Jihad:
A New Set of Glasses for a Changed World

By Philip W. Eaton
Special to The Seattle Times
26 November 2001

I have invested most of my life educating the next generation. I care about that work passionately. I care deeply that we do education well so that this next generation can make a difference in the world for good.

But I am one who believes something extraordinary happened on Sept. 11. I think we live in a changed world. And I have been asking this question: How then should we do the work of education differently? Do we not need a new set of glasses with which to see the world more clearly? Do we not need to refocus our vision in a world grown suddenly dark?

A friend told me about a cartoon he saw recently. There was this professor writing a wall full of formulas, pluses, minuses, divisions, all leading to an equal sign on the far right side. And on the other side of the equal sign was the word "whatever." Clearly, most especially now, we have got to do better than that. All education can't add up to "whatever."

For at least three decades, with philosophical foundations that go back for a century, we have built a culture of cynicism, suspicion, dividedness, shrillness and incivility. And our universities, of course, have contributed to making such a culture. So have our media and our entertainment world. We have created a cultural context for our lives that has no moral center, where all authority is under question, where the curricula of our universities have no core. And we have paid a great price for such a view of the human community.

As we gazed hour by hour on those two blazing towers, that smoldering pile of bodies and rubble, somehow such a vision of our world seemed so petty and shallow and inadequate. We all have work to do to envision a better world. But as educators, those who help shape the lives of those who will shape the world of the future, we must take a deep and honest look at the culture, the worldview and the values we are passing on to these young people. This is very serious business, and I am one who believes we need a new set of glasses.

During the dark hours of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln fought hard to get the world back in focus. "As our case is new," Lincoln said, "so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." I think we are being called to "think anew, and act anew" at this moment in our history. I think we must "disenthrall ourselves" of many of the ways we have been looking at things.

So, let me propose four ways of sharpening our vision, four ways to think anew, act anew and disenthrall ourselves, four ways of refocusing our glasses to see the world more clearly, four ways of doing education in this changed world.

First, we must refocus our glasses with moral vision. Perhaps Sept. 11 has taught us the limits of postmodern relativism. We imagined for awhile that we could have a civilized world without condemning some things as wrong. Our appetite for tolerance had grown insatiable. Evil had gone out of our vocabulary.

With our new glasses we need to look into the ancient resources of wisdom to discover there how to name both right and wrong. A hundred years ago, Nietzsche warned us that power might be the only game left when there is no longer any source of right and wrong.

Second, our new glasses must be able to see again a vision for human unity and the common good. Perhaps we have begun to learn the limits of dividedness. We have been so divided by race, religion, economics, ideology and politics. I challenge here some of our notions of individualism, our obsessive commitment to rights and personal gain instead of responsibilities. Let us bridge the gaps that separate us in our country, then let us understand that our well-being as a nation depends on the well-being of the world. We must teach again a vision of community and unity and global humanness.

Third, our new glasses must give us a new vision for how to share our prosperity. Perhaps we have begun to see the limits of economic disparity. Images of prosperity to those who are trapped in hunger and poverty can only create hatred and despair. I am not talking here about the old, discredited Marxist notions of redistribution of wealth. That didn't work. Rather, we must educate the next generation how to spread the good of cultural, economic, religious and political freedom and opportunity.

Fourth, our new glasses must let us see again what is good about our way of life. Let us reach deep into the heritage of our country and locate what is good and renew our efforts to effectively take that goodness into the world. Let us be proud and confident precisely because we are bringing new hope into a desperate world. Lord keep us from teaching the young to be cynical ever again.

In 1863, at the site of the battle of Gettysburg, where 50,000 soldiers died, Lincoln gave a two-minute address, and put on a new pair of glasses for the nation. In those dark hours of fierce disunity and brutal self-destruction, the country stared through a glass darkly. Lincoln knew his country might not survive.

He had to convince a nation that there could be something better than this, that there were stronger, deeper and more enduring principles that could hold the country together. He believed human dignity was worth fighting for. Thank God Lincoln was not confused by postmodern relativism, or paralyzed by easy tolerance, or thought that it all added up to "whatever."

I believe good will triumph out of all this. My faith tradition talks a lot about light and about the triumph of light over darkness. But the triumph of good is not passive. We all have work to do. Our new purpose as individuals, as universities and as a country must be to bring goodness into the world. We must anchor our actions, even military actions, on clear principles that are good, not on revenge and reciprocal hatred. And we must "disenthrall" ourselves of dividedness and learn to come together again around what is right and what is good.

After four years of civil war, in his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln said these words: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

What a great opportunity for our nation to put on a new set of glasses and make a real difference in the world. And what a great moment to be educating the next generation, these wonderful young people who will be the new champions for hope and light and goodness in the days ahead.

Philip W. Eaton is president of Seattle Pacific University.

JoT

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