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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ (00:01.944)
Hello and welcome to Chasing the Viaduct. I'm your host PJ Weary and I'm here today with Dr. Mark Roach, Professor of German Languages and Literature at Notre Dame, also Professor of Philosophy there as well. And we're talking about his book, Why Choose the Liberal Arts? Dr. Roach, wonderful to have you on today.
Mark Roche (00:21.716)
Thank you so much for the invitation. It's my pleasure.
PJ (00:25.336)
So, Dr. Roach, I love the title of the book because it's so straightforward and it is a conversation that happens all the time. Why choose the liberal arts? Where did this come from for you? I mean, you're a professor of philosophy and of German literature, so it seems a little bit banal to ask this, but... But why did you feel the need to write this?
Mark Roche (00:45.076)
Heheheheh
Mark Roche (00:49.972)
Yeah, it's a fair question. There are actually several reasons for my writing this book. The first was that after speaking with students off and on during the time I served as Dean, I was often surprised by their answers to two questions. First, what is your favorite course? They might name film or anthropology or philosophy or something like that. And then I asked them their major.
And often I heard accounting or finance or business management, something like that. And that was a disconnect that I didn't like to hear. And second, I would often get the question from parents and it's a fair question. My son or daughter is majoring in theology or psychology. What can they do with that? So although...
academic administrators, occasionally faculty members, will sometimes address this puzzle, I thought it needed a sustained response to give students confidence to major in the liberal arts, to give students not majoring in the liberal arts, the sense that the courses they were required to take in the liberal arts were meaningful to them, and to ease parents' concerns.
about their investments. So that was the first catalyst. I should add that we had at the time a fairly high percentage of students at the University of Notre Dame majoring in business. And my thinking about a good rationale for choosing the liberal arts was related to that puzzle. And we introduced a number of initiatives so that we were able to reduce the number of students in business for 10 semesters.
PJ (02:28.152)
Mm.
Mark Roche (02:44.404)
straight for five years. So that was very, very helpful. Now that was the first reason to answer the practical puzzle. But the second reason was almost the opposite. I was disappointed that students, parents, sometimes educators, even politicians were reducing the value of a liberal arts education to its practical value alone. And,
PJ (02:45.72)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (03:14.388)
That's not why I like to teach. I like to teach because in my courses, students realize we're engaging the great questions that give meaning to life. We are reading wonderful works by great authors, by great filmmakers. We are watching those. We are analyzing rich philosophical texts that address important questions for anyone, not only college students, but in some ways,
PJ (03:17.656)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (03:43.316)
especially college students. So I wanted to embrace the intrinsic value of the liberal arts, that to make the point clear, there is some knowledge that has value not only for what it does, but for what it is. So that was the second reason, the intrinsic value of the liberal arts. And there was a third reason as well. And this had more to do with faculty interests.
and a general cultural trend. If you ask faculty members in surveys, what is the purpose of a liberal arts education or what is the purpose of studying history, et cetera, overwhelmingly, the faculty respond, well, there are two purposes. One is to give students the tools for critical thinking, absolutely valid. And second, to give them disciplinary knowledge, also absolutely valid.
but they stopped there. In fact, Stanley Fish, who's a well -known literature professor, law professor, wrote an essay, Aim Low, and then developed it into a book, Save the World on Your Own Time, where he basically said, these are the two only purposes that faculty members should devote themselves to. And I thought that was truncated, that in fact, traditionally, one of the purposes of a college education is to help
PJ (04:49.144)
Yeah.
PJ (05:03.384)
Mark Roche (05:13.492)
students find their values to develop virtues, to become better persons, to develop character. Formation is an antiquated term for that. And my answer to skeptics was basically, well, you may not want to teach these values, but you are presupposing these values in any class you teach. For example, in a discussion class, it is...
an act of justice to listen carefully to the views of perspectives that are posed to your own. To try to engage in good classroom debate is to develop the virtue of diplomacy, that you focus on the argument and not attack the person, that you encourage the views of those who might be quieter but.
whom you know have interesting insights. That's intellectual hospitality. And to defend a view against those who in the majority perhaps take a different stance is to enact courage. And humility is to retreat when you realize the arguments on the other side are much stronger. So these are all virtues and values that are presupposed in any good discussion class and in lecture classes as well. Good listening is a value.
being able to think out loud, to think outside the box. These are all capacities fostered in a liberal arts environment. So I didn't want us to push the moral purpose of education to extracurricular activities, to teamwork in sports, et cetera. I wanted to see a more holistic view. So these were the three main reasons.
PJ (07:01.144)
First off, an incredible answer.
And it's interesting because I spend, so secondly, it's interesting because I spend a lot of time on here using the enlightenment or rational thinking as a whipping boy because it is predominant in the culture. But we are seeing it kind of falling apart. And there are, well, I would disagree with a lot of the things that came out of the enlightenment.
the value of free discussion is predisposed by what I'm doing here on this podcast. The idea that I'm gonna come on here and I'm gonna listen because you are an expert, you have spent years and you are worth listening to. That's the whole point. And it is the foundation for our culture as it stands, or it should be. It's definitely historically been, I don't know about right now.
Mark Roche (07:36.628)
Absolutely.
Mark Roche (07:53.684)
Mm -hmm.
