ESSAYS 1www.hillsdaleforum.com

ForumThe HillsdaleHistoric

Hillsdale, home of Hillsdale

CollegeMicah Meadowcroft

Interview With

Dr. Gamble:Philosophy of

History

The Singular They

Chris McCaffery

2 FEBRUARY 2015

February 2015Volume III | Issue 7

Editor-In-Chief | Chris McCaffery

Head Copy Editor | Chelsey Schmid Assistant Copy Editors

Bethany ShulerBreana Noble

Content EditorsMatthew OSullivan

Taylor KemmeterAndrew EggerRamona Tausz

Staff Writer | Andy ReussFeatured Essayists

Micah MeadowcroftSean KunathSarah ReinselKirby Hartley

Head Designer | Meg Prom

Design AssistantGrace DeSandro

PhotographerElena Creed

Editor-on-the-Run | Wes Wright

Web Editor | Emily LehmanBusiness Manager | Luke Adams

Faculty Advisor | Dr. John Somerville

Special Thanks toIntercollegiate Studies Institutes

Collegiate NetworkDr. Richard GambleDr. Jeffrey Lehman

The Hillsdale Forum is an independent, student-run conservative magazine at Hillsdale College. The Forum, in support of the mission statement of the college, exists to foster a campus environment open to true liberal education and human flourishing. We publish opinions, interviews, papers, and campus news. The Forum is a vehicle to bring the discussion and thought of the students and professors at the heart of our school beyond the classroom, because if a practical end must be assigned to a University course, it is that of training good members of society. The Forum brings the learning of the classroom into the political reality of campus. F

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INTERVIEWS

E S S AY S05 HistoricHillsdale,HomeofHillsdaleCollege How and why students should foster healthy towngown relationships. by Micah Meadowcroft13 InDefenseoftheSingularThey I, you, he, she, and it should all use they. by Chris McCaffery11 BookReview:Particular Crossroads OConnor and Percys religous fiction. by Kirby Hartley15 JohnKeatsVisionforArt Truth, Beauty, and John Keats famous Ode. by Sarah Reinsel26 FountainPens Kunath wants a more elegant pen, for a more civilized age. by Sean Kunath27 AHumorousSomething Sigh. The Forum Staff. by Andy Reuss

20 InterviewwithDr.RichardGamble Thinking about how we think about history, with Associate Professor of History Dr. Richard Gamble Compiled by Devin Creed24 InterviewwithDr.JeffreyLehman Defining the liberal arts, with Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Jeffrey Lehman. Compiled by Weston Wright

All uncredited photos by Elena Creed

www.hillsdaleforum.com LET TER FROM THE EDITOR 3

L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I TO R

February 2015s issue of The Hillsdale Forum is here. Inside: five essays (including a review), two interviews, a humor item, and, least of all, this letter.

Briefly, senior Sean Kunath explains why he loves his fountain pens so much (page 10), and Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Jeffrey Lehman explains just a bit of what we talk about when we talk about the liberal arts (page 20). Junior Micah Meadowcroft takes longer to unpack the relationship between the City of Hillsdale and the college we attend (page 5), and sophomore Sarah Reinsel explores pottery, poetry, and truth and beauty with an essay on John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn, inspired by a lecture on conservatism and the arts delivered by Greg Wolfe, 80 (page 13).

I take a stand for what I think is one of the most unfairly-maligned usages in English grammar on page 11, and senior Kirby Hartley reviews Particular Crossroads, a

short book about Flannery OConnor and Walker Percys faith, fiction, and southern identity. Associate Professor of History Dr. Richard Gamble sat down with senior Devin Creed to discuss his current class History and Philosophy of History, his published books, and what he means by historical consciousness. Finally, senior Andy Reuss satirically reveals the real story of our nations founding.

Behind everything inside this issue is a fantastic staff of editors and designers who make it all happen. Their skill makes this beautiful publication possible and they are to be congratulated for every edition.

The Forum can be a great opportunity to have a conversation with the campus community and develop writing, editing, and design skills; email us today, hillsdaleforum@gmail.com.

Editor-in-Chief Chris McCaffery is a junior studying history and English. He is a member of the Dow Journalism Program.

ESSAYS

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HistoricHillsdale,HomeofHillsdaleCollegeby Micah Meadowcroft

www.hillsdaleforum.com

When junior Forester McClatchey, the Collegians cartoonist, sketched a bewildered college student faced with the improbable varieties and combinations of food available at the Hillsdale County Fair, what was a joke about artery-defying fried fair food became, for some, a cause for offense. A few Hillsdale natives took to Facebook to vent their displeasure regarding the cartoon, recalling a students

unfortunately-phrased restaurant review from 2013 [Broad Street Market: uniting the campus and the community, Hillsdale Collegian, Feb. 6, 2014], and complained that the cartoon was further evidence that the college students dismissed them as yokels. Other locals replied in the cartoons defense. It was the kind of little flame war that sparks on social media all the time. It blew out almost immediately.

The underlying sentiments at play, however small the population that takes them seriously, are the product of hasty generalizations and self-

fulfilling prophecy on the part of Hillsdale natives and thoughtless immaturity on the part of Hillsdale students. The temptation of the towns citizens is to dismiss college students as entitled, if not actually wealthythough that also seems a common characterizationand as snobbish cosmopolitans who think little of the towns rural roots and inhabitants. Those offended by the cartoon saw it as an attack on the county fair and all the farm culture it represents. Offense can be found where one looks for it, and, generally, these characterizations are both unfair and self-fulfilling. The more that locals assume that students are arrogant and standoffish, the more distance they themselves contribute to the divide, affirming the initial assumption that students hold themselves apart.

For their part, students throw around the term townie. In both its most and least charitable use, townie is a catchall for any Hillsdale native. For the majority of students it has merely replaced local or native. But many students also use townie to describe a particular kind of person, associating it with poverty, crime, and substance abuse. In this sense, a townie refers to the person female students dread sharing a sidewalk with late at night, the kind of person whom male students walking girls home cant decide if it would be validating or merely frightening to run into. Students dont think everyone born in Hillsdale is this sort of townie, but the connotations get confused until even the generalized use of townie carries a scent somewhere between methamphetamine and methane. Its a Here there be dragons, a lazy label for the unknown, and a real problem.

Until both sides of this issue are addressed, progress in improving Hillsdales town-gown relationship and bringing the college and the city together in real community will be impossible. Human fallibility being what it is, someones mistake will reignite old suspicions and undercut progress. While being offended is a choice, it is our responsibility as Hillsdale

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credit: Wikipedia

How and why students should foster healthy towngown relationships.

students to not give occasion for offense. No one goes to church with townies. You know those families and you dont think of them with a label; you think of them as individuals and as a community. Thats what we have to do to play our part in healing whatever cultural rift divides town and gown.

Either potentially giving offense or being offended in interactions with the people of Hillsdale presents one party with an opportunity to bear with the weaker brother as the Apostle Paul commands in Romans. Should education or economic situation ever truly be a stumbling block to relationships with locals, it is a chance to meet people where they are rather than taking offense. It is vital to the health of the whole Hillsdale community that students, rather than self-righteously steeling themselves for martyrdom for their sophistication, examine themselves to see if they are not the weaker brothers, wanting comfort and coddling.

In my first week as a Hillsdale student, I took an assignment from the Collegian to describe Hillsdales political tendenciesnot Hillsdale the college, but the town. I wanted to be as real a reporter as I could, so I got my notebook and pen and marched toward Carleton Road with the intention of running into people and interviewing them. I expected Id find the busy sidewalks Id grown up with in Portland and many eager interviewees wanting to talk about Governor Romney and President Obama. I found one occupied porch and empty sidewalks.

