“Men With Chests”
Chapel, Thursday, April 24th, 2003
R. Scott Medsker
© 2003 by R. Scott Medsker. Not to be reprinted without permission.
I’d certainly like to thank Seamus Boyce for all of the
work that he has done this year in preparing Chapels,
getting people to speak, making sure that all of the posters
were up, and everything else that goes into organizing
Chapel. It wasn’t too long ago that these Thursday
morning Chapels were a forgotten tradition. Seamus has
gone beyond anything anyone expected this year. Please
join me in a round of applause for Seamus and all of his
work.
I’d also like to thank all of you for allowing me to
speak this morning. When we first started formulating the
list of speakers for this semester I was certain that there
would be an open week where I could conveniently pencil
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my own name in. However, because of the overwhelming
response from those we asked to speak, you had up until
this point, been spared listening to me.
In considering exactly what I would say today I
thought about telling you what I’ve gained and what I’ve
learned from my time at Wabash. I also thought about
telling you the stupid things I’ve done, like diving into
pools at parties or delivering smashing pick-up lines that
consistently result in an oh-so-loving smack in the face. As
to my education, it really hasn’t been that different from
yours, so speaking on that would bring nothing unique. As
to my follies, those stories are better suited for a TGIF than
the situation I have been offered. Instead, I would like to
deliver a talk entitled “Men With Chests.”
It’s funny how when you are grasping for a topic,
whether a lecture, a paper, or anything else it often presents
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itself. I had long been interested in the relationship
between liberal arts education, democracy, and the role of
responsible citizens, so that offered a starting point. As I
was lying in bed at home on the night before Easter I
picked up a copy of “The Book of Virtues” by William J.
Bennett. I opened the book to a random spot and began
reading. It was an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition
of Man.
Lewis was one of America’s greatest modern thinkers
and was consistently concerned with the responsibility of
adults to educate the young. It’s Lewis’ case in The
Abolition of Man that if our elders fail to pass on to us the
ideals of good and evil, right and wrong, then they too must
share the blame for the resulting downfall of civilization.
The text is of interest to us because it addresses the
nature of education, namely that there are some who
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divorce the notions of right and wrong from the intrinsic
emotions that we attach to everything we must evaluate in
life. As with most every issue, where you stand on the way
education should be conducted depends upon where you
sit. Those who view the virtues of right and wrong, good
and evil as objective absolutes which are found in nature
would advocate training the pupil to exhibit the appropriate
response, the response that the object in question deserves
regardless of the emotions you attach to it. Likewise,
according to Lewis those who do not view these virtues as
absolutes face the tough choice of removing all sentiments
from the pupil’s mind because they are nonrational, or
should this idea make them bristle the other option is to
place certain selected sentiments in the mind of the pupil,
devoid of any relationship to the intrinsic value of the
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object, only made acceptable “because the teacher said so.”
But where does this lack of true emotion leave us?
The excerpt that moved me to speak on this goes as
follows:
And all the time – such is the tragicomedy of our situation – we
continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering
impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming
across the statement that what our civilization needs is more
‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort
of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the
function. We make men without chests and expect of them
virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to
find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be
fruitful.
So here is the problem. In order to preserve society
we must have men with chests who will be virtuous and
make the tough decisions. We must have honorable men
who will evaluate any given situation and make the right
decision. How can we reconcile the emotions necessary to
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build such men while preserving the ideas of absolute right
and wrong?
This question, posed in the early 1900s, is nothing
new. Nay it is the very tension between emotion and right
and wrong in society that lead to the creation of the liberal
arts as we know them today. To understand this tension
requires us to confront both the nature of democracy and
the role of a responsible citizen in such a democracy.
Looking back into antiquity one does not have to think
too hard about why it was important to educate citizens as
to their role in this new idea of democracy. Understand
that this democracy was one where each citizen had the
ability to speak and be heard, rather than the democracy
that we have all grown up in where you select a
professional to speak for you.
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When educating individuals on their role as citizens in
the democracy the two prevalent types of teaching
consisted of the Eristics, who were heavily focused on the
theory and the ethics of government, and the Sophists, who
were the original pimps of debate through emotion,
teaching anyone how to argue for or against anything,
provided the price was right. What the democracy had
were citizens who could spin your head with theoretical
and ethical hypotheticals and citizens who would say
whatever put the most coinage in their pockets. But where
was the citizen speaking on the behalf of right versus
wrong for the good of society?
