8/22/2017 What it Means to be an Educated Human Being - Crisis Magazine

AUGUST 22, 2017

What it Means to be an Educated Human

Being
DEACON JAMES H. TONER

Wearebornandlive in a certain location and in a certain time. By what appears to be the

caprice of geography and chronology, we are thus, in a sense, locked into a particular place
and period. In other words, we are trees in a forest we cannot descry; consequently, gaining
perspectiveseeing macroscopically instead of only microscopicallyis an onerous task.

To educatecomes from the Latin educere, meaning to lead out. Wise education may lead us,
as both Plato and Cardinal Newman knew so well, out of the shadows and into the sun. I write
may lead us because one cannot be educated against his will. Arrogance or indolence,
corruption or conceitany of these, or all of these, may frustrate learning (see CCC #2038,
#2526), leaving one in a mental or moral stupor, or in a kind of academic autism, prized by
some because it neither issues mental challenges nor makes moral demands.

Genuine education is rooted in the kind of timeless perspective which modern society
arrogantly abjures. Such education provides depth and breadth. Alexander Popes idea that we
ought to drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring has much to commend it, for a little
learning is, in fact, a dangerous thing: it distorts reality, and it misinforms by providing only a
small sample of fact. To say, Professor Smith came to class sober today, while true, leads to
distortionand to defamation (because Professor Smith never comes to class inebriated).
Learning by sound bite is like reading only by skimming or eating only on Thursdays.

The ideologization (forgive that noun) of education; grade inflation; the inanity of safe spaces,
free from reasoned, if politically unpopular, moral discourse; the rather common notion that
sustained lucubrationhard work!is no longer necessary in secondary or college work,
abetted by frequent lack of academic rigor; the increasingly ubiquitous belief that college is

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about fun and success in social life, sporting events, or spousal pursuit; and the rampant moral
chaos and confusion that mark so much of contemporary higher learningall lead one to fear
for the Republic and, much more critically, for the salvation of souls. My people are destroyed
for lack of knowledge, prophesied Hosea (4:6).

The mark of the educated, we used to hear, is the willing acknowledgment that one knows he
does not know, or, at least, knows that he does not know enough. The madding crowd, however,
will read, or hear, or watch nothing that confronts the prejudice of the day. As Fr. James Schall
teaches in ALineThroughtheHumanHeart(of course, decrying these opinions): Abortion,
same-sex marriage, and euthanasia are our social rights. The poor are poor because the rich
are rich. The earth is over-populated, and man himself is the chief threat to the wellbeing of our
planet. Islam is a religion of peace. War is always immoral. Democracy is always the best form
of government, and governments exist to protect the rights they munificently give us. There is
no truth; sin does not exist; and there is no final divine judgment. That these chichi views may
be the stuff of rank prejudice seems utterly to escape the glitterati.

We are told, moreover, that we must learn and appreciate the words of our day, which define
reality for us and point to the challenges we face: democracy,diversity,equality,inclusivity,
marginalization,misogyny,racism,sexism,homophobia,imperialism,colonialism,
progressivism,autonomy(among others). These thirteen words are sheer cant (meaning
hypocritical and sanctimonious talk); they are suggested by Anthony Esolen, who, in Outofthe
Ashes,says that they are simply terms of political force and have no real meaning anymore.

Newly minted graduates have learned, or so say a large number of commencement speakers, to
think for themselves. Thus does academic autism parade as celebrated moral and mental
autonomy. Contemporary education is emphatically modern; that such modernism is the
synthesis of all heresies (as Pope St. Pius X put it) and may be riddled with errore.g.,
abortion is health careis unthinkable to many, marinated in their own sophistry (cf. James
3:13-17).

The best that has been thought and said, wrote Matthew Arnold, is hardly limited to what is
novel. Yet anything current or contemporary must be better, or so we disdainfully think, than
what is old. Such a belief, as C.S. Lewis taught us, is mere chronological snobbery. As long ago
as 1926, Everett Dean Martin (1880-1941) wrote: No one who is merely a creature of his own
times is really educated. He also believed that unless education ennobles the mind, one
becomes only a well-informed cad.

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If what is true, good, and beautiful depends only upon the prevailing taste in a given time or
place, then everything is relative, and everything depends upon current fashion or fad. Then
authority depends only upon power or privilege. Then what is sacred, or noble, or even decent
results only from popularity, and might makes right. Then there is no point to or purpose in
liberal education, for there is nothing to liberate us from; we are wretched, and we can separate
good from evil only on the basis of the biggest guns or the most money or the greatest fame.
Education thus becomes immersion only in what is thought or said or done, and never in what
ought to be thought, or said, or done.

All this, of course, is exactly why G.K. Chesterton said: the Catholic Church is the only thing
which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.

Dare to challenge the false education of the daygrounded in libertinism, socialism,

utopianism, pantheism, inclusivity, diversity, syncretism, or pacifismand you will be branded
as xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobicand probably misogynist and fascist
as well.

By and large, academics are nothing if not progressive, nothing if not truth vandals (to use
Felipe Fernandez-Armestos term). Modern education so often teaches the shadow of ethical
relativism and not the sun of truth because it subscribes to the first, the fundamental, the
forever temptation of regarding the creature as Creator (Rom 1:25).

That temptation is so strong that it insinuates itself into much that we say and hearand it
even, at times, flows from the pens and the tongues of those ordained to resist it and to remind
us, with St. Paul, that we must never conform ourselves to the abominations of our times but,
rather, seek and do the will of God (cf. Rom 12:1-3), which we know through the Magisterium of
the Church.

One wishes it were otherwise, but donning a biretta or a zucchetto is never a guarantee of
wisdom (cf. Is 47:10, Jer 8:9, 1 Cor 1:19-20). At its best and wisest, however, the Church is
always our Mother andourTeacher, for the Church, with Job, hears God: To be wise, you
must have reverence for the Lord. To understand, you must turn from evil (28:28).

Editorsnote:PicturedaboveisTheDuncepaintedbyHaroldCoppingin1886.

By Deacon James H. Toner

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