This episode features Mr. Michael Moynihan's lecture at last year's Teaching Vocation Conference. Our Upper School Head shares why a liberal arts education is needed more today than in times past. And the reasons are not simply that classics majors can code too. To the contrary, an authentic liberal education gives us not only truth, but also a ground upon which to stand. Many of our current social crises are rooted precisely in such a poverty: we mistrust much of our ability to know, and consequently we don't know much of what gives life purpose and meaning.

Michael goes on to share four characteristics of a good liberal arts education. According to our Upper School Head, such an education:

1. Teaches the right use of reason (grounding empirical sciences in realism at the bottom, and opening them to philosophy and transcendence at the top. In this vein, Michael challenges the current trends that simply limit the liberal arts to the humanities);
2. Conveys meaning through a narrative approach, and in particular, meanings that offer a foundation resistant to materialism;
3. Connects us to our tradition in such a way that facilitates authentic freedom; and
4. Is firmly rooted in a realism that allows students to engage the real in a meaningful way.

More on the Forum:

• “Fact or Opinion?”: Roots of Relativism in an Ethical Dilemma
• Freedom in Quarantine: Daniel Bernardus on Leonardo Polo

In last week’s episode, we considered how beauty is a special combination of order and surprise. To behold beauty, we learned, is to contemplate the dynamism of a being on the way to its perfection. It is to see the rose emerging from its seed. 

This week we talk with assistant headmaster, Tom Royals, about learning to see the beauty—albeit often messy beauty—of our own growing children. To be sure, in this adventure, we may find more surprise than order. Nevertheless, in learning to see our children with loving eyes, we learn to better understand them. And in better understanding them, we are better able to accompany them along their paths, each of which has its own peculiar order.

In this episode, Tom encourages us to avoid thinking of our children as projects and instead to learn to contemplate them as free persons. For it is only in becoming contemplatives of our children that they will know themselves to be understood and loved, as they are. This knowledge, more than anything, will become the basis of their growth. Like Chesterton said of Rome, they are not loved because they were first great; they will become great because they have first been loved.

Chapters

• 4:00 Not projects, but persons
• 5:43 To be seen and known
• 6:25 To be accompanied, not managed
• 7:20 To be contemplated
• 7:45 Charity as seeking to understand
• 9:30 Only the beloved sings
• 10:30 Accompanying as flowing from contemplating
• 11:50 The importance of knowing our stress points
• 13:08 ​​We are always teaching
• 15:30 Why we should “waste time” with our children
• 16:35 The importance of being available
• 19:15 The need for simplicity when attending to our children
• 21:00 The dangers of “search and destroy” mode
• 25:00 Why we should welcome guests into our homes
• 26:20 Storytelling around the dinner table
• 27:05 Limiting corrections at the dinner table
• 28:20 Parents and teachers are always learning
• 28:55 The long view in parenting and education
• 29:30 Loving your children as a manifestation of loving your spouse
• 31:12 Parenting and teaching: overflows of the interior life

Also on The Forum

20 Ways to Improve the Family Dinner by Rich Moss

Against Indifference by Tom Longano 

Ways to Foster a Family Culture by Alvaro de Vicente

On Home as Social Hub: The Importance of Hosting Our Sons and Their Friends with Tom Royals

Learn to Turn: Tom Royals on Parental Prudence with Tom Royals

Cultivating Friendship in the Classroom by Austin Hatch

Our Little Protectors: How Do WE See Our Boys? with Alvaro de Vicente

It sounds nice to say, using Dostoevsky's words, that beauty will save the world. But is this claim true? If so, in what sense is it true? What even is beauty? And what would it mean for it to save the world?

This week, we welcome Dr. Lionel Yaceczko back to HeightsCast to discuss beauty: what it is and what the Western tradition can tell us about it. Today’s episode is rooted in a previous discussion we had with Dr. Yaceczko, in which he spoke with us about Western civilization. In that episode, we considered what Western civilization is and why it is still worth studying today. This week, we look at one reason why the study of the West is a fruitful endeavor: it can help us better appreciate beauty. 

As we hear from Dr. Yaceczko, beauty consists in the marriage of order and surprise. It is the fruit of keeping the commandments and breaking the conventions. As such, seeing part of a beautiful work of art first invites our prediction—there is order and we can discern it—and then astounds our expectation—but that order is not mere slavish repetition.

Whenever we find beauty in this world, we glimpse eternity. Each glimpse spurs us on to find the fullness of that beauty, which is our perfection and which will surpass all predictions: eye has not seen, nor ear heard what has been prepared for those who truly love. And when, God-willing, we find that Beauty—or perhaps, better yet, when He finds us— we will finally be at home. And yet, if our intuition about beauty here is on track, then we will forever be astonished with Whom we find.

Chapters 

• 2:33 What is the classical style? 
• 2:53 From the web
• 2:43 Neoclassical architecture in D.C.
• 6:33 Balance and classical architecture
• 8:15 What is beauty? 
• 11:44 On forms and the form
• 13:18 Can we have a common conception of beauty? 
• 14:07 Subjective aspects of beauty
• 15:00 Beauty as movement toward the final cause
• 16:10 Use and abuse 
• 17:28 Personal taste and beauty
• 19:17 What is nature?
• 20:18 Ancient philosophers against nature
• 21:38 Beyond mere accidental arrangement: objective nature
• 23:08 Beauty: the balance of order and surprise
• 24:05 Chesterton’s Manalive
• 27:03 How does beauty relate to happiness?
• 28:11 The philosopher as teacher of happiness
• 29:38 The spontaneity of beauty
• 31:00 Lessons from Classical sculpture: a brief introduction
• 32:14 Contrapposto and the movement toward perfection
• 34:23 Verism
• 35:03 Architecture
• 38:43 Beauty and the liberal arts

Also on The Forum 

A Study for All Seasons: Lionel Yaceczko on the Western Tradition with Dr. Lionel Yaceczko

What Is the Difference between Free Time and Leisure? by Joe Bissex

Five Fruits of a Poetic Education by Nate Gadiano

The Way of Encounter by Joe Breslin

Matter and Form, Substance and Accidents by Michael Moynihan

Additional Resources 

The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity by Christopher Dawson

Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters by John-Mark L. Miravalle

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Manalive by G. K. Chesterton