About St. John’s College
“The Example of Alexander Solzhenitsyn”
Convocation Remarks
President Michael P. Peters
August 28, 2008
Good morning. Welcome freshman class of 2012 and new students in the Graduate Institute. Congratulations on choosing to pursue your education at St. John’s College. We are very glad you are here. A special welcome as well to family and friends. Thank you for taking the time to share this moment with your students and for supporting their matriculation at St. John’s. Welcome back to the rest of the college – students, faculty, staff, and friends.
As we gather here on the library placita on this beautiful morning there is another gathering taking place some 400 miles north of us in Denver, Colorado, where this evening Senator Barack Obama will accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States. And next week in St. Paul, Minnesota, Senator John McCain will accept the Republican Party’s nomination.
So we gather today at an important time in the life of our country as well as an important time in our lives -- you incoming students, your families and St. John’s College. A time of transition and expectation for each of you and for our nation. The decisions we make in the upcoming election will shape our country’s future just as the decisions you have made and will make will shape your future.
Having said this, I hope you have registered to vote so you can play your part. How many of you have done so? If you haven’t yet, I know that Matt Johnston, the director of residential life in the assistant dean’s office, would be happy to assist you.
We have heard and will certainly hear more about the two presidential candidates as the campaign continues to unfold. But as you begin your education at St. John’s College -- for you freshmen, the beginning of your adult life and for you graduate students, a new chapter in your life -- I would like to turn our attention briefly to one of the great figures of the late 20th century who passed away earlier this summer. Not a political leader like Barack Obama or John McCain; in fact, the bane of many political leaders. Rather, an artist, historian and moral leader.
He was of your grandparents or great-grandparents generation. A decorated veteran of World War II or, as he and his countrymen refer to it, The Great Patriotic War. He was a political prisoner in the Soviet Union for many years. While in prison without access to writing materials he composed his first novel, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in his head. Following his release he recorded in encyclopedic and personal terms the horrors and yet banality of the Soviet labor camps in a work entitled The Gulag Archipelago. Gulag is a Russian acronym for the State Directorate of Camps, what we know as concentration camps. The publication of this book in the West and his award of the Nobel Prize led to his arrest and forced exile from the Soviet Union. He eventually came to the United States, living and working in virtual seclusion in rural Vermont for almost 20 years. With the collapse of the Soviet Union he returned to Russia and enjoyed a brief period of celebrity, but soon faded from public life. This man was Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
While the Liberal Arts and undergraduate students encounter several Russian writers in their St. John’s programs, none of Solzhenitsyn’s books are in our curriculum -- although there is always the possibility of a preceptorial. So why call attention to the life of this perhaps seemingly obscure late 20th century writer when you’re about to begin by delving into the thinkers and writers of ancient Greece, Homer, Plato, Aristotle and Euclid? Or as the students in Eastern Classics read LaoTzu? When you undergraduates won’t even get to the 20th century for almost three years? I do so, because Solzhenitsyn exemplifies a number of attributes that we value most at St. John’s College.
Solzhenitsyn was never a particularly popular figure in either the Soviet Union or the United States. His strongly held and forcefully expressed ideas about the dignity of the individual and the obligation to service beyond self challenged both the collectivism of the Soviet state and the materialism of the West. He was a man of great complexity. Some have called him a zealot. He certainly had his flaws, as do we all, but in his life Solzhenitsyn epitomized above all a love for ideas, a disdain for mere opinion, the search for truth, and a dedication to individual responsibility and selfless service rather than expediency or self-centeredness. We at St. John’s share these same ideals.
Further, Solzhenitsyn’s life and work reflect the timelessness of the ideas, questions and concerns that are raised in the Great Books, whether of the East or West, which you will read and discuss.
We study these Great Books at St. John’s precisely because they explore the most fundamental, important and eternal questions. Questions, as Solzhenitsyn demonstrates, that are as alive today as they were centuries ago. Questions of character and virtue, right and wrong; questions of human relations; questions of beauty and creativity; questions of power and politics; questions of war and peace; questions of the divine. We grapple with these questions, for insights to guide us in our personal lives and in our lives as citizens of our country and our world and as members of society.
Just as ideas mattered to Solzhenitsyn, they also matter at St. John’s. Ideas are the essence of a liberal education – an education that is designed to be liberating or freeing. Freeing us to pursue ideas where they lead us. To reflect and think deeply about things of importance.
For many years Solzhenitsyn was forced to do his contemplation totally in isolation. Later, he had fellow prisoners as colleagues, but they operated always under the watchful eye of the authorities who attempted to control his thoughts as well as his movements. But while he was physically imprisoned, he remained intellectually free. When he came to the West, he refused to be drawn into the popular culture.
At St. John’s we are fortunate to be physically free, but our challenge is to also be intellectually free. Not to be distracted by the trivial and the siren song of popular culture. Not to allow the seemingly urgent to crowd out the truly important.