Enter our champion, father of the liberal arts, crafter
of the responsible citizen, Isocrates. Refuting the ways of
both the Eristics and the Sophists Isocrates sought out to
create citizens who embodied the Quintillian idea of the
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“good man [and thus responsible citizen] speaking well.”
This was done not by simply teaching them the abstract
principles of democratic government or how to speak glibly
but rather by creating in them a well-rounded academic
base consisting of oratory, composition, history,
citizenship, culture, and perhaps most importantly to us,
morality. Thus the birth of the liberal arts, a type of
education that sets out to create responsible citizens.
Wabash, a school of the liberal arts, is no different
today. While the most obvious role of education is to
prepare student for life after Wabash, whether that is more
school or entering the workforce, I would argue that the
primary role of any liberal arts education is still to create a
responsible citizen.
It was in August of 2001 when I sat right down in
those bleacher seats to watch my brother Brock be rung in.
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Speaking to the Class of 2005 President Ford asked them
“Do you want to save civilization?” The daunting
challenge elicited a timid “yes.” The role of the education
they would receive over the next four years was clear. We
were in the business of building responsible citizens. But
does Wabash really do this, and if so, how?
In examining the way Wabash produces responsible
citizens I would present two mantras of the College as
evidence that we are still in accord with the Isocratic ideals
of education. First, one must consider the one rule we live
by, the Gentleman’s Rule. Secondly, our mission statement
contains the blueprint for the ideally educated Wabash
Man, the gentleman, and the responsible citizen.
By this time of year, the Gentleman’s Rule is
engrained deep in the hearts of the freshmen to the point
that they, along with every other student, can recite it from
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memory. “The Student is expected to conduct himself, at
all times, both on and off the campus, as a gentleman and a
responsible citizen.” At no other college or university will
you find one rule to govern the actions of all students.
I argue that it is this rule more than any in-class
education that creates responsible citizens. And here is
where we return to The Abolition of Man: By being
required to reconcile our every action against one rule and
one standard, no matter how vague or objective it may be,
we are forced to evaluate our every action as gentlemanly
or not, as right or wrong, as good or evil.
Now do not take me as naïve. I most certainly do not
argue that every action at Wabash can be easily categorized
as right or wrong, gentlemanly or ungentlemanly, but such
is the way of our larger society. And here is where we
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must consider the second document, the mission statement
of the College.
“Wabash College educates men to think critically, act
responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.” These
are the traits that we learn to employ when fulfilling our
role as responsible citizens. When encountering a difficult
decision on the rightness or wrongness of an action we
must engage the action, thinking critically about its
purpose, its results, and its ramifications to both the
individuals immediately involved and to society as a whole,
thus acting responsibly. We must lead effectively,
reminding those citizens around us of their role in society
and helping them to reconcile tough decisions along the
way. And finally, we must live humanely, being mindful
of and compassionate to the society to which we are
responsible.
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It seems as if we are doing well to create responsible
citizens and that C.S. Lewis would approve of our exhibits,
the responsible citizens we produce. However, on deeper
examination, it would appear that our products are
dangerously close to the pitfall that Lewis feared: the
absence of feeling or emotion in decision-making.
The nature of emotion is what presents the problem.
What elicits an emotion of joy for me may be sadness for
another. Fear for one individual may be thrill for someone
else. Yet we simply cannot ignore emotion in deciding
what is right and wrong because it is a challenge. Rather
we must, and on some level we do, teach men to feel not a
conditioned response, but to feel authentically and then
rationalize those feelings with reason.
Feeling must be accounted for because from feeling
and emotion spring the virtue, enterprise, and honor for
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which Lewis cried. If we are to continue the proud liberal
arts tradition of creating responsible citizens, we must
continue to discuss the role of emotion in education.
Wabash produces some of the best graduates in the
nation. We are CEOs, doctors, lawyers, activists, and
humanitarians. We are the movers and shakers of society.
We are gentlemen. We are men who think critically, men
who act responsibly, men who lead effectively, men who
feel authentically, men who live humanely. We are
Wabash men who exhibit virtue, honor, and enterprise. We
are responsible citizens. We are men with chests. Thank
you.
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