A MOTHER'S ADVICE

One of the questions I hear most from readers of The Creed Room is how much the character of Sam Kramer’s mother is based on my own. I answer that question as a general matter in the Interview that is linked to the Creed Room page of my web site. But let me take this moment to contrast the two women on a very specific point.

Ruth Kramer was, by design, a Jewish-mother stereotype in various respects. Among other things, she was quite materialistic. Ruth would surely deny that charge, saying that she doesn’t covet extreme wealth but only values financial security. While that may be true, the point remains that earning power is never too far from her mind.

Not so my mother. She has always taught me that plenty of things are more important than financial security. Integrity, intellectuality, kindness ... I could continue the list for a while, in fact, before I got to anything that is the least bit materialistic.

The best way to illustrate my mother’s values is to share a piece of advice she gave me when I was about to go off for college. “If I could select one class for you to take,” she asked,” what class do you think it would be?” I was shocked to hear her answer. And yet the older I get, the more I have come to appreciate it.

At the time I went off to college, the country was as obsessed about economic wealth as is it now, and that attitude has had a profound effect on our educational system. Specifically, it has caused certain subjects to be elevated in importance well above others.

Math? That’s considered a must – and not just math, but complex math that virtually none of us ever use in our lives. But that’s not the subject my mom was talking about.

Science? You bet that’s beloved by all the educational gurus. In fact, the scientific fields are even more honored in our society than math, for nothing is associated more with a country’s economic success than its proficiency in the sciences and technology. But my mom wasn’t talking about a science class.

How about literature or history? They might not be as high on the conventional pantheon as math or science, but they’re viewed as vital as well. People who don’t understand history are viewed as incapable of thinking sensibly about public policy, for history supplies an empirical training ground for all our ideas and philosophies. (Note the scientific bias again – history becomes a branch of science, albeit somewhat less “hard” than the natural sciences.) As for literature, we consider the study of the great works of fiction to be critical to developing our command of the English language. Only those who can write, read, and speak properly can ever “make it” in our society, and without training in literature, those skills are unlikely to be honed. That, at least, is what most educators will tell you, and they may well be right. But my mom didn’t have those subjects in mind either.

Therein lay the disciplines viewed as most integral, most practical. But practical, materialistic minds love to supplement them with other staples. Foreign language courses are important, for example, if we hope to be able to converse – or do business – with people from different cultures. Economics or business courses are also popular vehicles for jump starting a professional career. Indeed, without a basic understanding of economics, how are we supposed to manage our own money, let alone contribute to a capitalist economy? Then there are the other social “sciences,” like political science or psychology. These courses are considered every bit as serious and intellectually challenging as any other discipline taught in college.

My mother, an economist by trade who is steeped in a broad range of social studies, clearly appreciates the importance of these latter disciplines. But the class she had in mind wasn’t among them.

In case you can’t tell by now, my mother was referring to a class that many people wouldn’t even deem “academic.” It’s supposed to be more of an “elective,” a time out from practicality where we get to let our brains relax and our hearts wander.

I’m not equipped to evaluate which courses require more intellectual rigor than others, but this much I can say: it’s impossible to fully appreciate any of the humanities without an appreciation for art history. And when I took my mother’s advice and enrolled in college art history class, she immeasurably increased my sensibilities as an observer of the human condition and a student of spirituality.

Working only a couple of blocks away from the National Gallery of Art, I’m amazed at the number of my co-workers who rarely if ever go to that museum during lunch or some other break in the day. Admission is free, and yet they don’t go. Perhaps they’ve never been taught what a treasure that place is. Perhaps when they were in college, they were too busy learning differential calculus, or the finer points of geology. No one can sensibly disparage those disciplines, but there’s more to life than they can offer.

The best artwork represents our species’ aspirations and ideas at their most beautiful. If we wish to ignore them when we attend college, we make the statement that “higher learning” and “beauty” need not be spoken in the same breath.