I didnt notice the porch was occupied at first. Or, maybe I did, but convinced myself that I didnt because, to be honest, I was scared. I didnt know how to interact with what my memory paints as a grizzled older man in a stained T-shirt and truckers cap, briskly swaying back and forth on a rocking chair. He might have had a cigarette. I didnt see a person; I saw a clich and was intimidated. Here was a redneck. I noticed a little girl on the porch with him and immediately started theorizing about a dangerously simple family tree. This was not the investment banker who fronts a band or the unemployed barista that I was used tothere were no tattoos or dreadlocks. Just a man on his porch in a small American town and an accidental affront to my suburban and urban sensibilities, colored as they were by Larry the Cable Guy and the rest of the Midwest that TV had to offer. My geography was bad. Id just arrived. I certainly thought Appalachia and Wisconsin

were a lot closer than they are.I noticed he had noticed that I had noticed him.

I stopped, and stammered out a request to interview him for the Collegian, the student newspaper, as I explained. He assented, and, before I could ask a question, declared that I looked like Elvis Presley and that that was a good thing; I think he said blessing. It was surreal. I asked him about politics, and he said hed never voted, but that if he voted it would not be for Obama, because a friend of his complained about the president. Ramsey seemed his preferred c a n d i d a t e . Romney? I clarified. Romsey, yeah, he clarified further.

I finished my newspaper story with my label intact. He had done nothing to dissuade me from the idea that he was a redneck, and I took his words as confirmation enough. I had met a townie. It took a year to get over the culture shock of being a West Coast transient in the middle of the Michigan mitten, a year for me to begin to peel my labels off the town and its people and to realize that the people I met at church and got to know well enough to be comfortable with lived here just like that man. Its taken longer for me to realize that I did not know that man. I judged him based on one American Gothic snapshot and one conversation on a subject that he really had no need to know much about. Im sure his concerns are of a more local and immediate variety.

I was the weaker brother. City of Hillsdale, please bear with me.

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I DIDNT KNOW HOW TO INTERACT WITH WHAT MY MEMORY PAINTS AS A GRIZZLED OLDER MAN IN A STAINED T-SHIRT AND TRUCKERS CAP... I DIDNT SEE A PERSON; I SAW A CLICH AND WAS INTIMIDATED.

www.hillsdaleforum.com ESSAYS 7

For students not from the Midwest, especially those not from small towns, there is a real sense of foreignness to Hillsdale. For someone from the coasts, Hillsdale without the college is a drive-through town

in a flyover state. The risk for students, and even for faculty, is that this is the place where the school is and not ever the place where they are. For the student only here for four years, its especially tempting to let the familiarity and convenience of Wal-Mart and the McDonalds drive-thru protect them from ever needing to become a member of this strange new place. When one never looks for what the town has to offer, it becomes easy to say theres nothing here.

The most immediate solution to that problem and the best way to learn the poverty of labels like townie are the same: cross Carleton. Carleton Road cuts Hillsdale in half. To the northeast sits the college, to the southwest, an incredibly preserved historic American town. Its convenient for never the two to meet, but its lazy and eliminates an opportunity for an education the college itself cannot offer. To know and experience and be a part of a different kind of

life from both the one grown up in and the carefully constructed one found on campus is an opportunity for personal growth and an economic blessing to the town.

Professor of Political Economy Gary Wolfram and his wife, Mary Wolfram, are economic development consultants for Hillsdale, Michigan. Wolfram has taught at Hillsdale since 1989. He said that when he first began, town-gown relationships were moderately nonexistent. In some ways, Im affirming a trend rather than sparking a movement with this essay. Wolfram said developments of the last few years have led to students crossing Carleton in increasing numbers and businesses beginning to adjust practices to appeal to them.

As an example of that recent progress, the college and the city are working to have a sign set up on the highway that reads, Welcome to Historic Hillsdale, Home of Hillsdale College. Its not resentment or alienation or apathy thats holding up the signs installation; rather, its the Michigan Department of Transportation and the permit process. We wouldnt have thought of putting up the sign five years ago, Wolfram said, illustrating the progress thats been made.

Wolfram points to the relationship between Notre Dame and South Bend, Indiana, as an

model of a well-connected college community for Hillsdale. It was not always so. As a runner, Wolfram competed both in South Bend and at Notre Dame. When he was in the town, there was no indication that the university was up the road. When he was at the school, the group spent no time in South Bend. Thats changed since, and South Bend is now a thriving college town.

That kind of community in Hillsdale can only continue to grow if students continue to make it a priority to explore the city, especially downtown. Hillsdale may distinguish itself from other central Michigan towns of its size through its connection with the college, but, Wolfram said, the whole downtown is a historic district. Thats something all its own, and something students can treasure just as much as natives.

A particularly popular and intentional point of nexus between town and gown has been Broad Street Downtown Market. Robert Socha, co-owner and

I DIDNT KNOW HOW TO INTERACT WITH WHAT MY MEMORY PAINTS AS A GRIZZLED OLDER MAN IN A STAINED T-SHIRT AND TRUCKERS CAP... I DIDNT SEE A PERSON; I SAW A CLICH AND WAS INTIMIDATED.

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manager, said hes seen the tavern become a place where the college and community can come together and celebrate life, have a great meal, break bread. He has high hopes for Hillsdales future as both the college and town grow, and sees Broad Street continuing to be a place for dialogue and celebration.

Other downtown institutions have become cross-cultural shared spaces as well. Wolfram pointed to

Heres To You Pub & Grub and Volume I Books as successfully blending students and town residents across socioeconomic lines. The Palace Caf, during its late night weekend hours, has become a place where students fill up booths next to crowded tables of locals. Students proudly wear Coffee Cup Diner T-shirts. You become members of Hillsdale by being members of the institutions that make up the city.

Student groups are also beginning to recognize that the towns problems can be their problems too. Wolfram cited the volunteer group A Few Good Men, Greek philanthropies, and other student organizations as increasingly trying to partner with the town beyond the college community. Not too long ago we had members of the community come up and meet with the student groups [to] try and help them find people to partner with and [figure out] what to do to help,

he said.

In Wolframs mind, the next step is not just for traffic from the college to the town to continue to increase, but also for traffic from the town to the college to grow, and for the wider college communitydonors, parents, and the restto discover Hillsdale. Socha is an example of that last hope, as he and his family moved to Hillsdale in 2013, only connected to the area

by Imprimis and a desire for his children to attend Hillsdale Academy.

Traffic from town to college takes two forms. On the one hand, Wolfram would like to see both further dissemination of information about college events to the town and greater attendance and engagement at those events by the members of the town. Additionally, he believes downtown stores, restaurants, and coffee shops need to consider student schedules more in their hours of operation. Many places close before students have time to go down the hill.

Wolfram, the town, and the college are all partnering to give opportunities for the larger college community to encounter the city. The Wolframs lead tours of historic Hillsdale during parents weekends and Center for Constructive Alternatives seminars, and this last parents weekend, stores stayed open late for Awesome Autumn to provide the chance for

TheidealshouldbetoparticipateinandlearnfromHillsdalethetownasmuchasoneisable.

ESSAYS 9www.hillsdaleforum.com

parents and students alike to encounter the shops that make up the downtown. Youd be surprised by how many have never been downtown, Wolfram said.

And its true that geography plays a part in it. The concentration of businesses really is on one side of Carleton, and the college community is mostly on the other. If we can get retail to move its way up the hill and college folks to move their way down the hill, then it will help us create that interaction, Wolfram said.

In studying other college towns, Wolfram notes that successful cities keep their graduates. He pointed to Ann Arbor as an example of a city where students stay. It works best when students settle down in a capacity not directly related to the college.

Thats also an observation of Assistant Director of Career Services Keith Miller. A member of Hillsdales Tax Increment Finance Authority board, he noted, I think that at this point, what hasnt happened, is Hillsdale graduates staying here and founding businesses that increase the employment base beyond just people who stay and work for the college.

Miller graduated from Hillsdale in 2003. When I was a student, I basically ignored the town, he said.

Those interactions he did have with locals were mainly through his church.

