The Vanishing Life of the Mind

Once upon a time the summer after senior year meant packing a Volkswagen and driving cross country with three of your closest friends, one last Thelma-and-Louise style hoorah before embarking on the Rest of Your Life.

Nowadays, few drive farther than New York, and the Rest of Your Life started exactly three summers ago, in the same glossy office building at 60 Wall St., only then you were an intern and now you are an associate broker/attorney/consultant with a suit that finally fits.

Do you live happily ever after?

In a world in which we are constantly preparing for the next step, for some yet undefinable future that promises success in six-figure quantities, pre-professionalism is increasingly accepted as a practical, even necessary approach. Few companies hire new recruits without previous experience—those brandishing resumes, rolodexes and schmooze potential have neither room nor need for a battered copy of Let’s Go USA. The path of least resistance, in this case, is the path more taken, well-trod and lit with signposts—research, recruiting, this way to OCS. And so it is that the Right conquers the True: the right grades, the right classes, the right activities, the right people to know. No need to take Philosophy 3 to learn about means-ends reasoning; peek into Ec10 to see it in action.

Where, then, does learning end and pre-professionalism begin?

Ideally, a university should be a brief sanctuary from the real world, a place that allows its students freedom to think, to question and to be questioned. An education should cultivate what is best in us, inspire and encourage ideals, clarify and strengthen our vision. At no other point in our lives are we so absolutely free to live the life of the mind, to engage completely with a world of ideas. Here, we take momentary refuge in great works of literature, feats of science, narratives of history, learning from those who have lived the life of the mind—who lived well, nobly and freely. As University President Charles W. Eliot, Class of 1853, said in his inaugural address more than a 100 years ago, more than anything else, a liberal education creates good citizens. And ultimately, isn’t this the measure of a great university? Not its research, its endowment, or even its history, but the latent potential of its students, who have learned the tools of citizenship under its shelter.

If this is the purpose of a liberal education, what is the reality? If one is right in arguing that the function of a university is to provide sanctuary, how safe is the haven? Judging by the increasing overlap between pre-professionalism and undergraduate education, the answer seems more and more often to be, not very. Instead of providing a haven from the Real World, institutions of higher learning are increasingly pathways to it.

In subtle but invasive ways, liberal education as we experience it has become gradually, but persistently, pre-professionalized. True, we are still studying material life in Puritan America, and the significance of leitmotifs in Dickens, or marriage rituals in rural South China, instead of contract law or mergers and acquisitions, yet the nature of our learning has changed. Outside of the tutorial system and particularly in some parts of the Core, we are asked to read staggering amounts of material, process it for a brief section, and move on to the next assignment. I couldn’t tell you, for example, exactly what I read for Historical Studies A-12; I can say that there was quite a bit of it (3,000 years worth) and that I went through five highlighters. Quantity, not quality, is emphasized. The ability to retain information for a short period of time is rewarded. We learn to think causally, to debrief large texts, to read fast (and if we can’t do that, we learn how to get by on very little sleep), yet what is shortchanged is our ability to critique the writers we read, to absorb their arguments and to grapple with their ideas—to think critically and creatively. Let me now provide a translation: we are able to process a large amount of information in a minimum amount of time, a skill which is unsurprisingly coveted by firms which operate on the Golden Rule of Efficiency, a skill which has a lot to do with professional success, and very little to do with successful citizenship.

University President Larry H. Summers said it best in his inaugural address, emphasizing the importance of learning as an end to itself—separate and distinct from all attempts to make it practical or (horrors!) vocational. “The practical effectiveness of what we do must never obscure what is most special and distinctive about universities like this one: that they are communities in which truth, Veritas, is pursued first and last as an end in itself—not for any tangible reward or worldly impact.”

As the world of corporate finance and high-powered professiondom slowly encroaches upon our ivory tower, what is the role of the university—and its students—in maintaining the life of the mind? As an institution devoted to higher standards of learning, how do we keep from becoming an institution dedicated to higher standards of living? And finally, how do we apply the vision of Veritas to everyday practice—against the barrage of resume workshops, recruiting sessions and fellowship applications, how does a university keep its students engaged in the present—in a tireless, relentless, and vibrant pursuit of Truth?

These are hard questions to answer, particularly because they involve every single aspect of this community. In part, this will require vigilance on the part of the University in ensuring that the vision is realized: smaller classes, a rethinking of the Core curriculum, greater attention paid to serious intellectual scholarship. It will require a rethinking on the part of students of how we choose to live our lives here: as one step closer to the great beyond, or as a true sojourn in the richness of the present, in the company of friends. For this is the essence of Veritas-truth sought to invigorate the life of the mind, community and soul.

Sue Meng ’03 is a history and literature concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.