Texas Insider

By Marvin Olasky

Higher education should provide true ethical formation. But too often today in American universities the moral dimension of education is corrupted by a dual foe: partisan politics in the classroom and a cafeteria-style curriculum that lacks coherence or purpose.

A bill being considered in our state’s House of Representatives takes an important step toward returning Texas universities to education’s real ethical purpose, free of these distortions. 
 
The legislation, HB 2746, introduced by State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), would establish a School for Ethics, Western Civilization and American Traditions at the University of Texas at Austin. The conventional modern model of professional ethics education consists in simply learning a code of conduct.

The value and validity of the code is taken for granted. More insidiously, equating ethics with legalistic conformity to a code encourages bad habits of rationalization and evasion. The worst sort of behavior is thought permissible so long as cleverness can reconcile it with the letter of the code.

Higher education used to include a core curriculum in the tradition of Western humanism, or the “Great Books” of literature, philosophy, religion and science. This common core embodied the ideal of “liberal” education, which liberated those who acquired it from present fads and preoccupations.

A liberal education was not partisan, but it was both conservative and progressive, since its reverence for the past was the basis for hope in the future. Its motivation, as the German poet Goethe put it, was to “Take what you have inherited from your fathers and work to make it your own.”

We have strayed from the classical liberal education, particularly since the 1960s, for many reasons. Two are particularly worth noting.

First, the humanities have become extremely specialized and fragmented because of an unbridled “publish or perish” pressure on professors as the sole criterion for professional advancement. Many professors now do not have the interest or incentive to teach the core of the undergraduate curriculum.

Second, many faculties reject the idea of a program devoted to the Western tradition, even as they embrace departments and programs in Asian, Middle Eastern, and African traditions. Indeed, some consider the idea of teaching Western and American heritage without irony as “triumphalism.” They oppose the notion that there is a core within the Western tradition worth learning, or that there is anything particularly good or wise about the institutions that make up the American experiment in freedom and democracy.

The result of these pressures is a curriculum that combines the good, the bad and the ugly. If they are lucky, students can haphazardly carve out a good education on their own, but they cannot rely on the institution to provide the means for integrated intellectual formation. Sadly, a student can now earn a bachelor’s degree in any state university in Texas without reading any of the classics.

The proposed new School will combat these problems and serve as a foundation to reintroduce the core liberal arts curriculum to Texas universities. The new School would consist of integrated seminars in the classics of American history and the great books of philosophy, literature and religion, from the ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews through the modern era.

A well-designed college curriculum cannot reform an already bad character, but it can raise questions hard to put aside—and thoughtful teaching can certainly contribute to the maturation of good character. This is what the new School is designed to accomplish.

A rebirth of genuine ethical education in Texas requires a fresh start. This new School—with its own faculty, courses, and administration—would have the autonomy necessary to revitalize the Great Books without interference or obstruction from vested interests or ideological partisans.

The School for Ethics, Western Civilization and American Institutions would enable students to see their lives as part of something larger and greater than themselves. It would entrust them with the responsibility for adding to this heritage. It would inspire a new generation of Texan leaders.

Marvin Olasky is editor in chief of WORLD, provost of The King’s College-New York City, and a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of 20 books including Compassionate Conservatism and The American Leadership Tradition.