Churches are a key part of facilitating interaction and fostering community among the college and town people. Their effectiveness is also almost entirely dependent on the attitude of the student. Miller said that when he was a student, church was just something he went to with his friends because he felt he was supposed to. It was too different from those churches that hed grown up with in the American Southwest for him to feel that he was getting anything out of it. Frustrated by the absence of something cosmopolitan, he didnt connect. Thats certainly still a temptation for students. It is more than easy to just go to church with school friends, stay for the service, and leave, without real interactionsto dine and dash, so to speak.

After graduating, Miller left Hillsdale for almost a decade before returning to work for the college. He said he has found that his friends are mostly faculty or somehow associated with the college. He still considers it difficult to connect well with locals, whether they are his neighbors at home or in the pew. Theres a real cultural distance, partly because of his

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upbringing in a different culture and partly because of the self-sustaining nature of the college. It creates its own culture.

Miller said it can almost be compared to life around a military base. Hillsdale College has a mission that it is seeking to fulfill, and that mission builds, by default, a kind of insular community. Army wives spend time with army wives; the people of the college, with their shared purpose, spend time with one another.

To Miller, that kind of cultural distance is self-perpetuating. Therefore, he said, I would love for college students who are coming from a different culture with different expectations, with chain restaurants that dont serve liver and onions, to understand that Hillsdale is a different thing.He considers the question to be one of membership. What kind of membership does he have in Hillsdale, Michigan? For Miller and the rest of the college community, answering that question takes a careful consideration of both the time spent in a place and the role played there.

Tenured professors with no intention of leaving Hillsdale must make their own way in balancing town and gown, for both are theirs; but for students, here only a brief four years, and for other non-permanent members of the college community, ideals and limitations must be held in balance. Perhaps it is useful to see the situation through a desacralized version of the Christian call to be in the world, but not of the world.

While students are here, at Hillsdale and in Hillsdale, it is their place. They should steward it and be a part of the community it has to offer. That means being open to relationships with locals, whether through church or work or food or shopping. That means protecting not just the college and its mission, but the people of Hillsdale and their culture. No matter how foreign the county fair and its food are to you, appreciate the richness of the community they represent, a community you have the opportunity to be a part of for a little while. The ideal should be to participate in and learn from Hillsdale the town as much as one is able.

That ideal must be tempered by recognizing limitations. Students are here at Hillsdale to study, and school comes first. Hillsdale College, through its mission, curriculum, and size, does foster a unique

community built around certain shared values and purposes. That should never set the college at odds with the town, but we should acknowledge that it does create a distinction. Just as the man on the porch didnt particularly care about national politics, or politics in general, the priorities of Hillsdales residents are different than the priorities of Hillsdales students and teachers.

Hillsdale is not the colleges town, and Hillsdale is not the towns college. The college desires to be a national, even international school, and so the student and faculty culture will never perfectly reflect that of the town. But that is how it should be. The goal should be for Hillsdale to be a college town, for that is what distinguishes it from other small cities on the rust belt. But historic Hillsdale has merit and beauty in its own right, and while the college and town will certainly grow together, the town will be healthiest if its growth is parallel to, but not dependent on, the college.

The student who feels a stranger in a strange land in Hillsdale the town must first decide where their place is. After knowing where they come from and the significance of their home, they can learn to appreciate Hillsdale more. Those differences should, however, for all their foreignness, be felt not as lostness, but as an alternative. For four years, or for as long as you live here, you are presented with a different way of living, a different way of becoming human. Even as students study the liberal arts to learn how to be a human being, reading the literature and history of that subject, they live in a town of human beings living just such a story. While you are here, this can be your place, in some way. And its people, if not yours, can be people worth learning from. F

Micah Meadowcroft is a junior studying history. He is a member of the Dow Journalism Program.

BookReview:PeculiarCrossroads:FlanneryOConnor,WalkerPercy,andCatholicVisioninPostwar SouthernFiction

by kirby hartley

Peculiar Crossroads: Flannery OConnor, Walker Percy, and Catholic Vision in Postwar Southern Fiction by Farrell OGorman (2007) Louisiana State University Press: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Farrell OGormans study of the similarities between Walker Percys and Flannery OConnors works pierces the banal to draw associations between the authors that significantly enrich interpretations of their fiction and nonfiction. The scholarly book is divided into four roughly 50-page chapters that analyze each authors influences and a 36-page chapter that surveys their lasting impact on writers of Southern fiction. OGorman outlines similarities between the authors, including the absence of their respective fathers; the mentorship of the literary duo Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate; the United States post-World War II culture of modernism, scientism, and secularism; Christian existentialism; a particular understanding of grace and mystery that emerges from their Catholic faith; and Christian realism. As OGorman demonstrates throughout his study, the upbringing, education, training, and idiosyncrasies of each author account for their differences, but their striking similarities result from their Southern literary environment, the post-war materialistic-scientific culture, and their Catholic faith. OGorman convincingly argues that the works of these two authors were part of a new era of fiction that broke with both the past and the present: Old South romanticism and scientific nihilism, respectively.

Chapter 1 gives biographical information on these renowned Southern writers that lends a better understanding of their fiction. OGorman emphasizes OConnors battle with lupus erythematosus as coloring her fiction. According to OGorman, she saw her own illness as a metaphor for the modern era. In her fiction, she connects her condition with the disorientation and displacement of 20th-century humanity, which she in turn connects with displaced persons and wayfarers

who are ultimately bound toward a homeland beyond their imagining. OGorman demonstrates that the authors understanding of the world through her illness allowed her to create works enriched by instances of grace.

His analysis of Percys family history of depression and suicide similarly lends context to the characters in his works (for example, Kate Cutrer in The Moviegoer) and his emphasis on subjects like malaise, manic-depressives, and suicide. Additionally, the extensive family background that OGorman draws out explains Percys interest in a sense of decaying aristocracy and the end of the Old South. This is due, in part, to the fact that Percy was the inheritor of an aristocratic lineage.

OGorman also discusses both authors major influences. For Percy, these are the loss of his parents in his youth; his upbringing by his Uncle Will, a respected author whose fiction expressed longing for a revival of the heroes of the Civil War; his scientific training as a pathologist; his bout with tuberculosis; his entry into the Catholic Church; and his devotion to a life of philosophy and fiction. On the other hand, OConnors impetus lies in the loss of her father to lupus in her youth; her training at the Iowa Writers Workshop where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing and worked under the mentorship of respected Southern authors like Allen Tate and Andrew Lytle; the intensive Yaddo writing camp; her cradle-Catholic faith; and her struggle with lupus throughout most of her adult life. In sum, these authors

can both be characterized as broadly satirical writers whose religious faith grant[s] them a rich perspective from which to evaluate and criticize a Southern society in the midst of rapid change from World War II

wherein they understood their own seemingly burdensome histories [and illness] as opportunities for a more fundamentally philosophical realization of personal mortality coupled with a heightened need to seek the eternal.

OGorman follows this expansive background on the

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formative years of OConnor and Percy with an analysis in Chapter 2 of their literary, theological, and philosophical influences. OGorman asserts that the literary vision in each authors work was profoundly shaped by Christian existentialisms sense of the lonely individual in a society where traditional moral codes had collapsed and history did not seem even a potential guide to meaning. Additionally, he demonstrates through extensive resources and analysis that OConnor and Percy were influenced by the same great writers: the younger writers libraries contained identical works of Jacques Maritain[and also] Romano Guardini and Gabriel Marcel. OGormans point is that both authors pursued the answers to the same questions and that their respective quests were fostered by the same mentors and thinkers.

