Kendrick Lamar blasted above a buzzing Prius full of five second-years, crammed in a backseat next to Pop-Tarts and Chex Mix and Pringles and crumpled candy wrappers as they wound through Pennsylvania. After too many verses about money and sex and trees and growing up in Compton, the speakers went silent, and each of us returned to tiny spots of light pouring from mobile phones.
I spoke amid the rhythmic movements of the small car. “Patrick, what do you think about abortion?”
Everyone turned — including the driver — and the car swerved a bit as we rocketed down the freeway.
“Woah, what?”
“Oh God, seriously?”
“Wait, no, let’s just not go there.”
Everyone hates The Great Abortion Debate. The topic polarizes and divides, so that most times, when talking about the status of an embryo or a woman’s autonomy, the conversation resorts instead to cries of murder, slavery, personal attacks or judgments.
To contextualize my question, I should say I’m currently enrolled in a medical ethics class, and we recently covered the topic in some depth and with much debate. I knew the theological and moral positions of all in the car, except for Patrick.
Reluctant, hesitating on each word as not to offend, he outlined his point as we passed rural, golden fields and lonely cows.
What followed astounded even the cows – especially us, in the tiny and cramped car. No metaphorical mud was thrown, no personal jabs. Rather, we engaged in a (fairly) calm, informed and educated conversation about abortion. There’s always a first.
How did it happen that five college students with differing views on a highly passionate subject were able to leave the car and walk toward the warmth of Panera in a tiny town in New York together, without hurt feelings or distance?
Not to be biased — I’m a hopeful English and global development studies double major — but I think the answer lay in our liberal arts educations.
I regularly hear people question the value of liberal arts educations in a world that seems to reward more specialized degrees and marketable majors. And yes, they’re right, my courses don’t seem to be preparing me for the real world, unless I choose to move into academia and later teach the obscure literary texts I study now. But, I believe wholeheartedly that a liberal arts degree teaches the language of respectful disagreement, of peaceful dispute, of “both/and” rather than “either/or.” It is this dialect which seems more important and necessary in a polarized world than a degree in crunching numbers or computing tables.
As I walked into the electronic voting booths Tuesday to exercise my civil liberties — and to receive the sticker, if we’re being honest — I realized the value of my liberal arts education seemed more applicable to picking a candidate than had I spent my years at U.Va. reading through data tables.
I’m not writing this article to attack those in the Comm School, or the others who devote their time in college to studies of science, invention or engineering. Rather I write to address the resentment many have at a writing requirement and a non-western studies class. Why do I have to take this, they say, if I’m never going to use it later in my life?
My argument for a liberal arts education stems not only from my love of the humanities, but from the notion that in a globalized, dynamic and pluralistic world, we need to be trained to think in a pluralistic manner. Many look at Washington, D.C. and bemoan the lack of compromise, the inability to move beyond shallow debate. Perhaps politicians could benefit from an English or philosophy class which teaches students how to fully understand and articulate another’s point of view.
As we drove away from Panera, back in the small grey car, piled on top of now-crumpled pastries and sandwich wrappers, we talked instead of “Yeezus” and its effect on the music industry, of Instagram and of the approaching city skyline. Abortion was not brought up again, but I was comforted in the reaffirmation of an education of discourse — in learning the language of debate.
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