Light & Truth Conversations: Reclaiming Culture Through Education Mary Hasson

A culture rooted in truth and committed to authentic human flourishing cannot be rebuilt by quick fixes — it requires formation, depth, and the renewal of our institutions. In this wide-ranging conversation, University of Dallas President Jonathan J. Sanford and Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O'Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and co-founder of the Person & Identity Project, examine how education grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition and the classical liberal arts prepares young people to pursue lives of meaning, purpose, and virtue.

Together, they explore:

-The crisis of identity among today’s youth
-Why information is not the same as wisdom
-The importance of cultivating the virtues: prudence, courage, justice, and temperance
-Classical education’s role in shaping free, thoughtful, and responsible human beings
-How universities can help renew culture through truth, beauty, and the dignity of the human person
-Why genuine human flourishing requires more than career preparation
-How institutions — especially families, churches, and universities — can rebuild a fragmented society

Anchored in Catholic philosophical traditions and inspired by John Paul II’s vision of the human person, this conversation is a profound reflection on what education ought to be: the formation of the whole person toward truth and the good.

If you're interested in cultural renewal, classical education, Catholic thought, or the future of higher education, this discussion offers a compelling and hopeful path forward.

00:00 Introduction to the Person and Identity Project
05:50 Classical Liberal Education Movement 
16:15 A Reclaimed Culture
26:26 Finding Your Purpose