This philosophical and theological search culminated in the need for a concrete fiction about this existence and caused both OConnor and Percy to form Christian realist-existentialist viewpoints. As OGorman writes, these authors faith led them to a vision that, in comparison with their Southern Renaissance predecessors [Tate and Gordon], was virtually ahistorical in its concentration on their contemporary moment. Their fiction, though guided by Tate and Gordon, was a backlash against both the nostalgic Romantic vision of the Old South that their mentors created and the modern fiction of faithlessness. Because of this, OGorman argues, their fiction tended toward a Christian Realism of the Here-and-Now that contains glimpses of divine grace and revelation. Their fiction, in essence, takes after Gordons in that it is a curious blend of neo-Thomist aesthetic theory that contains reverence for high modernist technique. He further explains that the Christian existentialist technique is comica detail that explains the black and ridiculous humor in both authors works.

OGorman proclaims in Chapter 4 that all these preceding elements combine to allow OConnor and

Percy to radically [critique] both decaying Southern traditions and the triumphant American culture that was replacing them at the very moment when these two concepts conflicted in the wake of World War II. This chapter, though long in proving its point, does so effectively. OGorman argues that their fiction is rooted in the here and now but penetrat[es] the eternal and with this vision is unique; additionally, their vision brought to Southern authors a different outlook that served them well in capturing the essential drama of Southern life in

the postwar era and allowed them to create a new literature for the South.

In the fifth and final chapter, OGorman describes the legacy of each author in contemporary Southern letters. Though an interesting afterthought, this section does not add significantly to his overall argument within this study.

P e c u l i a r Crossroads is an essential starting

point for any serious critic of OConnor and Percy due to the studys expansive background of the two authors and their influences. Additionally, the depth of OGormans analysis of their modes of writing couples with an intensive understanding of their works, prose, and lectures to create valuable intertextual insight. His personal study of these quintessential Southern writers and a body of over 90 works of external criticism from such respected critics as Ralph Wood and Lorine Getz distills their basic thought down to a mere 235 pages. The structure of the work is easy to follow, despite its weighty content, due to OGormans method of summarizing ideas before transitioning to new topics and his useful subject-topical index. OGormans main argument amounts to an implicit statement that OConnor and Percy together triggered a pivotal shift in literary thought because of the environment in which they were immersed. F

Kirby Hartley is a senior studying English.

These Two auThors are parT of a new era of ficTion ThaT breaks wiTh The pasT and presenT.

ESSAYS 13www.hillsdaleforum.com

InDefenseoftheSingularThey

by chris mccaffery

This essay was originally written for Dr. Daniel Couplands EDU 101: English Grammar course.

Believers in strict proscription in grammatical construction advocate the use of he as the neuter singular pronoun. This is an imperfect attempt to make up for Englishs lack of a natural neuter singular pronoun. When attempting to follow a proscribed rule and preserve the numerical consistency of pronoun to antecedent, we are forced to imply meaning perhaps unintended. He, though used grammatically as neuter, cannot help but give the reader a masculine meaning. Attempts to resolve this problem through such constructions as (s)he, he/she, or s/he continue the problem by forcing a consideration of gender when none is needed or intended. Luckily, popular and historical usage gives us a solution: the use of they in the singular. By accepting the singular usage of they already widespread colloquially, we gain a pronoun that preserves meaning and maintains grammatical consistency without sacrificing understanding.

The use of they as a singular, neuter personal pronoun has been enjoyed by English writers for centuries. Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, used they as a pronoun for a singular noun. For example, the verse:

And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame,They wol come up and offre in Goddes name,And I assoile hem by the auctoriteeWhich that by bulle ygraunted was to me.(6.3858)

Here, the word whoso is used in the singular, in a similar manner to the modern anyone. The pronoun used to refer back to the singular, indefinite whoso is they, normally a plural pronoun but used here in a

completely understandable manner. Henry Churchyard has compiled many examples of the singular they from historical literary sources. Offenders listed on his website include Jane Austen, Thomas More, and William Shakespeare; I appeal to authority and note that our linguistic history offers few greater than these. It was not until the 19th century that grammarians began the attempt to tramp out usage of they as the gender-indeterminate pronoun and relegate it to the pluralized ghetto.

The usage of the generic they in no way impairs communication. Unlike the use of he, a singular they does not single out males when the meaning of the sentence calls for men or women. It is not radical feminism to suggest that proscribing a form of pronoun usage that will give readers or listeners a picture of men or a man, when that is not the intended meaning, is not helpful to communication. Ben Yagoda writing in the Los Angeles Times provides this example of a sentence that is incorrect but grammatically perfect: Man, being a mammal, breast-feeds his young. Man, of course, is a singular noun as the subject of the sentence, and according to grammatical proscription ought to take the pronouns he, or his, or him. This is made ridiculous by the actual meaning of the sentence. Breast-feeding is not a male activity, unless youre a grammarian. Without rephrasing, the sentence might become, Man, being a mammal, breast-feeds their young. They cannot fix a sentence completely, and this instance ought to be rewritten; however, the move from wrong and awkward to merely awkward is still significant, and most sentences are blessedly free from such awkward phrasing. Sometimes, rephrasing is a necessary solution, but forcing a good sentence into

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the contortions of proscribed grammar is unnecessary; a solution already exists.

The use of they in the singular is already widespread. When the 2011 edition of the New International Version translation of The Bible was introduced, the translators began to use the singular they in their translations. Their decision was the result of an extensive survey of English usage that showed that:

The gender-neutral pronoun they (them/their) is by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as whoever, anyone, somebody, a person, no one, and the like.

A usage with such widespread acceptance as the singular they enjoys cant be hard to understand for speakers of English. If languages purpose is to communicate ideas, a language should effective at doing that among a wide range of people. Were the singular they at all uncommon, it would be wrong to call for its acceptance, because it would be imposing on the language something out of the norm for most of the people who use it. With usage as it is, it is more likely to seem out of place to the majority of the people with whom you are communicating. Especially in the case of antecedents that are semantically plural, such as everyone, the use of they is the most common-sense solution. Even though these words are

singular syntactically, they clearly refer to more than one person.

Each person is entitled to his (or her!) own opinion, and many people are quite happy using he in all cases. It can create confusion, however, and the sentence-wrangling recommended to avoid the problem can create needless extra work and work atrocities on elegant usage. There is not a person in the English-speaking world who, when they read this sentence, would be frustrated by its failure to communicate. Strictness in grammatical proscription is often a useful, worthwhile, and noble task that preserves essential parts of the language from the degeneration and vulgarities everyday usage imposes in it (who/whom is a notable pronoun example). This is not one of those cases. The battle was over before it started. The singular they is a legitimate, historical, grammatical, and sensible part of the English language, and everyone would be a lot better off if they accepted it. F

Editor-in-Chief Chris McCaffery is a junior studying history and English. He is a member of the Dow Journalism Program.

The senTence-wrangling recommended To avoid The problem can work aTrociTies on eleganT usage.

ESSAYS 15www.hillsdaleforum.com

by sarah reinsel

This essay is adapted from a paper originally written for Dr. Lorraine Eadies ENG 330: Restoration and Romantic British Literature.

Beauty is truth, truth, beauty.

In his lecture Conservatism and the Arts: A Lovers Quarrel, [Hillsdale College, October 2014] Greg Wolfe argued that in order to conserve what is good, true, and beautiful, the form of art must change so that it remains in connection with the contemporary culture. Because we are fallen, limited creatures, beautiful styles get hackneyed, Wolfe said, and used the fragmented and modern style of T.S. Eliots poetry as an example of how a modern style can convey conservative ideas. John Keats, in Ode on a Grecian Urn, has a parallel intent. The forms of art at play in the poem form a striking contrast. Lyric, the (then) radical style of poetry that the Romantics favored, describes a subjective experience of viewing a Grecian urn, the quintessential example of an ancient and long admired form of art. This is imagination fully engaged by its images. That Keats chose to write about an ancient urn, which has persisted in its message for thousands of years, indicates his concern with art, its forms, its structures, and its purpose. Like Eliot, Keats uses the contemporary style of his day to describe and conserve the universal truth of the human condition that he sees in the urn. The urn, an ancient art form, has clearly not stopped portraying a truth, but if artists had only communicated via urns for thousands of years, clearly something would be wrong. It is entirely fitting to Keats greater argument about art that he uses his modern lyric style to describe an old form of art. Forms of art may change over time, but the beauty and truth they conserve and portray does not. No matter the form, art should convey that Beauty is truth, truth, beauty.

