Peter Berkowitz on a Liberal Education and Its Betrayal

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2016

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this podcast Tikvah senior director Jonathan Silver speaks with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Berkowitz about what a proper liberal arts education consists of, its betrayal in the American academy, and its complicated relation to Jewish education and religious life. Their conversation is framed by Berkowitz’s 2006 Policy Review article, “Liberal Education: Then and Now.” Elaborating the thought of John Stuart Mill, Berkowitz explains that a liberal arts education does not teach students what to think, but rather pushes them to understand arguments from all sides. It comprises study of the sciences and humanities, roots students more deeply in their own civilizational traditions, and acquaints students with traditions outside of their own culture. But for religious Jews, does an education in intellectual freedom support or undermine the life of commandment and obligation? Should religious Jews, in America, Israel, and elsewhere seek out a liberal education? And what is the role for a liberal education in the Jewish state?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas.
0:11.9	I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
0:14.4	If you enjoy listening to our podcast, I invite you to visit our website, ticfufund.org.
0:19.9	Follow us on Twitter at TikvaFund or on Facebook.
0:24.5	I'm joined by Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Diane Taub, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:32.0	Peter has written many books, books ranging from the philosophy of Nietzsche to Israel and international law, books
0:38.7	about the habits of character and intellect that are necessary to sustain modern liberalism,
0:43.9	and his most recent book is about constitutional conservatism, liberty, self-government,
0:48.7	and political moderation. That book was written in 2013, recording this conversation as we are shortly after
0:56.5	Donald Trump's surprising victory to the American presidential election. That book's call for a
1:02.0	conservative politics that is governed by constitutional forms, forms that both chasten and channel
1:08.1	competing visions of the good. Peter's most recent book is really worth reading again and again.
1:13.7	But our topic today is an essay that Peter wrote about ten years ago in the journal Policy Review.
1:20.1	Liberal education then and now invites us deep into the meaning and purpose of that distinctive
1:25.6	tradition of higher education into liberal arts.
1:29.6	A liberal education. An education that is designed to equip students to live well is free men and women.
1:36.6	I asked Peter to join us so that we could understand liberal education on its own terms,
1:41.3	and also to ask him about some of the peculiar questions that arise from his
1:44.9	analysis for Jewish students, Jewish parents, Jewish educators. Peter, thank you for joining us.
1:50.9	Pleasure to be with you. Thank you. What made you write this essay?
1:55.5	What made me write the essay actually, I suppose, were two matters. One, for many, many years, I had been concerned
2:05.1	about the quality of liberal education and the future of liberal education in the United States.
	...

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