The Best of Civilization

The Questions of Civilization Program at Claremont McKenna College began its trial run during the fall semester of 1996. This program is something of a Great Books course, a freshman seminar, and a general introduction to academic discourse. It became a course that gave inquiry priority over conclusion and encouraged students to speak in loud, passionate, but always informed voices. The essays herein give voice to the developing thoughts of our students. They are chosen from over a span of nearly a decade, from fall of 1998 to spring of this year. Always the opinions expressed -- for right or for wrong, for better or for worse -- are those of the writers, not of the program or the institution. Many of these papers are not the product of the orderly development of a rigid outline, but of a lyrical, organic process that reflects the unpredictable intellectual and emotional growth of its author. If this costs something in academic elegance -- and I'm not sure it does -- it buys a degree of vividness, intensity and authenticity that would be difficult to match.