveholder like Thomas Jefferson of course we can but we can stay in contact with the evil of what he said about our indigenous brothers and sisters let alone what he said in action with black people and always keep in mind what will they say about us 100 years from now where were they giving impending ecological catastrophe where were they giving impending nuclear catastrophe where were they giving grotesque levels of wealth inequality where were they when you're moved into the chocolate side of town and saw those decrepit schools and in decent housing and levels of unemployment and underemployment and on and on and on where were they what I do love about the younger generation at your breast is that Alesha on fire not numb you're not callous you're not indifferent Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say indifference two evils more insidious than evil itself becomes a whole way of life with all these defensive mechanisms that don't allow us to care the indifference is the one trait that makes the very Angels weak William James used to say at least if folk the young folk saying we're on fire but then the question will be that fire for protest which we affirm unequivocally but affirm in such a way that it doesn't violate other people's not just right but their voice I come from a people that said lift every voice James Weldon James Weldon Johnson Raza Vaughn Johnson she doesn't just the the tradition of people in America enslave Jim Crow Jenko terrorize dip stigmatized traumatized and yet the end is what left your voice that's for everybody to lift their voice and like a fingerprint there's only one voice in one fingerprint each one of us yet but we must be accountable we must be answerable and and right now we all need to be accountable and answerable in this dialogue let me add just one thing - what Cornel say there is it's so important it's important that no one think that in a hundred years people are gonna look back and condemn the stuff I or you think should be condemned already if you think it's gonna collage achill disaster and so forth and so on we have to be open to stuff we believe passionately maybe even believe justice requires what if in a hundred years it's the failure to defend the child in the womb that they look back on and say how could that barbarity have been permitted we don't know the conservative movement has been wrong about some important exotic conservative but I need to acknowledge and recognize Barry Goldwater led the conservative movement against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 it wasn't a racist Goldwater had integrated his own family department store before anybody else did but he was badly mistaken reading the Constitution in far too narrow and crabbed a manner to exclude that kind of legislation to protect basic civil rights the progressive movement has been wrong too equally profoundly wrong in the 1920s and 30s before Hitler gave eugenics a bad name who embraced it hook line and sinker the progressive movement fell for it oh yes progressive movement in its major foundations and its educational institutions we start at Princeton Princeton was in the thick of it the mainline churches nominations all went for they look back now and say how could we have done it or they look back now and say well it wasn't us but look at the some wonderful books on this subject Christine rose and preaching eugenics about the way that the liberal mainline churches went for eugenics Tim Leonard our colleague at Princeton has a wonderful book on the way the progressive movement in general went for eugenics now that doesn't mean we have to constantly beat our breasts if we're progressives were queer concerns about the past wrongs know you know acknowledge it don't try to hide it don't sweep it under the rug but move forward but let it be a reminder that we might be wrong about the stuff we deeply believe in and even the stuff we think justice requires but let's just not be dog because that's a final word to the conservative there are any conservative students there my fellow concern I want to say a word to you and that is it's very important even if you feel challenged even if you're in a minority even if you feel there are double standards it's very important that you not think of yourselves as victims do not adopt that mentality rather simply assert your right to engage your fellow students and your teachers on fair terms of debate where business is done in that currency that I indicated evidence reasons and arguments be willing to defend your position with reason not just your right to hold the position be prepared to defend it be prepared to answer a challenge if a progressive says but how can you believe this well you should have an answer if you believe it you should have an answer to that and if there is an imbalance mr. Provost and other university leaders it really isn't the conservative students who are getting the short end of the stick because if there is that imbalance if there is unfairness to conservatives that's bad and should be fixed but that's not depriving them of an education because they are being challenged every day and that's good that's how education happens the people getting the short end of the stick are the progressive students who are being allowed to rest comfortably complacently in the convictions that we got it all worked out we're on the right side of history we got all this right nobody's challenging if you're not challenging them you're not educating

Channel: The Veritas Forum

Views: 8,396

Keywords: veritas forum

Id: I-yZp2Vn1go

Length: 73min 21sec (4401 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019