The two of us — Andy Reuss and Matt O’Sullivan — have spent the last three-and-a-half years attempting to justify our education here, and this is what we’ve come up with: We’ll be better suited for graduate school; companies will find our liberal arts background appealing; our education is good in and of itself, forming mind, body, and soul.
The last argument is the most familiar, and perhaps closest to the truth. But we’ll dare to flirt with heresy and declare that it misses the point entirely.
Could it be that in our pursuit of self-justification, our search for a greater reason “why,” we have convinced ourselves of our own importance, comfortably thinking that we have emerged from “the Cave” and now see the world from atop the shoulders of giants?
Pull your ID out of your pocket and look at that picture: From the oldest fifth-year to the newest transfer student, more has changed than the addition of bags under your sleep-deprived eyes. For all of us, the person from before Hillsdale seems a different person, much younger, more innocent, and yet less beautiful. This place has changed us.
We notice this when we return home, though not always for the best. Walking through the airport becomes an ordeal: We see other college students heading home for break, wearing sweatshirts of every color but Charger blue and white. Without thinking, we smile to ourselves thinking that ours is the path less traveled. We float above the rabble, confident that we are men with chests.
This becomes even more dangerous when we are on campus. We chuckle at “the donors,” poking fun at their can-do, Limbaugh-philic attitude. We look down with pity on the wide-eyed, eager prospective students, genuflecting before the Reagan statue on a campus visit weekend. And we all certainly enjoy a good jab at Strauss. Even so, it is his name, not ours, that echoes through hallways and publications to this day. In our effort to pursue education for its own sake, all too often we make that education a badge of honor. Our knowledge of the “higher things” becomes a tool to justify ourselves and to belittle those with whom we disagree, or who might not know better.
We come to think of ourselves as so different from our fellow man, and perhaps we are. But what if this difference gets at something deeper than how many obscure philosophers we can cram into our worldview? What if the higher things call us to bear an even greater burden? And, what if, just maybe, that’s where the joy’s been all along?
Our education is given to us, which conveys its true nature as a gift, from start to finish: We are here at all because of countless donations from people we will never know; the toil endured and triumph enjoyed by our predecessors has blazed the trail for our own quest for understanding. This education should remain a gift, given in turn from us to those who would receive it.
But to affirm all this demands a posture of responsibility, not of entitlement. We who have been enriched in every way must appreciate the true worth of what we’ve received. This means a full-hearted engagement with the world around us, with those who just might believe in the correspondence theory of truth or, gasp, think Fox News is the bomb diggity. This is not easy. We might need to swallow four years’ worth of academic pride. But this is our calling. To do otherwise would mean we’ve wasted our time and squandered the gift.
If we do not respond to the calling of this gift, then, at best, our ideals will grow stale and sour. At worst, they will die with us. Knowing that our education is good for its own sake isn’t enough. It must change us completely, once and for all. In short, we must learn to love not just the enchanting words of Shakespeare or the intricacies of the Summa or the political philosophy of Wendell Berry. Books, for all they’re worth, cannot love in return. The intellectual giants we revere do not want us to vanquish armies of verbal foes, smashing every bad argument that comes our way. They want nothing less than for us to follow them — to live and to love.
Thus, we must also learn to love that kid from the local state school. If we don’t, he’ll remain to us a byproduct of postmodern conceit and industrialized, institutionalized technocracy. We must learn to love the donor, the visiting student, and yes, even the politics major. Then, and only then, will a joy worth having and a joy worth sharing visit our hearts.
