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The closing of a volume of the Concourse is always a happy/sad event. On the one hand, there is the satisfaction of having finished the job--of having provided another yearful of discourse to deserving readers. And on the other hand, there is the frustration of having to leave great discussions dangling--the sense of having to cease when we had only just begun. Our conversations could have gotten deeper, and there could have been so many more of them... Thank goodness there is next year! At the end of Volume III we inaugurated the annual Editor's Post Script section, to get in some (temporary) last words on a few of our discussions, and to stimulate ideas for future articles. Please do think of writing something for us over the summer! We aim to publish more frequently next year, and our best chance of succeeding is in starting the year with plenty of good material. So far no one among us has taken on Joseph Sobran's argument that the Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford is the real author of Shakespeare's works. The theory is everywhere gaining credence, and Sobran continues to amass amazingly persuasive evidence in support of it. I would so enjoy hearing what certified Shakespeare devotees in our midst have to say on this question. Might Mr. Englert be persuaded to weigh in with his view? Anyone else? In case, Alias Shakespeare makes great summer reading. Of private and collegiate morality I think the dilemma posed by Joanna Bratten in the last issue of the Concourse would go away if she framed it differently. In truth, there is no conflict between a Catholic university's call to foster the moral well-being of its students and the students' right to privacy. On the contrary, schools who do least to "interfere with students' private lives," do most to ensure that their students have no protection whatsoever against the aggressions of the shameless. Only think of dorm-room date-rape. And I don't know how many times I've heard stories of girls who were forced to flee their rooms night after night because the roommate's boyfriend was sleeping over, again. Then there are the notorious co-ed bathrooms at some secular colleges. A guy I know once told me a story of his first day on campus. He was standing at a urinal--using the urinal--when a young women came up to him and began a friendly conversation: "So, where are you from?" These examples go to show how wrong-headed it is to imagine that fewer rules means more privacy on college campus. It would be much easier to make a case for exactly the opposite. I think the difficulty comes in with assuming that when the college makes rules regarding morality it is necessarily doing so in loco parentis. I agree with Ms. Bratten that university officials should not pose as parents. They have vis-a-vis their students nothing like the rights or duties parents have to oversee the well-being of their children. But it does not follow from this that they have no moral authority at all, nor that any regulations beyond those against property damage must aim at controlling the private lives of their students. Every university should consider itself obliged to foster an atmosphere that is conducive to intellectual pursuits. That implies insisting on such things as decency, order and spaces of silence. Every Catholic university is further obliged to foster an atmosphere of lively faith, in which the religious life of the mind can best flourish. That implies honoring God, offering the sacraments, encouraging prayer and providing protections against evil influences. The leader of a school like ours does well to say to its students, "Your soul is in your own hands, but this campus is in mine. And as for me and my university, we will serve the Lord." Of course, what this means practically, rule by rule, is question of prudence. Personally, I'm against permission slips, but for closed dorms. (I mean single-sex dorms wherein in opposite sex friends may visit only during designated open-hours--like we find at FUS.) But it would be good to hash it our further next year. Ben Brown is right when he points out that a liberal education is neither sufficient nor necessary for salvation. But I doubt anyone here would disagree with him on that score. He also may well be right to caution us against a certain instrumentalization of knowledge--as if intellectual cultivation was worthwhile only insofar as it improved our moral or religious condition, or enhanced our professional skills. It is good to keep pressing the point that it is something valuable-in-itself. But, still, I agree with those who think he goes too far when he so decisively separates the intellect and the will. And we should keep context in mind. Newman was writing in a social climate that absurdly exaggerated the value of a liberal education--treating it as if it could replace religion in reforming