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I’m very pleased to share with you a copy of Veritas, a new bi-annual publication of the University of Dallas. At the University of Dallas, we believe in the vital importance of civil discourse. In the classroom, we encourage open sharing of ideas without judgment.

Veritas reflects our commitment to engaging in constructive dialogue with the modern world as people of faith. And it extends our work at the university of teaching students how to think, problem solve, and interact with others.

It is my hope that Veritas will assist you in your journey as a lifelong learner and encourage you to join our community of faith and rational discourse.

In this issue, we present a panel discussion featuring our president, Dr. Sanford.

Please enjoy this digital copy of Veritas. I hope you find it engaging, and I look forward to sharing many more enriching issues with you in the future.

CLARE VENEGAS, EDITOR

How can an education rooted in the liberal arts and Western tradition renew the fabric of our culture and the future of our country? That was the question discussed at the University of Dallas’ Arete Inaugural Series event hosted at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, in early March.

The event featured UD President Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D., Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., and Melissa Moschella, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of America. Moderated by Gerard Wegemer, Ph.D., of the University of Dallas, the panel explained how a liberal arts education illuminates what it means to be human, the nature of liberty, and the conditions for a flourishing civil society.

A liberal arts education illuminates what it means to be human, the nature of liberty, and the conditions for a flourishing civil society.

The opening introduction by UD Board of Trustee Bridgett G. Wagner, BA ’81, and Heritage’s Executive Director of the Edwin J. Feulner Institute, set the stage for panel discussion. The following transcript has been edited for brevity, although the discussion can be watched in its entirety here.

Bridgett Wagner:

American civil society is in a moment of crisis.

Knowledge of our past is abysmal; angry calls ring out for radical change, and assault against Western heritage is underway across the nation. Students cannot explain the origin of individual rights, the purpose of the separation of powers, or even answer whether the nation has a right to exist at all.

Thankfully, there are lights of reason holding out amidst the darkness of cynicism and ideology. Across the country, families and teachers are rediscovering liberal arts education, a tradition that flourished in communities as disparate as ancient Athens and medieval Paris.

It is here that we find students who are confident, but humble; reasoned, but enthusiastic; persuasive, but not argumentative – doing all in the pursuit of truth. Perhaps it is here also that we might find the antidote for our cultural crisis.

Dr. Gerard Wegemer:

To begin, what would each of you say are the most significant threats to our society that liberal education can help address?

Dr. Jonathan Sanford:

The first is one of the symptoms that perhaps gets the most discussion in the media today: the cancel culture. There’s a loss of the critical art of rational engagement and rational disagreement. We’ve lost the ability to argue without quarreling. And I am convinced that the best formation for cultivating that art is to be found within a liberal arts institution. Students learn how to engage various interpretations of a text in a rigorous fashion in small class sizes; they pull things apart; they disagree with each other.

They learn how to articulate their disagreements in a way that does not provoke the kind of easy sloganism that is so rampant. In addition, students within a liberal arts university that’s really worthy of the name hone themselves to the truth. They learn how to be attentive to the truth, to work under the conviction that there is an answer to be found.

The second area of significant cultural disarray and confusion is the privatization of religion, the way in which faith has been put to the side and treated as though it’s just a matter of personal preference. Universities have a particular role to play in bringing faith back into the public square, by bringing faith into a serious dialogue with reason.

Being a faith-based institution provides you with a particular narrative when reflecting upon a tradition that itself is full of conflict. Plato was a fierce critic of Homer, and Aristotle was a critic of Plato, and Augustine had certain reservations about drawing too deeply from Greek and fellow Roman authors. It’s clear that the history of our tradition is a history of argument over a long period of time with a lot of conflicting points of view.

At the University of Dallas, the narrative is not one of triumphalism, but one that beckons the student to see that there is a correct position with controverted matters. But you don’t want to get there too quickly. You won’t get there at all, in terms of grasping the truth of the matter, if it’s just foisted upon you; a student needs to learn how to be oriented rightly.

