Hillsdale students are in a unique position to confront tradition, Assistant Professor of Medieval History Charles Yost said at fall convocation in Christ Chapel on Nov. 14.

Named Professor of the Year by the class of 2024, Yost gave the keynote address.

Yost said Hillsdale culture reveres tradition, and students can become too comfortable with this stereotype. This opens up the door for a different temptation, Yost said. 

“This is the danger of turning tradition into a hollow idol,” Yost said. “This sort of disposition toward tradition, a blind affirmation of what has gone before simply because it’s gone before, risks emptying the tradition of vitality.”

Part of learning from the wisdom of the past, Yost said, is learning and growing from the mistakes of the past. Yost cautioned the audience against copying exactly what their ancestors did. 

“Where veneration of the past becomes mere nostalgia, it risks becoming idolatry,” Yost said. “The inspiration we receive from our ancestors might become mere LARPing. You know, live-action role playing.” 

Yost said, as a historian, he sometimes desires to return to the era of his study. 

“Not a day goes by when I don’t feel some admiration for the Roman Empire or for medieval Christendom and feel some grief at their passing,” Yost said. 

According to Yost, people overlook the Middle Ages especially, mistakenly writing them off as backward.

“To the contrary, what leaps off of page after page of the writings of the medievals is a pulsing sense of the radical newness of their times,” Yost said. 

This radical newness, Yost said, is the medieval scholar’s understanding that the solutions ancient scholars put forth would not work on the new problems that medievals were encountering daily. 

“In the medieval experience, past wisdom was a necessary resource, though not sufficient per se,” Yost said. “The wisdom of the ancestors was a well from which the makers of medieval civilization drew strength in order to build, not to sit idle.” 

Yost said the proper attitude to have toward the wisdom of our ancestors is an understanding of both their failures and their triumphs to inspire innovation. 

Assistant Professor of English Cameron Moore said he found Yost’s speech inspiring. 

“Dr. Yost’s lecture was a rousing and persuasive call to appreciate the Middle Ages as a model for our own living engagement with the tradition to which we have all dedicated ourselves,” Moore said.

Senior Gwen Thompson said many seniors grieve that they are leaving a place where they are constantly encouraged to live in accordance with a higher standard of values. 

“Part of that is having the right attitude toward tradition,” Thompson said. “Dr. Yost gave us a medieval model that’s still useful: thoughtful respect for tradition without blind embrace.”