The Article Archives
Topic: Truth in Culture Weekly Commentaries
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Higher Education: Excellence without a Soul
September 11, 2006
S. Michael Craven
 
Another school year has begun and an
estimated 15 million young men and women will be pursuing studies at the
college and university levels. However, this may not be as beneficial as we
have historically believed higher education to be.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems
rather to make man a more clever devil.” This point was echoed in a recent Dallas Morning News article under the
apt heading, All Brains, no Soul. The
author, Thomas Hibbs is a philosopher and dean of the Honors College at Baylor University.
Hibbs begins by quoting
Plato’s Apology in which Plato, quoting
Socrates’ defense of himself at trial, says:
“You are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest
reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to
possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not
care nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your
soul?”
Hibbs makes the
point that we Americans, are becoming like the Athenians that Socrates is
addressing, especially when it comes to the object and aim of higher education
today.
Few today attend
university for the purpose of “gaining wisdom” or giving care to the state of
their soul. Instead, the emphasis is upon obtaining a degree which, it is
believed, will insure material success. In fact, the whole emphasis of higher
education today seems to be of only an instrumental nature; a means to an end
and not an end in itself.
W.E.B. DuBois, the
most prominent intellectual leader and political activist on behalf of African
Americans in the first half of the twentieth century writing on the goal of
higher education said, “The final product of our training must neither be a
psychologist nor a brickmason, but a man. And to make men, we must have ideals,
broad, pure and inspiring ends of living, –
not sordid money getting, not apples of gold.” Lewis referred to this as
“making men without chests!”
William H. Willimon,
former professor and dean at
, shares his
observations at Duke’s school of business:
“For several years, students…were asked to write a personal strategic
plan for the ten-year period after their graduation….With few exceptions, they
wanted three things – money, power, and things….Primarily concerned with their
careers and the growth of their financial portfolios, their personal plans
contained little room for family, intellectual development, spiritual growth,
or social responsibility.” (The Abandoned
Generation: Rethinking Higher Education, 1995)
By exchanging the
nobler virtues for consumerist ends, Hibbs points out that the American
university has become a setting for debauchery and hedonism virtually
unparalleled. A recent Rolling Stone magazine
article
following the Duke Lacrosse team scandal offers chilling insight into the
depraved culture prevalent on university campuses today. (I warn you that the
article is quite graphic.)
Rolling Stone reports that “Sex at Duke is a sport
most students participate in, on some level or another.” Adding that, “The
vagaries of sex on campus have created a specific ‘hookup culture’ at Duke, …As
one male student describes it, it ‘exists in a whirlwind of drunkenness and
horniness that lacks definition - which is what everyone likes about it
[because] it's just an environment of craziness and you don't have to worry
about it until the next morning.’”
The article also goes on to describe an emerging attitude
among young women in which they view and enthusiastically embrace this sexual anarchy
as a form of “liberation” where they are able to subjugate themselves to all manner
of sexual debauchery in the name of unencumbered choice. There is no romance,
no emotion just pure animalistic behavior. One young woman even recognizes the
condition when she says, ''Girls reduce themselves a lot here in order to be
able to have the sexual freedom that I think they don't have by doing
that,'' but, she indicates little or no inclination to counter this pressure.
Another female undergrad points out, “I've never been asked
out on a date in my entire life -- not once,” says one stunning brunette. Nor
has a guy ever bought her a drink, according to the author. “I think that if
anybody ever did that, I would ask him if he were on drugs.” Rather, the
article’s author adds, “there's the casual one-night stand, usually bolstered
by heavy drinking and followed the next morning by -- well, nothing, usually.”
The culture presented, in which students, obsessed with
style, acceptance and pleasure, comes eerily close to the Athenians described
by Socrates. Students are still driven to exceed academically but only for the
purpose of achieving their material ends. However, in the absence of real
wisdom and higher virtues what we are left with are increasing generations of
morally inferior and intellectually vacuous men and women incapable of true
greatness.
In Hibbs article he cites numerous examples where this
culture is not exclusive to
but in fact
typical of most universities - a fact often unknown to naive parents and
seemingly ignored by school administrators.
I am not suggesting that these students experience some
radical transformation of values upon stepping onto the college campus. These
values are generally already present or the moral convictions which enable them
to withstand the moral decadence confronting them are simply not there. College
only provides the opportunity where such students can express their personal
virtue or lack thereof, in the absence of parental supervision.
Parents must adequately prepare their children to
enter such a hostile moral environment and promote the true object of
education: the cultivation of wisdom and virtue that honors God, to learn what
it means to be human and to open our hearts and minds to the best that has been
written and imagined. This was the purpose of a classical liberal education and
it still offers a foundation from which we may recover a right knowledge of the
true, the good, and the beautiful.
© S. Michael Craven 2006
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Responses
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Response from : MC |
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September 11, 2006 9:11 AM
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I'm glad you've pointed about the moral life within the boundaries of "higher education", but you've only given a few sentences as to how to alter the present situation.
Parents do have a large part in guiding their children, but what about the school administraiton's role? Or even society?
If the youth don't have any role models who possess wisdom and have moral standards, what can you expect of them?
The world is after "money, power and things"; hence, most of young people will copy what they see and do the same.
