Just like an increased high school course load is not for everyone, neither is liberal arts education. The majority of the people don’t find satisfaction in the discomfort of the grey areas, and that’s okay. In fact, that’s more than okay! We need people who live in the black and white. After all, they are the people that built the bridges and roads and forged the way through the country’s frontier. If the Revolutionary War was fought by people who got distracted thinking about the reason why the British adorned themselves in red instead of people who accepted the fact that “if you see red, shoot it,” we would not exist today. However, when academia agreed to lower the expectations of applicants to liberal arts institutions in the midst of surging matriculations, the educational monopoly’s reign on high school students made its debut. No longer does a liberal arts education serve the purpose of educating students for their lives, but about how to put off living it for another 4 years.
The commercialization of the liberal arts education experience began to forget the students who sought a deeper appreciation for the world, shifting attention to those who only sought refuge from the draft, beginning to tailor their educational experience to “job readiness” instead of life readiness, to the point where colleges today brag about the most recent graduating class’ entry level salary instead of the number of students that found something they are passionate about, whether it be microbiology or quilting. Schools no longer structure a discipline of mind and vocabulary around students’ questions, build the community around vibrant discussion, or teach the necessary lessons to cope with the real world, refusing to send them into it despite their eager demands. John Agresto argues that “in the life of the mind, you don't lose anything by sharing”, but it is but the student with the highest grade-point average that speakers at graduation, not the student with the most interesting sociology project.
Our society has been trained to believe that college is purely for the piece of paper you are handed one day and purely for the sake of your future career. We have also been tricked into believing that we all have a right to clearly defined answers to the point that many demand free college for all. Because of this, we have sunk into the utilitarian mindset that any class, along with anything that may be learned from it, that is not remotely related to our professional desires is simply a waste of time.
So where do I, the high school junior, stand in my future in liberal arts education? By Mr. Buckley’s and Mr. Nock’s standards, would I even be considered a suitable candidate for a classical liberal arts education? In a vacuum, I would turn to college admissions to answer my question, by accepting or rejecting me from their schools. However, given their weakened state, I don’t know if I will ever get a true answer.
Empirically, I can draw a conclusion. For the past five years, I have avoided vulgar language that separates me from God, even though it is especially hard to do so after sudden inflictions of pain. I have structured my personal education around my questions. They begin as precisely that, then blossom into a (hopefully) well-developed piece by the end of the week. I value vibrant discussion with people of all ages and walks of life. Somehow, I have managed to walk away from every conversation having learned at least one thing, no matter how obscure. I hold my tongue when I know I’m not educated enough to speak about an issue and need to delve into the literature before I run my mouth, despite how hard that is. I share my notes with even my most fierce interlocutors, because I know that the place I plan to spend most of my time in our conversation is in the mind.
This past Sunday, I went to a college fair. For each table I visited, I asked and recorded their answers to three questions. The most interesting question: “What are the top three values your school uses to guide its educational philosophy?” yielded one generic response. Depending on the representative, what the school is known for, and the context of the conversation, I received a range of reactions from confusion, to surprise. Even at the supposed “Liberal Arts” schools, representatives touted their student retention rate, core classes and commitment to a future career. That’s it. A vibrant educational philosophy reduced to core classes, careers, and cash. It was not that I came to resent any of the schools, but I did find myself feeling bad for them. If they still look attractive today even without the fulfilling presence of a Liberal Arts education, how wonderful institutions they must have been when that spirit was still there!
Most interestingly, out of about 15 representatives I talked to, all but one named diversity as one of their main strengths. By the time I arrived at his table, I was wondering if the college fair coordinators had told the school representatives to “embrace diversification,” (as one of them quite literally told me) as part of their narrative. The lone representative was quick to clarify that the school was a maritime technology school, about the farthest type of school from a liberal arts school. Yet something in me compelled me to press on. I wanted to see if what the elitist liberal arts colleges got wrong, the get-your-hands-dirty, technical school still had a grasp of. His first value he claimed his school to advance is community. “It’s a very family-oriented place throughout. I got to meet a lot of people- a lot of different students from walks of life around campus. It’s a very tight-knit community.” I kept pressing, toeing the edge of the Overton window. “At all the other schools other than this one, one of [their main values] was diversity. Why didn’t you say [diversity] as a main value? It actually seems to me that your first value of community directly opposes the idea of diversity.”
“Good question, good question,” he said with a smirk. “that’s like the company line a lot… How is that gonna train you for real life?”
Maybe he is the only secretly red-pilled person at that school (the smirk might have given it away), and everyone else at his school is the farthest Left one could possibly be, but the fact that his honesty instantly made all the “more prestigious” liberal arts schools sound utterly childish was bewildering. Yes, the school is diverse, (the top 5% most diverse in the nation), but that didn’t seem to matter in how he viewed his school’s dynamic.
This is what happened to America. The elitists took over. The blue collar agriculture worker was looked down on. And through the degradation of our liberal arts education system, we forgot that these people today were the soldiers of the 1700’s. Albeit, there were few, but the colonists in brown saw red and shot red, even if they were doing so with a recently-freed slave in brown right next to him. The colonists didn’t shoot brown clothes or brown skin because they had bigger problems to worry about. They were not obsessed with the merits of the tradition of slavery, but the clear and present danger that was feet away from them both.
Maybe my future in liberal arts education is simply continuing on my path of discussion, whether that be with a formal affiliation or not, I don’t know. However, I could argue that what I have done so far is better than many of these “higher learning” institutions could ever do today.
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