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Though Franciscan University is known for its theological emphasis, I was pleased to find alumni and affiliates of the University with various backgrounds contributing ideas to the Concourse. Of particular interest to me were Michael Welker's article, "God and Caesar" and Julio Demasi's follow up piece, "Keeping Caesar under God." I found Welker's article most refreshing in a country where academia seems to be dominated by Keynesian economics. While I have not read David Schindler's journal Communio, I have read Michael Novak's book, The Catholic Ethic in the Spirit of Capitalism, which I admire greatly. As for Demasi's ideas on economics, I must take issue with his apparent sense of a dichotomy between economic freedom and Christian morality. An understanding of what works economically should start with the study of man. Pope John Paul II's use of the personalist norm is the best framework for understanding how morality proceeds. In his book Love and Responsibility, he writes of the "incommunicability" and "unsubstitutability" of the person as the foundation for all human relations: "No one can substitute his act of will for mine. It does sometimes happen that someone very much wants me to want what he wants. This is the moment when the impassable frontier between him and me, which is drawn by free will, becomes most obvious. I may not want that which he wants me to want--and in this precisely I am incommunicabilis. I am, and I must be, independent in my actions. All human relationships are posited on this fact. All true conceptions about education and culture begin from and return to this point." It seems to me that an environment that would most respect the nature of man, a person's inner self, and the power of self-determination and free will is one that ensures his liberty. The only economic system offering such freedom to man is laissez-faire capitalism. In his article, Demasi does not offer an alternative to capitalism; but he seems to hint that, whatever his ideal economic system might be, it would include certain controls, or "limits of social obligations." My question is, who decides what my social obligations are? More importantly, who decides how my social obligations will be enforced? In practice, the answer is always: "the State." And the consequence of governments setting the "limits of social obligations" is the unfortunate state of affairs in which we find ourselves today, where observance of and conformity to legal regulations forms a counterfeit to an authentic, internalized system of values. Welker's quote from Centesimus Annus, "It would appear that on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs...But there are many human needs which find no place on the market," indicates that capitalism is a means toward another and higher end, and is not the end in itself. In this sense, I agree with Demasi that meeting all human needs is not the role of the free market. The free market is simply the vehicle that ensures that our liberty will be protected. Given that liberty, the more fundamental questions of how to order our lives, what values to seek, and which virtues to practice take on greater significance. Indeed, liberty is the only context within which these questions of the higher order can be addressed. Welker offered a definition of capitalism; I can understand his feeling a need to do so. I find that most people have a very confused, if not completely wrong, idea of what capitalism is. Perhaps this is because pure capitalism has not existed in this country, especially since the turn of the century, but continues to be blamed for the consequences of a mixed economy, i.e. welfare statism (both corporate and social welfare) that does not allow the "invisible hand," as Adam Smith describes it, to operate the market justly. Despite good intentions, proponents of the welfare-state, managed-economy way of life have ended up bringing about results opposite to what they intended. As a part of his definition, Welker states that capitalism is an economic system that protects the right of private ownership. It is also the one economic system that allows man to enter into trade by mutual consent only. The importance of such mutual consent cannot be overemphasized, since it protects the individual from harmful "use" by another. Again, the Pope states: "When two different people consciously choose a common aim this puts them on a footing of equality, and precludes the possibility that one of them might be subordinated to the other. Both...are as it were in the same measure and to the same extent subordinated to that good which constitutes their common end." Having said all this regarding capitalism, I understand that sin will still occur within individuals of the system; but that was the risk that God was willing to take in creating man with a free nature and equipping him with the faculty of reason. The impossibility of legislating morality and the higher virtues means that government regulations of social relations result in conformity at best, while morality and virtue call for something much deeper, and can only result from conversion, not coercion. Because the role of government is to insure justice--not to instill virtue--in society, whether a person is reasonable, bigoted, saintly, or a sinner is not of prime importance in a political sense. These things are, of course, important to me as a believer, and indeed, in the light of faith they are eternally important. But salvation is precisely something which cannot be achieved by enforced conformity.