society and bringing about the happiness of mankind. Therefore he was right to stress the limits of knowledge as such. Susan Fischer was writing in a social climate that underrates liberal education--treating it as worthless or dispensible because it isn't "practical." Therefore it was right for her to stress its high value. When Newman speaks of "liberal Knowledge" "considered in itself" he was expressly isolating it from a religion. Susan Fischer was explicitly speaking of liberal education within a "milieu" of faith; she was contrasting it with a merely technical training, which can result in narrowness and bigotry even among religious persons. Other Newman quotes show how far he was from denying the ultimately religious aim of education in a wider sense. When he became a tutor at Oxford, "he told his sister Harriet that he saw the tutorship as a spiritual undertaking and not 'merely a secular office'." (Ker's biography, p.27) Later, in the Tamworth Reading Room letters, he wrote, "Christianity, and nothing short of it, must be made the element and principle of all education. Where it has been laid as the first stone, and acknowledged as the governing spirit, it will take up into itself, assimilate, and give a character to literature and science. Where Revealed Truth has given the aim and direction to Knowledge, Knowledge of all kinds will minister to Revealed Truth." (Discussions and Arguments, p. 274-5) Being "taken up into" Christianity, the pursuit of liberal knowledge becomes inextricably bound up with the pursuit of total human perfection. This is especially true of theology, which Newman gives so high a place at a Catholic university. Knowledge of the Divine, acquired in a setting of faith, cannot help but leave an imprint on our souls. Witnesses to Faith in the face of death FUS Trustee Alan Keyes' response to the Columbine High School tragedy has been circulating the web. Here is part of it: "Several of the students at Columbine High have told of being with a girl [named Cassie Bernall] when a gunman demanded of the group whether any of them believed in Jesus Christ. The girl hesitated a minute, and then said, "Yes." The gunman said, "For WHAT?"--and killed her...That child is a true martyr, and let us praise God for her soul, her courage, and her faith in the Lord... Especially moving to me in the description of the death of this girl is not her "yes," but the moment of hesitation that preceded it. It means that she went into her heart and searched herself for the truth, and she came out with her witness before God in the face of death..." There is also the story of another girl, Val Schnurr, who was shot, and cried, "Oh God!" to which the gunmen angrily responded, "So you believe in God?" Bleeding profusely and wracked with pain, with the menace of his gun still pointed in her face, she had the courage to reply, "Yes, I do." He reloaded, as if to shoot her again, but was distracted by a noise and ran off, sparing her life. The first girl was an active member of a Protestant youth group, the second girl was a Catholic, and a member of a youth group led by FUS alumni. How beautiful to think that the leaders of these youth groups (with our alumni among them!) had helped prepare the ground for such supreme acts of faith. May God grant the rest of us similar graces: the grace to live as they live--giving witness to Christ, and to die as Cassie died--giving witness to Christ. What a momentous year for you to be launched on the world! Thanks be to God for everything good you have gained while you were here, and for everything good we have gained through you. May you acquit yourselves out there in a manner worthy of your calling as FUS alumni. May you be a light wherever you go. May you be fearless witnesses to the Truth. May you thrive and be fruitful whatever you do. And may you never forget your years on the hill. Each May we offer our graduates a free semester's subscription to the Concourse. It's a great way to keep in touch with the dear alma mater. Send us your new address, and we'll add your name to the list. A prize winning physicist out of his depth A couple of weeks ago there was a much-publicized debate about the existence of God between two eminent physicists, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinburg, an atheist, and former Cambridge University scientist-turned Anglican Priest, John Polkinghorne. Two-hundred and forty professionals in various fields attended and about 60 journalists. According to the account I read, Mr. Weinburg "said that the theologians he talks to are 'embarrassed by the topic of miracles' and that without religion there would have been both good and evil people on the planet. 'For good people to do evil things, that takes religion'." Does this remind anyone else of Socrates' Apology? That's where Socrates relates that the oracle at Delphi had announced that there was no one wiser than he.