Finally, the third area: We have an errant and erroneous anthropology that’s on display these days—people don’t know what it is to be a human being.

People are uncomfortable with their own humanity. They don’t even know how to ask questions about what it means to be a human. The questions of the relationship between science and philosophy and theology that go into an account of what it is to be a human being are best pursued within a liberal arts education, particularly at a serious Catholic liberal arts university.

As St. John Paul II made clear, the anthropological question–that is, what it means to be human–is absolutely fundamental. That’s how we get into a consideration of responsible citizenship, because it’s through reflecting upon what it is to be human being and what the purpose of human life is that one reflects upon the common good, and sees those political questions as of fundamental importance.

Dr. Melissa Moschella:

I want to focus on a couple of threats to citizenship and to the health of our society: the threat of technocracy and the threat of woke ideology. And let me preface this by reminding all of us that the Latin root of the term liberal is the verb liberare: so liberal education is essentially education for freedom. And I think that will help us to see the ways in which liberal education is essential for teaching the next generation of citizens to resist some of these threats to our freedom.

First, with regard to technocracy, we’ve seen particularly over the past couple of years how the empty, follow-the-science slogan with regard to COVID policies has led people to believe that difficult public policy questions involving complex trade-offs among multiple goods should basically be decided by unelected experts at the CDC.

Technical expertise is never sufficient to answer political questions, which are ultimately always moral questions because they’re questions about justice.

— Dr. Moschella

While the COVID example is the most obvious, I think it’s emblematic of a broader trend. It’s critically important to form citizens who recognize that technical expertise is never sufficient to answer political questions, which are ultimately always moral questions because they’re questions about justice, as Aristotle reminded us in Book One of the Politics.

Liberal education helps students to understand this by helping students to see the inherent narrowness and insufficiency of technical knowledge – not discounting its usefulness, but putting it in its proper place. And it does this by introducing students to the full breadth and depth of the objects of human understanding.

Liberal education frees students from a kind of narrow, instrumental view of reason by taking seriously the search for wisdom, for ultimate truths. To return to the COVID example, obviously good physical health is important for human flourishing, but it’s not the only thing. Friendship, work, education, worship, religious community – all of these other things are important to a flourishing human life as well.

That’s the crucial lesson of liberal education: it doesn’t offer an easy solution, but it prevents people from falling prey to the seemingly easy solution of the technocratic answer, which is always going to give short shrift to a number of important human values, especially those that can’t be quantified.

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Second, let me say a word about liberal education as an antidote to woke ideas. Liberal education is an antidote to woke ideology because it’s an antidote to ideology in general. If you understand ideology as any system of thought in which truth is subordinate to political or other ends, indeed what makes liberal education “liberal” or “free” is that it emphasizes the pursuit of truth for its own sake, even if that means questioning the received orthodoxies of the day and coming to some very unpopular conclusions. I’ve seen intellectual conversions in many of my students, who’ve changed their minds on issues, ranging from abortion to gender ideology to basically every issue that’s out there, when they’ve been encouraged and prodded to actually consider the arguments and evidence with a view toward the truth, regardless of whether that truth lines up with what’s politically popular or not. I think it’s encouraging to see that liberal education really can change hearts and minds by opening students to the search for truth and liberating them from a dogmatic adherence to dominant orthodoxies.

Liberal education really can change hearts and minds by opening students to the search for truth and liberating them from a dogmatic adherence to dominant orthodoxies.

— Dr. Moschella

Dr. Kevin Roberts:

As a historian, I think about parts of the public square, where we see the very clear symptoms of not enough liberal learning.

The problem is that you can’t even engage in a conversation about the truth. I’ve had multiple text messages today with members of Congress about why Heritage is opposed to the Omnibus Bill. We’re opposed for a number of reasons, but we can’t even talk about that because they have their three talking points that their party apparatus published this morning, which they have to stick to, and that is really a symptom of the state of education in this country. You contrast that with the debates at the constitutional convention in 1787, and think about the ability of those founders to have disagreements without being quarrelsome. Sometimes it got so close to quarreling that they had to settle it over some scotch or beer at the tavern, but they were at least willing to do that!

