My position is that a university cannot be an open society in all respects and that it must be bounded in certain ways in order to achieve its fundamental mission. That mission, I believe, requires us to draw lines and make distinctions. To that end, it would be helpful to define what people generally mean by an “open society.” At its most philosophical level, an open society is one that is purposefully indeterminate with regard to ends. That is, when it comes to questions of ultimate importance (such as, “What is the good?”), an open society is supposed to remain agnostic—i.e., not supply official answers. Each individual in the open society is free to answer that question himself, whether his end goal is freedom, peace, religion, glory, honor, pleasure, prosperity, health, or so on.

　　I want to suggest that a university cannot be open in this philosophical sense, as the entire end, or purpose, of the university is contained within the institution itself. It can be summarized as the search for, consolidation of, and communion with the truth. Truth is the north star of the university—of any university. Any university professor who seriously claims there is no such thing as truth, or that truth is simply a label we apply to power relations, is asking you not to believe him … so don’t.

　　Truth is what makes a uni-versity, rather than a multi-versity; we agree that there is some whole—some reality to which we can all gain access, however imperfectly. As Alasdair Macintye notes, the entire structure of the university, with its various disciplines and departments housed within a single overarching institution, mirrors the relationship of various methodologies to the truth. Truth, that purpose of the university, also makes it a whole. Without truth, why debate, why study? If the goal were merely to win—and not to obtain truth—we would not be engaged in persuasion or argumentation; we’d be better off arming ourselves to the teeth for life in a cold and remorseless world. Without some shared metaphysical and ontological commitments, the entire purpose of the university is eviscerated. C. S. Lewis puts the point this way: “An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind with regard to the ultimate foundations either of theoretical or of practical reason is idiocy.”

　　Someone might object that while the university perhaps doesn’t have to be open with regard to ends, it can surely be open with regard to means—i.e., open with regard to its methodology or procedures. Perhaps we can all be open in the sense that we hold our preferred method of achieving truth in a state of suspension, allowing it to be verified by others in a process of epistemological triangulation. This we could call methodological openness, and while this is certainly a more compelling argument, it too is incomplete. The whole point of methodological openness is to instill humility into our endeavor—a recognition that all humans err. However, this doesn’t mean we are equally and indiscriminately open to all things and all ideas. The university is not a democracy; we need not place the same value upon all ideas and perspectives. We may be equally its subjects, but truth is a jealous king. Being open doesn’t mean that we should abandon high standards, praise mediocrity, or give the same weight to good ideas as bad ones. Or should we, in the name of expansiveness and openness, water down admissions, dismantle curricula, banish grade distinctions, and tolerate plagiarism? This would make the university more open, but would it make it good?

　　Universities must, always and everywhere, make qualitative judgments; they must inevitably draw a line. A good university relentlessly seeks the best examples of ideas and ruthlessly excludes the mediocre and the unserious. It cannot and should not shower honors on all ideas equally.

　　Moreover, methodological openness can quickly be corrupted. We all have encountered those whose open-mindedness is nothing more than a mask for their indeterminacy and dismissive attitude; in this sense, open-mindedness is not virtue. “Merely having an open mind is nothing,” Chesterton said. “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. To walk around with mind and mouth open indefinitely is the sign of a fool.” The purpose of an open mind is eventually to close it upon some precious truth.

　　Finally, for some people, an “open” society really just boils down to the freedom of speech and expression. But the university must be about more than free speech or expression. It must be about education. One can spend countless hours on TikTok and encounter a lot of speech and expression, but this does not mean that one has in any way obtained education (or edification, for that matter). As Wilfred McClay recently put it, a university is “a community of shared memory, the chief instrument by which the achievements of the past are transmitted to the present as a body of knowledge upon which future knowledge can be built.” It is, as we are fond of saying around UATX, about preserving a tradition of “the best that has been thought and said.” With such a tradition a university performs a genuine miracle: transforming a bunch of individuals, each pursuing his or her own interests, into a genuine intellectual community. 

　　Unfortunately, good ideas often do not win out in a fair context. Often they are supplanted by mediocre but simple ideas, or wrong ideas that flatter our ego and stroke our vanity.