PJ (07:59.96)
And so as we look at this, one of the things that we lose is that this is a value that has to be taught. And I feel like that is something that we have lost sight of. Probably one of the most valuable things that the Enlightenment gave us was listening charitably to the other person with the idea that it might form us to be a better person. Because the truth is everywhere. And...
Mark Roche (08:23.988)
Mm -hmm.
PJ (08:28.952)
of all the things from the Enlightenment that we should have gotten rid of first. That was not it. Like, it seems to me one of the most fundamental gifts that we've gotten from our Western heritage.
Mark Roche (08:42.836)
Yeah, I would actually agree with that 100%. And I would actually advance a view of the Enlightenment as more than simply historical phenomenon. We identify the Enlightenment with the 18th century and the development of certain values such as autonomy and critical examination. But I would say the first Enlightenment,
actually begins in ancient Greece, Socrates is a figure of the enlightenment. He is saying to his interlocutors, I understand that your views are driven by tradition. There is perhaps a certain value in tradition, but there's also a value in asking about grounds, questioning tradition. And it was that enlightenment ethos,
PJ (09:15.544)
Mmm.
Mark Roche (09:40.02)
that actually made him a dangerous figure because he was willing to question the established norms. And one reason I often like to begin my courses with a platonic dialogue is that the meta question you were just talking about, namely, how should we converse with one another, is almost always the theme or a meta theme, if you will, of a platonic dialogue.
PJ (10:06.488)
Yes.
Mark Roche (10:08.116)
The focus question might be what is courage or what is piety or what is justice, but the dialogues are often about the conditions of a good dialogue. For example, this past semester, I taught a course called Faith, Doubt and Reason. And after a first reading by Simone Wey, that was also prefatory in a sense to the principles.
and questions we were puzzling through during the class, we turned to Plato's Euthyphro. And it is a question about piety, what is piety? But it is also a dialogue that teaches us several things about dialogue. You won't find the truth if you are dogmatic and overly confident and not willing to entertain questions of your own position.
And if you're not able to be consistent, if you're not a thinker who's able to avoid self -contradiction, then you're not going to make progress. And it requires persistence. It's not usually easy to simply give a position, have it be questioned or refuted in a meaningful way, and then reorient yourself and continue to work further toward
truth and this in Gorgias Plato calls it a punishment of the interlocutor but punishment is of course designed toward reform. You need to be criticized for false positions so that you can eventually come to the truth so that suffering is a path to justice. It is actually an idea from Greek tragedy that Plato picks up that suffering helps us find our path to truth.
PJ (11:59.064)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (12:01.332)
And in my courses, effortful learning is a concept that the students know. If you work hard, as opposed to sitting back and having the professor tell you what the answers are, if you work hard to find the answers and perhaps you need some help along the way, you are more likely to remember those answers. So a dialogue about dialogue is a great way to start a class and self -reflection becomes part of it. Self -reflection is a good principle of learning.
Another thing I do at the start of class, often the first day before they've had any assignments is I break them into groups and I say to the students, I want you to reflect on the best discussion classes you've ever had and the worst discussion classes you ever had. And I want you to identify the characteristics of the two kinds of classes.
They vary and immediately they're involved in the class. They are actively learning and I've now done this enough. I stumbled into the idea maybe 10, 15 years ago and any discussion class, even if there are 30 students that's still a discussion class, I have them begin this way and only if I have a repeat student do I adjust it so that they're not bored in some way. But it's fun for several reasons. One, they're immediately engaged.
PJ (13:01.528)
yes.
Mark Roche (13:27.028)
And then I go to the board and I say, okay, the best discussion class is the worst discussion classes. Where should we begin first? And whichever we begin with, I list various things on the board and each time I list something, you could imagine the opposite of that would belong on the other side. So if one person dominates as opposed to everyone having an opportunity to respond or avoid ad hominem.
a tax focus on the issue at hand, we have to have great tax, et cetera. And then after we've put our lists together, I go through each point and I ask the students, now who's responsible for this? Is it me as the teacher? Are you responsible or are we all responsible? And what I found every time I've done this exercise is that either the students,
or everyone is responsible for everything except two items. One item is we have to have great works. The reading materials chosen by the teacher have to be excellent, although increasingly for the last four to six sessions, I let the students pick the final text. So they're also responsible even for picking the works.
PJ (14:36.12)
Yes.
Mark Roche (14:52.212)
And the second principle is that no one dominate the discussion. So I tell the students, okay, I'm responsible for having chosen good works. I'm confident that's the case. You'll judge later on how I did. And second, I can't speak too much. And therefore, you are responsible for whether or not we will have a good class. It's your responsibility. And that is...
empowering actually, because they realize it's really up to them. Do they have the temperance to spend the time and the discipline, again, virtues at play, to prepare well for class, to think through the puzzles. And so, as you say, discussion, reason, openness to alternative views, these are virtues that are timeless and they were introduced in the first enlightenment. And it is the...
PJ (15:28.696)
Mmm.
Mark Roche (15:50.42)
counter -enlightenment that wants to get rid of those, that wants to be dogmatic, that does not want to entertain rational debate with evidence and consistency of argument.
PJ (16:06.328)
And forgive me, I'm gonna get into the weeds a little bit here. When you say counter -enlightenment, are you distinguishing from people who would be, scholars who would have been under like the Romantics, for instance? Okay, okay. I was thinking.
