The disastrous and destructive consequences of reductionist and relativistic education can be seen in multifarious ways, all of which are made manifest in the decay and decomposition of the modern West. We are no longer able to think outside of narcissistic or ideological boxes; we are no longer able to love self-sacrificially.

The following is an interview that Joseph Pearce gave to Behrouz Zavaryan for the Iranian magazine, Qalamyaran. This is its first publication in English. 

BZ: First of all, we are so grateful for your granting us this interview. Could you explain how and under what title you define a “human being”?

JP: A “human being” should be understood in the classical sense of being “homo viator”, man on a journey or “pilgrim man”. This means that man has a telos, a purpose. His life is meant to be a quest for the attainment of goodness, truth and beauty, which is ultimately the quest for God, the quest for heaven.

In addition, however, a “human being” is also “homo superbus” (proud man), who chooses to refuse the purpose for which he is chosen, preferring to go his own way instead, or choosing to go nowhere in particular.

Also, and finally, a human being is “anthropos”, one who is not confined by instinct or emotion but is meant to look up in wonder at the cosmos and be moved to contemplation thereby.

A “human being” is, therefore, a being at war with himself. The “homo superbus” is at war with “homo superbus” and “Anthropos”. This is why great writers, such as Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn, remind us that the battle between good and evil takes place in each individual human heart.

BZ: As a follow-up to the previous question, what is the relationship between the definition of “human” and the “idea of ​​the university”? How would our definition of “human” affect the idea of ​​the university?

JP: Clearly the “idea of a university” is going to be predicated on our understanding of the definition of “human”.

If we believe that man is “homo sapiens” (“wise” man), we will presume that “wisdom” is innate and that we are already ipso facto “wise” and therefore controllers of ourselves and our environment. We will have the scientistic understanding that we are masters of ourselves and masters of the universe. Ironically, this is not “wisdom” but merely the arrogance of ignorance, which theologians call pride.

Much modern utilitarian education is predicated on the assumption that the human being is merely “homo economicus”, a functionary of the economy whose purpose is to be a producer and consumer of economic “wealth”. This reduces the human person to that of a mere cog in the economic machine.

Man is not a purely “rational animal” because his ability to reason is compromised by his passions and his pride (homo superbus). This is why a true education must include the nurturing of virtue, because the means to being truly rational is humility, i.e. the absence of pride.

BZ: What is the relationship between “knowledge itself in its general sense” and “the definition of human?” How do you define knowledge and how does your definition of knowledge relate to or affect your definition of human?

JP: The word for knowledge in Latin is “scientia,” from which we get the modern word “science”. In this sense, the classical sense, “science” is not merely physical science but all the sciences.

Theology, the knowledge of God, is traditionally known as the “queen of the sciences” because the most important knowledge to be attained is the knowledge of God.

Philosophy, the love of wisdom, is a science because the quest for wisdom is essential and integral to the progress of homo viator. What the modern world calls “science” was known to the ancients as “natural philosophy” (the love of wisdom to be attained from nature). This was the part of philosophy encompassed by “physics”. The other part of philosophy is “metaphysics”, which transcends “physics”, i.e. the physical sciences, in its quest for goodness, truth and beauty, none of which can be quantified physically or empirically. Physics (physical science) is deficient and defective unless it is seen in the light of metaphysics.

In a broader sense of the word, it can even be said that history is a science because knowledge of the past enables us to understand the present; and literature is also a science in this broader sense because we can come to a knowledge of the truth through the power of narrative, the telling of stories.

BZ: How does your definition of the relationship between “knowledge” and “man” relate to the idea of ​​the university?

JP: It should be evident that the idea of a university is predicated on an understanding of what it is to be a “human being” and on an understanding of what constitutes “knowledge” (science in the broader and older sense of the word).

BZ: How do you evaluate the purpose of education according to John Dewey and his followers, and its impact on the new academic system?

JP: John Dewey and his followers had an erroneous and reductionist, ultimately a materialist, understanding of the human person. If we build a philosophy of education on a flawed philosophy—i.e., a false and reductionist anthropology—we will be destroying education, reducing it to a mere mechanism for destroying the ability of students to find the fullness of themselves as homo viator and Anthropos.

BZ: Here in Iran, universities specify a series of courses in advance based on the directives of the Iranian Ministry of Science, and students can only obtain a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree after being accepted into these courses that they did not actually choose themselves. In your opinion, what system can we put in place in contrast to this incorrect educational system?

JP: It is always dangerous to put the power of education into the hands of the state. The Catholic Church teaches that parents must be the primary educators of their children. If they are not able to teach their children themselves, they should be free to choose the sort of education that is best for their own children. The state has no right to restrict this freedom. At the university level, this same principle applies to the adult students themselves who should be free to choose the sort of education that is best for them. This is not the right of the state but an unjust restriction of the freedom of the student.

BZ: What impact has the new academic system’s hatred of classical texts had on the condition of modern man and society?

JP: The disastrous and destructive consequences of this reductionist and relativistic education can be seen in multifarious ways, all of which are made manifest in the decay and decomposition of the modern West. We are no longer able to think outside of narcissistic or ideological boxes; we are no longer able to love self-sacrificially. The new academic system has proved G.K. Chesterton correct when he prophesied that “the coming peril was standardization by a low standard”. It has produced generations of people who are pathetically incapable of acting as mature adults. It is what happens when we privilege pride over humility, homo superbus over homo viator. The (post)modern economic system has produced generations of what T.S. Eliot called “hollow men” or what C.S. Lewis called “men without chests”, or what Tolkien presents to us in the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. To put it bluntly, the modern academic system gollumizes its students.

BZ: What impact has the academic system’s distancing from real human life had on life itself?

JP: Its impact is now playing itself out in ways that are not merely tragic but comic. We no longer know the difference between male and female; we believe that it’s morally acceptable to systematically kill children by the millions through the systemic infanticide, known as abortion; we are moving towards the culling of the old and the infirm through what is euphemistically called euthanasia, but which will become the systemic means for exterminating people who are no longer “economically viable” units of society; we hate our own humanity so much that transhumanists long for the human to be replaced by the machine.

BZ: What is the relationship between the idea of ​​a university and the meaning of a good and happy life? In other words, what must a university be like to help facilitate a good and happy life for all citizens and people of a country?

JP: As the answer to the preceding question implies, the teaching of the traditional humanities are essential to the teaching of humans about humanity itself. Without a return to the humanities, we have nothing to expect except inhumanity and the dehumanizing of culture. In brief and in sum, a correct idea of the university is a matter of life and death for civilization itself.

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The featured image is “Loggia in Ravello” (1890), by Peder Severin Krøyer, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.