Society is a conspiracy to keep itself from the truth.

We pass our lives submerged in

propaganda: advertising messages; political rhetoric; the journalistic affirmation of
the status quo; the platitudes of popular culture; the axioms of party, sect, and class;
the bromides we exchange every day on Facebook; the comforting lies our parents
tell us and the sociable ones our friends do; the steady stream of falsehoods that we
each tell ourselves all the time, to stave off the threat of self-knowledge. Plato called
this doxa, opinion, and it is as powerful a force among progressives as among
conservatives, in Massachusetts as in Mississippi, for atheists as for fundamentalists.
The first purpose of a real education (a "liberal arts" education) is to liberate us from
doxa by teaching us to recognize it, to question it, and to think our way around it.
This provocative and bracing quote was written by, yes, you guessed it, Bill D., as in William
Deresiewicz, who, as you know, is coming to visit SLOCA and Cuesta in a few days. I decided
to study the Great Books and Philosophy at a point in my life when, after reading Plato and
C.S. Lewis in my senior year in college, I realized I needed “liberation from doxa,” and I knew
then that I wanted to devote my life though teaching and writing to helping others liberate
themselves from the pernicious power of unexamined opinion.
Recently I gave a talk at the Rotary Club of Paso Robles, talking about Excellent Sheep. In my
research of Rotary, I came across its “Four-fold Test,” which I found to be quite consonant
with both Bill D’s book, my personal and professional vocation, and SLOCA’s educational
mission and culture. The 4-Way Test considers the following questions in respect to thinking,
saying or doing:

 Is it the truth?
 Is it fair to all concerned?
 Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
 Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Bill D’s thesis in Excellent Sheep is that elite colleges and universities, because they have
abandoned authentic liberal education, are disserving their students and American culture at
large. Elite-college students are certainly not being prepared to ask and answer these four
questions, questions about truth, justice, friendship, and goodness. Even worse, they, for
the most part, have little desire to. Why would they when they have been taught to value
personal success over all other values?
I have discovered during my short time at SLOCA, that all of us, teachers, staff, and students,
are encouraged to ask such questions, and we belong to an educational culture and tradition
that equips us not only to be able to ask and answer them, but to want to do so, from the
heart and out of love for others.