President Eduardo M. Peñalver Inaugural Address

It is with tremendous gratitude that I assume my duties as Georgetown’s 49^th president.

I am grateful to the Board of Directors, to the past Board Chair Tom Reynolds and to our new Board Chair, Rob Berkeley, for the confidence they have extended to me and for their partnership in the work of stewarding this remarkable institution.

I am grateful to all the members of the Georgetown community – faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends, and the Georgetown Jesuit community – who have extended such a warm welcome to me and to my family.

And most of all I am grateful to my wife, Sital Kalantry, and my two sons, Sidhartha and Jai, who have accompanied me on this journey, even though it has meant two cross-country moves, long hours in the office… the occasionally embarrassing Instagram Reel.

I could not do this work without their support and their forbearance.

I’d like just like to express a moment of gratitude for the many many staff whose work has gone into making this celebration over these past few days possible. So many hours of work have gone into planning and executing this event and they deserve all our applause.

Having expressed gratitude, I’d now like to start an argument.

That might be challenging, because, as someone once said, being a university president is like being a cemetery director. Many people are under you, but no one is listening – unless you are talking about parking. And I don’t want to argue about parking. I have some sense of self-preservation.

It’s hard to have a good argument if no one is listening. But you are a captive audience and so this inauguration speech might be my best and only chance.

Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most important Catholic philosophers of the 20^th century, described the university as a site of “institutionalized conflict” – an argument extended through time.

It is noteworthy that my predecessor, Jack DeGioia, wrote his doctoral dissertation about MacIntyre. Jack was pursuing his PhD while holding down a full-time job as an administrator, so the idea of the university as a site of “institutionalized conflict” no doubt resonated for him.

(That was a little president humor, in case you missed it.)

Implicit in MacIntyre’s description of the university is a favorable view of argument – of the experience of argument and of the act of arguing. This is a view with deep roots in the Catholic intellectual tradition. For example, in his 1953 book, Between Community and Society, the Dominican theologian, Thomas Gilby, defined “civilization” itself as “[people] locked together in argument.”

Not people just talking pleasantly with each other… but people “locked together in argument.”

Those of us who grew up attending boisterous, often lubricated, Catholic family gatherings know how natural (and entertaining) it can be to slide from a quiet dinner table “discussion” into a good, loud “argument.” Little did we know that we were helping to sustain civilization.

Among our society’s many challenges today, one of the most grave is that we have forgotten how to argue. “How can that be?” you might be asking. All we seem to do these days is argue. But the all-caps, bumper-sticker vitriol we experience on social media is not a model of “argument.” It’s a failure of argument. (It’s telling that a common response to disagreement these days is to “go no contact.”)

What Gilby had in mind when he equated “argument” with “civilization,” and what I am talking about, is something very different: it’s a contest of big and important ideas according to shared standards of reasonableness.

Viewed in this way, we can understand an “argument” as an intense and high-stakes species of “dialogue.” Defending (and practicing) a positive model of argument is essential for a country where deep disagreement has been our reality from the beginning.

After all, what are the alternatives?

The great American Jesuit, John Courtney Murray, whose papers are preserved in the Lauinger Library and whose book, The Problem of God, was an inspiration for Georgetown’s legendary course of the same name, observed that “pluralism” – which is to say, deep disagreement about important issues – is America’s “native condition.”

And the same is true of Georgetown.

Founded by John Carroll as a Catholic university in what at the time was an overwhelmingly Protestant country, Georgetown has always welcomed people of all religious faiths. And Georgetown’s original embrace of pluralism was at the same time an embrace of argument. Why would we do that?

Jack DeGioia put it well in his dissertation:

“[t]o have confidence that our [own] tradition is in good order, we must continuously test [its] strength and coherency….” by exposing it “to the maximum possibility of refutation.”

Murray believed something very similar about our Republic: the values that hold us together across our many differences can only survive if we “constantly” argue them out, he said.

So my contention is that argument, understood as a species of dialogue, is a good thing. In fact, it’s an essential thing for a pluralist society and for a university. But what does it take for an argument to be healthy and productive rather than toxic and corrosive?

