Dear reader,
This spring, The Chicago Maroon published an article headlined “The Decline of the Liberal Arts at UChicago, by the Numbers.” The alarms it duly sounded—less humanities, more preprofessionalism, a bizcon “fiefdom,” and a weakened Core Curriculum—have rung for so long their din is indistinguishable from institutional tinnitus. Despite digesting an admirable amount of data, the report falls into the same fallacy as others of its ilk. They attribute the so-called decline in humanistic study to historical and material trends, trotting out past educational experiments and post-2008 financial pressures. These explanations may well be prescient, but they conveniently sidestep judgement. When confronted with two competing visions of what a college education is for, they shrug, disavowing discernment by pointing to personal choice.
But choice has little to do with education, which is to be given what you did not know you needed. Undergraduates with short-term memory may be forgiven for lapses into cliché, yet inexperience is no excuse for unthinking. It’s a short slide from such relativism to dismissing the difference wholesale. “We need not force ourselves into a false dichotomy between pre-professionalism and the Life of the Mind,” The Phoenix reassured us last winter; “Finance careers and intellectualism are not inherent antagonists,” mustered another Maroon article. These are less clear-eyed analyses of the situation than its apotheosis. After all, had our Core done its due work, we would recall that “preprofessional”’s nearest synonym—per the Aristotelian source of liberal education’s antithesis—is servile.
We stand for the university as it should be, and for the intellectual life as the best means for collective human flourishing. Faced with a directionless world, mired in nihilism and desperation, we have harnessed the pursuit of excellence, originality, and courage to clean up a high road through the wilderness of the present day. We are retrieving the orientation of our education, joining its aims and its end, and asserting that yes, indeed, there is no good or bad, but thinking makes it so—and to do so will be our task and salvation.
Since its founding in 2022, The Harper Review has published eleven issues of essays and letters. One of each from each features in this compilation. It includes writing on Gothic architecture, John von Neumann, a private city in Kenya, laughter’s Darwinian ills, and more, plus responses to prompts on civility, patriotism, sex, progress, and so forth. For further reading, more classic pieces on jiu jitsu, Luigi Mangione, r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, and Hobbes, can be found at harperreview.com.
As the preceding survey suggests, it is difficult to pin down what, exactly, The Harper Review is about. One answer is in our mission statement, printed on this issue’s front cover. More succinctly, we are interested in beauty and truth. Only a beautiful essay can reveal the truth; only a truthful essay can be beautiful. Much more could be said about this claim, but because it is the sort of thing one must learn by reading, we will leave it totally undefended. Suffice to say there is a form of thinking that only happens faced with the written word, when the words are an end to themselves as much as they are a means to meaning.
Issues aside, The Harper Review hosts reading groups, Platonic symposia, parties, and more. A magazine is a social endeavor, and we are looking for new writers and editors this fall (as well as new readers and friends). Look for posters with links to applications and sign-ups around campus. Alternatively, email us at harperreview[at]gmail.com or find us at upcoming events.
Lastly, we’d like to thank the Program for Public Thinking, a joint project of the Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse and The Point magazine, for funding this issue. It’s an honor to continue their work.
Sincerely,
Liam Eifert, co-editor in chief
Brady Santoro, managing editor
Emily Sun, co-editor in chief