Apparently Opposing Principles

The Jesuits have a set of pairings of values that seem on the surface to be in direct tension. Some of these are displayed on light pole banners on the Hilltop Campus – for example, “Contemplation in Action.” The impact of the phrases is that they force a pause, to understand how one might combine such an unusual marriage of goals.

This is a post about another challenging combination — magnanimity and humility.

Universities are pretty good at half of this. In academia, the magnanimity part is second nature. Every feature of academia supports striving for new insights, creating new ideas, inventing new interpretations, discovering new facts. Go big; make a difference. Create your unique contribution. So, the magnanimity side is certainly a robust feature of knowledge production.

On the education side, the mission of universities seeks to form the minds and spirits of students striving to become better. That too drives toward magnanimity. The students are given the challenge of fixing all the things wrong with the current world. What bolder mission could there be than shaping the next leaders of the world?

But, there’s another notion that is forwarded on Jesuit campuses – the “magis.” The intended meaning is a continuous striving in our actions to become closer and closer to God. However, in high-powered academic environments, a misinterpretation that can easily slip into practice is that all “magis” means is to work harder. Strive for higher production levels. Create more work. Spur hyper-activity to become even more prominent in one’s field.

In short, in universities, there is the danger of avoiding the tension between “magnanimity” on one side and “humility” on the other.

Thus, when we turn to the humility side of the pair, there’s a bigger challenge. Much of academia is geared toward critical review of one’s work. A manuscript is reviewed and critiqued by others, often anonymously, yielding unbridled attacks both on the goals of the manuscript and the quality of its arguments. A proposal written for external funding of research is submitted to peer review, often by those who have rival ideas that they are seeking to fund. A seminar talk is followed by oral critiques of one’s peers.

Such external ongoing critical evaluation often produces the need/desire to promote one’s work vigorously, to aggressively establish one’s reputation within the field as a thought leader, and to actively seek the praise of the community. Correspondingly, success in a field brings with it personal rewards – membership in honorific groups, awards from professional organizations. The whole system is geared toward individual accomplishments.

Such is hardly a recipe for breeding humility.

Students we mentor and nurture are under great pressure to promote their “brand,” to build their resume with evidence of personal achievement, to construct networks that will increase their visibility. In short, their worlds entail the same threats to humility that their faculty mentors face.

It is, therefore, deeply refreshing to encounter academic faculty and staff who focus on their work and not their own place in the pecking order. Georgetown is honored to be home of many such scholars. It is they who build a community of truth seekers that achieve the true mission of a Jesuit university. Both magnanimity and humility, while always in tension, co-exist in their lives, to the benefit of all of us.