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A Holiday Message

Wishing you light and knowledge! Matthew Rascoff meditates on how a children's book he is reading with his son raises questions for higher education to consider in 2025.
Woodcut-style image of an avenue of palm trees in snow, at night

Dear colleagues and friends, 

As the new year approaches I find myself drawn more to questions than to resolutions. It was in that spirit that my 9-year-old son and I encountered the following dialogue in a book that we have been reading together:

“We do not give information without trial,” says the sphinx. 

“But why not? Isn’t that the point of knowledge — to pass it on?” asks the scholar, Irian. 

“Why tell truth to those not yet prepared to receive it?” the sphinx replies. “The riddles ensure that we tell our secrets to those who have already learned how to think.” 

This exchange, lightly paraphrased, comes from Impossible Creatures, a new novel by the British author Katherine Rundell. Ostensibly written for children, the book is equally pleasurable for their parents, not least because of passages like this one, which speak to profound philosophical questions.

The political theorist Leo Strauss was on the side of the sphinx. Ideas can be dangerous, and occasionally get philosophers killed, as Socrates learned in ancient Athens. They should therefore remain esoteric, hidden behind riddles, and reserved for an elite who have learned how to think.

Thomas Jefferson took Irian’s side. Sharing ideas is like lighting one candle from another, Jefferson wrote in an 1813 letter: “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” It was no coincidence that his movement was called the Enlightenment. Knowledge is meant to be passed on.

Impossible Creatures brings this debate to life. And it feels timely for institutions of higher education, considering the dilemmas we face:

  • Should universities protect their communities from the outside forces of politics and economics? Or should they be open and porous — even when the external environment can be threatening? Are they preserves or public squares?
  • Should our commitment to meritocracy and selectivity outweigh our commitment to democratic education? Do we serve the few or the many?
  • Should the knowledge we produce be proprietary or open? Should our discoveries and innovations be intellectual property or public goods?

These are some of the questions I have been considering as I read this marvelous book. (It’s no surprise that Rundell was until recently a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford.) Of course Rundell offers no answers. Her message is that the compromises of the past are no longer serving us well. A new approach is needed, which, in her story, comes from two youthful heroes.

A learning community dedicated to curiosity should be able to ask hard questions together. We should embrace complexity and nuance and let go of fixed ideas, false choices, and simplistic binaries. We should be willing to challenge past practices and assumptions and be open to new ideas and change. 

May this holiday season bring light, knowledge, and open-mindedness. 

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2025,

Matthew Rascoff

Matthew Rascoff, vice provost for digital education,
and the Stanford Digital Education team


Note: The banner image of palm trees in snow was generated using DALL-E.

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