Wegemer:

Would you go further on the civic implications of this? What kind of citizen does a Republic need to flourish? And what does liberal education have to do with citizenship?

What makes liberal education “liberal” or “free” is that it emphasizes the pursuit of truth for its own sake, even if that means questioning the received orthodoxies of the day and coming to some very unpopular conclusions.

— Dr. Moschella

Moschella:

The founders recognized that you need a virtuous citizenry in order to have a free country, that freedom requires a real competence among the people to govern themselves. So you need people to develop virtue, to develop self-restraint in view of the genuine good, and that’s obviously absent in so many ways in our culture.

You see it in a crisis of genuine leisure. I love the book Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper: it has so much to say to our current culture and particularly to all of the pathologies of the digital world, where people are constantly substituting illusion for reality.

But that’s the perversion of leisure, which ought to be a moment, as Pieper says, to enter into a receptive attitude of appreciation of reality as a gift, of stepping back from the attitude of a fretful attempt to dominate reality in order to make it work for our purposes, the workaday world with its utilitarian of focus.

Leisure is what enables us to remain human, because it’s the realm where we actually focus on those things that are good in themselves, not good merely for further utilitarian ends. And I fear that we’ve lost that in a culture where leisure just becomes escape.

But engaging in an activity that has no utilitarian end is actually restorative of our humanity and reminds us of the great dignity of the human person. And I think this is something that liberal education can remind students of, can open them to.

Wegemer:

Dr. Roberts, what does liberal education have to do with citizenship?

Roberts:

The citizens of a republic need to have two sets of “skills,” if you will.

And the first is what I would call “hard skills” of reading, writing and arithmetic. What was happening at least up until 1979 was that each year American students were learning better, learning more.

There were some exceptions, but now, not only has the liberal arts tradition waned, especially among government-funded schools, but the hard skills have waned so much so that each year our students fall further behind.

Leisure is what enables us to remain human, because it’s the realm where we actually focus on those things that are good in themselves, not good merely for further utilitarian ends.

— Dr. Moschella

The second category of skills are what I would call “soft skills.”

They’re about a belief in this country – not a blind patriotism, not a blind nationalism– but an optimism that comes from understanding our inheritance.

Our education fails miserably at forming students, to be grateful every day to be Americans to understand, that what they have been given, what we have been given: this republic,the greatest gift that any higher power could bestow on a people.

But we are living through the rebirth of that tradition. This panel is but one small part of a rejuvenation of a tradition that cannot die because the truth never does. I think we’re on the brink of a golden age of liberal arts education.

I think we’re on the brink of a golden age of liberal arts education.

— Dr. Roberts

Sanford:

I think first and foremost, we need citizens who realize they’re citizens. I don’t think many young people today really grasp the way in which they bear certain responsibilities. What I’m seeing in a lot of young people today is what we talked earlier about: they feel like they need to take a position on everything, and they haven’t had time to think about all the things that they express really strong opinions about.

The other extreme I see is apathy. A lot of people have just checked out. Apathy can sometimes be a reaction to the politicization of everything, but it can also be grasping onto a major undercurrent that’s part of our society, which is the thought that life is about maximizing personal preferences.

That that is deeply dissatisfying is no surprise. We have people who are struggling with depression and emotional challenges on a scale that we’ve never seen before. So a liberal education can protect against both those extremes by breaking down the kind of false security that one has in just subscribing to any number of ideological positions, because one needs to really be able to defend a position him or herself. And that takes, again, a lot of practice.

Wegemer:

But are we asking too much from liberal education, thinking in these grand terms?

Roberts:

The answer is no, we’re not asking too much. The liberal arts tradition has withstood far greater threats in human history in the time that it has been around than the nihilism that is so well-funded in the United States. I can give you a whole bunch of examples of a resurgence of this tradition, not just in the institutions here, but especially at the K-12 level, of very different groups of people, some of them faith-based, some of them not faith-based, who are building liberal arts schools.

