Spring Break
Select few ruin search for the rest
Jordan Harms
Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: Opinion
I was genuinely surprised. not to mention dismayed, to read your characterization of the Search course as "the rotten cornerstone" of our college since every student coming in is aware that it is emblematic of Rhodes's view of what constitutes a classical liberal arts education - what every well-educated person should know before going out into the real world. Perhaps you missed that when researching colleges? Most of us selected Rhodes for that very reason. You deride Search for 'inherently exclud[ing] other cultures,' but by definition, it does and must.
There are plenty of colleges where this fundamental idea is under attack by those who want us to genuflect before the altar of 'diversity' at all costs and use it as a metaphor to infuse the theme of social justice into everything to the exclusion of all that is not 'relate-able' to us - where philosophy, history, you name it, is being taught in terms of identity such as race or gender as a sort of sociology course, with special reference to the experiences of marginalized persons or groups. I wonder that you did not choose one of those if you subscribe to the idea that your response to a text in terms of your own identity and context is more important than what the great writers are trying to say.
The idea that there is a body of work that constitutes the most influential thought in the whole of Western civilization, "the great books" of the Western canon, is not just some invention by some people or groups of people who lived at a particular time in history and therefore is no longer valid. In fact, it is this body of humanistic awareness that is the basis for our shared values in Western culture.
Although the program is indeed "searching" for Values in the Light of Western History and Religion exactly because it is the foundation of our principles and is supposed to bring those principles into coherence in the service of a common, agreed-upon goal, it is in fact not Euro-centric or exclusionary to other cultures - because besides the Western texts, the Qur'an, the Song of Roland, and the Persian Book of Kings are also studied. And there is a reason for that: they all share the common ideas in Western civilization about what is important in order to live a good life.
Search gives us an advantage here at Rhodes not enjoyed by students at even many of the ivy leagues - we carry that understanding forward from course to course as a shared foundational concept. These major texts almost teach themselves, since in the history of ideas, each generation of thinkers took the works of their predecessors into account. The works all fit together and support each other, regardless of the remoteness of the historical moment in which they were written. That's why they don't, or should not, feel remote to us. Your problem seems to be that the view is not inward, not about what you think and like, but about what the writers and thinkers do. One thing it is not is self-referential in the way that those all-inclusive, identity-focused courses are. The irony is that it does indeed teach us about our identity as part of Western civilization. Too bad there are so many out there that don't value that anymore.
There are plenty of colleges where this fundamental idea is under attack by those who want us to genuflect before the altar of 'diversity' at all costs and use it as a metaphor to infuse the theme of social justice into everything to the exclusion of all that is not 'relate-able' to us - where philosophy, history, you name it, is being taught in terms of identity such as race or gender as a sort of sociology course, with special reference to the experiences of marginalized persons or groups. I wonder that you did not choose one of those if you subscribe to the idea that your response to a text in terms of your own identity and context is more important than what the great writers are trying to say.
The idea that there is a body of work that constitutes the most influential thought in the whole of Western civilization, "the great books" of the Western canon, is not just some invention by some people or groups of people who lived at a particular time in history and therefore is no longer valid. In fact, it is this body of humanistic awareness that is the basis for our shared values in Western culture.
Although the program is indeed "searching" for Values in the Light of Western History and Religion exactly because it is the foundation of our principles and is supposed to bring those principles into coherence in the service of a common, agreed-upon goal, it is in fact not Euro-centric or exclusionary to other cultures - because besides the Western texts, the Qur'an, the Song of Roland, and the Persian Book of Kings are also studied. And there is a reason for that: they all share the common ideas in Western civilization about what is important in order to live a good life.
Search gives us an advantage here at Rhodes not enjoyed by students at even many of the ivy leagues - we carry that understanding forward from course to course as a shared foundational concept. These major texts almost teach themselves, since in the history of ideas, each generation of thinkers took the works of their predecessors into account. The works all fit together and support each other, regardless of the remoteness of the historical moment in which they were written. That's why they don't, or should not, feel remote to us. Your problem seems to be that the view is not inward, not about what you think and like, but about what the writers and thinkers do. One thing it is not is self-referential in the way that those all-inclusive, identity-focused courses are. The irony is that it does indeed teach us about our identity as part of Western civilization. Too bad there are so many out there that don't value that anymore.
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