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| The way life's supposed to be |
So it's high time to soldier on with this blog.
Now, the monstrosity that is Mark Zuckerberg threatens to do the same to the United States. "Zuck" likes to think of himself as something like Caesar Augustus. But that's just narcissistic self-delusion. Alcibiades is the better parallel. So how did this product of Exeter's vaunted moral education go bad?
There is a deep misunderstanding about how the Academy achieves its mission:
"Above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind."
But how to achieve this?
Back when I was on the faculty in the early 90's, Principal Kendra Stearns O'Donnell seemed interested in that question. She asked to meet with the Religion Department to find out. I was excited at the prospect. As the Assistant School Minister and Instructor in Religion, it was a rare opportunity. The Principal was seeking our counsel on how best to carry out the school's moral mission!
I am not sure that I can adequately express my disappointment with what happened. It turned out that the Principal was simply looking for some platitudes and soundbites to spice up her fundraising efforts. So we had been called into service to polish the appearance of providing a moral education. But what was the reality?
You don't have to look far to get what John Phillips believed. He describes the difficult task in the very next paragraph following the oft cited passage above. Here's what the instructors need to do to accomplish this:
"It is therefore required that they most attentively and vigorously guard against the earliest irregularities. That they frequently delineate in their natural colors the deformity and odiousness of vice, and the beauty and amiableness of virtue. That they spare no pains to convince them of the numberless and indispensable obligations; to abhor and avoid the former and to love and practise the latter; of the several great duties they owe to God, their country, their parents, their neighbors, and themselves. That they critically and constantly observe the variety of their natural tempers, and solicitously endeavor to bring them under such discipline as may tend most effectually to promote their own satisfaction and the happiness of others. That they early inure them to contemplate the several connections and various scenes incident to human life; furnishing such general maxims of conduct as may best enable them to pass through all with ease, reputation, and comfort."
In other words, you spend a lot of time working with kids to keep them on the strait-and-narrow.
So the moral education at the Academy does not reside in the Religion Department or in any academic studies. Helping adolescents advance into adulthood boils down to a very simple dynamic. The adults in the community establish and enforce boundaries. The adolescents test them. This tension/conflict/energy, properly guided, enables children to effectively enter into adulthood and the responsibilities that go with it. This is where they can learn goodness.
For this to work, the adults have to agree what those boundaries are beforehand and then be evenhanded in enforcing them. Perhaps the single most toxic thing any adult in the PEA community can do - short of outright criminality - is to play favorites. This is especially true in matters of discipline. What happens when personalities instead of rules/principles applied to observed behaviors determine responses to rule-breaking? The students receive a toxic education. They learn that it doesn't matter what you do. What matters instead is who you know and how to cheat the game.
Some might cynically suggest this Machiavellian pedagogy is a better, more honest preparation for life than a rule/justice-based understanding. Great. But that isn't what John Phillips intended. Somehow, this cynicism passing as morality is what apparently guides Zuckerberg. So, if he is a product of Exeter, then the education it offers has come completely off-the-rails in terms of being faithful to its mission.
Tips? Suggestions? Comments? Drop a line to: contact (at) ExeterUnafraid (dot) com
To be honest, I've had to step away for my own wellbeing. It is important for these truths to be told. But it comes at a terrible emotional cost. I often wonder how much happier I would have been if I had simply walked away from the place and never looked back. As an alumnus who had served on the faculty, I had seen the realities. Most people simply refuse to believe them. With this arrest - and the grotesque spectacle of a criminal trial to come - maybe we have come to a moment of truth. Perhaps we will finally get the truth necessary for authentic reconciliation.
To unpack the behind-the-scenes revealed in the arrest affidavit, you need to have some context. Before we go there, let's start over on a different tack. Future historians may attribute the Academy's most famous living alumnus for something more than founding Facebook. He might be remembered instead for being a key figure in the destruction of the American Experiment in self-governance. Is he an aberration or an archetypal product of the "Exeter Experience"?
Zuck: Augustus or Alcibiades?
There is a long-standing tradition of holding teachers accountable for students gone bad. Ancient Athens found Socrates responsible for the monstrosity that was Alcibiades. The master's most prominent student played a pivotal role in destroying the democracy. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, Socrates empowered his traitorous self interest. Plato devoted much of his career to understanding how it was possible that his great moral teacher enabled such immorality.
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| Zuckstyle hair |
There is a deep misunderstanding about how the Academy achieves its mission:
"Above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind."
But how to achieve this?
Back when I was on the faculty in the early 90's, Principal Kendra Stearns O'Donnell seemed interested in that question. She asked to meet with the Religion Department to find out. I was excited at the prospect. As the Assistant School Minister and Instructor in Religion, it was a rare opportunity. The Principal was seeking our counsel on how best to carry out the school's moral mission!
I am not sure that I can adequately express my disappointment with what happened. It turned out that the Principal was simply looking for some platitudes and soundbites to spice up her fundraising efforts. So we had been called into service to polish the appearance of providing a moral education. But what was the reality?
You don't have to look far to get what John Phillips believed. He describes the difficult task in the very next paragraph following the oft cited passage above. Here's what the instructors need to do to accomplish this:
"It is therefore required that they most attentively and vigorously guard against the earliest irregularities. That they frequently delineate in their natural colors the deformity and odiousness of vice, and the beauty and amiableness of virtue. That they spare no pains to convince them of the numberless and indispensable obligations; to abhor and avoid the former and to love and practise the latter; of the several great duties they owe to God, their country, their parents, their neighbors, and themselves. That they critically and constantly observe the variety of their natural tempers, and solicitously endeavor to bring them under such discipline as may tend most effectually to promote their own satisfaction and the happiness of others. That they early inure them to contemplate the several connections and various scenes incident to human life; furnishing such general maxims of conduct as may best enable them to pass through all with ease, reputation, and comfort."
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| Just so much talk? |
So the moral education at the Academy does not reside in the Religion Department or in any academic studies. Helping adolescents advance into adulthood boils down to a very simple dynamic. The adults in the community establish and enforce boundaries. The adolescents test them. This tension/conflict/energy, properly guided, enables children to effectively enter into adulthood and the responsibilities that go with it. This is where they can learn goodness.
For this to work, the adults have to agree what those boundaries are beforehand and then be evenhanded in enforcing them. Perhaps the single most toxic thing any adult in the PEA community can do - short of outright criminality - is to play favorites. This is especially true in matters of discipline. What happens when personalities instead of rules/principles applied to observed behaviors determine responses to rule-breaking? The students receive a toxic education. They learn that it doesn't matter what you do. What matters instead is who you know and how to cheat the game.
Some might cynically suggest this Machiavellian pedagogy is a better, more honest preparation for life than a rule/justice-based understanding. Great. But that isn't what John Phillips intended. Somehow, this cynicism passing as morality is what apparently guides Zuckerberg. So, if he is a product of Exeter, then the education it offers has come completely off-the-rails in terms of being faithful to its mission.
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Next up in Part II, a postmodernist rendition of Crime & Punishment. I'll talk about what happened late one night when I inadvertently happened on some rule-breaking. My would-be Raskolnikov? A PG sneaking out after hours.
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Tips? Suggestions? Comments? Drop a line to: contact (at) ExeterUnafraid (dot) com
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