Sanford:

I agree 100%. I take great cheer from the fact that the public charter liberal education model has been taking off, particularly in Arizona and in Texas – three of our children attend one of these schools – but also within faith-based institutions on the K-12 level, the model is being reintroduced, and the University of Dallas is actually involved in helping a number of those faith-based institutions.

What I’m seeing in a lot of young people today is what we talked earlier about: they feel like they need to take a position on everything...

— Dr. Roberts

It’s clear that the history of our tradition is a history of argument over a long period of time with a lot of conflicting points of view.

— Dr. Sanford

I sometimes think of a liberal education as being a kind of friendship, which is a way in which one can summarize what we’ve been talking about in this conversation.

In a liberal education, one needs to have, first, a friendship with the truth. You also need to have real friendships between professors and students. And then there are the friendships between the students, ultimately cultivating a friendship with God, with God as the final purpose, I would argue, of a liberal education.

Culture is not just a matter of policy. It’s not just a matter of politics. It’s a matter of those fundamental institutions, the mediating institutions. And a liberal education is dedicated to the purpose of cultivating those citizens who will be the leaders within those institutions that provide the very structure of our society.

Will you help us build up our culture and reach more friends who love the true, the good, and the beautiful?

University of Dallas students engage in constructive dialogue with the modern world as people of faith. Our students do not just consume information. They are challenged to think deeply and critically about what they learn, and to engage in rational, civil dialogue with those who hold different views.

We want to restore this same kind of discourse in our culture and help renew our country through a liberal arts education rooted in the Western tradition.

If you appreciated this issue of Veritas and think someone else would, too, we invite you to consider a gift of $50 or more. Each gift at this level or above enables us to place Veritas in at least an additional 40 households.

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Other Issues

If you loved this issue, we invite you to check out other issues of Veritas.

In Search of Wisdom, Truth and Virtue

Fall 2022 Issue

Watch The Full Presentation

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Letter From the Editor

CLARE VENEGAS, EDITOR

Featured Panelists & Moderator

Jonathan Sanford, Ph.D.

Kevin Roberts, Ph.D

Melissa Moschella, Ph.D.

Gerard Wegemer, Ph.D.

A Conversation about the

Liberal Arts, Citizenship, and the Future of the Republic

A liberal arts education illuminates what it means to be human, the nature of liberty, and the conditions for a flourishing civil society.

Bridgett Wagner:

Dr. Gerard Wegemer:

Dr. Jonathan Sanford:

We'd love to know what you think of Veritas !

Dr. Melissa Moschella:

Technical expertise is never sufficient to answer political questions, which are ultimately always moral questions because they’re questions about justice.

— Dr. Moschella

Liberal education really can change hearts and minds by opening students to the search for truth and liberating them from a dogmatic adherence to dominant orthodoxies.

— Dr. Moschella

Dr. Kevin Roberts:

Wegemer:

What makes liberal education “liberal” or “free” is that it emphasizes the pursuit of truth for its own sake, even if that means questioning the received orthodoxies of the day and coming to some very unpopular conclusions.

— Dr. Moschella

Moschella:

Wegemer:

Roberts:

Leisure is what enables us to remain human, because it’s the realm where we actually focus on those things that are good in themselves, not good merely for further utilitarian ends.

— Dr. Moschella

I think we’re on the brink of a golden age of liberal arts education.

— Dr. Roberts

Sanford:

Wegemer:

Roberts:

Sanford:

What I’m seeing in a lot of young people today is what we talked earlier about: they feel like they need to take a position on everything...

— Dr. Roberts

It’s clear that the history of our tradition is a history of argument over a long period of time with a lot of conflicting points of view.

— Dr. Sanford

We'd love to know what you think of Veritas !

Watch or Listen

We invite you to enjoy the original, full-length conversation.

Will you help us build up our culture and reach more friends who love the true, the good, and the beautiful?

If you appreciated this issue of Veritas and think someone else would, too, we invite you to consider a gift of $50 or more. Each gift at this level or above enables us to place Veritas in at least an additional 40 households.

Other Issues

Spring 2023

Winter 2023