Mark Roche (16:20.532)
Yeah, that is a good question. Actually, I would say that a complex thinker would recognize that the enlightenment can be viewed as somewhat one -sided insofar as it is focused on light and reason and rational argument and the romantics who
turned to the night, who turned to the emotions, who turned to the unconscious, were actually continuing to pursue the enlightenment. They were simply expanding it with better arguments. By counter -enlightenment, I am thinking of an anti -intellectual stance. These are people who do not make the pantheon of philosophers because they want to assert their position as being right without
PJ (17:10.392)
Okay, yes, thank you.
Mark Roche (17:20.692)
entertaining counter arguments. And that is a position of dogmatism, of irrationality. They are not interested in evidence. They are not interested in consistency. And it is a mark of a culture that is struggling if enlightenment in the broad sense of argument is not what is dominant in the discourse.
PJ (17:23.672)
Yes.
PJ (17:39.256)
Hmm.
PJ (17:48.792)
One, thank you. Helping me understand where you're coming from. I ended up homeschooling my sons through COVID. That's a whole story in itself. I was not intending to homeschool them. So my son started kindergarten during COVID. And the first day he'd been watching Number Blocks on Netflix. And they teach you math. And he'd been watching us at three and four years old.
Mark Roche (18:04.276)
Hehehehe
PJ (18:19.304)
First day of kindergarten they said so by the end of the year we wanted to be able to count to 100 and They gave us a whole list of responsibilities that included two to four hours of work on my part every day and I looked at it. I said That's how long homeschooling will take and he can already count to 100. It's the first day of class. That's how I ended up homeschooling.
Mark Roche (18:42.036)
Great.
PJ (18:46.488)
That's a whole other discussion there in terms of like we may get into a little bit about schooling in America and standards But what I insisted on and I really appreciate about your work here is That their education was their responsibility. So I say them your work is your like my responsibility Like your learning is my responsibility They're annoyed that I make them say this but we have this back and forth and what it showed up is my
Mark Roche (18:46.516)
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Roche (19:02.611)
Mm -hmm.
Mark Roche (19:12.084)
Hehehe
PJ (19:16.088)
father was talking to my oldest and said, don't you love your teacher? Like who's your teacher? And my oldest looked at him and was like, I don't have a teacher. And I was like, he's like, when you have questions, Finn, you come to me, right? Like that's like, and I see this, I used to teach in the public or in a private school system and...
Mark Roche (19:23.668)
Heheheheh
Mark Roche (19:28.724)
That's awesome.
PJ (19:44.504)
I was, and this is something you see in public schools as well, the current system really seems designed in many ways to squelch the desire for learning. And so, and I understand there are good teachers out there and I understand that that doesn't happen to every kid. But it was a worrying trend for me. And that is, along with some of the other things I already mentioned, that's part of the reason why we decided to go with homeschooling. And it's really...
Mark Roche (20:00.532)
Mm -hmm.
PJ (20:13.816)
powerful to see you articulate this, part of me feels like this is a powerful argument that may not go anywhere. I don't let the forces... I want to say that I really appreciate what you're saying, but the forces surrounding academia right now are so strong and so powerful. What can the individual educator do in the face of...
cultural expectations in the face of administrative and political expectations.
Mark Roche (20:49.684)
Yeah, it's a good question. I will put it this way. I think one of the most important aspects of teaching is how you...
design the course and present the course already on the first day. So for example, I begin every syllabus by describing the material briefly, but in such a way that the students will get excited about it. The goal is to get them to a position where they say, this is great stuff.
This excites me, it awakens their curiosity. And then I follow that with what I want them to learn. What are the goals? And it usually isn't something as specific as to be able to do X. It is more abstract to develop your hermeneutic capacities so that you can understand how a literary work
as a whole is defined by its parts, how the whole contributes to the parts, how the parts are only fully evident in their meaning when we have the whole, how to ask interesting questions of a literary text, how to argue for and against different kinds of interpretations. So it is more a skill that will be a life skill, if you will. So I present a series of learning goals, usually about six.
And then I describe what the students will do. And that includes being actively engaged in the classroom. It involves the various assignments they will have, papers, I have them write before virtually every class to a web discussion board where they can read each other's comments. So they are well -prepared for class. And then I go into the grading criteria. That is, I'm basically saying,
Mark Roche (23:02.548)
Here are the assignments you have in order to reach those learning goals. How will I assess your progress toward those learning goals? So that grading becomes an organic part of the entire project. And then on that first day, I present to them the learning principles, not learning goals, but learning principles, philosophy of learning, that animate the entire course. And one of them is, of course, active learning.
that they are more likely to learn well if they're engaged in the learning process. Another is peer engagement. The peer group is huge for learning in college. That's what the empirical evidence says. So I give them a lot of peer assignments. In smaller classes, they will co -lead two discussions with a different partner each time. And often they'll begin...
PJ (23:49.08)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (23:57.876)
class in smaller discussion groups and then we come together as a whole. So they're actively engaged right from the beginning and learning from one another. And those small discussion groups have a certain intrinsic value. They're not only valuable when an insight from that group is brought to the larger group. Some of the learning that is its own end takes place in those smaller groups. And then another principle is existential learning. Think again about Plato.