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Mary, it's it's so wonderful to sit down with you and have this conversation. And thank you for the many ways in which you've been part of the University of Dallas for a long time as a parent, as a trustee, as the wife of a trustee before. We've known each other a long time, so I don't want to pretend like we're just getting to know each other here. But thank you for your work, both with the University of Dallas and also at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where you're a senior fellow, and you have been taking on some really challenging issues. What is the state of your current project? I know you've been dealing with with uh transgenderism and the the plight of young people today and the state of the family.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Yeah. Well, first, it's great to be here. Always good to have a conversation with you. And and we do go way back. And and uh it's wonderful to just be here at the University of Dallas and uh to have the opportunity to have a conversation. So uh you asked about my work and I am focused, I have a project called the Person and Identity Project, which really has two aims. One is to promote the truth about the human person, but then the other is to equip parents and faith-based institutions to counter gender ideology, which as we like to educate people, you know, gender ideology is really a challenge to the truth of the human person. And it's not just about how many kids get confused and and they're they're suffering and they're you know taken down a wrong path. That's that's a tragedy. But there are a lot of uh very big issues connected to the corruption of the understanding of the human person. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Right. You know, I I I think um people like you, like me, like others, have for a long time been wrestling with these major issues. It seems as though our civilization has been unraveling. And um I I'm much affected by Alistair McIntyre, who who um has a uh a really um remarkable way of uh bringing to light just just how fragmented our languages around um moral and ethical terminology. Um this is this is not something new, but it does feel as though the pace of fragmentation has quickened. And um I I have the sense that we we need to not, so to speak, pick up all of the pieces that have come apart and try to glue them back together, but rather to invest ourselves in institutions that are able to reclaim our culture. Does that make sense to you?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah. Yeah. You know, just that image of our culture having been fragmented in so many significant ways. And the what it takes to go around picking up the pieces, sometimes you lose the the vision of the whole, of what it is that was fragmented. So I think it's got to be a twofold process. You can look at kind of the wreckage of what we see, the human difficulties that have arisen as a lot of things have fallen apart, but also the the difficulty with our institutions, with our laws, with with the culture. So we can see all that. But as you said, there's there's been a lot of time invested in critiquing and analyzing what's gone wrong. Right. But my sense is that unless we're also thinking about, well, how do we how do we um help people see the truth, see the vision, um, see what we're aiming for, how do we build, we could spend the rest of our time continually analyzing what's going to continue to go wrong, and we really haven't made things better.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Trevor Burrus Right, right. Um, I I love the fact that you you've framed your project, the person and identity project. And you know, this need to recover the truth about the human person, that was identified more than 50 years ago by John Paul II, even before he was John Paul II. You know, the the um um the philosophical and theological works, Love and Responsibility, Person and Community, that Carol Votila was was articulating in the in the uh 50s and 60s and 70s, um those were wrapped into a very rich theology of the body. Um and one of the things that we often overlook is the contributions that John Paul II has made to how we approach education. And there's there's a a um a fundamental work of education that, as it were, enables a human being to move from what he or she is into what he or she is called to be. And so when Jean Paul II would reflect upon uh K-12 education, and even more significantly, at least for my work, the the university, he always points our attention to that first thing, you know, which is the founding principle of Catholic social teaching, the dignity of the human person. You sent your kids to classical schools. Um they went to Trinity and and um Meadowview. I went to Trinity and South Bend. Um we're great promoters of the uh classical education movement in the United States at the University of Dallas and offer um a very rich liberal education. What what led you to you and Seamus to say we want this kind of education for our children? Um was is that connected in some way to the way you think about the human person?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, very much so. And I think also to having a sense of what was happening in the culture and yet the beautiful uh the truth about who we are, but also the um the truth and wisdom that you find in the classics, in Western civilization, in in uh the writings of the great church fathers, and and um so when when it came time for our kids looking at middle school, high school, we really wanted something that was gonna help them see and desire the truth and to engage it and to engage competing ideas so that they would launch into adulthood with feet firmly grounded. I mean, everyone's got to make a choice. Do you what what do you choose for yourself? But you have to you have to be on firm ground that where you can even see the choice. And so I think for us when our kids went to Trinity, it was um we were inspired by the opportunity for them to be able to engage with the great works and to discuss, but not discussed in sort of a relativistic way. There's there's no right, there's no wrong, there's no truth. Not at all. But rather, there's so much richness and there's so much um wisdom to be gained from those who have written and taught and and thought about all these things. So in fact, that's it's really through Trinity, which had this classical approach, that we even thought of sending any of our children to the University of Dallas.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Because it was a UD alum who was teaching at the classical high school. And she inspired uh particularly our oldest, who just thrived under the uh the classical approach in in high school. And she said, Oh, you've got to see University of Dallas. It's if you like this, you will love that. And so you know, that started us on a journey where we've sent five kids here who have, I I can tell you they have gotten a fantastic education. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah. Well, I'm really grateful to that that teacher. Um, w what one of the things that that is at the foundation of a an approach to education that that um what seeks to to reorient the student to um a kind of openness to the truth is the personal attention, right? Um you mentioned what sometimes goes by the the name of uh viewpoint diversity, right? So you want your kids to be really properly argumentative, right? Um what I mean by that is is knowing how to how to uh um articulate somebody else's position and at the same time be able to articulate what you think is wrong with that position and then be open to their disagreement, right? So we've we've lost this art of arguing without quarreling. Um and I I think there's something beneath that that's connected to the the kind of individualized approach that that is possible within a genuine liberal education, which is you need to actually care about the fundamental questions of human existence. I mean, what what is a human being? But what is justice? There are competing accounts of what justice is. You encounter them through works of deep literature that um make you think, but you you but you have to care, right? And and um I'm I'm saddened by the fact that that a lot of young people today seem apathetic. Um I think they're they're in an environment where they think what it is to to know something is to be informed about it. Um and nearly every young person in America today has access to all of the known information collected on this thing we call the internet.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Trevor Burrus Where they can be content creators and create their own, you know. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

But but that's that's not what it is to know a thing. It's not what it is to have really wrestled deeply with a question of fundamental importance to our existence. It's and and um I wonder if there's a a relation between some of the challenges of identity that you look at and and the kind of distance that has been created um between uh knowing things and and self-knowledge.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, so you know I think part of it is in a very simple way. I I think back to when our oldest was was um you know looking at schools and there was so much emphasis on on education as simply preparing for a job, right? It's it's um acquiring the knowledge or the skills so you can go out and earn money, and that's that's going to be your true meaning in life, your your purpose. It certainly wasn't the the message he was getting at the in the classical program he was in, but that was sort of the peer and and cultural emphasis. And and so if you're approaching education simply from a question of utility instead of asking, well, what's what's true and how do I live?