　　But communities are bounded, definite, and circumscribed; one does not simply throw open the gates of the university and suddenly achieve excellence, intellectual rigor, friendship, and truth.That requires cultivation, discernment, and qualitative judgment. It especially requires judgment as to what sort of person (students and faculty) it hopes to attract and will inevitably create.

　　We need to dispense with this ridiculous notion that education is merely the downloading of facts. It is, rather, the cultivation of human character. Perhaps, as Morgan Marietta noted in his introductory essay, we should seek the best students—but “best” in what regard? Sheer intellectual capability, as measured by IQ and test scores? Well, what if that brilliant student is also a liar and a cheat? How about merit, then? Well, what aptitudes should be included in the calculation of merit? Should one consider rhetorical ability without consideration of the virtues and vices to which those talents are directed? One cannot even begin to ask the questions as to the nature of the good or merit without some prior institutional agreement about the type of human being it seeks to attract and cultivate. Unlike a state, the members of a university are chosen: faculty are hired, students are admitted, staff are recruited. One is not born into a university by mere accident of history.

　　I would further suggest that a free market of ideas is inadequate as the orienting principle of the university. This idea, in its most simple form, assumes that truth will inevitably prevail over error, if given equal time and opportunity. The corollary here is that error is primarily the product of censorship or coercion. While many errors are indeed the product of censorship and coercion, others are not. They stem instead from deeper issues of human nature.

　　Unfortunately, good ideas often do not win out in a fair context. Often they are supplanted by mediocre but simple ideas, or wrong ideas that flatter our ego and stroke our vanity. It is a mistake to assume that students (or faculty) are drawn to ideas for rational motivations alone. In truth, ideas play upon our sentiments and moral sensibilities. This suggests that if we want truth and good ideas to prevail, we must be concerned not just with the free interplay of ideas but the inculcation of virtue and the cultivation of character.

　　So perhaps education isn’t just a battle of ideas. We educators are far too prone to imagine ourselves as warriors triumphantly cutting down error wherever we find it. This might be true of a small portion of the academic world, but it isn’t true of education in the main. As C. S. Lewis says in The Abolition of Man, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” In other words, educating is about instilling wonder, inculcating just sentiments, and guiding students toward beauty.This is the original sense of a liberal arts education. Leo Strauss notes that the goal of liberal education was to combat ignorance, or apeirokalia.The Greek word literally translates to “a lack of experience with things beautiful.” Education, for Strauss and the ancients, is that which gives students experience with the beautiful and noble, training their sentiments to love what ought to be loved to the degree that is proper.

　　Open discussion of ideas might be a good rule for the UATX seminar room, but it cannot establish a curriculum, build a course of study, preserve the best of human achievement, or even sustain an intellectual community. Moreover, there is a profound difference between tolerating an idea and promoting an idea. All institutions, like all communities, are formed because of shared morals, ideals, and norms; there is always dissent, but the dissent is not the central ethos. Dissent on the edges is helpful; dissent in the main may destroy the community entirely (which reality is reflected in our language of “dissent” becoming “dissension”). We can have the sort of community that tolerates some dissent; but it is absurd to even imagine that community will spring forth from a culture of dissent or dissension.

　　After all that, you might still be persuaded by the Karl Popper, if not the George Soros, brand of open society. However, even if you follow my colleague, Scott Scheall’s line of argumentation, I still believe that Popper is in the wrong. Tellingly, in his Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper identifies Plato as the first and greatest enemy of the open society. Popper takes particular issue with the top-down imposition by Plato’s guardians, the hierarchical structure therein, the relentless and almost religious obsession with truth and virtue, and the quasi-communistic policy proposals designed to instill a sense of shared community. One might agree with Popper that this is a bad blueprint for society, but is it really a bad blueprint for education? Dare we take the further step and consider Plato—that great educator and founder of the Academy—the enemy of society and of education? No. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau reminded us, Plato’s Republic “is not at all a political work, as think those who judge books only by their titles. It is rather the most beautiful educational treatise ever written.” We should not conflate the institution of society with the institution of education, as what makes one flourish might poison the other.

　　Even if one buys into the concept of an open society, one need not, and should not, buy into the idea of an open university. The real task of education requires both theoretical and practical judgment as we prudentially consider how best to cultivate both minds and hearts.