The dialogue, the Euthyphro, is about piety. Well, Socrates is about to be tried for impiety. The question is not some abstract philosophical game. It is an existential question because it is a life and death question. And there are very few questions that are greater than the questions asked in the Platonic dialogues. What is goodness? What is justice?
PJ (24:48.696)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (24:58.164)
what is courage, et cetera. So these principles along with intrinsic motivation, I tell them related to one of your comments about some schooling being not what it could be, that I will give them very high standards and I will do that for their sake. I could give them an easy A, but they wouldn't learn as much.
And the goal of this class is to help them learn. And I will also give them a lot of feedback so that they can realize how they might bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be or where I expect they could reach. And that will require some effort on their part. But once you've created that culture and atmosphere, they're eager for feedback. They view it as a gift. They want to become better. And...
PJ (25:53.56)
That's right.
Mark Roche (25:56.468)
the grades mean a little bit less than they might in another cultural context. I had an endearing conversation with an engineering student. One year I had 22 engineering students and taught them great works of literature and philosophy. Very, very bright students. And the student told me that he met with his first year advisor and said, well, you had all A's but one A minus in this humanities class.
PJ (25:59.16)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (26:25.556)
Are you upset in any way that he spoiled your record or whatever the advisor said? And he said, no, I'm most proud of that A minus because I know what I had to do to earn that. And that was something valuable to me. My investment of time in that class was meaningful and I progressed and I saw it, but I didn't reach the highest standard that the professor had set for us. And I really appreciate that high standard. So.
Creating that culture can really be advantageous. And I mean, you are working against certain cultural expectations. I do know that my grades are not as high as some of my colleagues, and I know that grade inflation is a trend. But I tell them I can write them a very strong letter, and I can go into details because I know their work in great detail. And that will...
PJ (26:56.408)
Mmm.
PJ (27:21.016)
Mmm.
Mark Roche (27:23.54)
counter the fact that some students all have the same high grades together. So I think you do what you can. And when I was an administrator, I actually at the end review had my second in command, the associate dean gather a list of the faculty members who were the worst, most egregious in terms of grade inflation. And,
When we talked about each faculty member individually, and they would say, well, the person's a great teacher, my assistant might say, well, I would expect good student evaluations if the person gives a 3 .9 average to the students in his or her class. So accountability when you have the power. And I mean, the best way to motivate anyone is by a vision.
PJ (28:11.768)
Mmm.
Mark Roche (28:17.684)
And so on that first day, I want to craft a vision for the students that this is an exciting opportunity for them to really learn something in a class where we're discussing meaningful material. And if you ask graduates 10 years out, what do they most remember from the academic experiences at college? They name three things. Study abroad experience. Again, think about these principles. You are.
PJ (28:43.608)
Right.
Mark Roche (28:44.34)
really curious what you're living in a different country. You're existentially engaged. All of a sudden, in my case, I went to Germany as a sophomore, second semester sophomore. I had tremendous curiosity about German politics just by looking at all the posters and greater knowledge about German history and the language became much more important to me than it was when it was one course out of four. So study abroad is one and another is the senior thesis where again,
PJ (28:47.32)
yeah!
Mark Roche (29:13.94)
You've chosen the topic, you're actively engaged, you're writing and rewriting and learning in close contact with a faculty member. That's another principle faculty student contact. And the third is a meaningful class that discussed topics of existential interest in an environment where I got to know the other students and the faculty member. That's what graduates remember.
that special seminar, that special class. So I want to craft that as much as I can for the students I teach.
PJ (29:51.192)
makes total sense to me. I did not get to do an abroad semester, but I did do a mission trip. And that's still one of, at 18, was one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. I went to Cambodia and I came back, for one, a much less picky eater. Nothing like seeing people who care about food for survival to look and say, you know what, I can eat this, it's not a big deal.
Mark Roche (30:09.94)
Hmm.
PJ (30:20.056)
But that is just a shock and a measure of my own privilege. And then when you talk about my other favorite classes, one was Shakespeare, and I just read a play a week, and I had to write a paper on it. That's all I had to do, and I just really enjoyed that. It was completely self -motivated. You had to do it. Learned a ton. And then I did a graduate seminar where we did the history of exegesis, and we read from...
Mark Roche (30:32.244)
I just read a play a week.
PJ (30:49.24)
Aristotle through Schleiermacher and we got together once a week and we discussed the reading. And it was a very small, tight -knit group with the professor and the other students. Which, that's how I get my favorite moments of learning. Like, wow, I feel so seen, but I realize that that's just part of what the studies show, but it's also part of your own experience as a teacher.
Mark Roche (31:16.692)
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And I can also add that class in hermeneutics was hugely important because it was foundational for your further work. I say to students when the term hermeneutics comes up, and I ask them in what disciplines does hermeneutics play an important role? Well, they grasp fairly quickly.
PJ (31:26.872)
Yes. Yes.
Mark Roche (31:39.22)
Certainly theology because of the biblical exegesis, they understand a literature class, which is a philosophy class, which is what I often teach, sometimes cinema, it plays a role there. And there are always a few pre -law students in a class at Notre Dame. And they understand then that if they do well and develop certain skills in a literature class, they can apply those hermeneutic skills later on to the study of law. So it has again, this,
practical dimension that.
is an add -on to the intrinsic value of the great questions you're exploring when you say, read Shakespeare, what is tragedy? What makes for a tragic figure? These are questions that are relevant to young students who are forming their identity. What values are you willing to die for? What is it that you value in human relationships? These are important questions for a young person, really for any person, but a good question.
good Shakespeare course where both the craft of Shakespeare and the great questions that Shakespeare asks are front and center will potentially have a lasting impact on students.