unknown 10:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

And what am I called to do? Right. What's what's my mission? What's my purpose? You know, all of that, you have to start in a different place, but you also have to realize that as a person, you're made for something more. You're not made just to be a cog and wheel and you know, grind it out until you die and and and that's it. Hope it was a good life, you know? Right. It's there's something deeper. So I think even just helping people realize education is not just about a job. And and UD does a fantastic job of of people launching and getting, you know, a a good start in in um whether it's grad school or or their career, is fantastic. But they come out with a sense of um what truth knowing what what the truth is, having a sense of mission, that they're called to something deeper, they're called to continually be forming and educate themselves just because that's that's part of what it means to be a human being. Right. Right? We're we're made in the image and likeness of God. We have intellect and will. We've got to use our intellect. We're made to search for the truth. And and I think to the extent that our culture has kind of blunted that impulse in people, it's it's almost like the uh the bread and circuses. You can distract people and keep them on the surface and they don't think too deeply and um they they get some measure of of contentment, but it's not down deep happiness. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah. And they're made ready for the workforce. Yeah. Um but um that will last five or seven years, and then you've got to retrain them, right? Yeah. But education is not mere training. And I I think one of the reasons why our our placement rates are as high as they are. I mean, we're almost 100% uh first destination placement rates, is because our our students have have learned to be creative thinkers, they're articulate, um and and they're they're eager to find ways to do big things, to make whatever institution or corporation that they're part of better, right? So there's a notion of the common good, which is different than being treated as part of a collective, and now you're going to serve a utilitarian end. No, I'm I'm an individual, and I care so deeply about what's common that I want to contribute in a fundamental way through my work. And and um that might look the same from the outside, but I think it's a really different mentality.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah. I remember when um our oldest was a student here, and he was talking about the great conversations he was having with other students, and and I was like, you know, kids always say you think to yourself. Kids always say what what they think their parents want to want to hear. But I remember on our first visit, it wasn't like in a you know a formal occasion, just came to visit him and going down to the cat bar, you know, getting a cappuccino. And sure enough, there were multiple groupings of of kids who were just engaged in these conversations about something they'd heard in class and and or it just seemed like an idea that had captured their their um their questioning mind and they really wanted to wrestle with it with some. I I was amazed because it wasn't something um staged. It wasn't staged, it wasn't forced. It came out of what they were experiencing in the classroom. And I think also just the the like-minded peers, you know, if you're in a in a group of of people and everyone's indifferent, everyone's looking at the watch and everyone's scrolling on their on their phone, that's gonna affect your own attitude of curiosity and and openness. But if you're in an environment where the professor is expecting that, you know, you you want to know this, you need to know this, and your your peers have that same attitude. You don't just go to class, take it in, close the book, and leave. Right. You know, you take it in and you're digesting and you're discussing. And and I think with um UD's core, one of the things that that um is so advantageous about that is it's a common body of knowledge. So our kids have had friends who were physics majors or um, you know, in in the pre-professionals, uh, others who are theology. It didn't matter. They all had a core, um a core group of or a core body of of knowledge, you know, uh courses that they had to take. And and that was that was amazing because it it really inspired so much, and and everyone's captured by the same ideas. So anyway, I'm enthusiastic about that.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

It really Well I mean the culture matters, right? And and um even if you're a relatively small culture, it it matters and it can it can sustain you as you go out into into broader culture. When when when you consider the challenges within our our broader culture, um um what what does what does surmounting those challenges look like? What what does I don't want to frame it in terms of success, uh, because that that often conjures a zero-sum approach, and we're all at war with each other and and and there there are ways in which those metaphors are are appropriate, but but um and and I wonder if if if we ought to be thinking beyond them, right? So when you imagine a a reclaimed culture, a rebuilt Western civilization, a a a thriving America, what what are the the key points that that you call to mind?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

So I think you work with your institutions, family, church, university. Uh universities certainly are your thought leaders, and and we can see that actually if you look back in history, you know, where things started to go off the rails, a lot of it was because of what was happening in academia that threw out truth, that threw out a sense of trying to encourage virtues and and encourage um students to think more deeply, but but within uh uh a sense that acknowledged that there is a truth, there is there is wisdom, there's there's something good there to be grasped. And and so we can see what happens when that goes off the rails. So I think universities are very much a part of of that solution. But I think more more broadly, if you're gonna rebuild the culture, you have to have a vision.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