Martha L. Blandford, Class of '89
In reply to Mark Fischer's defense of the present core curriculum
I was glad to see that Mark Fischer agrees with one of the main core curriculum reforms that I and others have proposed. We have proposed to limit the core to fundamental human knowledge and to eliminate all that is specialized. He says he agrees with this reform, and his agreement is significant: precisely because he has so much to say in behalf of the existing core, it is significant that he favors this reform of it that I have advocated. Mark Fischer disagrees with a core consisting entirely of "great books"; but in this he does not disagree with me, for I have never proposed such a core. And yet we are not in complete agreement. He claims that students in the professional programs do not really need any acquaintance with Homer or Shakespeare, or even with St. Augustine or St. Thomas. He goes so far as to say that "the great philosophical and theological questions of western civilization" should be optional for them. Some of the courses that he thinks appropriate for the core of these students are not even liberal arts courses in any sense of the term, courses such as sacraments, or accounting. It seems to me that these ideas of his, once put into practice, would go far towards deconstructing any kind of coherent core; they would undermine even such unity as we have in our existing core. Notice how Mark Fischer works with caricature in ruling out of the core curriculum "the great philosophical and theological questions." He implies that the question of the difference between Thomism and phenomenology is one of these questions. This is of course a fine point of philosophy that is hardly a necessary part of anyone's general education. What he obscures with this rhetorical trick is that among "the great philosophical and theological questions" are the questions of the existence of God, the nature of the soul, the embodiment of the human person, freedom and responsibility. He does a serious injustice to the students in the professional programs when he says in effect that these questions are beyond them, or are of no possible interest to them, and should only be electives for them. He thus condescends to the professional students in a way that reminds me of those who speak as if certain minorities are not capable of living up to the moral code that the rest of us practice. Mark Fischer fails to take our professional students seriously as intellectually awakened human beings. If there is anywhere within the domain of human knowledge a knowledge that can be called fundamental, surely it is the knowledge at which these questions aim. If there is anywhere a knowledge that all educated human beings should have, surely it is just such knowledge. It is incomprehensible to me that anyone should think that a core curriculum in a Catholic liberal arts college can dispense with "the great philosophical and theological questions of western civilization." I doubt that there is a single member of our faculty who agrees with him on this. I think that Mr. Fischer also overlooks the importance of some modest knowledge of a few classic works of western civilization. It is hard to see how a person can be considered liberally educated if he or she has never read a dialogue of Plato or the Confessions of St. Augustine or a tragedy of Shakespeare. These are minds of an incomparable stature and profundity; there is simply no educational substitute for encountering them through their own words. Furthermore, we can never get to know the western Christian tradition that we inherit if we avoid all direct contact with the greatest minds of that tradition. Without some reading of their works our students will display that historical obliviousness which is the mark of a half-educated mind. We will certainly do our students--our professional students no less than our humanities students--a favor if we can reorganize the core so that they are sure to study at least a few of the greatest classics of western civilization. Mark Fischer thinks that it is a sign of a liberally educated student to "spend free time reading encyclicals and the new catechism" and to "form bible studies." This gives me the opportunity to make a point--I do not say that Mark Fischer disagrees--that seems to me of particular importance in our Steubenville discussions on the curriculum. Some think that receiving a liberal education means being thoroughly catechized in the faith. They think that if they are well formed in some professional major program and well catechized in their theology courses, they have received everything a liberal arts education could possibly be. In reality their liberal arts education may have slipped right between the cracks. There is no guarantee that, knowing the catechism and knowing their major, they will have that "vision of the whole" which, according to Newman, distinguishes such education. The imparting of a liberal arts formation of mind is a task of its own, above and beyond catechesis and professional programs. The true sign of it will be not just reading encyclicals, but knowing how to interpret them with balance and with a sense of proportion that expresses an awareness of the whole of truth. Mark Fischer says he speaks for "several" others in pleading for our existing core curriculum. I do not think that he speaks for many; all of the students and alumni who have declared a position in the Concourse or in the Troubadour on the core curriculum--with the one exception of Mark Fischer himself--have agreed that the University can do better by its students in the core, that we need to unify the core in various ways. I have also received some letters from students that were not published. The following is taken from a letter written to me last spring by a student who has since graduated with a major in political science. "A lack of a common core curriculum lies at the crux of the frustration with my own academic life. I am convinced that I would have extracted much more out of my earlier courses if I had an understanding that each course contributes to an overall picture... I do not stand alone in this regard. In my two years as a university Resident Assistant...I have seen that same void in many, many other students."
Dr. John F. Crosby, Professor and Chair of Franciscan University's Philosophy Department
Enclosed is the renewal of our subscription to the University Concourse. Thanks for your commitment to seeking truth through lively Christian discourse. It is refreshing to know that people can discuss passionately while remaining reverent toward the person with the opposing view. When you know that intelligent, opposing views are on their way to converging on the one truth, it makes the debate so much more exciting!
