In an autobiographical memoir of his student years at the University of Chicago, George Steiner describes the exhilarating intensity that one experiences at an excellent liberal-arts college, the joy of being immersed in ideas and arguments. It would be difficult indeed to sleep through the kind of education that he enjoyed at Chicago. I was struck by two passages in particular:
A worthwhile university or college is quite simply one in which the student is brought into contact with, is made vulnerable to, the aura and the threat of the first class. (B5)
In the critical mass of a successful academic community, the orbits of individual obsessions will cross and re-cross. Once he has collided with them, the student will forget neither their luminosity nor their menace to complacency. (B6)
The metaphor expressed by the words `vulnerable', `threat', and `menace' conveys Steiner's view that students are radically transformed by an excellent liberal-arts college. They abandon some deeply held beliefs and acquire others. They begin to act differently -- more wisely, one hopes, and more purposively. Steiner's metaphor posits a force that drives this transformation, a sword of enlightenment that attacks and excises folly and complacency.
However, the connotation of violence that Steiner's metaphor carries seems to me rather false. A graduate of an excellent liberal-arts college has indeed discarded some beliefs that she once cherished. She may never again have such a deep and uncritical belief in anything; in other words, she will not be a complacent fool. Is her college thereby imperilling her, inflicting a wound on her? On the contrary: A foolish idea is like a splinter in one's finger. A child sometimes fears the tweezers, but a mature person perceives their application as a boon, not a danger. And if the surgeon's knife cuts deeper, to remedy a greater disability, the patient has still more reason to be grateful for the operation.
On the other hand, another connotation of Steiner's metaphor is true and worth emphasizing: The outcome of the contact between the student and ``the first class'' is unpredictable and ungovernable. Free discourse is dangerous in the sense that every participant has something important at stake and none can be certain of the outcome. I relish and take pride in this characteristic of intellectual life.
Steiner, George. ``An academic comes of age in `the sleepless city'.'' The chronicle of higher education 44, no. 22 (February 6, 1998), pp. B4-B6. I am indebted to my colleague Bill Francis for calling my attention to this memoir.
created February 11, 1998
last revised February 11, 1998