Yesterday I taught Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in my Created and Called for Community class. This text speaks volumes about the value of a liberal arts education. Today college and universities sell programs. When my daughters visited college campuses we heard things like this: “Do you want to be an occupational therapist? We have a program for that! Do you want to be an accountant? We have a great accounting program!” Please come to our college and we will train you!”
Rarely, if ever, did we hear something like this: “Do you want to pursue truth and seek justice by basking in the light of great texts and ideas that can transform your life? Do you want to contemplate what it means to live a meaningful life, find a calling, learn how to love your neighbor, and be an agent of reconciliation in the world? If you think these are important, and you also want to develop some training in a particular field, come to our university!”
After I finished teaching Plato, I thought about a post I wrote in September 3, 2016. In that post I quoted a Washington Post piece by George Mason University public affairs professor Steven Perlstein titled “Meet the parents who won’t let their children study literature.” Here is a taste:
For me, there’s nothing more depressing than meeting incoming freshmen at Mason who have declared themselves as accounting majors. They’re 18 years old, they haven’t had a chance to take a course in Shakespeare or evolutionary biology or the history of economic thought, and already they’ve decided to devote the rest of their lives to accountancy.
