Gabe and I drove north from Greensboro, North Carolina, making a pitstop for lunch in Lynchburg, Virginia. In ferrying Gabe to and from Guilford College, or visiting for parents’ weekend, I’ve had a few opportunities to scan the hilly vistas that line route 29, as it bypasses Lynchburg, and I’ve seen Liberty University’s enormous dome-like structure which houses sports and campus mega-church gatherings. The residence buildings at Liberty cling to the hillsides like terraced tree-fungi made of red brick, but our lunch stop on Wednesday was the closest I’ve gotten to a Liberty U. edifice, and it took me a little by surprise.
Right behind the strip mall where we ate at Panera Bread, and where I’d stopped for a Starbucks coffee (on my southbound trip the day before,) stood the fortress-like entryway to LU that you see here. I knew this was not the main campus entrance, but it was an odd one, seeming to lead you into a subterranean lair under the train track running above on the embankment.
I might struggle to explain what intrigues me about the whole concept of Liberty University. Founded by the late evangelist Jerry Falwell, it serves to educate several thousand young people of fundamentalist Christian ilk. I read a book once, by Kevin Roose, a Brown University student who attended Liberty for one semester in order to research a milieu that departed from his usual experience. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/kevin-roose-infiltrates-l_n_190124.html So, while I know that LU holds no appeal for me, nor is it a place I’d ever recommend to my children, I looked around at the Panera full of well-groomed students in LU sweatshirts, and couldn’t help wondering whether any of them were cramming for the final in one of the first classes a student would take there--one that establishes agreement with a worldview in which the Earth is 6000 years old, homosexuality is a no-no, and you’d better vote against “socialism.” (In other words kids, vote Republican.)
I guess that in what we bill as a “free country,” it shouldn’t be particularly novel that such a place (and others much more rigid in view,) would be thriving, but it’s still a strange notion that I find myself flipping around in my head with a touch of bewilderment, much as I would a Rubik’s cube--that real live ornery, skeptical, learning-focused college students would tackle their studies while accepting that Genesis is a literal depiction of what followed the Big Bang.
Anyway, I had to go and examine this immense passageway close up, so Gabe and I walked over and had a look. Just inside the opening is a black metal gate of rather prison-like bars, next to which sits a card reader. So qualified students or staff may pass through, but no gawkers such as we. I stuck my iPhone through the bars and snapped a pic of the tunnel.
I noted with interest that the name tag of the order taker in Panera identified him as “Jesus.” I’m pretty sure though, that he pronounces it “Hay-SOOS.” Gabe and I hit the road, fortified by a cream cheese bagel and a tuna salad sandwich respectively.
6 comments:
Thank you for writing this; it was very interesting.
I have studied American history and culture for almost 25 years, both from up close and far away. I believe that when a society moves away from a concept of capital T truth, metanarratives if you will, it promotes deep intolerance.
If there really is no truth, then I have no incentive to really find out what you are thinking and why. There is no intellectual right and wrong, and our disagreement is ultimately settled by power plays.
You see this in the American political spectrum. There really are no statesmen anymore. Both the left and the right are highly intolerant, though they differ on what issues, what people, and what conclusions they do not care to tolerate.
In both Europe and the United States, I don't think there are any more liberal universities in the classic sense of the word. The universities only have different orthodoxies that they try hard to defend.
Dr. King and the civil rights movement were able to enact much change in your country because they could appeal to capital T truths that Americans believed in and rallied behind. They were effective because they could appeal to the creeds and say that the society has fallen short.
I think that he would have a much more difficult job today.
So you think that there were capital T truths that were accepted by the majority in the past? I'm sure that both sides of our polarized electorate would argue that such truths are still alive and well...but the problem is that differences in understanding on what such concepts as "Liberty" and "Justice" actually mean make the concept irrelevant. It's terribly frustrating.
I do believe that Obama HAS managed, to an extent, to appeal to the "creeds" and thereby interest the midline crowd. But the line has shifted so ridiculously much.
What I believed is that once in societies influenced by Judeo-Christian teaching, there was a general believe that capital T truth existed. What that truth or truths were was open for discussion, which is why people discussed and debated. They disagreed as to what was the truth, but there was a belief that truth existed.
Now in many academic circles, and probably more prevalent in European culture though growing in American culture, the concept of universal truth has faded away. Thus we aren't really trying to discover what is true anymore, and we are free to believe what we choose to believe.
You are right in the nebulousness (is that a word??) of the terms liberty and justice. There is a philosopher who used to teach at Notre Dame and now teaches at Duke (I believe) named Alistair MacIntyre who wrote a book callled "Whose Truth, Whose Justice" that discusses many of these things.
I had very high hopes for your current President given his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention. Had I a vote in 2008, I would have selected him since I think that your country absolutely needed him. But I do not really believe anymore that he is a unifier. It seems to me that he is very similar to other men who have held the office, which is a great disappointment to me. I do not know much about Romney since most of my contacts are Washington-based, so I don't know if Americans have a viable alternative or not.
Yes, and your comments are probably a pretty good analogy for the general condition of intellectual openness that many of us consider a virtue these days.
Of course to me, such open-mindedness is not just a virtue--it's essential. But, it does always come with a loss. Any societal structure which nurtures community and closeness is going to come to share beliefs and truths that will, of necessity, create a small percentage of marginalized individuals. But open that society, stretch it, make it think outside the box in such a way as to start to make a place for the marginalized, and you will lose some of the closeness.
I think I'm getting off topic.
When I first read your declaration, I found this to be inspiring, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I still never get over this. Of course we aren't equal in abilities and assets, and perhaps not equal in opportunities, but we are all equal in value.
For a community to work, it has to value every member of it independent of ability to contribute. Communism is not bad in theory, but when you try to force such altruism by the power of the state, that is where it fails.
I think that America has wonderful ideals and I trust that the current government has the best interests of the country at heart (which puts me at odds with some of my conservative friends in your country). My fears for the current administration is that it is in the beginning processes of lining up the power of the state to enforce the good it wishes to accomplish, instead of unleashing free individuals to do good.
I think this all does relate to your topic. I think that the university you mentioned is not true to its capital T truth. It has some hope of reforming, however, because there is a capiital T truth that one can appeal to.
However, as the concept of capital T truth is fading in America (and it has faded far more in Europe), then efforts to persuade lesson and one resorts to power of various sorts to enforce the beliefs a group has. And this is true of all sides of the political spectrum.
I have some thoughts about this, but am having a crazy weekend, and will think in writing later.
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