PJ (32:58.296)
And you said something that really stuck out to me and I just may steal it for the future. The best way to motivate anyone is by a vision. Or the best way to motivate someone is by a vision. And that, I think, goes to this larger question that you hinted at earlier. I think it kind of...
Mark Roche (33:06.9)
Absolutely.
PJ (33:19.704)
gives us a glimpse into what your answer would be, that there are some types of knowledge that are good for what the knowledge does, and there are types of knowledge that are good for what they are. And it kind of goes back to this existential learning versus perhaps an economic sort of learning. And can you speak to that? Can you speak to the...
From what I understand, the dominant mindset going to college is, what is my job going to be? What are my economic opportunities after this? Versus, and this is how I was taught, I think largely through my reading, I want to become a better person through college. And that's, I don't actually hear people say that very often. And I think I was blessed enough to have read some people who gave me that idea.
Mark Roche (33:48.308)
Yeah.
Mark Roche (33:58.932)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Roche (34:11.124)
Yeah, yeah, it is partly, you mentioned earlier, the culture. Cultures change. And usually, they're a complex array of factors that lead to a change in culture. And there are unintended ripple effects as a result of that cultural change. So even before I went to college, I entered college in 1974.
the decade before that, perhaps the decade of the 70s, perhaps into the early 80s, the answer, the first answer in a major survey that still continues today of entering college first year students. At that time, the number one value in a menu of perhaps a dozen items, the highest rated item,
by students of my generation was the goal of developing a meaningful philosophy of life. That was the exact phrase. Yeah. And today you will see that that number has gone down and been crossed. It was much lower in my generation and has risen. The question that has risen is to become well off financially.
PJ (35:19.544)
Wow. Okay.
PJ (35:30.328)
Yes!
Mark Roche (35:41.332)
There is a cultural change. That means we have gone from the intrinsic value of learning, which is a matter of engaging the great questions that give meaning to life, to a desire to experience college, not as an end that has its own value, but as a means to an end. It's something you pass through. And that is why you have the shift in language.
of students as customers, language I abhor. And simply the idea that you are going to college to learn skills that will help you in the long run, which is why the first catalyst for my book was trying to address those concerns. As I said, there are legitimate concerns, but the problem is,
PJ (36:15.768)
Mm.
PJ (36:34.2)
Right.
Mark Roche (36:41.044)
when you reduce all value to a means and dynamic, to pragmatic value, you are truncating your vision. You are asking only about the means and the means to other means. So college as a means to make money, well, making money is a means to something else. In most cases, for students who go to college,
college, it's not about surviving, it's about having more. It's about being able to have a bigger house or to live in a more desirable neighborhood, whatever it is. And these are all understandable ways of thinking. But if you only have an instrumental mindset, if you only have a means and mindset,
PJ (37:16.792)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (37:39.764)
You are not asking the question, what is the end? What is it I'm after? And empirical research shows that if your mindset is, I am always trying to achieve more to get somewhere else, you are going to be involved in a dynamic that will never lead to satisfaction because you never have enough. And...
What gives you instead a greater sense of fulfillment and contentment is when you are focused on items that are ends in themselves. Friendship, love, social engagement, experience of nature. These are ends that are their own rewards and persons who are able to experience the joy.
of engaging in this kind of life, which you experience in college because you are forming friendships over ideas that matter. It's the highest kind of friendship. It's not the friendship for entertainment or the friendship for utility, two lower kinds of friendship in Aristotle's view. That is something that is joyous. That is why when you are a graduate X number of years out and you think about subjective memory, you think back, there are times in your life that just,
or eclipse, they had no meaning for you. But you think back on those college years, they seem longer than four years or five years or six years, whatever it took for someone to graduate because they were so rich, they were so meaningful. They had their ends in themselves. And that is really, really exciting. Now, beyond this means and mindset, I have the view that technology has been the defining feature.
PJ (39:05.976)
Mm -hmm.
Mark Roche (39:32.596)
of the last 150 years in terms of our collective consciousness. And we of course rejoice in that because medicine is so much better through technology. We wouldn't be having this podcast without technology. There are wondrous results from this technology, greater tools and means of achieving certain ends that should all be embraced, but it becomes the only paradigm that's a problem.
PJ (39:35.192)
Mmm.
Mark Roche (40:01.428)
And it's not just this technological mindset. I feel bad for my successor as dean because I stepped out in 2008. That was a predetermined exit. I really wanted to get out. I wanted to get out earlier, but I stayed for various reasons at the request of the provost, et cetera. But when I stepped out in 2008, after those five years of reductions in business, they went back up again.
And I could smile and say, well, of course you have a different dean. No, the dean who followed me is superior to me actually, but he started in 2008. And so a second factor is the vulnerability that people feel. Since 2008, there has been a general reduction in humanities majors. And there is just a...
PJ (40:45.464)
Mm. Yeah.
