Toward A Value-Based Education
A substantial case can he made for the proposition that we rapidly are moving from a culture characterized by scarcity and trying to one dominated by technology and accommodation. The new culture has heen descrihed hy its critics as pursuing the goal of exploiting both nature and the mind in the service of "efficient production, incessant consumption and sensate gratification." This combination of production, consumption and gratification is seen as pernicio-reating conditions in which the individual finds less and less need to understand anything beyond his own narrow sphere of specialization, fewer and fewer reasons to distinguish between good and had acts, and more and more opportunity to accommodate without question. Higher education and most esneciallv its science.. eneineerine and economics comoonents are identified as majorcontrihut& to thisrultural movement, and are branded as rulnrits for failing to balance the technical and specialized knowledge they imp& with a humanizing and value-based education. The branding argument is not without merit. Education, even value-based education, is the major if not the primary husiness of the colleges and universities. In the broadest sense, higher education can he said to consist of an elitist element, a professional element, and a philosophical element. The first serves as an entree to higher social status and as a medium for challenging and developing the best minds. The second provides specialized knowledge and skills needed for managing and manioulatine the intricate aonaratus of modern societv. .. It also generates new knowledge and stimulates advances in technology and sociology. The third offers enlightenment alwut the conditions of human existence and helps the individual develoo habits and attitudes that can wide his actions, foster s e ~ f - r e ~ ~and e c texpand his awarenessylf the suhstance of the ~hilosoohicalelement could hemasped by studentsor conveied by teachers as effectively a6 is that df the professional element, there would he far less apprehension accom.. panying our current cultural movement. Although the humanities areas of higher education might he faulted for not developing the philosophical element more effectively, this element is neither unique to the humanities nor should it be dominated by their perspective. Still, the expectation is that the humanities will show the way in this area. The study of humanities is descrihed as the bolstering of our own inner search for meanine- hv. using the illumination that philosuphers, historians, writen and poets have focused on the orohlems of the human condition. The search here i~ not for fmal answers or fmal explanations, hut for insights into the nature and ~otentialof mankind, and into the simificance and suhstance df qualities such as dignity, justice, love, joy and milt. The aim is to enable the individual to recognize what is &rl and just and honorahlc, w d to make choices-accordingly. The prohlem appears to he the sheer complexity of it all. his complexity is a factor in the continuing failure of the humanities to make a greater impression on college students, the verv citizens who are most in search of what thev have to ~,~~ offer. Much of this failure can he traced poor readkg habits and to tht. large volume of reading and study needed to gain any sense of mastery or to develop any feeling of confidence. The complexity also is seen in the amhiguity that has ac-
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companied the acquisition of greater knowledge of the ancient world and in the violent philological squahhles among scholars that thus far have suppressed emergence of a cogent and comprehensible humanities program for undergraduates. The question of the moment is: Can humanities achieve what is expected of them in higher education? If not, how can the void he filled? Little help can be expected from the social sciences because of what appears to be an unmovable commitment tovalue-free knowledge. The main drift in contemporary sociology is toward an even greater emphasis on empirical observation and techniques of measurement. This is accompanied by procedural canons that assiduously protect the study of fact from contamination hv the value oreferences of the observer. Much of this is an understandabie over-reaction to harsh lessons learned in the oast-lessons that required the facing of hitter truths about sorial reality, such m i h e recognition that too often and too perilously critical hahits of thought were influenced by private needs and wishes, that irreparable harm resulted from the failure of individuals and groups to distineuish what the world is reallv like from what thev would have Eked it to he, and that natupe itself exerts forces"and imposes restraints ohlivious of human will and needs. As understandable as this separation of fact and value may he, i t is too simplified a contrivance to adequately study and interpret modern society. Far too many phenomena of the social world encomnass the realization of values for this to he successful. Moreover, the moral and ethical relativism this separation ends up sanctioning blurs the distinction between what is gond and what is had. Clearly, the s ~ ~ c isciences al are not likelv to make sirnificant contributions to a value-based education of students in the near future. From the beginning the natural sciences have looked, not toward man, hut tow&d the structure of nature and the universe. Ironically perhaps, many of their advances have been so astounding, bverwh&ing &d unsettling that they have challenged traditional views of the nature and role of man. Moreover, the sciences are primarily prohlem-solving disciplines. They assume the problems they deal with have rational solutions arrived a t hv reducine each nrohlem to a set of propositions. But sureiy there ismore &man and life than a set of nro~ositions. for oroblem-solvine. . . . a nrooensitv & ". or even a genius for understanding nature and interpreting the universe. Missing from the still unanswered hopes of the humanities, the moral relativiamof thesocialsciencesand thedisauieting profundity of the natural sciences is the quality desciihed 6 human feeling taken in its most rational and normative sense. I t is this that helps us to distinguish, and perhaps even to choose, right from wrong, good from had, compassion from indifference, truth from erior and justice from injustice. Rehind its value-laden character lies an imageof manasacreature of extraordinary promise and worth. This image finds fulfillment and realization in all fields of knowledge and in all hut the most base of human activities. The formulation of this image and its expression in human feeling is the most central of all questions of eduration. Good teachers in all disciplines know that persons possessing such an image can he educated and that those withnut it can only learn. WTL &
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Volume 54, Number 3, March 1977 / 133