Keats structures the poem by introducing the urn as a true piece of art in the first stanza, examining the urns portrayal of truths about the human condition in the middle stanzas, and concluding with his broader argument about the relationship between art and life. The poem has an inner component where Keats uses the urn to demonstrate the truth of the human conditions unfulfilled nature, fleeting passions, and troubling mysteries. There is also an outer argument, where Keats defines the urns greater purpose as a true and beautiful piece of art and holds it forth as an example of what all art should be. The urn, which permanently portrays the fragile, the unfulfilled, and the troubled, accurately reflects the human condition. Keats argues that the urn is a true work of art because it reflects a truth and a beauty that will remain a lasting guide in a world of unknowns.

Before continuing, it is important to acknowledge and distinguish the two levels of beauty present in the urn and in the poem. The urn has a physical beauty in its images and form, and the poem certainly contains beauty in its language. However, the deeper beauty that Keats perceives in the urn concerns its portrayal of a truth about the human condition and how his experience of viewing the urn leads him to it. The elements of beauty in the urns details about nature may provide the viewer with a guide to interpreting the beauty of both the urn and the poem. Who can deny the beauty of a tree permanently in the glory of its spring blossoms? The viewer sighs, Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu (2122). But because of the permanence of the urn, the spring blossoms never turn into the glory of green summer leaves; the trees, despite their physical beauty, go unfulfilled like everything else on the urn. The soft Ah, and the inability to say goodbye create a

JohnKeatsVisionforArtinOdeonaGrecianUrnGregWolfesmissioninspiresareadingofKeatswell-knownpoem

credit: Wikipedia

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melancholy and troubled tone; because of the inability to say adieu to springtime, nothing can change, develop, and be fulfilled. So while a superficial and earthly beauty is present, it pales in comparison to the greater, more beautiful truth that the urn portrays about the troubled and unfulfilled condition of man.

Clearly, then, within Keats argument that art should direct people to a greater truth and beauty is the urns portrayal of the truth of mans unfulfilled and troubled state. The urns images, forever frozen in time and forever on display, reflect the timelessness and permanence of mankinds state in the world, with all of its passions and struggles as intricately intertwined as the carvings in the marble. For example, the famous image of the Bold lover, paralyzed forever without having achieved his kiss with the fair maiden, evinces an aching sense of an unfulfilled love. The viewer, upon observing this, says, Yet do not grieve; / She cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair (1820). The slightly bitter tone of this speaker suggests his awareness of the fleetingness and fragility of beauty and youth in real life, which is paradoxically contrasted by the very permanence of the beauty of the figures on the urn. However, this preserved state of outward beauty has the far darker consequence of love forever unfulfilled. The bold lover will always love, but it will never be reciprocated, and the fair maiden will never be anything but pretty. Yet there is a far deeper beauty to be found in the urn because it reflects the truth of the human condition. The frozen lover on the urn demonstrates how love and life go unfulfilled, permanently and universally, and the frozen loveliness of the fair maiden, by its very permanence, makes apparent the fleetingness of outward beauty.

The paradox between the permanent and the fleeting continues in the urns portrayal of human passions as fragile and ephemeral. Indelibly part of mans condition, they are forever preserved in the artwork on the urn. The urn inspires a series of emotions and rapid questions from the viewer. In the first stanza, the viewer asks questions using highly charged phrases such as mad pursuit, struggle to escape, and wild ecstasy, which cast a tone of anxiety over the images on the urn (910). This anxiety, coupled with the ardent lovers in the second stanza and the passionate language in the third, makes for a wrenching representation of human emotions, which swing highly and wildly with More happy love! More happy, happy love! (25) before burning out and

leaving a heart high-sorrowful and cloyd, / a burning forehead, and a parching tongue (2930). Cloyd, which means burdened, or surfeited (Cloyed), implies that what was once enjoyed has now become excess, completely unable to provide any sort of fulfillment. The urn does not elevate the viewers opinion of human passions or contain a glamorous beauty; rather, it causes the viewer to use the language of both thirst and a sorrowful, burdened heart to express his response. The language of this response is so searing and penetrating because the viewer has realized a truth: the passions of the human condition waver, fluctuate, and burn out. The overarching beauty of the urn stems from this truth because the urn provides the viewer with this portrayal of the human condition and the viewers reaction and analysis of human passions demonstrates that he is using the urn as a guide to beauty and truth.

The fourth stanza enters into the realm of speculation about the urn, in which Keats addresses the overwhelming presence of mystery in life. Keats contemplates the image of the sacrifice, with a priest leading a heifer decorated with garlands to the altar. However, this sacrifice has some ambiguity and mystery around the edges because he is unable to determine anything else about the image. He is led to supplement this scene by imagining a little town on a coast or a mountain that is empty because of some religious celebration pertaining to the priest and the sacrifice. The key lines, however, come at the end: And, little town, thy streets for evermore / will silent be; and not a soul to tell / Why thou art desolate, can eer return (40). Not a soul to tell suggests a greater, completely unknowable mystery, which will remain unknowable despite any speculations by any viewer. The streets will always remain silent because the urn is frozen in time. The way in which the urn leaves the viewer to muse upon the mysterious details of this town represents how wondering at the unknowable, going without answers, and simply not being able

ESSAYS 17www.hillsdaleforum.com

to know everything is an unavoidable part of the human condition. In his lecture, Wolfe too addressed this value of ambiguity in literature. To recognize that ambiguity is the nature of our experience is to be reminded of a need for humility, he said. Mystery and ambiguity are humbling in that they make obvious the limits of human knowledge and the difficulty of putting morals into practice (Wolfe). Keats acknowledges this limit of knowledge through the use of ambiguity in the fourth stanza, and then defines the limits of knowledge more directly in the final lines of the poem, when he describes how time and mystery will humble and waste man, but knowledge of beauty and truth will remain.

From the fourth stanza to the fifth, Keats crosses over from exploring the nature of the human condition as treated by the urn to exploring the relationship between art and life, holding up the urn as an example. The way in which the urn engages its viewers in the mystery of the empty town demonstrates how art can both communicate with a part of the soul that is often unreachable and address complexities that may be far beyond ones individual perception. Keats says to the urn, Thou silent form, dost tease us out of thought / as does eternity (4445). The urn, as a true piece of art, gently tugs its viewer out of a disconnected contemplation into a contemplation in communion with the piece of art, just as the thought of eternity pulls an individual out of his disconnected time and place, or even his disconnected life, and into a conception of time far more complex and profound than his individual, unfulfilled life. This sort of connected contemplation that art can create is also hinted at earlier in the poem, through the image of the musician:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeard,Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone (1114).

18 FEBRUARY 2015

The unheard melodies of the musician indicate how the urn connects directly with the mind, or rather, how it pipes to the spirit, which connotes a more mysterious, inexplicable communication that is forged with the imagination. Keats shows through the urn that not only should art reflect the human condition, but it should also completely endear or captivate the spirit and imagination of its viewers, directing them to beauty and truth.

In the final five lines of the poem, Keats completes and unifies his argument, defining the end and purpose of art through the urn. Art, as a lasting guide to truth and beauty, will also remain a comfort and a trustworthy source of knowledge in a world where the unfulfilled and unexplained often leave man otherwise perplexed. Keats says to the urn, When old age shall this generation waste, / Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe / Than ours, a friend to man (46-48). The contrast present in the first line between the passing of time that wastes and ages and the urn that endures encompasses all that Keats saw on the urn in the previous stanzas. The permanently unfulfilled state of the images on the urn mirrors the permanently unfulfilled condition of man, and will remain a truth for generations to come when the lives of this generation have passed. In a world of woe that transcends all generations, the urn remains a friend to man and a knowledgeable and trustworthy Sylvan historian, (3) as Keats describes in the first stanza, that comforts its viewers with its beauty and truth. Keats personifies the urn, which breaks a silence and speaks aloud its famous line, Beauty, is truth, truth, beauty (49), with a tone of wisdom or counsel. Keats response to this comment, that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know (4950), answers the problem of mystery present in the fourth stanza, where he demonstrated that one cannot know everything. The

urn, however, suggests that beauty and truth are things that, in a world of unknowns, one has the ability to know, especially through art.