Mark Roche (40:56.244)
of course COVID accentuated that and there is just this feeling of vulnerability that something could happen. You could all of a sudden be thrown into a predicament that was not part of your plan. And so you need to bolster yourself against that. So there is another factor, just the sense of vulnerability, the economic crisis of 2008. And you could perhaps add a third factor,
PJ (41:03.224)
Mm.
Mark Roche (41:25.428)
to this, it is certainly related to the search for the best college. There is a kind of achievement ethos that drives our thinking today that you need to do better, you need to be better off, you need to be at the top. There's a sense of comparative self -worth. If someone is doing better than you, then you feel in some way depressed and that's not a good way.
to define your self -worth. Your self -worth should be much more associated with your vision of what you want to be rather than comparing yourself to this or that achievement that someone else has had. So these are cultural factors. And how do you counter it? With vision. And vision is usually of an end. It is not of a means to an end. It is of an end. And what you say to students is that let's,
PJ (42:10.104)
Mm.
Mark Roche (42:23.316)
begin this semester with some rich discussions and you will find that you want to continue. It's exciting. These are great texts. I had last year a group of first year students for the whole year, 15 students. And in the fall we went from Homer to Dante and in the spring from Machiavelli to Natasha Trethewey, a contemporary poet. And the students were so excited.
about the material. By the end, a third of them decided to major in great books. We have at Notre Dame a program called the Program in Liberal Studies. And it is the only great books program at a research university as far as I understand it. Usually great books programs are at small liberal arts colleges, but it's a wonderful program where the students are taking seminars, reading the great works,
They also have tutorials in history of science and political philosophy and biblical exegesis to supplement that. But these are students who simply had a bit of a taste of how exciting it can be, how they improved, how they became better listeners. So in the feedback, I can remember writing to one student who was really very, very good.
but he had the habit, perhaps he learned it in high school where he was the top student of cutting people off. And that's not acceptable. And they receive in that class eight iterations of feedback across the year. So four per semester. So the first feedback comes fairly early. And I don't grade that first feedback. They get check, check minus check plus on their posts before class and their performance in class. And I try and focus on,
some examples of where they were particularly perceptive or areas where they might improve. And I remember being pretty tough on this student in terms of his need to develop a bit more intellectual hospitality and diplomacy, to listen a little bit more to perhaps instead of presenting only his view, trying to combine the views of a couple of colleagues, which is a high level.
Mark Roche (44:44.052)
way of engaging in a discussion, building on that to take the discussion further. And when he received that, he was clearly taken aback. But then he realized, wow, I never got feedback like this. This is great. I can become a better interlocutor. And he did, he sailed, he became a model fairly quickly. And it was something just lovely to see.
And they just want an advantage of having students for the whole year, that you really see them sail. And the same with their writing. And you are able to have discussions about modern works that lend themselves to allusions to, say, Aeschylus' Oresteia, where you have a great transition from the rule of violence to the rule of law. From...
PJ (45:15.032)
Yeah.
Mark Roche (45:40.596)
a power dynamic oriented around the family and loyalty to a court system oriented around disinterested justice. That is something that will recur just as enlightenment recurs through history. So it's really a wonderful experience.
PJ (45:58.424)
yes, that has to be one of the most rewarding things as a teacher.
Mark Roche (46:01.652)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
PJ (46:05.112)
When you talk about vulnerability from a more positive side, because you're talking about why it's declined.
PJ (46:15.576)
The answer can all too often be, if I only had more money, I'd have more security.
Mark Roche (46:22.964)
Mm -hmm.
PJ (46:27.832)
But when we look at, and nothing is guaranteed in this life, but when we look at the value of self -knowledge and of human skills.
PJ (46:40.12)
It is a fear reaction to look to money and rather than to ourselves. As a business owner, I have talked to a couple other small business owners and very early on I recognized, and this is something that I think a lot of people miss,
Mark Roche (46:44.34)
Mm -hmm.
PJ (46:58.232)
What is the biggest thing you need to do in your business? And that's, you know, of course what people ask like, you're running a successful small business. What did you do? I said, you need to make sure that your own mental, physical health and emotional health, but especially your mental and emotional health is very good. Because if you fall apart, the business will fall apart, especially early on. And it doesn't matter how much money you start off with. And I have seen many people fail in their businesses.
Mark Roche (47:21.076)
Yum. Yum.
PJ (47:28.44)
because everything looked right. Everything was working right. They had the sale. They had all the things that you would, but they fell apart and they made a lot of foolish decisions in a row. And when we look at questions of perhaps if you want to put it in America's decay or the economy's going down or jobs aren't what they used to be or it's too expensive to buy a home.
Mark Roche (47:38.708)
Hmm.
PJ (47:58.904)
Learning how to live with satisfaction. There's some old school terms for what you're talking about with the means and ends thing. It feels a lot like you're talking about greed and gratitude and how gratitude is really built into even that greater virtue of hope, right? Which is that vision. And I, one, I want to say thank you because you've helped me articulate and think about this more. And I will definitely share that with my own children.
Mark Roche (48:08.852)
Hmm?
Mark Roche (48:13.748)
Hmm? Hmm?
PJ (48:27.704)
as I work through my own community.
