Today's assignment: meaning of life
I WAS struck by Anthony Kronman's piece "Why are we here?" (Ideas, Sept. 16), decrying American colleges' lack of focus on the deepest questions of human existence. The truth is, Americans now view college as a key to a well-paying job rather than an opportunity to become better lifelong learners.
My oldest son is living out this reality, studying philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is enjoying his classes in Plato and Heidegger, but most find his choice of study mystifying, asking, "What's he going to do with that?"
Here's the joke that was making the rounds among his friends this summer:
"How do you get a philosophy major off your front porch?"
"Pay him for the pizza."
MARY DOWNES
Scituate
KRONMAN DWELLS on the shift of our heralded institutions from liberal arts to research. But there is still a plethora of humanities classes open to a general audience. What is perhaps of graver concern is whether students these days even care.
Students are taught at every juncture to perform well so that they may gain acceptance to the next level. This is so pervasive that students dare not take risks to learn something that might reflect poorly on their grade point average.
Pressures put on young kids are so great that any intellectual exploration that is beyond their expected workload is viewed as frivolous. So when they do have a moment of downtime, students would rather party and blow off steam than read Nietzsche.
Students should leave the nest and open their minds to myriad deep questions. They should take courses that challenge them to explore topics outside of their comfort zone and debate with their classmates late into the night.
Unfortunately, our culture, in more ways than you may think, no longer fosters that.
SCOTT LAJOIE
Mashpee
ALTHOUGH I value the philosophical and theological emphasis of my undergraduate education (Boston College, 1981), I wish it had been broader.
This is especially true in situations when I need a more general humanistic approach to the problem at hand. When I care for a critically ill patient, it is from Shakespeare's understanding of the human condition and Eastern philosophers' acceptance of change and uncertainty that I draw my strength. It is their wisdom, not that of Watson and Crick, that my patients and their families need.
Dr. MARK LANZIERI
Lewiston, Maine
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY endorse Anthony Kronman's suggestion that colleges should encourage students to examine the meaning of life. At midlife, I greatly regret that in my college years I did not do so.
But why must religion be excluded? If one is sincere about knowing what is so, it seems better to admit that there could be some truth in religion than to accept an unthinking assumption that atheism is truth or that agnosticism is wisdom.
ROBERT O'HEARNE
Chelmsford
I PERCEIVE a more basic issue behind why colleges have stopped offering classes in which the big questions are examined. In its effort to ward off intelligent design, academia has committed itself to the position that life does not have intrinsic meaning. Intelligent design is an attack on evolution's claim that life evolved by pure chance without rhyme or reason - in essence, that life is not the product of a design or designer.
While many treat intelligent design as a religious argument against science, it is in fact a philosophical argument. In Greek philosophy, the idea is that the universe is an orderly cosmos governed by the logos, or reason.
Religion will never disappear, because people need meaning to live, and God provides meaning for living. Philosophy will disappear if it affirms that all meaning is relative - that is, that your guess is as good as mine.
The Rev. ROGER A. SAWTELLE
Lowell
