Journeys Public Lecture Series 2008

This presentation will focus on the relationship of word, image, and reality.  It will crucially engage three different ways of understanding that relationship – and of life.

            One is Modernist, in which word and image produce fact-based opinions. To this view the goal of the Liberal Arts is to promote an empty tolerance. Another view is Postmodernist, in which word and image reflect authentic but meaningless experience. A third view is the now neglected pursuit of truth, in which word and image attempt to offer a glimpse of wisdom and beauty.

            Those three options vie for our belief, and result in very different journeys through college and life. This presentation will advocate the pursuit of wisdom and beauty. That pursuit informs both Confucianism and traditional Western culture, and is foundational to a culture based upon educated responsible freedom.