When I heard [this] I said to myself, What does the god mean?...I am only too conscious that I have no claim to wisdom, great or small...After puzzling about it for some time... I interviewed one [reputedly wise] person after another...And by dog, gentlemen, for I must be frank with you, my honest impression was this. It seemed to me, as I pursued my investigations... that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better qualified in practical intelligence... I mean that on the strength of their technical proficiency they claimed a perfect understanding of every other subject, however important, and I felt that this error more than outweighed their positive wisdom... It would have been better for Mr. Weinberg if he had confined himself to physics. Then he may have gone to his grave justly renown for brilliance. Now he looks rather silly. Here's a great potential Concourse topic for the psychologists among us. A year or so ago I read a fascinating article by Trish Hall about the ideas of the new president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman. It began: "Psychologists rarely think much about what makes people happy. They focus instead on what makes them sad, on what makes them anxious. That is why psychology journals have published 45,000 articles in the last 30 years on depression, but only 400 on joy. Joy is not covered by insurance, nor does it lead to tenure." (International Herald Tribune, May 4, 1998.) Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is determined to change that. "I believe America is fed up with the victim model and wants to make life better," he said. "I don't want to cast out the disease model. But we need a science that tells us about human strengths. I want to remind psychologists of normal people." According to Seligman, psychology has been essentially negative for 100 years. "Social science has believed negative things were authentic and human strengths were coping mechanisms... [P]sychology needs to ask, What are the virtues? We need to delineate them, assess them, ask casual questions. What are the interactions? How does it grow? Let's talk about growth and questions of strength..." To that end, Dr. Seligman has been giving speeches (which get standing ovations) to clinical psychologists, writing grant requests, and working to establish a research network of colleagues interested in getting a positive psychology off the ground. Sounds to me like something FUS should definitely try to get in on! The March 1999 issue of Fides--a promotional newsletter sent to friends and benefactors of FUS--featured an article titled "Transforming Students into Servant Leaders." It was about the campus Institute for Catholic Leadership, which "provides training programs and seminars for Franciscan University students to develop their individual and group leadership skills." I confess I have less than no faith in such programs. Not, of course, that there is nothing worthwhile at all to be learned through them--no doubt they include lots of good and useful tips. But I'm afraid what good they contain will be outdone by the bad of giving students the silly and self-defeating illusion that they are being "transformed into leaders" by attending them. Real leadership is not so painlessly gained. The content of the seminars that comes through in the article does nothing to allay my doubts. For instance, the article provides a list of "essential elements of servant-leadership:"
1. beginning by changing oneself (Note that this list might just as well have been titled "characteristics of a very nice person." It tells us nothing whatsoever about the essence of leadership.) I propose an alternative program for would-be leaders:
1. Forget about leadership talks and time-management seminars. I'm sure as anything this program will do a better job of transforming students into the sort of people who can wield an influence and inspire a following than any number of "Leadership Development Seminars." We've heard that some are identifying the Concourse with a "right-wing" party of "extremists" on campus. We are mystified. This forum is as open to the proponents of "the left" as it is to anyone else. But we cannot publish articles we do not have. If anyone thinks our influence is disproportionately favoring a particular political party on campus, then by all means, let him write in to shift the balance! Nothing could please us more. My heartfelt thanks to our worthy advisers, and to all those who contributed to our discussions by writing articles this year. And also to John, Johnny, Christen and Danny Fischer, who helped with collation, as well as to the Forum students who handled distribution. Friends of the Concourse owe more than they know to local editors Susan Fischer and Ben Brown. Had they not joined us mid-year, and contributed so much time, talent and enthusiasm to our cause, this would most certainly have been the Concourse's last semester. But now, thanks to them, plus the endless heroism of Justine Schmiesing, and the steady supportiveness of David Schmiesing, Mark Fischer (brother-in-law, not husband of Susan--well, husband of Susan too, but a different Susan from our Susan) as well as my husband Jules, we will carry on, and please God, be back better than ever next year Till then, stay under the Mercy.
© The University Concourse, May 4, 1999 |
