How the Pluralistic University Can Compensate for the Failure of the Secular University

• In Event: 46.069 - The High Cost of Secularism on the University in the Age of Pluralism

Abstract

Many scholars (e.g., Marsden, 1994; Jacobsen & Jacobsen, 2012; and Nord, 2010) contend that American universities are functionally secular, thus privileging knowledge built on materialist assumptions. Whether one assumes a historical framework for understanding the loss of moral and religious knowledge in American higher education (e.g., Reuben, 1996; Marsden, 1994, Willard, 2009), some scholars: 1) argue for liberal education that incorporates religious and other non-materialistic ways of knowing (Newman, 1854; Nord, 2010), 2) critique and lament the loss of theological knowledge (e.g., Hauerwas, 2007), and 3) conduct a cost-benefit assessment of secular academic life. The secular university thus becomes increasingly implausible in age when social and intellectual pluralism is increasing. Increasingly, younger scholars are realizing that intellectual pluralism is necessary, while still affirming the academic fruits of earlier, more secular forms of research (Jacobsen & Jacobsen, 2012).

One substantial cost of academic secularism to students is the general inability to pursue “the big questions” in their coursework (meaning of life, nature of humanity, whether or not there is a God, how to make the good society). On the one hand, this secularism is a function of what Richard John Neuhaus called “the naked public square” (1984) where entry into American public life demands that one shed his or her religious clothing, that is, one’s deeply-held religious beliefs about political reality. On the other hand, it is also a function of the disciplinary structures we have set in place by virtue of what Smith calls “the secular revolution” (1999). Thus, apart from the odd course in philosophy or political science, students in our secular universities are usually forced to limit their coursework to what may be considered the small and medium-sized questions found in courses that emphasize career skills and conformity to workforce expectations.

Catholic philosopher Alasdair Macintyre, in acknowledging the intellectual and social pluralism of our era, suggests a model built on what he calls “sustained intellectual disagreement” (1991). He concludes that, in light of the substantial and deep fissures between rival worldviews, students in higher education should be exposed to an on-going educational program that values intellectual diversity and sincerely-held differences of opinion while nurturing friendship and the pursuit of truth. Similarly, Os Guinness’ work with the Williamsburg Charter (Guinness & Hunter, 1990) suggests “chartered pluralism” by which deep and sustained differences are accommodated in public life and education. A number of alternative arrangements like these will be recommended.

400 words

Author

• Robert Osburn, University of Minnesota