Something else, something more
Louis Komjathy, Ph.D.
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
A minor, and perhaps not so minor, revolution in American higher education is underway. This is contemplative pedagogy, or teaching and learning informed by and expressed as contemplative practice. The latter refers to methods and approaches, whether religious, spiritual, or secular, that develop attentiveness, awareness, interiority, presence, silence, transformation, and a deepened sense of meaning and purpose. If you have not yet heard about this, I would suggest that it is no mere coincidence.
Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walk of dreams…
The Matrix has you. This is the Matrix of corporatized higher education. The Matrix of hegemonic discourse and intellectual conformity. An unexamined life filled with assumed solidities and controllable borders. It is the Matrix of student debt and economic servitude. This is the university as an extension of corporate America, a corporation that ensures that education domesticates its gnostic potential and neuters its liberational power. It is again no coincidence that student loans are almost impossible to erase through bankruptcy. Like NWA MP3s and Che Guevara t-shirts, the system turns revolutionary potential into yet another mechanism of control and means to reproduce itself.
Trade in your hours for a handful of dimes…
Simply consider the fact that faculty raises are directly tied to tuition increases—my ability to live in San Diego and to teach at USD is directly tied to student exploitation, and my exploitation is directly tied to the institutional treatment of faculty as service workers and replaceable parts. This is not to mention the inequitable distribution of material resources and institutional power. How can there be solidarity in a framework rooted in division and fragmentation?
It is not because the mechanism is working wrongly that I am ill…
In place of this model, contemplative education challenges us to explore the deeper dimensions of being human, specifically by exploring and embodying our own values, commitments, and aspirations. How does one become an authentic human being? From a contemplative perspective, interiority and silence are necessary. Through contemplative inquiry and contemplative practice, one may clarify meaning and purpose. Here we may sit together, speak freely and openly, care about something else and something more. We may explore and listen attentively to “what’s really going on.”
Stand up against governments, against God…
In this way, there is clear overlap with traditional liberal arts education in general and the humanities in particular. Such an approach to higher education endeavors to understand humans in the completeness and fullness of their being. We aspire to explore the varied dimensions and expressions of human potential and actualization.
Things as they are are changed on the blue guitar…
Contemplative education also may intersect with Catholic Social Thought (CST), at least as enacted by progressive Catholic Christians committed to ecumenism, diversity, and inclusion. Some of these principles and values include dignity of the person, dignity of work, person in community, option for the disadvantaged and vulnerable, solidarity, and care for place and world. Whether Catholic Christian or not, CST provides resources for confronting and remedying structural injustice and institutional inequality. This includes in the form of Catholic hegemony and Catholic supremacy that renders so many of us second-class citizens, individuals and constituencies without power, influence, or self-determination in our own community. I stand with you. Will you stand with me?
What you wouldn’t have expected lives beneath the surface…
You and I and we and even they have the potential to change our university in more life-affirming as well as personally and communally transformative ways. But this will require hope and vision, and commitment and solidarity. It will involve those of us with such affinities and intentions to change our dissatisfaction into resolve, our disappointment into vision, our despair into aspiration and action. It will require that we identify with each other and form affinity groups. It will require intentional community rooted in care and concern, in actual solidarity. And, yes, embodied action is non-negotiable.
Sometimes a man stands up…
This would be an authentic academic community, one in which all are welcome and supported. One in which academic integrity, intellectual rigor, and philosophical discussion are not simply tolerated, but rather celebrated. One in which values are embodied and lived. From a contemplative perspective, it would be a context and opportunity for exploring authentic and shared aliveness.
I have flung open all of the doors of the house…
In this spirit, let me offer a few contemplative exercises for local awakening, community empowerment, and social transformation. These involve commitments beyond the mere rhetoric of “change-making.” Imagine education as a process of learning to become fully human. See the classroom and larger campus as a place for human interaction. Look around. Put away your cell phones and renounce grades. How does one develop embodied, relational and place-specific presence and connection? Walk through the canyons. Play with dogs. Listen to the birds. What conditions are conducive to the continued presence of birdsong in the world?
Speak to the often invisible and unrecognized members of our community, those who ensure a beautiful campus, clean classrooms, and nourishing food. Express gratitude to them. Care about their lives and struggles. Identify with and support their concerns. Do they make a livable wage? How can they afford to live in San Diego and take care of their families?
May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living…
For those of us who care about each other, who care about community, and who care about our campus climate, we must decide what type of university we want to be. Perhaps this may become a guiding contemplative exercise in itself. I offer it as a contemplative inquiry that may inform dialogic exchange and collaborative projects. This is a vision of something else, of something more.
Don’t go back to sleep…
The University of San Diego does not share the views presented within the opinion section.