You know what it what is it that you're building towards. Right. And that's something where you know, where are you gonna get that? So some of it is is from your family and your and your faith, but certainly, as I said, the universities and and the thought leaders, you also need people.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Right. It's very hard to change the the mind or the approach of someone who's who's my age. Whereas if you take someone who has been trained and and educated in a mindset, they're they're equipped to be able to go out and and to um make that vision a reality. Right. So I think those are those are some key elements.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Um and learning how to do that is um i it's not something that you can kind of cut corners around. Right. So um, and it takes time. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It it takes time, right? So if if if we had um political leaders and religious leaders say, you all need to to listen more carefully to each other and and stop disagreeing all the time. I mean that's that's not gonna be effective. And and they have said versions of that. Um one one way I think about what happens within a well-run school, K-12 or or university, um, a well-run a well-run classroom is um you you are engaged in developing those habits that enable you to be um a careful listener, a good arguer, somebody who can uh think for yourself, think independently, somebody who nurtures a kind of curiosity, who's learned to persevere in pursuit of things that you know you don't know, and and you only know you don't know something if you're willing to acknowledge your own humility. So it does some humility, right? Those those are virtues that that really can be acquired through excellent pedagogy in the classroom.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

But I would add to that just the idea of respect. The fact that um if your if your professor respects you and engages you with respect, and you have to model and and engage with others, even those with whom you you vehemently disagree, for example, on on a particular point, that's that's something you don't just leave in the classroom. That becomes part of who you are, because we're always going to have uh very serious disagreements. You know, the polarity and and um division that we see in our society, excuse me, in a sense, isn't surprising because there's there's a gulf between good and evil, and I'm not saying everyone I disagree with is evil, but but rather around some ideas, there are there are clear things that are good and things that are are destructive, particularly to to the human person or to the family or to the the culture at large. And so you see those things. It's not surprising that you're gonna have some division and polarity, but but how do you engage that without having it become something that's destructive of you, where you you lose your integrity? And I I think again, it's as you said, you you become habituated to that. First you have to see what you're aiming for, but you have to understand who it is you should be aspiring to be. Right. Right? What kind of a human being? Right. What are the virtues of a well-formed mind and well-formed character?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

You need a vision of what it is to live nobly. And and one of the signs of hope that I see in young people today, and and there's some sociological data that that backs this up, is there's a hunger for meaning. There's a hunger for deep roots. Um there's a um uh it's still small, but a growing trend of of people recovering deep religious roots, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox. They want, they want the real stuff, not the fluffy stuff. Um and and I I think this is a moment where institutions really need to um do the hard work of um applying those time-tested pedagogical practices um uh that are going to um expose students to um the pit holes sometimes when they're wanting to look deep, right? So go back to this notion of of young people want to live nobly. I'm thinking particularly of some research I've seen on young men, right? So the the phenomenon of of um juvenile boys who are attracted to the likes of Andrew Tate or or um you know, take your pick, but people who who um have a a vision. Of what it is to be strong and manly, that is fundamentally disordered. But it's you find this, you know, it's it's honor, it's power, it's pleasure, right? Those those are the um temptations of what we can take the good life to entail, right? Aristotle and and Aquinas, for instance, they both wrestle with those views of the good life at the outset of their reflections on ethics. Um and and there is something attractive about strength and power. Um so how do we how do we harness that desire for something that is noble and good and convince young people and not just young men but young women, it's gonna take a lot of work. Um and and we we don't want to kill that desire. We don't want to say, no, just just be useful to society. Yeah. Just do something that's gonna um help the GDP or or whatever. No. We want to foster that spiritedness and that desire both to go deep and to reach far in their aspirations, but but make sure that they don't fall into these temptations to imitate those who are um uh projecting false views on that way of living.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr. I I think of some of those influencers who who clearly, as you said, are disordered or they're projecting a false vision. I think they become attractive because they're clear, they're firm, they're willing to lead. Unfortunately, many of them lead in the wrong direction. But I think that that comes back to helping young people realize you're made for a purpose.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

You know, and and there's there's a mission to your life. And what we do here as a university is going to help you find that. It's gonna help you find that that meaning and purpose in your life. I saw a um a study that Harvard Graduate School of Education published about a year and a half ago, and they interviewed young people, Gen Z, who were very well, successful. In other words, they weren't the ones who who failed to launch, like they were in their mom's base. They were kids who had young people who had a job, who were, you know, by all accounts uh doing well. And yet when they interviewed them, they found that 58 percent of them said that in the last month they they really struggled um because they had no sense of meaning and purpose. Right. And they they had various quotes, and and all I could think of was how difficult to get up every day and do the same thing over and over if you don't know why.