The final lines reveal the numerous levels of ideas at play in the poem, all of which point toward Keats concern with the purpose of art in life. He uses a new form of poetry to describe an old form of art, demonstrating how they both portray and conserve beauty and truth. He uses the urn to portray the truth of the human condition, in all its unfulfilled struggle and troubled passions, with a beautiful lyric that engages the viewer and shows how the urn is a perfect example of what art should be to its viewers. He addresses two layers of beauty: that which is aesthetic and that which transcends. The urn is beautiful because it depicts the truth. In the fourth stanza, the urn engages its viewers in a mystery, and in the final stanza, Keats broadens this idea by suggesting mystery and ambiguity in art forge a connection with its viewers and thus better communicate truth and beauty as a guide in a world of unknowns.

So many critics of this poem dislike the final two lines because of their lack of clarity; however, Cleanthe Brooks argument that they must be read in the context of the entire poem bears a great deal of weight (133). The urn says, Beauty is truth, truth, beauty because it is a piece of art, whose purpose is to convey these ideas in an indescribable communication with its viewers. Read in this context, Keats line does not seem so very different from Fyodor Dostoevskys line in The Idiot: Beauty will save the world. As Greg Wolfe argues so eloquently in his book, titled after Dostoevskys line, art conveys a beauty that will guide people back to truth when all else is obscured. Keats, as it seems from this poem, would agree. F

Sarah Reinsel is a sophomore studying English.

INTERVIEWS 19www.hillsdaleforum.com

IntervIewsIntervIews

20 FEBRUARY 2015

Interview with Dr. Richard GambleCompiled by Devin Creed

Youre teaching a class on the History and Philosophy of History this spring. Could you talk a bit about how you started teaching this class and what it covers?

I saw the class in the catalog in the course offerings for the history department, and I was interested in the kinds of questions that a philosophy of history class explores. That interest goes way back in graduate school to some of the first classes I had in my Ph.D. program and some of the books I read in them. I wanted to share some of those books which were so important to me. At the time Paul Moreno was teaching it and there had been a limited amount of student interest at the time, so he was willing to have somebody else teach it. I taught it pretty much experimentally with a handful of students around a seminar table. A student at the time who was very interested in the course talked it up for a year or so and the next time I taught it I had maybe 30 students, and it really took off. It still puzzles me a bit why there is so much interest in it, because we deal with the most abstract questions there are. I warn students that every day we think about thinking about history. Why that

fascinates people Im not entirely sure, but Im glad it does. Its the kind of intricate interior question that fascinates me, and I love watching how people in the past have thought about the past, about how history works. Im most interested in the train wrecks, bad philosophy of history. Its intriguing to watch to what goes wrong and how it goes wrong and what the consequences are of that philosophy of history going wrong. I keep teaching the course and it has maintained a high level of student interest. I had thirty students last time, with twenty-five or so this coming semester. A lot of the books Ive kept the same, some of them I dont dare take out of the course, for they are indispensable: [Herbert] Butterfields Whig Interpretation of History, [John] Lukacs Historical Consciousness, Michael Oakeshott, R.G. Collingwood, and a C.S. Lewis essay. I keep playing around with the others. This year Im reintroducing E.H. Carrs book What is History?, which is a materialist view of history.

History has come a long way since the giant ants of Herodotus. Though history has abandoned the mythic, it can still suffer from poor interpretation and philosophy. Dr. Richard Gamble is helping students explore different sorts of historical consciousness in a traditional Hillsdale course on The History and Philosophy of History. The Hillsdale Forum spoke with him about the genesis of the course, Whigs, John Lukacs, and civil religion.

INTERVIEWS 21www.hillsdaleforum.com

Probably George Bancroft, the most widely-read celebrity American historian in the 19th century. He wrote his multi-volume history of the United States and started publishing it in the 1830s, and was still revising it in the 1880s. Its estimated that one out of every four households in America owned his histories. He knew everybody, he served in the Andrew Johnson administration as a foreign minister to Prussia, he knew Bismarck; he had an extraordinary career. But he imbibed a really high octane version of German idealism, which he combined with transcendentalism and unitarianism, and its just fascinating to read his histories and see how he does what he does. It almost reads like a parody of what Herbert Butterfield warns against in the 20th century. Its so easy to show what hes

doing. My American Identity class is almost 400 years of train wrecks, but I think it teaches something very important. We teach good writing by giving students examples of good writing, but also pointing out the flaws in their own writing, logic, syntax, and grammar. Were in the business of pointing out mistakes. I think theres a parallel to historical thinking. You have to learn how to see, you have to learn how to hear these flaws in historical thinking in order to recognize the good stuff. You learn by reading the good stuff but you also learn a lot by reading the bad stuff and being able to recognize it. As historians, we learn how to develop this eye by having these errors pointed out to us. We learn how to discern high quality historical thinking along the way.

Ive learned the most from Herbert Butterfield and John Lukacs. Lukacs has been central to how I think, to what I aspire to accomplish, since I first read Historical Consciousness in the late 1980s. I think I found a copy of Historical Consciousness in a used bookstore and didnt even realize how significant he was, didnt realize that people I knew knew him, never imagined that I would one day get to know him, certainly never imagined that blurbs by him would be on the back of one of my books and that he would review the other one for the Los Angeles Times, its just mind boggling to me. Hes been really formative in teaching exemplary handling of the nuances of history and teaching me what it means to be cautious as a historian, not to make evidence tell you more than it can tell you, not to push too hard on a thesis, how to deal with what Butterfield calls the texture of the past, to guard myself from oversimplifying things, to force them into a mold.

Lukacs is very sensitive to language, to patterns of thought, to how fluid and complex cause and effect can be, and I end up quoting him at least once a week in class. He has a gift for memorable phrases. In fact, I just quoted him on Christmas Eve, the line that something is true but not true enough. Just to understand what that meansa historian can tell you all true things about an event, or a time period, or a person, but has left something indispensable out of the story, which changes the interpretation, changes our perception of it. So its true, but not true enough. Its very difficult to cultivate that ability and check myself to make sure Im not misleading the reader in any way. Im always daunted by the fact that when we say things and put them into print we keep saying them. When somebody picks up that book five or ten years from now we are still saying that thing. Thats a little bit scary.

Who is your favorite example of a train wreck or bad philosophy of history?

Whos your favorite example of a historian with a good philosophy of history?

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The War for Righteousness was a revision of my doctoral thesis at the University of South Carolina, which I completed in 1992. I had been assigned to read Butterfield in my first Ph.D. graduate course in the fall of 1986, dont think I understood it. I get more out of it each time I reread it. In writing the book I was guided by Lukacs. I was trying to model what I was doing off of what I read in Historical Consciousness. Nobody ever told me to do this, nobody ever recommended that I do this. I just decided that this is what I wanted to do. The way he sets up a hierarchy or concentric circles, the way ideas can work out into the culture and back again was what fascinated me. This is very difficult to demonstrate, and Im not sure I was successful, but I tried to imitate and model what he was doing, to see how ideas work in a culture. At the time I didnt understand these things the way I understand them now. I understand more clearly now what I was hoping to do 25 years ago. I tried to build the work using concentric circles, starting with the way the ideas as they were taught in seminaries, in colleges, and in universities. I then watched how those ideas were implemented in the churches and in interdenominational organizations. I looked at how it affected missionary activity

overseas, and finally looked at what they were saying about foreign policy. I watched these ideas take root, watched as they tried to implement them through the course of the war, first as Americans trying to come to terms with a European war, and then as Americans and Christians confronting America in a world war. Then I returned to America, trying to bring the circles back in again. I massively reworked my dissertation in 1994, and that is more or less the version that came out as a book in 2003.