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Response from : Michael Craven |
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September 11, 2006 9:42 AM
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Dear MC,
Your are correct in pointing out the responsibility of school administrators. However, here again parents can play a vital role; parents pay the bill and as such it is parents who should be pressing school administrators to respond to this crisis. Also, parents need to be asking these questions before they enroll their children and NOT simply choose an institution because of the perceived status or prestige that a degree from said institution is believed to confer. Again, the purpose should be education for education's sake and not simply a means to an end. The inculcation of this idea, I would argue, begins when our children start First Grade. If this were our approach to education, we would probably better balance academic performance with character development and the cultivation of wisdom.
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Response from : John |
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September 11, 2006 9:50 AM
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It is always a treat when I can say amen! to your articles. Our culture’s consumer mentality, demand for constant entertainment, lack of ethics and general disregard for critical thinking has led to a country that I am less and less proud of. Of course, I am certainly guilty of buying things I don’t need, wasting precious time in myriad attempts to entertain and distract from reality, unethical choices and a lifetime of intellectual inactivity! I AM the America that I am disgusted with! But I am attempting to change my thinking and behavior and all your articles on this subject are appreciated. Thanks-
your friendly neighborhood atheist
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Response from : Roy |
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September 11, 2006 1:14 PM
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Sad, but true. We need parents of college students to continue their parenting to save their grow children. We need these same parents to mentor other parents in their chruches. We need to be available grandparents to children. By being a servant, with Gods help we can make a difference.
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Response from : CM |
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September 11, 2006 10:42 PM
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Thanks again for shedding the light on this deplorable state of (academic) affairs!
Where on earth does one get a true classical liberal education nowadays? (I mean both for young people leaving school as well as adults).
Thanks again.
God bless!
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Response from : mark overton |
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September 12, 2006 12:56 AM
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Michael,
I met you at College Avenue Baptist Church (CABC) when you spoke to our Sunday school group, Common Ground.
Unfortunately, the problem with today's universities isn't limited to secular institutions. I am just as concerned about the status of many Christian colleges. All one needs to do is look at the falling away from the Bible as God's infallible Word, the teaching of Evolution, and the conduct of students on and off campus. One Christian college in the Southern California was listed several years ago as being in the top five medium private colleges for students with eating disorders.
One can review a Christian school's charter and then compare it to the curriculum being presented. Even James Dobson blasted Christian universities for failing to provide solid moral guidance in the area of relationships and marriage. I am uncertain what can be done to stop the slide especially when Christian institutions are falling into the secular traps.
Mark Overton
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Response from : Michael Craven |
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September 12, 2006 6:58 AM
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Dear Mark,
Thank you for taking the time to contribute to the discourse. Your insights are indeed correct. I am probably even more concerned about these so-called Christian universities because fewer and fewer Christians possess the discernment to recognize where and how they have compromised. I think one possible solution resides in the recovery of a classical education beginning in the early years long before entering college so that we may once again train our children from a Christo-centric world view. I would argue that it is very difficult to counter the secular influence when the Church is educating its own children in the very same secular world view. Say hello to the folks at College Avenue; I hope to come back again. Thanks again.
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Response from : Cor |
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September 12, 2006 10:32 PM
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Michael,
You talk about the recovery of a classical education. Are you aware of any universities / colleges that offer this sort of education? What about some of the good Bible schools / seminaries?
Appreciate your feedback.
Thanks,
Cor
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Response from : Michael Craven |
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September 13, 2006 8:08 AM
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There are dozens if not hundreds of colleges and universities offering classical liberal arts curriculum. Classical liberal arts education being defined as follows:
College or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum.
In Classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin: liber, "free") as opposed to a slave. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, and logic (the trivium) and geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium).
In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.
Here are several truly "Classical" programs, also known as offering the "Great Books" program: 1. St. John's College (two campuses, one in MD and one in NM); 2. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA; and, 3. The Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, in La Mirada, CA.
In addition, there are still a great number of good liberal arts schools if parents are willing to think beyond the purely utilitarian approach to education. I agree with George Will who said, "The term 'liberal arts' connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal education is intensely useful"
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Response from : Erika |
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September 13, 2006 10:02 AM
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I do pray that pastors here in the US will begin to be conficted by the Holy Spirit and preach sermons like this.
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Response from : Trudi |
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September 14, 2006 12:12 AM
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We as parents don't realize how much Satan wants our children. WE need to be continuously on our knees before the Lord. Thank you for continued awareness of what goes on in our world!
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Response from : Brian Jonson |
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September 15, 2006 6:09 AM
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That was an outstanding article! Thank you. Well done!
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Response from : Martijn Groen |
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September 15, 2006 5:07 PM
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A sad but very truthful article.
Michael’s references to classical education are inspiring.
As a student second time while working full time with a family I do wonder about the costs of education.
Unfortunately I think vocation and study are often rationalized by economics. Most people would like to see a return on their time and money invested – honestly I hate some of the workings of this aspect. Personally I look forward to completing my studies in the next 12 months so I have more time with my family and more time reading the word of God amongst other activities. I have never put study before family and for my greater sanity have dropped a paper during a semester to continue with it at a later date when it became too much.
I perhaps like many other people would love to undertake other studies but as said in economics there is a “opportunity cost”.
Perhaps the problem examined in this article really is an absence of God in our culture.
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Response from : Aaron Gray |
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September 15, 2006 9:03 PM
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I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It presented the truth that many seem to forget. So many think that education is the answer to the future. I believe education is necessary, however, education without salvation is still damnation. We must place a greater premium on our relationship with Christ.
Minister AG
http://360.yahoo.com/agsdevotions
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