unknown 24:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

If you don't know what what what's this for other than to fill my bank account so I can go buy stuff and go do you know, it's it's ultimately it's not satisfying to the human person. But if you're arriving at your mid-20s and you have not up to that point sought out a deeper purpose or even question whether there should be one, it's a it's a lot harder. You're gonna suffer a bit in in that uh quest to find it. Whereas when you when you have young people, for example, who arrive on a college campus, there it's a natural point of curiosity. If you can if you can help them see that vision and begin to ask those deeper questions about the culture, about truth, about themselves, and uh to to find that meaning and purpose, well then you've done something. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

You know, I I used to uh find very inadequate this this definition of the good life for man that McIntyre gives at um near the end of After Virtue. He says, the good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man. And I thought, can't we go a little bit farther than that? But but um I I've come to appreciate um the the depth of that insight, and it's connected to to what you just articulated, right? Um there's there's purpose that can be found in striving to find your purpose, right? And and I think sometimes we can think, you know, um answers to what life is all about is like going to the cafeteria, and and you can you can choose what seems to fit or you know, where where your appetite is. And and that's that's a very unsatisfying way to proceed because you need to you need to have wrestled with uh uh earlier questions about, well, what sort of thing will actually be good for me? What is most fitting? And um that needs to uh provide some kind of direction in terms of what you select.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Um It makes me think of um bad advice I've heard given to young people who who are told, just follow your passion. And I think, you know, to use your cafeteria example, if you if you go into a cafeteria and you don't have any sense of nutrition, what my body needs, what's what's gonna give me strength and and help me be healthy so I can do the things I want to do, you're just gonna follow your passion and you know, drink all of the the coke and and eat all of the whatever it is, pizza or chocolate cake or whatever it might be. It's gonna be destructive.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

So learning the role, the you know, what um how our passions should integrate into our life, the role of reason, the um character, virtues, having having a clearer sense of that allows you to to understand what it means when you're you're enthusiastic or inspired by something.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

But yet, is that just an enthusiasm for the moment, or is there something more here to look into or whatever? So it's it's um the difference between eating uh a really wonderful meal that's completely balanced but delicious and just snacking on fast food all day where you never get to the substance.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Trevor Burrus And and you know, at at um the risk of extending a metaphor too long. You know, I'm I'm I'm thinking about the um the difference between going to a restaurant or a cafeteria and selecting things and cooking your own meal, right? And and developing those practices that are in service of the ends of something that's gonna have deep nutritional value and taste good and be um um conducive to great conversation around the table, right? And so living a good life is like learning how to cook well, where you've you've tried different things out, but they're all aimed towards that trifecta of nutritious, delicious, and conducive to conversation. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

And it's to be shared, right? That's right. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And so I think the search for knowledge and education is is something like that too. You know, you you need fellow travelers, you need others to um to challenge you and to uh commits like do this and not that.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yeah, so to reclaim our culture, we need more cooks in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Yeah. We we need more thoughtful universities. We need more places like uh uh UD that really cultivate that sense with respect and dignity. You are made for something more. Come here and we'll help you find it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah. So it's it's I think um important for us to remember that our Lord started with uh a very small group of apostles and other followers, and they were not perfect men. Yeah. And um a lot of a lot of of uh challenges uh that we just get little glimpses of in their lives, and yet they they were on fire, they were transformed. And it's it's not that they went out and and persuaded everyone to live differently. Um they they presented a vision of the good life. They presented a vision of how to think about one's own destiny and a um a way of living that that was beautiful and compelling because of its beauty, right? Deep respect for the dignity of other human beings, the the significance of the family, right? These these Christians refused to expose their deformed children. And eventually they built hospitals and universities and built up our civilization. So we we don't need to um I mean, good policies are always important, good laws are always important, but but the the individuals who are um transformed by a really rich education who've who've um learn to live into that education throughout their lives. And I I think they they will be the the chief architects of a of a reclaimed culture.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

I think that's well thanks so much for joining us in this conversation, Mary.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

It's always good to see you.