What I tried most consciously to experiment with and implement in In Search of a City on a Hill was to take Lukacs idea which he repeats many times in Historical Consciousness that it is often more important to know what peopled do to ideas than what ideas do to people. I tried to watch that happen with the one phrase city on a hill. I was able to do that over a four hundred year period and write a micro-history, a history of a phrase. I wanted to figure out what happens when John Winthrop in 1630 takes the phrase you shall be as a city on a hill out of the gospel of Matthew and puts it into his sermon A Model of Christian Charity, and its my conviction that those words do not mean the same thing. Spoken by a different person, in a different context, in a different time, and spoken for a different purpose, they become transformed. Something happens to those words when they are picked up and moved. In the same way, something happens to the phrase all men

are created equal when its lifted out of the Declaration of Independence and put into the Gettysburg Address, even if the author believes he is being faithful to the original meaning. The author is a different author, the context is a different context, the event is a different event, the occasion is a different occasion, and the purpose is a different purpose. The purpose of the Continental Congress of using that language in the Declaration is different, regardless of any discussion of right or wrong, than the purpose in 1863 when Lincoln quotes those words. The historian of ideas has to be super sensitive to all those nuances. You might miss the most significant things if you ignore those nuances. That doesnt mean that a historian believes those words can mean anything, that they are utterly open-ended, but it does mean that context matters. These are real human beings, saying or writing these things at a real moment in time, to a real audience, and those words are going to

Given the way that these ideas have affected your own writing, lets talk about the relationship between Lukacs, Butterfield, and your first book.

You said you did not completely understand Lukacs and his ideas when you wrote The War for Righteousness. How did that change when you wrote your second book, In Search of a City on a Hill?

credit: Youtube

INTERVIEWS 23www.hillsdaleforum.com

At the end of the book you talk a lot about the danger of decontextualizing phrases and then using them in the political realm.

Whats wrong with American civil religion?

be used in a real way. And then if somebody else a day or a century later uses those words, they

may be different yet again. You have these layers and layers and layers.

Back to the example of city on a hill, you have Jesus words quoted in gospel of Matthew,

you have Chrysostom writing about them centuries later, you have Calvin quoting Chrysostom, you have John Winthrop quoting them, and then you have Ronald Reagan quoting Winthrop quoting Jesus. These layers build up and build up and it takes a lot of hard work to pay attention to what;s actually going on.

Theres a problem of civil religion whether it appears in Rousseau, or Hobbes, or Locke. Civil

religion is not a uniquely American problem. I need to address the problem while wearing different hats: I have concerns as a historian that we have to pay attention in this careful way so we get the history right. Then I have a concern as an American, because I want to get the history right so I understand America and what it has been. I want to understand the American experience, to understand how America has talked about itself and whether that is healthy or unhealthy. But then I consider my primary concern as a Christian. America is not eternal, history is not eternal, but Christianity is about forever, so this is a higher priority for me, and my concern is that because of those principles that I tried to map out earlier, I believe that when the Bible is appropriated for purposes different from or alien to the purposes of the church, this will change the meaning of the Bibles words, will do damage to those words, will miseducate people and mislead them as to what those words mean. If you take the phrase city on a hill and lift it out of its original context, if you transpose it from the identity of the church and move it over to America, it doesnt survive the transfer. My argument is that it distorts both our understanding of the church and its mission, and America and what its capable of doing. If we take the spiritual language of the city on a hill it can mislead us about what the earthly or political the mission of the church is supposed to be. We can end up secularizing or politicizing the church without even realizing it. In the very same moment we can end up, through the same exchange, in spiritualizing the nation-state. The same transaction can lower the calling of the church, trivialize its significance, and it can exaggerate the calling of the nation state, can over-spiritualize the calling of the nation state. As

Christians we need to be able to tell the difference; we can affirm both as good in Gods purposes, but having distinct purposes and callings, one eternal and one temporary, one being spiritual and one being mundane. Thats at the very heart of what I do, trying to sort out that confusion. One of the things that started distressing me about a decade ago was that I realized that criticism of civil religion was coming almost exclusively from the political and theological left wing. Orthodox Christians and political conservatives were just about silent on the question of civil religion. I couldnt stand what I was seeing happen to the Bible, Christian theology, political rhetoric, and it seemed like conservative Christians and conservative Americans just werent noticing. This is what attracted me to Dr. [Darryl] Harts work. I dont want this to sound arrogant, but were in a pretty small group. Generally, self-described conservative Americans tend to be supporters of civil religion because they have come to the point that they think that if you criticize civil religion youre criticizing America. And it is unbelievably difficult to get people to understand that just because I dont want America described as if it were Jesus doesnt mean that I dont love America. You can love America as your home, as your place, even enough to defend it with your life, but this doesnt mean for one minute that you have to confuse it with a member of the trinity. We seem to have lost our ability to love our country in a normal way. America doesnt have to be turned into something its not, it doesnt have to be inflated or turned into an abstractionI dont know how to love an abstraction, but I know how to love a place and how to love people.

Devin Creed is a senior studying English and economics.

credit: Youtube

24 FEBRUARY 2015

INTERVIEW WITH DR. LEHMAN

Hillsdale College greatly values its core, those classes that unite us and provide an introit into the liberal arts. With Russell Kirk we recognize the ability of the liberal arts to order ones soul, to turn ones attention to the higher things. Yet while we can speak of the liberal arts generally, it is often difficult for Hillsdale students to justify their interpretive or theoretical viewpoints. Lamda Iota Taus lectures on literary theory and classes like The History and Philosophy of History currently seek to remedy this issue, and we at The Hillsdale Forum thought a discussion of the classical division of disciplines would add to the conversation.

We spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Lehman about the traditional understanding of arts and sciences:

Howwereartsandsciencestraditionallyunderstood?

Although the terms art and science were used in various ways throughout Western history, one

typical way was to see them as distinct yet complementary forms of knowledge that result from mans reasoning about himself, the world, and God. For the ancients, an art (Greek techne, Latin ars) was knowledge of how to make or do something; it was knowledge that yielded a product of some sort.

A science, on the other hand, was something that began with self-evident principles and yielded universal knowledge of the natures of thingswhether plants or animals, angels or God. Some pursuits were arts and not sciences, some sciences and not arts, some both. For example, geometry was considered a science insofar as it began with self-evident principles and worked out the universal, necessary implications of those principles (e.g., Proposition 1.47 of Euclids Elements: In right-angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle). Geometry was considered an art insofar as it leads to knowledge of how to make certain thingsultimately, the five perfect solids (i.e., the tetrahedron [pyramid], octahedron, cube, icosahedron, and dodecahedron). The construction of these solids is the crowning achievement of Euclids Elements.

Compiled by Wes Wright

INTERVIEWS 25www.hillsdaleforum.com

What was the traditional divisionofthesciences?

Once again, different authors have divided the sciences differently, but one prominent division is that of Aristotle, a division handed down to the Middle Ages by Boethius and championed by Thomas Aquinas. Among the speculative sciences (as opposed to the practical sciences), there are mathematics, natural philosophy [or science], and theology. These sciences were distinguished by their objects and by the method used to pursue knowledge of these objects. Fundamental to all these sciences is arrival at a knowledge of causes. As Aristotle puts it in his Physics, men do not think they know a thing till they have grasped the why of it (which is to grasp its primary cause) (194b1921). When the mind arrives at knowledge of a cause, it comes to rest.

Howwouldabetterunderstandingofthisdivisionhelpstudents?

