Living the Life of Reason

Re “When Reason Sleeps, Mumbo-Jumbo Frolics,” Commentary, May 24: Francis Wheen’s elegant lament on the demise of the Enlightenment and the resurrection of superstition omitted a fundamental consideration: the capitulation of universities to the cult of materialism. The seeds of the Enlightenment were laid during the Middle Ages when European universities created the liberal arts curriculum -- a combination of arts, humanities, mathematics and sciences. The objectives were breadth of knowledge and freedom of thought.

Today, academic institutions are dominated by professional schools, administrators must be good fundraisers and students are interested only in jobs. During 37 years of teaching history at four universities, I never ceased to be amazed at the typical student’s appalling ignorance of political and social history. College graduates are trained but not educated and, worse, don’t care.

Forrest G. Wood

Professor of History Emeritus

Cal State Bakersfield

Wheen demonstrates the insufferable arrogance of the so-called “enlightened.” If you don’t think as I do, says the Enlightened One, then you simply can’t think at all. If you reject evolution, if you believe in any sort of supernatural entity, if you even read your horoscope, then you are obviously mentally challenged or terminally dim. Wheen indiscriminately lumps together New Age gurus, Christian fundamentalists and oddballs of every sort in order to argue that only the scientific secularist has any sense or reason. Wheen is right; we are inundated by silliness. But to mash madness and legitimate metaphysics together into a paste of undifferentiated nuttiness is intellectually dishonest.

Wheen also seems to think that the Enlightenment represents the zenith of human intellectual progress. He apparently has forgotten that the Enlightenment was roundly rejected by 19th century thinkers who realized that secular reason alone was incapable of answering all questions of human existence. In fact, human intellectual progress is not linear: the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Paul, Augustine, Luther and other pre-Enlightenment thinkers frequently surpasses, in my judgment, much of the so-called “thought” of post-Enlightenment philosophers.

William Lomax

Woodland Hills

I could not agree more with Wheen’s assessment that emotion rather than reason appears increasingly to guide social, educational and political propositions. His assessment is especially valid because the eclipse of empiricism by superstition is not exclusive to either the political left or the political right. Proposals by the political right to exclude teaching evolution are irresponsible and deny public school students exposure to a scientific explanation of human existence as an alternative to religious explanation. Likewise, the recent scandal of psychology professor Kerri Dunn at Claremont McKenna College allegedly manufacturing “data” to support her contention that hate crime is rampant on college campuses is equally repugnant and devastating. In both cases, intuition and superstition rather than objectivity and reason threaten empiricism and forebode a return to the sleep of reason.

Christopher W. Williams

Valencia

Wheen is so right. Isn’t it unfortunate how humankind’s unending attempts to find answers to the mystery of our existence in this astonishing universe so often dead-end in mumbo-jumbo and quackery?

Fortunately, there are eminent scientists and theologians among us today who, while accepting the established findings of science, from the big bang to the evolution of our species out of galaxies and exploding stars, also perceive creative spirit and palpable love within themselves to the extent that they cannot rule out an ultimate divine energy and presence within everything that exists.

Bill McAuliffe

San Diego

Widespread scientific illiteracy has left most Americans defenseless against pseudoscientific babble. The real problem is that many of these people vote. For fun, ask the next college-educated professional you meet to explain where liquid hydrogen, a proposed auto fuel, comes from and why it is not a “source” of energy. While most high school students in the 1950s could easily explain this, we have dumbed down our educational standards in math and science so far that public policy is now at risk. A population that believes in telepathy, fat-burning diet pills and a 10,000-year-old planet Earth is unable to evaluate anything objectively.

Paul S. Dwan

Pacific Palisades