Aristotle rightly observed that, in matters other than scientific, people learn best not by precept but by example. Let me conclude, therefore, by making it clear that the colleges who claim to offer a liberal education today and tomorrow must make their commitment to freedom clear by their actions. To a university, even more than to other institutions in a free society, the right of free speech, the free exchange of ideas, the presentation of a variety of opinions, especially of unpopular points of view, the freedom to move about and make use of public facilities without interference, are vital. Discussion, argument, and persuasion are the devices appropriate to the life of the mind, not selective exclusion, suppression, obstruction, and intimidation. Yet in my time our colleges and universities have often seen speakers shouted down or prevented from speaking, buildings forcibly occupied and access to them denied, different modes of intimidation employed with much success. Most of the time the perpetrators have gone unpunished in any significant way. These assaults typically have come from just one section of opinion, and they have been very successful. Over the years few advocates of views that challenge the campus consensus have been invited, and fewer still, sometimes victims of such behavior, have come. Colleges and universities that permit such attacks on freedom and take no firm and effective action to deter and punish those who carry them out sabotage the most basic educational freedoms. Yet to defend those freedoms is the first obligation of anyone who claims to engage in liberal education.
Donald Kagan
One of the great classicists of our time, Donald Kagan has died at age 89. His three volume study of the Peloponnesian War is enthralling and original. A typical liberal Democrat earlier in his life, he was repulsed by the campus riots in 1969 and began his transition to being a conservative. His wife of 62 years, Myrna, passed away in 2017. Ave atque vale Professor, may you now be debating a fine point of history with Thucydides.
I’ve never heard of this gentleman before, much to my regret. Thank you for introducing him to us. May he and his dear wife rest in peace
May he rest in peace– thank goodness we have writing and video to carry his voice!
“Over the years I have gotten into trouble more than a few times for things I have written or said in public, but I suppose the chief cause of my notoriety is a speech I gave to the freshmen of Yale College suggesting that they would be wise to make the study of Western civilization the center of their pursuit of a liberal education. In that speech I focused on our needs as Americans. I pointed out the devastating effects of ethnic conflict and disunity around the world and the special problems and opportunities confronting the United States, a country that was never a nation in the sense of resting on common ancestry but one that depends on a set of beliefs and institutions deriving from Western traditions. I argued that the unity of our country and the defense of its political freedom and individual liberties required that its citizens have a good understanding of the ideas, history, and traditions that created them.
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Because of Western civilization’s emergence as the exemplary civilization, it also presents problems to the whole world. The challenges presented by freedom and the predominance of reason cannot be ignored, nor can they be met by recourse to the experience of other cultures, where these characteristics have not been prominent. To understand and cope with our problems we all need to know and to grapple with the Western experience.
In my view we need especially to examine the older traditions of the West that came before the modern era and to take seriously the possibility that useful wisdom can be found there, especially among the Greeks who began it all. They understood the potentiality of human beings, their limitations, and the predicament in which they live. Man is potent and important, yet he is fallible and mortal, capable of the greatest achievements and the worst crimes. He is a tragic figure, powerful but limited, with freedom to choose and act but bound by his own nature, knowing that he will never achieve perfect knowledge and understanding, justice and happiness, but determined to continue the search.
To me that seems an accurate description of the human condition that is meaningful not only for the Greeks and their heirs in the West but for all human beings. It is an understanding that cannot be achieved without a serious examination of the Western experience.
The abandonment of such a study or its adulteration for current political purposes would be a terrible loss to all of humanity.”
– Excerpted from “Why We Should Study the History of Western Civilization” by Donald Kagan
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/05/study-history-of-western-civilization.html