By acquiring a better understanding of the division and methods of the sciences, students stand to gain a firmer grasp of whatever they study while here at Hillsdale as well as anything they might study throughout life. In the pursuit of wisdom, students make headway by understanding how the various disciplines fit together and how what they are working on in any particular course relates to the larger aims of liberal education.

What are the differences betweentheliberal,thefine,andtheservilearts?

The liberal arts in particular and liberal education in general are the surest, most time-tested way to direct students toward a life that is truly free. The liberal arts develop foundational skills that free an individual to investigate the order in things, especially in human speech and in nature, while liberal education facilitates the free pursuit of more universal knowledge that involves historical, philosophical, and theological inquiries. The liberal arts and liberal education are not certain, guaranteed paths to freedom; to think so would be to deny the very freedom this tradition of education seeks to enliven and foster. Rather, by developing these skills and growing in such knowledge, the one who studies the liberal arts and engages in liberal education

puts himself in an excellent position to cultivate the moral and intellectual virtues that free him from vice and ignorance. Thus, when we speak of liberal arts and liberal education, the sense of liberal we have in mind is what is conducive to liberating the mind and heart. Toward this end, the liberal arts and liberal education are meant to assist the diligent, well-disposed student in his pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful.

The servile arts aim at fulfilling fundamental human needs, for example, for food, shelter, clothing, etc. Because the needs of the human body must be attended to, the human race has had to develop these arts in order to take care of these basic necessities of life. The fine arts, by contrast, aim at producing pleasant things, such as beautiful poetry, paintings, sculptures, and so on. The ancients divided the good into three basic types of goodsuseful, pleasant, and noble. The servile arts produce useful goods, things desirable for the sake of something else. The fine arts give us things that are pleasant in themselves, not simply for the sake of something else. To laugh, to sing, to create beautiful artwork: these are good for their own sake. Finally, the ancients saw the liberal arts as yielding noble goodsby receiving training in the liberal arts, the student stands to grow in moral and intellectual virtue, thereby ennobling his soul.

Do the fine arts bridge the gapbetween the liberal and the servilearts?

Although they may not always do so, they certainly can. In fact, the line between pleasant and ennobling goods can at times be hard to draw or to discern. The fine arts fit naturally with the liberal arts, being distinct yet complementary ways of enriching our minds and hearts.

Editor-at-Large Weston Wright is a senior studying speech and political economy with a minor in classical education.

26 FEBRUARY 2015

FountainPensby sean kunath

Should you use fountain pens? This may seem like a rather straight-forward question with an answer decidedly in the negative, but I hope to make the redeeming argument for this relic of a bygone era by demonstrating its superior functionality and formality.

In the past, when I have extolled the virtues of the fountain pen to some one or other person, the most common retort is: How is a fountain pen better than a regular ballpoint, which is just the fraction of the cost? My answer to this question falls into two categories: utility and form.

In terms of utility, a fountain pen beats out a regular ballpoint pen in a variety of ways. Its chief benefit is that it exerts less strain on the hand in the course of writing. When you use a ballpoint pen, you have to use a good deal of pressure for the ink to mark the paper with a consistent line. Not only that, but you have to hold it at a severe angle to the paper in order for the ink to flow with gravity and for the ball to interface properly with the paper. Since the ink feeds through fountain pens using both gravity and capillary action (and the ink is so much less viscous than ballpoint ink), you do not need to press nearly as hard or hold the pen nearly as upright. This shallow angle and low-pressure allows the writer to write for longer since he is straining his hand so much less. Furthermore, fountain pens are more intuitive, giving you sensitive feedback from the paper so that you can adjust your grip for smooth writing.

Fountain pens also provide the user with a greater retinue of color options than a traditional ballpoint. At the store, the most widely available colors are black, blue, red, and green. If you want to find a wider array, youd have to scour the Internet or an art store. Consider, then, Diamine Inks, an English company that has manufactured fountain pen ink for over 150 years and offers over a hundred different colors for your pens. Other companies make their own inks as well, and each companys unique recipes can result in a single color having a plethora of shades. This abundance of colors allows for a personal fine-tuning that is unheard of with ballpoint pens. Furthermore, these inks extend the usefulness of the fountain pen indefinitely. The refillable

nature of fountain pens allows for one pen to use a variety of colors, and if you run out of ink, you simply buy a new bottle, whereas youd typically discard a ballpoint pen (if you dont lose it first). This contributes to a long life with proper maintenance.

Fountain pens also exceed ballpoints in a variety of non-utilitarian ways. For instance, ballpoints, being cheaply and quickly made, are uniform. Fountain pens (while still manufactured in large quantities) possess an undeniable aesthetic that sets them apart. Furthermore, each fountain pen can be uniquely modified for the pleasure of its specific user, making it a much more personal item than a ballpoint. The wide variety of body types, weights, feeds, and nibs allows for making a very personal choice in a fountain pen that is simply not available to someone using a ballpoint pen. In the end, fountain pens elevate our writing to something solemn and grand. Even a small doodle takes on a new depth when made with a fountain pen.

However, in all fairness, it should be noted that fountain pens do have their drawbacks. They require more upkeep than a cheap ballpoint. The water-based ink takes longer to dry, smears easily, and is susceptible to running if gotten wet. A fountain pen is more delicate and prone to damage than a ballpoint pen. Because they last much longer than ballpoints, they tend to be more expensive. Finally, fountain pens are not as portable as ballpoints since they leak and stain more easily than ballpoints.

In the end, I exhort you to own at least one fountain pen. I believe that you will be able to recognize a sizable difference in quality and comfort from a standard ballpoint. And while fountain pens can run into the hundreds, you can find very affordable ones for $15 from Pilot. F

Sean Kunath is a senior studying Latin.

HILLSDALE COLLEGE, Kendall Hall (Hillsdale Spectator wire) Recent studies at Hillsdale College have concluded that, contrary to popular belief, the Founding was in fact racist and sexist.

Yeah, it turns out that the Founding Fathers kind of hated white guys. After all, the entire project started because some rich W.A.S.P. was a jerk to the colonists, said Dr. Claremont-Dallas, professor of politics. The Declaration makes some grand gestures about Laws of Nature, but in the end, the real beef is with the King of Britain a white man.

Dr. Claremont-Dallas went on to explain that the Constitution and the Federalist Papers remain even better examples of rampant racism and sexism.

What do you think a more perfect union looked like to the Framers? One that was single-handedly mismanaged by an ivory fool? No. Claremont-Dallas said. The Constitution is predicated on the notion that when government is left in the hands of men, it will inevitably go wrong. If men were angels is the thinnest veil imaginable; more like you guys are terrible, and its

only a matter of time until you mess everything up!

The student body was shaken by this discovery, as it undermines the historical understanding of the Founding. How are we supposed to believe in a system of government if it isnt constructed in order to provide white males political advantage? a freshman student was overheard, saying. My faith in this country is shaken. Im not sure what to do.

Other students have publicly rejected the conclusion, arguing that it is an unfair and unfounded claim.

I suppose you think the exclusion of explicit mentions of race in the Declaration or Constitution shows some sort of apprehensiveness towards institutionalized racism, too? said a senior politics major who wishes to remain nameless. Clearly, the men and women of the Revolutionary era would not have fought a war if they didnt believe white males would always be fully capable of governing without restraint. I have a hard time imagining Betsy Ross finishing that first flag without including a little embroidered patriarchy! at the bottom.

To the surprise of many on Hillsdales campus, the announcement caused little, if any, reaction among the greater political audience.

SureI guess you could say that the Founders didnt like white guys? Im not sure that it matters, since the government they created worked out pretty well, sophomore Timothy Sticknie said. The society wasnt perfect, but then again its been better than just about any other. F

Class President Andy Reuss is a senior studying politics and English.

Satire:Carefulresearchindicatesthattheintentofthefounderswasprettyracist

by andy reusscolonial correspondent

SATIRE 27www.hillsdaleforum.com

28 FEBRUARY 2015Illustration by Grace Desandro