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Hillsdale's illiberal
arts
Jacob Harrison
It happens like this
every year. Another class has completed the task, and will now,
ready or not, make their great leap forward. Once again, the
senior graduates are a mixed bag of both great and small personalities
and intellects. But one thing they all now share: To the degree
that they believe in the ideals espoused here, they have become
aliens, and an oddity in the dominant culture.
How will most Hillsdale students engage "the
city" as it is today?
Some will go forth draped in a proud flag;
some will walk toward their culture with a large cross held
up before them; some are bursting to exclaim to the world all
the things they believe it needs to hear from them. Others are
already scrambling for some tiny niche to hide in.
There is an assumption that the Hillsdale
College education has prepared the student to meet the challenges
life will present. At this school it is a doubly powerful assumption,
because Hillsdale, in nomine patris, has embraced a role far
beyond its proper bounds as a liberal arts institution. It is
the heart of the liberal education to let ideas influence moral
behavior; it is quite a different sort of education that enforces
moral behavior with religious law.
When it comes to training up the intellect,
this college excels and must rightly be honored for its undisputed
greatness. But when it comes to its theologically guided moral
imperatives that seek to control the private lives of young
adults, this college is an undoubted failure. It is a failure
because these are two principles and goals in direct opposition
to each other.
At Hillsdale College, the student learns all
about self-government, but is denied the practice of it in any
meaningful way.
In a sense, this monstrous parent has worked
diligently to cover the eyes and ears of its students against
immorality-such as unchastity for instance. It has assumed the
student to be still a child who is not yet ready to make fundamental
behavioral choices and meet temptations as they actually exist
today. It has tucked young adults in and locked their doors
for them, monitored their halls and bedrooms; it looks through
peepholes, diaries and drawers for evidence of "sin;"
it runs to parents; it denies the right to protest; it encourages
the disgrace of student-informants; it seems vested more in
appearance than reality; in almost no way does it encourage
independent action or personal responsibility.
In this way, Hillsdale College has done far
more harm than service to its students, and created an environment
more like that of a Christian Bible camp than a viable arena
of ideas. For many, it has, in effect, retarded the personal
growth and maturity that could and should have been practiced
and thus strengthened during this essential time.
And what is the result of an institutional
attempt to educate the mind for freedom, but the body and spirit
for child-like obedience? A few examples come to mind.
Recently, sophomore Ivan Heitmann wrote an
embarrassing public letter that said, "Guess what: Hillsdale
College is almost synonymous with 'moral agenda.' Deal with
it. If that's intolerable, leave. Otherwise, shut up."
The shocking illiberality of this statement is more than simply
an isolated example of a sophomoric mind; it is more than pure
Christian anti-intellectualism; it is an example of the kind
of schizophrenia that comes when the liberal arts clash with
religious dogmatism in a burgeoning mind.
And in some cases, this retardation translates
in unfortunate ways to an idealistic fantast that makes the
young intellect into a tool of irrelevance. There is hardly
a better example than the recent honors thesis that argued for
an exchange of women's suffrage for a return to the male-centered
household. This is not unlike a thesis arguing for the establishment
of theocracy in America; a wonderful ideal whose only connection
to reality is the mockery it will garner by being repeated almost
anywhere outside these walls.
In light of this clear confusion, I would
suggest a small warning be affixed to each diploma that reads,
"By the way, a thing called the 20th century also happened.
Unless you plan on hiding in the bowels of a church or in one
of the few conservative campuses in this nation, you may want
to read up on it, so that you understand why all your new peers
are laughing at your genius."
There is your "wake-up call" Mr.
Heitmann. Class dismissed.
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