Daniel Ellis, Class of '88
In the May 7 issue of the Concourse, Nicholas J. Healy, Jr. pointed out that there is a sharp discrepancy between the inward beliefs and outward manners of our student body, and he eloquently urged us to establish an authentically Christian culture on our campus. I would like to add an historical perspective to his argument. One might well ask what history has to do with God and grunge at Franciscan University. The answer is, I think, translucent in its simplicity. History is a cultural tradition enduring and progressing through time. When an ancient Roman acted, Ortega y Gasset once wrote, he clothed himself, not only in the virtues, but in the garb of his ancestors. The so-called grunge-culture, on the other hand, represents a radical break with tradition, a severing of our roots. Throughout the successive phases of the development of medieval culture, we can see a continuing historical movement towards a realization, however imperfect, of the ideal of St. Augustine's City of God. The medieval world sacramentalized culture. As Christopher Dawson has pointed out, in the Middle Ages the Catholic religion and European culture were in a state of communion. Religion found its expression in every aspect of medieval culture, not only in its institutions and literature and philosophy, but also in its architecture and art and dress and music, in its manners and moral teachings. All these modes of expression--whether The Divine Comedy of Dante, the Gothic cathedral at Chartres, the Gregorian chant, the habits of the religious orders, the holy chivalry of St. Francis of Assisi, or the intellectual synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas--taught the same lesson and expressed the same truth. This multi-media evangelization was nothing else than the source of a dynamic religious and cultural unity in the High Middle Ages. G. K. Chesterton, Eric Voegelin and Christopher Dawson all point to a gnostic spirit of revolution as a major contributing factor in the break-up of the medieval unity. This revolutionary ethos produces a desacralized culture. It results in a dualism and a hostility between religion and culture that precludes any possibility of cooperation and collaboration between them. Gnosticism finds its expression in every aspect of revolutionary culture, in its institutions, its literature and philosophy, its architecture, art, music and dress, as well as in its manners and moral teachings. All these modes of expression--whether influenced by the thought of Voltaire, Robespierre, Marx, Stalin, Nietzsche, Hitler, Freud or Timothy Leary--teach a large number of widely varying doctrines, yet they express the same deep rooted error--philosophical and religious pessimism; that is, a belief in the essential evil of this present existence. The theme is always the same; destruction of the old world and passage to the new. This is the source of the great religious and cultural fragmentation of the revolutionary age. This is why we find ourselves living in the era of the collective split personality, a phenomenon which is analogous to what T.S. Eliot called the dissociation of sensibilities. While our religion may be Catholic, our culture is gnostic. We believe in the truths of the Faith, but our young wear the uniform of the revolution, all unknowing. We accept the teachings of the Magisterium, yet, embarrassingly, our dress and manners and music are those of the cultural revolution of the sixties, which was nothing other than the latest phase of the larger revolution. A restoration of standards in dress and manners is thinkable only in terms of a general restoration of the union of religion and culture. It must become fashionable to love the good, the true and the beautiful. Mr. Healy's insight penetrates to the heart of the matter when he reminds us that the Holy Father has urged us to form a civilization of love. And what better place could there be to begin taking seriously the wild possibility of such a thing, with the help of grace transforming nature, in total abandonment to divine providence, than the Franciscan University of Steubenville?
Richard Fougerousse
To the esteemed editors of the University Concourse: How utterly flabbergasted I was to discover, upon reading through all those bracing and beguiling pages of your final blockbuster edition, that I'd been selected to receive the first annual Concourse Grand Prize!!! It quite unhinged me. Oh, what delicious shock waves it sent straight through to my head! And, yes, descending below to a few less sublime appetites as well. (Man may not live by bread alone, but, clearly, he cannot live without it.) But, oh, how droolingly delightful the prospect of dinner for two in Pittsburgh! Really, I cannot thank you enough. And not just for the honor of being chosen, mind you--which honor I treasure more than I quite know how to say. (Although, it perhaps raises some doubt about the soundness of your judgment. Were there really no specimens more congruent with the aims of your exacting journal than my miserable couple hundred words?) Because the real distinction here is not so much the one you confer, however pleased I am to receive it, but the enterprise itself which you publish, whose standard of excellence and enjoyment genuinely endears it to so many of us intent on serious and civil conversation about things that matter. Again, thank you all so much for the prize, which Roseanne and I so look forward to sharing (you may be sure that we'll be toasting your wonderful generosity between courses of the most copious and sumptuous grub at the Grand Concourse Restaurant). But, above all, thanks for the Concourse itself, which has helped to elevate the level of discourse in Steubenville. God bless you all.
Regis Martin, Associate Professor of Theology editors note: The editors were happy to have imparted such distinct pleasure to our deserving Grand Prize recipient, though they were sorry to hear they had been party to the unhinging of so great a mind as Dr. Martin's! Still, the lucidity and cogency of his thank-you note happily persuade us that the unfortunate phenomenon was a temporary one. We therefore hope no one will be dissuaded from competing with him for this year's prize.
© The University Concourse, September 18, 1996 |
