Relevance Isn’t a Virtue

Relevance isn’t a virtue. Relevance, attempting to disguise itself as a virtue, seeks to transform eternal goods, beauties, and truths into culturally palatable ones. Relevance is a danger to classical schools, to classical teachers, and to Christians.

Because culture is ever-changing like a swift river, relevance is not merely difficult to attain but is unattainable entirely. Not only is relevance not a virtue, but it is an inaccessible idea soaked in disagreeable subjectivity.

This temptation to relevance can filter through classical schools into classrooms, hallways, assignments, and instruction. Relevance threatens to alter classical pedagogy or assessments in the name of virtue. It lurks at every corner of modernity. Being culturally relevant or culturally engaging are common phrases, sometimes used to justify cultural emulation. Certainly, there are tangible and practicable ends to a good classical education that helps one live better in the world, but it does not mean compromise with the world. It does not mean accepting outside linguistic approaches, practices, or habits to make the world more palatable. Well-trained classical students should be excellent (or on their way to being excellent) employees and parents, but they should still love good, eternal things, meaning they will love little of what the world has to offer at any given moment. They will seem backward and outdated. Instead, they will be traditionalists seeking the tradition of the true, the good, and the beautiful. They will not be worshiping ashes, as Gustav Mahler put it, but preserving fire. The danger of relevance, and the pressure to see it in virtuous terms, is a threat to a truly virtuous classical education. Classical schools and people who find themselves desiring the true, the good, and the beautiful can never be too careful to avoid relevance as a guiding measure.

Opposite relevance is both tradition and objectivity. Tradition appeals to the objective, eternal things, rooted finally in God. The ultimate opposite of relevance is God himself. God is always true, always beautiful, and always good. He does not conform, “there is no variation or shadow due to change,” as St. James wrote.

A classical school wishing for teachers and students to be caught up in the depths of this divine life in Christ must seek a traditional and objective standard and guide. Classical education should train people to love eternally good things. It should “un-culture” and “un-relativize” everyone within its walls. It should teach, as Aragorn says in The Two Towers, that “good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.” Classical Christian education instructing in the good, stands opposite relevance. Relevance is more a temptation than a virtue. Relevance is more akin to the snake in the garden than “follow me as I follow Christ.” It deceptively appeals to our sinful inclination toward pleasure and power, to using rather than enjoying the things of God. The beauty of God in contrast is objective, measured, and fixed. The pursuit of the divine life will inevitably mean looking unlike the present culture; hopefully it will mean looking unlike the modern era, as we seek to have the past “cultural winds” blowing through our minds, as C.S. Lewis wrote about the Great Books.

Of the plenteous examples available in the Great Books, Dante’s Purgatorio exemplifies this fixed beauty in his first interaction with Beatrice in the final Canto. Dante and Virgil arrive upon the shores of Mt. Purgatory at 6 am on Easter Sunday to begin their ascent through Ante-Purgatory and on to Purgatory proper. The Roman orator Cato commands all the souls to run up the mountain and to “peel away the dead skin that keeps you from seeing God.” Dante does not yet know that meeting Beatrice in her beauty, just before entering Paradise, will help to remake him as Cato instructs. After traversing through all of Purgatory, Dante sees Beatrice sitting “beside the roots of that great tree.” Finally, Dante and Beatrice lock eyes and she commands him to speak with her. He is now “ready to hear” her; he has been made ready to be transformed. Indeed, Dante is so struck by her beauty that he cannot speak as if his teeth were stuck. Commanding him to “lose yourself from your fear, be free of shame, and speak no longer as a dream does,” Beatrice transforms Dante by her beauty. She does not shape herself as he would prefer, but insists he transform to delight in her beauty rightly and so love God. She does not lower herself but demands he lose his fear and shame to see her and speak with her freely. Transformed, Matilda then washes Dante in the stream of Lethe, reviving his mind of the good deeds done, before he moves to enter Paradiso.

Dante is transformed by the beauty of Beatrice, not Beatrice by the desires of Dante. This is classical education. If classical Christian education is to transform students and teachers, it must demand change. It is, therefore, more difficult, less accessible, and more beautiful than otherwise possible. It is unconcerned with relevance and is not led astray in believing it is a virtue. A classical Christian school will look unlike other schools and institutions and will not have pragmatic, post-graduation employment at the forefront of its goals. It will look to Paradiso as a guide. To tradition. To God.

A classical Christian school that does not pursue tradition and the objective things of God will otherwise be lured by the siren of relevance. Andrew Kern has said, “Classical schools must be willing to die.” I think it should be added that if they are unwilling, relevance (masked as virtue) will be crouched at their door ready to do the job for them.

Relevance is not a virtue.