Liberal Arts and Cultural Disconect

Kagan in his farewell speech "Ave atque vale" evaluates the evolution of liberal arts education. He criticized the failure of modern liberal arts colleges:

"The education they receive in college these days, I believe, is more likely to reinforce this condition than to change it. In this way, too, it fails in its liberating function, in its responsibility to shape free men and women."

I personally agree with Kagan that there are various natures of liberal arts education yet most of them if not all are failing to achieve the fundamental goal of liberating men and women. Liberation is a crucial element in the liberal education yet it is lacking in our education. In my own opinion, the system gives more space for personal achievement yet barely any room for community living and society growth. As a student I definitely feel that most of my peers and I have very limited understanding of our own cultures. This leads to a merely focus on present living with limited consideration of earlier events and ideas and as Kagan said “The students of today and tomorrow deserve the same opportunity. They, too, must be freed from the tyranny that comes from the accident of being born at a particular time in a particular place, but that liberation can only come from a return to the belief that we may have something to learn from the past.”

Self-liberation is only possible when one achieves self-awareness and self-consciousness of who she/he is and where she/he comes from. With those understanding then one can explore her passions and determines her/his goals both for personal growth and for the betterment of the society.