PJ (48:33.464)
As we look at these kind of old school virtues and these kinds of traditions that we carry, I mean, you're talking about the great books, all these sorts of things. Sorry, I'm tying several strands here together. You're being very patient. I appreciate that. I just read, actually the economists, they have an ending quote for the day and they had Gustav Mahler, tradition is the preservation of fire, not the veneration of ashes.
Mark Roche (48:46.068)
Hehehehe
Mark Roche (49:02.612)
Hmm.
PJ (49:04.92)
And when I hear what you're talking about with active learning, and when I hear what you're talking about with self -knowledge, can you speak a little bit to why it is valuable to have kind of this historical consciousness, but more this continual development, not just a, not passing water from one container to the next, but of igniting curiosity for the next generation.
Mark Roche (49:28.82)
Mm -hmm.
Mark Roche (49:34.132)
Yeah, it's a rich metaphor. And I would say education is not like pouring water into the student's brain as a bucket. It is lighting a fire. You are there to find the kindle and to light the fire.
that fire so that it will burn in such a way that when you are not present, the students' fire is still present. And I would say if you were to, you could make a list of the capacities, going back to the skills issue, the means and thinking that a liberal arts graduate develops, the communication skills.
the problem solving skills, the breadth of horizon, et cetera. One of the skills that is perhaps underappreciated and belongs in the context of your question is developing a curiosity and a capacity to continue to learn beyond college. And that is related to this issue of, well,
Perhaps you think you have the right local object. You have the technical skills or you have the money in the bank, but you could lose the edge of those technical skills because technology changes. And what you need is that capacity to learn new technologies and learn new things. One thing that we discover is a reason why liberal arts graduates do well.
especially mid -career, is that you may early on be hired for your technical skills that is probably over -inflated except in a field like engineering, but because communication skills, problem solving skills are really at the top of the list, there is in fact a survey done each year in a publication called Job Outlook, what are the most desired traits among college graduates? And invariably at,
Mark Roche (51:59.092)
or near the top are communication skills, problem solving skills. Technical skills is usually about sixth on the list of a dozen items. But let's say you're hired for your technical skills and you have good liberal arts capacities, you will soon find yourself in a position where you are no longer doing the technical work that is being taken care of by people under you.
or by some kind of artificial intelligence today. What you are doing is using your communication skills to learn about new technologies that you never even dreamed of and persuading people in other areas beyond your particular technical expertise to motivate them, to craft a vision for them or to...
elicit their insights to help form the vision in such a way that you are taking the company further. So that these skills are skills first emerging in a liberal arts education, or perhaps I should take it even further back. You mentioned that children sometimes have curiosity beaten out of them. It is regaining that sense of wonder.
Children are natural philosophers. They ask really rich questions. And the problem is that parents, if they don't have the patience, that really patience is also a virtue. And it can be tested by young children as they ask one philosophical question after another. And you have tasks you need to perform and you can't always respond in a meaningful way.
PJ (53:23.864)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (53:53.588)
And eventually in the wrong environment, students have this curiosity and wonder beaten out of them because they have to adhere to the particular curriculum and that existential interest in learning is beaten out of them. So in college, if you can recreate that wonder, that desire to learn about new areas, you are going to be the kind of person who will rise up.
PJ (54:01.688)
Mm -hmm.
Mark Roche (54:19.572)
in any company who will find a new company because you have a vision and because you know whom to hire and you know what areas you need to know. So it is that curiosity, that capacity to learn that is an ever self renewing capacity like that fire, as opposed to saying, well, I'm gonna learn the skills that are needed at this particular time. What the research shows is that someone with at least two years of college education,
will change jobs at least 11 times before retirement. That stat is from the time of the book and it's now been another decade since or so, not quite, but I'm sure it's even higher. And so the technical skills you learn in any practical curriculum are not as valuable as the broad skills that will make you an educated person.
And as I say, that gives you capacities to enter the workforce, but it also ensures that when you are by yourself in your own mind, life will not be boring because you have resources to draw upon and you have a rich inner life. And that is invaluable.
PJ (55:41.272)
Yeah, and even as you're talking about it's better economically, but there's also this self -formation aspect where in many ways you will be happier. Part of, you say this, you talk about formation, I think you said it was kind of a more traditional term.
As we look at, you talk about moral, the moral value of this kind of education. And I just wanted to piece it back, because I realized I didn't give an example. When I talk about businesses failing, I have seen businesses fail. I've seen drug addiction take hold after someone has reached the pinnacle of their business, because they didn't know what to do after. Right? They didn't know what to do after. But you don't even have to look at someone who went that far.
Mark Roche (56:19.316)
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.
PJ (56:27.384)
I just saw a podcast, so this is not a, that was actually something personally attached, I don't want to get too much into that because not entirely my story to tell. I saw in a podcast between multimillionaires, we're talking about 50 to 150 million millionaires, and they're talking on a podcast. And they're talking about this problem that they have.
Mark Roche (56:35.956)
Sure. Sure.
PJ (56:52.92)
And this one man was talking about he was 38 years old. He sold his business for, I can't remember. They were talking about their two different businesses. One was for 50 million, one was for another 150 million. Which to my mind, there really is no difference. I understand there's a difference, but there comes a point where it's like, so you sold it for a lot of money. And he said, no matter how much I talk to, and no matter how much I go to my therapist, I can't get past a scarcity mindset and I feel like I have to make more.
Mark Roche (57:07.668)
Sure, sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Roche (57:22.068)
Hmm.
