Liberal Education and Free Society

As Irving Babbitt writes in Literature and the American College, “The spread of this scientific positivism, with its assimilation of man to nature, has had especially striking results in education. Some of our higher institutions of learning are in a fair way to become what a certain eminent scholar thought universities should be, — great scientific workshops.” This sentiment has grown into a solidifying reality since Babbitt wrote these concerning words in 1908. The need for truly liberal and humanities-centric education is greater than ever before. The trend toward a mechanistic and utilitarian view of college education risks not only a failing of the high promise of education, but it also induces an amnesia of what a free society is, what it rests upon, and why it should be preserved.

Liberal education must be tempered by selection. This selection should resist the Rousseauian emphasis on each distinct individual as the best judge of what constitutes a well-rounded education for themselves. A selectiveness must be present in the designing of degree programs which will aim toward a “law of measure,” and avoid extremes of specialization. If a liberal education may be characterized by broad learning that instills values, virtues, and an understanding of the high importance of human freedom, then this is essential to the continuance of a free society. This freedom, however, should be wisely grounded by the balancing effect of humanism. Humanism—properly understood—is the striving for a balanced view of nature and humanity without demeaning humanity into a mechanism of nature. Humanism asserts the wise distinction of mankind as something that cannot be categorized by the naturalist in the same way as a rock, tree, dog, or ocean. There is indeed something “higher” in human nature than that of the rest of the natural world. This acknowledgement of the distinct value of man is essential to a liberal education, and to the continuity of a free society. If man is regarded as a mechanism within a utilitarian worldview, then the future of freedom indeed looks bleak.

Liberal education strives for learning with a higher purpose and a deeper impact. It refuses the absurdity of “hyper-specialization” often exhibited in many doctorate programs offered today. It is high time for academia to reassert the value of training scholarly “generalists” through broad, well-balanced, yet selective Doctoral programs. For the future leaders of academia to possess a broader understanding of various subject matter will undoubtedly lead to a well-equipped higher education “marshallate,” able to promote the virtues of a free society more ably. Likewise, civic engagement flows naturally from liberal education. It flows from a stream of education which helps develop conscientious students who are knowledgeable of their government, as well as their own role in promoting and maintaining the values of a republic. This conscientious education should help to belay the tide of educated “peacocks,” strutting their illusory superiority of mind. Therefore, liberal education should promote deep humility and the awareness of need beyond one’s own nose.

A free society need not be maintained through a Rousseauian general will—an impossible dream—rather it can be maintained through an authentically educated citizenry which values more than mere utilitarian ideals. A citizenry which thinks in a humanistic way is one which values their fellow man for reasons other than their ability to produce capital. The United States appears to be slipping down a STEM worshipping, mechanistic, simple-minded slope that will pile up bodies of ill-informed, thoroughly propagated, and avaricious countrymen. This need not be so. Liberal education is the key to a virtuous leadership class within this country. Indeed, the “philosopher king” vision of Socrates can be realized—not literally—within the future leaders of America. Away with the predictably narrow Juris Doctor as the trademark degree of most U.S. Presidents, let the Doctor of Philosophy prove its worth in the leadership of a free republic.

If liberal education stresses thorough reading and assimilation of the great ideas of history, literature, philosophy, and religion, then it will produce deeper thinkers than an education which stresses originality as the pinnacle of scholarly achievement. This German tradition of originality as the mark of a mature scholar is somewhat naïve and misleading, however, it has a strong root within American higher education. It takes a degree of humility for an aspiring scholar to put aside their original contributions for awhile and sit at the feet of the ancients. This is no blind prostration before the great thinkers of the past, but rather a thoughtful, appreciative, and critical mastery of the ideas which have shaped our world—for better or worse—into what it is today.

Furthermore, liberal education must allow for a refreshing time of leisure which curbs the incessant howling of our capital driven, utilitarian leaning society. This is not leisure for the purpose of slothfulness, but for the purpose of contemplation. The English philosopher, Bernard Bosanquet, states it well:

Leisure — the word from which our word ‘school’ is derived — was for the Greek the expression of the highest moments of the mind. It was not labor; far less was it recreation. It was that employment of the mind in which by great thoughts, by art and poetry which lift us above ourselves, by the highest exertion of the intelligence, as we should add, by religion, we obtain occasionally a sense of something that cannot be taken from us, a real oneness and center in the universe ; and which makes us feel that whatever happens to the present form of our little ephemeral personality, life is yet worth living because it has a real and sensible contact with something of eternal value.

This employment of the mind is difficult to achieve if there is no time to ‘meditate’ on the universal questions, ideas, longings, and beauties of life. Liberal education can and must stress the importance of meaning over margins, character over capital, and depth over dollars. Certainly, a good quality liberal education can lead to excellence in the fields of business, marketing etc., however, this should not be the goal of education. The exultation of mechanical efficiency of the human as a type of instrument within our society must be challenged with a return to the cultivation of the human being. The nobility of hard work is unquestionably true, yet as Plato points out in his dialogue The Statesman, when strenuousness becomes excessive it “may at first bloom and strengthen, but at last bursts forth into downright madness.”

Many societies are prosperous, but not all are free. China is a brilliant example of prosperity and adaptability from the madness of Mao to the temperance and open-mindedness of the 1990’s. China has noteworthy examples to emulate in their provision for the elderly and their protection of family values from much immoral madness infecting Western culture today; however, they are not a truly free society. Higher education in the United States must ensure that the ideals of a free society are preserved yet guard against the licentious extremes of liberty found in our modern Rousseauian republic. Overall, it must be stressed that without understanding why a free society matters, it will be impossible to preserve it. Liberal education has the privilege of recapturing the beauty of human freedom under a system of laws designed to allow people to flourish within the bounds of common sense and morality. This privilege of liberal education is one which all aspiring teachers have the opportunity to engage in and benefit their students as well as society at large.

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