I DO NOT THINK THAT WORD MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: Avram Grumer writes: You wrote:

“…that attitude smacks of attempts to identify liberal education, and

intellectual acuity or seeking, with one side or another in the culture wars.”

With the liberal side, of course. Does this surprise you? If an institution devoted to liberal education can’t advocate liberalism, then fer gosh sakes who can?!

I don’t mean to imply that I approve whole-heartedly of the posted document. I find it bland and full of the sort of overly vague pseudo-spiritual talk (“We are called upon to find ultimate meaning in life through our spiritual selves as well as our physical and emotional selves, which can bring healing and strength to all of our relationships”) that’s more appropriate to a greeting card with a blurry photo of a flower or a watercolor sunset on it, when it isn’t engaging in pseudo-intellectual baffle-gab (“In the ancient world, sex was ‘not intrinsically relational or collaborative in character'”). It reads like it was composed by a committee, and several people on the committee had a strong affection for [b.s.].

Well, I don’t know quite how to interpret that; and even if I did, I’m not sure which assumption would be harder to reply to without sputtering and growling: the belief that “liberal” as in “liberal education” means “liberal” as in “following the policy positions of The Nation,” or the belief that a university can only educate its students if it officially endorses the position that the Christian God loves sodomy.

Wait, I think I just growled.