Why Call It Liberal Education?
Why do we say liberal education or the liberal arts? Why not call it conservative education, since it is an education that “conserves” so much of the world’s knowledge? Or, better yet, why not just drop all politically freighted terminology?
The truth is that the word “liberal,” properly understood, is essential to understanding what this type of education stands for and involves. “Liberal” has a connection to “liberty,” to being free. And, to be sure, there was a time when the subjects and fields included in “liberal arts” were studies pursued by free men, citizens who had the time and leisure to delve into rhetoric and philosophy or to examine the elegance of mathematics. People, in other words, who didn’t have to be too concerned about making ends meet. (Notice, again, the distinction separating the liberal arts from the world of work.) We carry a vestige of this understanding today; when we think of education, most of us are referring to educating the young – those who don’t yet work.
Still, over the years, we’ve changed the emphasis when discussing the liberal arts in two important ways: first, by dropping the idea that only “men” might be liberally educated, and second (and crucially), by moving from saying that the liberal arts comprise those studies that are the domain of free men to saying that the liberal arts are those studies that help make men and women free.
Now, having said that the function of a liberal education is to increase our freedom, a myriad of new questions burst onto the scene. For example, if the liberal arts aim to make us free, how do they mean to do so? “Free” in what way? “Free” to do what?
Consider the liberation connected to the liberal arts. In a fundamental – perhaps even radically fundamental – way, the liberal arts are often referred to as a body of knowledge and skills that work to free our minds from being tied up with – or “enslaved to” – other people’s opinions. Not that the views of others might not be true. Of course they might. Sometimes “common wisdom” is actual wisdom. But the liberal arts hold out the possibility that we see the truth for ourselves and gain real knowledge about – real insight into – serious and important matters. In other words, the liberal arts hold out the promise of freeing each of us from the captivity of prejudice, of platitudes and superstition, or of whatever it is that “everyone” believes. In sum, we advance in our knowledge not simply through faith in what we are told, not by memorizing a catechism of dogmas or relying on what our peers or our culture believe, but through personal reason and reflection – in listening to all arguments and then deciding for ourselves.
Yet here we should be cautious. It’s not simply the opinions of others that we should try to think through; we must try to open the cage door of our own opinions—those unexamined notions we assume are true, those ideological and political beliefs and those un-thought-through notions we all hold and that often masquerade as truth. We must be open to all those books, stories, subjects, and arguments that stand willing to help us better understand so many marvelous things. We must be open to moving from opinion to knowledge. We must be open to having our minds grow, expand, and, yes, change. Indeed, this opening up of our minds is the foundation of what it means to become educated.
Consider all it means to break the chains of ignorance or superstition and to think for ourselves. These liberating inquiries encourage us to study history and, hopefully, lead us to see what civilization has been able to accomplish, at what cost and toil, and all the mistakes the world has made and what led to making them. To understand better cause and effect. Or, at times more importantly, to see how a single cause, a single action, might often have more than one effect, and not always the most expected one.
Here’s where our various “subjects” come into play. Do I want to know for myself something about the material universe? Surely the study of science in all its fields – physics, chemistry, atomic theory – will assist me. Do I long to know more about life and all living things? I should study deeply in biology, botany, genetics, evolution, and perhaps psychology. Do I want to know better how to live and how to deal with others as well as with myself? Philosophy and ethics, politics and history will help shed light. Religious studies might raise the possibility of the Divine and our place in the universe, leading us to question our faith or strengthen it. It might also help us explore what seem to be common beliefs and practices across so many faiths, as well as what stands out as radically unique – and why. Philosophy should lay out what justice or mercy or friendship or hatred is made of, or what we might see as noble, or it could help us begin to understand for ourselves what might be base or disgraceful even in our own lives.
Literature provides examples of what a life well, or badly, lived might look like, and hopefully fosters a greater ability to choose wisely. Do I need to see models of courage, treachery, magnanimity, compassion, cruelty, wise prudence, and true ignorance? Here we have literature, classical studies, and history. In posing all this we have only begun to name the issues and the possibilities.
We need to go further. It’s not merely our minds that are liberated from rote thinking; it’s our imaginations as well. It was that faculty – the ability to see things not only more truly but also differently – that led us in Brooklyn to imagine new ways of play and adventure after reading even so simple a book as “Penrod and Sam.” Knowledge of the truth and insight into what actually is are crucial to the liberal arts. But so is knowledge, discovery, and insight into what is possible. To paraphrase Robert Kennedy, studying literature, history, science, and indeed any of the liberal arts helps us not only ask “why” but also “why not?”
I could go on, but for now I want to touch on something that becomes important later: These studies and subjects, while they help to liberate our minds and imaginations and help us to live our lives at least partly free from ignorance or mere opinion, also have effects beyond us. While we begin with the thought that a liberal education properly conceived and pursued is good for each of us, it might be just as true that the liberation of our individual minds is, even more importantly, a good more widely shared – with our neighbors, our country, and beyond.
Now, if it’s true that one cause often has multiple effects, it’s also true that one idea is the mother of many more ideas. For example, if the liberal arts are truly arts fit for free men and women, then I imagine it follows that our studies should not be on trivial or small matters. That is, our lives not being infinite, we should probably focus on subjects worthy of the time and effort we pour into them. Having been given the gift of thinking for ourselves, it seems strange that we should squander it by merely thinking about matters of little matter. Thus, the liberal arts seem to be the seeking of knowledge about important matters through reason and reflection. Not minor matters, not slight matters, but significant issues of human concern. And learning about them not through “training,” not through obedience, not through repeating the thoughts and views of others, but through our thinking, our imagining, and our serious reflection.
John Agresto is a longtime professor of politics and the retired president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is also a member of the board of the Jack Miller Center. His latest book is “The Death of Learning” (Encounter Books), which explores both liberal education and American democracy.
