The endangered species list is due for a new member: history of Western Civilization courses at Holy Cross. Out of 27 courses offered by the College’s History Department in the Spring 2022 semester, only two focus on pre-1500 Western history. In a department of 18 professors, only one specializes in pre-1500 Western history. The Department is currently in the process of hiring another Latin Americanist rather than a medievalist or ancient Mediterranean specialist. This might not seem objectionable at first glance, but it is a serious concern for anyone interested in a genuine liberal arts education. A robust schooling in Western Civilization’s origins is essential for the growth of responsible and informed citizens in a modern liberal democracy, and must be central to any liberal arts curriculum.
Before delving into the body of the article, I want to specify that despite my criticism, I have a deep appreciation for the History Department. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to study under the professors I have taken courses with, for they epitomize the best of the historical profession. My quarrel is not with them (or any professor); indeed I can only commend them for their work in the discipline. Nor do I want to denigrate non-Western areas of study — those are incredibly important to the discipline as well. I only desire the recognition that medieval European and ancient Mediterranean studies hold particular value for the Western citizen.
To the postmodern mind, it is entirely uncouth to suggest that a particular area of history is essential and should be prioritized. Yet, despite a popular aversion to admitting it, there is indeed a hierarchy of historical importance, particularly during the finite time of an undergraduate education. Walter Lippmann’s 1940 speech at Harvard University’s Phi Beta Kappa Society, offers a cogent case for why universities must defend the necessity of educating students in the tradition and history of Western Civilization. It will serve as the basis for this article's analysis and criticism of the decline in the study of Western Civilization, both at Holy Cross and around the country. Lest he be dismissed out of hand, it should be noted that Lippman was hardly a conservative: he dabbled with socialism for a time, worked for the Wilson administration, and considered himself a progressive for much of his life.
Lippmann begins from a bird’s eye view of education and its aims. The modern education system finds its roots in the 19th century West, with the goal – quoting Jefferson – of providing the foundation for “the preservation of freedom and happiness”. In Lippmann’s judgement, that foundation has utterly failed. Indeed, it is the students of these schools that in the 20th century “have either abandoned their liberties, or have not known, until the last desperate moment, how to defend them.” One can only defend liberties if he or she is educated in the history and principles that liberty depends upon.
Lippmann understood that the individuals who built the United States, who constructed and maintained the freest society the world has known, did so with a deep understanding of the West’s past. Many of the concepts that undergird free societies – such as universal subjection to the law regardless of social stature, the principle of representation, checks and balances, or respect for the human body (as created in the image of God) – were birthed in the ancient Mediterranean. These critical ideas, among many others, were then further developed and enriched in the medieval West. The institutions of a free society that are taken for granted today are but the tip of the stalactite of Western Civilization. Lippmann quotes French philosopher Etienne Gilson:
“[Western culture] is essentially the culture of Greece, inherited from the Greeks by the Romans, transfused by the Fathers of the Church with the religious teachings of Christianity, and progressively enlarged by countless numbers of artists, writers, scientists and philosophers from the beginning of the Middle Ages up to the first third of the nineteenth century.”
The American Founders were the heirs of this culture, they were manifestations of a continuous tradition and history stretching back thousands of years. Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman, in The Idea of a University, asserts that, at its foundation, the West is a synthesis of two great traditions: that of Athens and that of Jerusalem: reason and faith. Newman, however, stretches the West’s history back even farther, seeing its origin in the great civilizations of the Near East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia. While the geographical center of Western Civilization has shifted in the course of history, its continuity is not in doubt. Hence the importance of educating Western citizens – and this includes all who inhabit the free world – in the tradition of Western Civilization: to fail to do so is to fail to preserve this great inheritance.
Lippmann defends the importance of preserving tradition – which requires understanding it – in a manner reminiscent of Edmund Burke. No individual or society can start from scratch or jettison the accumulated knowledge of generations and expect to progress as a civilization. Like a stalactite, growth is conducted upon a wide and ancient foundation. Lippmann, similarly, analogizes this to the practice of modern science: “[Society is] able to do advanced experiments which increase knowledge because they do not have to repeat the elementary experiments.” Burke asserted much the same, although he termed respect for tradition as prejudice. This is not the kind of prejudice that one thinks of today, instead it is prejudice in favor of deferring to the combined wisdom of generations past, for, as Russel Kirk affirms in The Conservative Mind, the knowledge of the common man “is a kind of collective wisdom” without which “he is thrown back upon his own private stock of reason, with the consequences which attend shipwreck.” This Burkian prejudice is the response of the human mind to the problem of one’s inability to discover every truth for oneself — it is not to be thrown out as backward or primitive, rather it should be respected and utilized. Lippmann understood, however, that the educational system of 1940 – and this is even more true of 2021 – had no interest in strengthening the intellectual roots, or encouraging the Burkian prejudice, of Western society, as the curriculum had been progressively purged of pre-1500 Western Civilization.
It is not just that there are fewer courses offered on the history of Western Civilization in institutions of higher education, the problem is also that the subject is no longer required. The typical university student’s education is far more subjective than it once was, with undergraduates – in most colleges – having only to fulfill a short list of vague requirements. At Holy Cross, this takes the form of Common Requirements, which include such expansive terms as ‘Studies in Religion’ or ‘Historical Studies’. These requirements are so vague that a student can graduate without having taken a single course on Christianity or Western history. More specifically, in the History Department, majors need only two pre-modern courses – and they need not be Western, pre-1500, or ancient history either. Educational requirements should exist not just to give the student a breadth of experience in various areas of study, but also to educate the student in those areas which are essential to the society that he or she will inhabit.
For Lippmann, a society can only endure when there are common bonds, part of which includes a common knowledge of shared heritage and tradition. Education fails in its civic duty – the preservation and furtherance of a free society – when it fails to have a standard of knowledge, when it fails to provide a common well from which members of a society can draw upon. Today, it is a concern for equity that has caused the teaching of Western Civilization — the common well — to be superseded and diminished. Rather than offering courses centered on the school’s duty of providing foundational knowledge for the student, history departments (Holy Cross’ included) have chosen to base their offerings in part on equity or equal representation of cultures and geographic areas — another symptom of contemporary relativism. There is nothing wrong with having culturally and geographically diverse history — indeed, it is a good — but when that comes at the expense of essential topic areas (such as the study of pre-1500 Western history), it does a deep disservice to the student’s education.
What is required to revivify the education system is a revitalization of studies in Western Civilization and a rejection of the postmodern attachment to relativism. Not all areas of historical study are of equal importance for the educated citizen. Some areas should be prioritized – rather, required – and some should remain elective. This does not mean that the less traditional areas of historical study need to be removed from the curriculum – far from it. However, it does mean that the College should construct its Common Requirements so as to educate the individual in the society he or she inhabits. The History Department should rebuild its medieval Western and ancient Mediterranean history programs, and rework its major requirements to specify that all history majors must take at least one course in both of these topic areas. Politically unpopular they may be, but if the College truly desires to educate men and women “for and with others” in a shared society, these changes are necessary.