Unlike Solzhenitsyn, we are also privileged to be able to think and explore with others. This gives us the opportunity to test our ideas – with our classmates, with our tutors and even with the authors of the books themselves. Our challenge is to take advantage of this freedom and the opportunity it brings. To listen intently to others and value their contribution. To not be so obsessed and enamored with our own thoughts that we have no room for the thoughts of others. To take the time to try to understand what the texts are telling us rather than glossing over them; never investing solely in ourselves and, as a result, gaining little.
We are fortunate to be part of a community that is openly and passionately committed to liberal education. An education that calls upon us to take responsibility for our own learning. An education that demands we not settle for received wisdom or the interpretations of others, not even from the authors of our Great Books. An education that also requires we not be content with the mere accumulation of facts or information, but aspire to knowledge. To seek to understand for ourselves. To learn how to think, not what to think.
At St. John’s we are fond of saying that we search for “the truth,” and that we are not slaves to intellectual fad or fashion. We are also not “power browsers,” a kind of human internet search engine accumulating facts and confusing information with knowledge.
Solzhenitsyn was never a slave to fashion or popular opinion. He was seemingly always out of step both with the Soviet authorities and Western culture. He was never afraid to speak his mind regardless of the consequences. He constantly searched for the truth and he had the courage to share his search with others. He was willing to be criticized and even imprisoned for his beliefs. In one of his rare public appearances in the United States he spoke at Harvard’s Class Day in 1978. He had this to say: “Without censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in college.”
At St. John’s we are sometimes viewed as being a bit out of fashion. We willingly accept this characterization. We celebrate our freedom to search for the truth through our reading, our thinking and our interaction with others without fear. To be courageous in our intellectual search. To permit our thoughts and ideas to be scrutinized and tested in conversation with others, but yet not conformed to prevailing opinion. To focus on the fundamental and timeless rather than the trendy. To enthusiastically embrace all our courses, regardless of their difficulty or our personal preferences.
All this gives you a tremendous opportunity, and one that should not be treated cavalierly. Use your time at St. John’s wisely. Make the most of your classes and the texts, your tutors and your classmates. Now is the time to focus on learning for its own sake, for exploring new ideas and pushing your intellectual comfort zone, and for seeking the truth. Your time at St. John’s is the foundation for a life of learning. The search for truth is the essence of an educated man or woman, an obligation of citizenship and an essential element of a worthwhile life.
Above all else Solzhenitsyn was an example of selflessness. His critique of the West was directed at what he saw as our self-centeredness. I hope we at St. John’s do not fall victim to this critique.
Mutual respect and cooperation are a necessity at St. John’s College. Respect for our common enterprise: learning. But also respect for ourselves and respect for one another. Self-centeredness undermines mutual respect and ultimately the education for all. It also undermines the civility that is the cornerstone of our lives in the classroom and out.
The program is demanding and must, of course, be your first priority. But, as Solzhenitsyn reminds us, we should also look for an opportunity for service, to give back. There are tremendous needs in the local community. Imagine what a difference we could make if each of us found some way to serve others. You can begin Saturday morning at the on-campus community service day. If you get to the dining hall early enough you might even get to sample pancakes served by the dean or me. Believe me, the pancakes are worth it.
Your fellow students in Project Politae are dedicated to serving the community on and off campus. They have many possibilities that can work within your schedule. You can contact them through the assistant dean’s or the career services’ offices. If you do so you will both benefit others and yourself.
But, you can’t help others if you don’t take care of yourself, so look out for yourself physically and emotionally. Watch out for your roommates and your classmates as well. Practice healthy habits. Exercise your body as well as your mind. Don’t hang around your room. Get involved in some of the myriad of student activities. Get to the gym. Throw a pot in the pottery studio. Work on a play. Go whitewater rafting. Join the St. John’s Search and Rescue team. Write for The Moon, the student publication. Serve on Student Polity.
This is just a small sample. You’ll find the full range of possibilities at the Student Activities Fair this Saturday afternoon in the SAC, otherwise known as the gym. If you can’t find an organization that responds to your passion, start one. The college will be glad to help you.
In closing, congratulations once more on choosing St. John’s College. Having chosen St. John’s, challenge yourself to take full advantage of your time and opportunities here. Demonstrate your love for learning. Exercise your intellectual freedom. Test your ideas. Pursue your courses with wonder and enthusiasm. Take care of yourself and serve others. In the spirit of Alexander Solzhenitsyn to do otherwise would be an injustice to yourself. It would also be a loss for the college. You and we cannot afford either.
Certainly in entering the college today you have indicated that you have what it takes to make the most of this opportunity. All of us at St. John’s College pledge to help you do so.
Again, on behalf of the faculty and staff I welcome you and applaud your decision to join us in Santa Fe. We are pleased to have you with us and we look forward to learning with you in the months and years ahead.
With this I declare the college in session. Convocatum Est!