PJ (57:24.216)
And that I think speaks exactly to the value of what is the point of your education? What are you trying to achieve? And if your education is just part of this continuous cycle of means to an end that is really just a means, then you will always be stuck. And that's something that I really appreciate from your book.
Do you have anything to add to that? Sorry, I'm just like, I'm collating what you're saying, but hopefully that makes sense.
Mark Roche (57:51.348)
Yeah. The Greeks had worked for this. It was pleodacity. It was the idea that you always want more and will never have enough. And there was a nice anecdote about this. There are two riders who go to a party on Long Island.
Have you heard the story? And it's hosted by a billionaire. And the one writer turns to the other and say, does it bother you? The two writers, if I remember the story correctly, it's Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. And so Kurt Vonnegut turns to Joseph Heller and says, do you feel bad that our host,
PJ (58:21.688)
No!
Mark Roche (58:49.908)
earned more in one day yesterday than you did for all the sales of your best -selling book.
And Heller responds, no, I have something he'll never have. What's that? Enough.
It is this mentality, it's not unrelated to what I said earlier about comparative self -worth. There can be a comparative self -worth that is related to the other person. Someone got more than you got. So instead of the gratitude you mentioned, it is greed that plays a role. But you can also have a comparative self -worth that is internally driven.
I have X and I always wanted X, but now that I have X, I want X plus one or X plus two. And it is that feeling that if your mindset is always, I'm only happy when I receive the next item I want on a perpetual, infinite regress toward more, I will never have enough. That is a mentality.
that will by definition lead to some dissatisfaction. And it is perhaps a reason why there is a renewed popularity of stoic wisdom. The stoics read the letters of Seneca or Marcus Aurelius' meditations. There is a beautiful wisdom in those works that elevates
Mark Roche (01:00:42.484)
a sense of contentment. And it is not by chance that Marcus Aurelius begins his meditations with an expression of gratitude. He sees himself as not self -made. He begins by thanking those who helped to form him. And it is that view of not, how did someone get more than I did, but how thankful I am that I have what I have.
PJ (01:00:53.464)
Yes.
Mark Roche (01:01:11.348)
thanks to the generosity of others. That is a view that is joyous, if you will. And I'll add the point that I'm very interested in social scientific research that confirms ancient wisdom. So I mentioned Plato's dialogues.
PJ (01:01:32.792)
Yes.
Mark Roche (01:01:36.66)
All of the principles of education I mentioned, the learning principles of active learning and existential engagement and peer engagement, they're already there in Plato's dialogues. And what the social science literature says is that gratitude, the term that you cited earlier as an ancient virtue that is perhaps elevated much less today than it was at an earlier time, it is not...
only an end in itself, it actually makes you feel better. In other words, there is some kind of hidden wisdom in human relations that if you wanted simply to feel better, you would express your gratitude to other people more and then you somehow feel richer yourself. It's not a zero -sum game. You are giving something away.
PJ (01:02:10.648)
Hahaha!
PJ (01:02:24.024)
Hmm.
Mark Roche (01:02:31.028)
and receiving something at the same time. It's not unrelated to love, of course, where you give of yourself, you empty yourself into the other, you find your fulfillment in the other, and in doing so, you realize you are much richer than you were before. That dialectic, that complex thinking is something you learn when you read a thinker like Hegel or you read a thinker like Plato. And that is why...
The study of the humanities, the study of the liberal arts is so much fun. It's so playful, it's so rich. The categories we discover through deep philosophical texts are also the categories that apply to life. And therefore there is a richness that continues to give as a result of such an education.
PJ (01:03:28.376)
It's an incredible answer. So thank you. I'll be a little greedy and forgive me. If I could just ask one more question. I want to be respectful of your time. You've been very gracious. If you could have our audience just consider or meditate on one thing this week about why a liberal education matters or why this sort of education, sort of self -formation, existential learning matters, what would it be?
Mark Roche (01:03:33.396)
Heheheheh!
Mark Roche (01:03:54.676)
Yeah, I will answer that by imagining two audiences to your podcast. One audience is the high school age college educated, college age person who is facing a decision. What should I study? Should I go to college? Should I study this subject or that subject? And I want to suggest if they enjoy,
the kind of podcast you have, if they have enjoyed reading Dostoevsky or Augustin or whoever it is that awakens in them the life of the mind, they should choose the liberal arts because they won't have to worry about finding a position afterwards. They will have those skills that will allow them to flourish in any context. So they should enter the liberal arts with the utmost confidence.
And the remainder of the audience would be those who have already graduated from college or who have never attended college, perhaps never will, but who engage the mind enough that they are interested in the kinds of questions that are raised on your podcast. And here I would say you are never too old.
You are never too far from college to engage in the learning of the liberal arts, to become an interesting person by reading great texts, by thinking about important puzzles, by reading The Economist, by trying to understand the world both as it is and as it should be. So that really there is no end.
to a liberal arts education. And there is no first beginning if children have one of the basic presuppositions of a liberal arts education. That is the capacity to ask intriguing questions that mean something to them.
PJ (01:06:03.768)
Roach. An incredible summary. You've been very gracious. Thank you so much. It's been a joy talking to you.
Mark Roche (01:06:09.14)
It's been a joy for me too. Thank you so much.