…argument, understood as a species of dialogue, is a good thing. In fact, it’s an essential thing for a pluralist society and for a university. 

Above all, it must be civil. By civility, I am not talking about some precious commitment to politeness. The Oxford University philosopher Teresa Bejan argues for what she calls “mere civility,” which she sees as a minimal floor for dialogue rather than an extremely demanding barrier to entry.

Civil argument can still be unpleasant argument. But for a university community, civil argument does require a shared commitment to reason and reasonableness.

Murray described several ways in which arguments cease to be civil or reasonable:

1. When participants collapse into solipsistic navel gazing – into the conviction that my insights are mine alone and cannot be shared or understood by others who do not share my beliefs or identities;
   
   
2. When people only expose themselves to views they already agree with, refusing to engage with those who think differently;
   
   
3. And, most catastrophically, when the very idea of reality of a shared truth collapses.

This last point is vitally important. Murray warned that if we give up on the idea of a shared truth, “no assertion may claim more than the status of mere opinion.” That if everything becomes mere opinion, the only basis for favoring one conclusion over another is the raw assertion of power. Ultimately, that is the antithesis of argument and of civilization.

So the first requirement for argument to be healthy is civility, which in turn requires a commitment to engagement and to the possibility of a shared truth.

The second requirement is diversity. It takes two to tango and at least two people to have an argument, but the argument can only happen if they disagree. Where there is not a diversity of opinion, arguments peter out or become narrow and vapid. Inside the bubble of homogeneity, agreement may feel like common sense. But viewed from outside, it will be obvious that the consensus is unearned.

Georgetown’s history with slavery is a good example. The story of the 272 men, women and children held in bondage by the Maryland Jesuits and sold – literally down the river – in 1838 to raise money to (among other things) shore up Georgetown’s finances, was never a secret. It wasn’t discovered by the New York Times. It was a public act, well known to those familiar with Georgetown’s history.

But it is no coincidence that the issue became more salient as the Georgetown community became more diverse. Over the past decade, Georgetown’s reflection on its history, and its sustained engagement with the Descendants of those 272 (some of whom are now Georgetown alumni) has become a model for the pursuit of truth and reconciliation.

We are stronger for it. But the work is not done. And I look forward to honoring the 10^th anniversary of the beginning of that ongoing journey later this year.

Georgetown’s work with the Descendants is an example of how the diversity of identity enhances the diversity of perspectives; and how that diversity of perspectives in turn enriches the campus environment. Both kinds of diversity are important. The old joke about two Jesuits having at least three opinions illustrates how being open to different points of view is an essential expression of our Jesuit values.

A final requirement for healthy argument is that it be animated by a sense of purpose. Without meaning, there can be no meaningful argument. That is tautological but still worth saying. If nothing has meaning, why bother arguing?

Fr. Alfred Delp was a Jesuit priest executed by the Nazis in the closing weeks of the Second World War. In diaries he wrote while he was awaiting his execution, he reflected that “life… by itself has neither purpose nor fulfillment.” But at the same time, he insisted, “life demands both purpose and fulfillment.”

For Catholics, creation and incarnation infuse the world – and our arguments about it – with significance. As the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin put it, “nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.”

From all of this, it follows that a great university built on the Jesuit educational tradition should be great at arguing.

As a Jesuit Catholic university, Georgetown understands truth as a unified reality toward which the many disciplines tend, each in their own partial and distinctive ways.

As a Jesuit Catholic university committed to the belief that all human beings are created in God’s image, Georgetown welcomes and embraces the many diversities of the human community.

And as a Jesuit Catholic university, Georgetown excels in the search for meaning, and in kindling the excitement of that search among our students, who go on to put their learning to work in the service of others.

Some universities, seeking an illusory ethos of neutrality, have abandoned the aspiration of “making the world a better place,” even removing it from their mission statements. Georgetown remains firmly committed to our Jesuit, Catholic “why.”

Now, halfway through a talk, the political analyst Fareed Zakaria recommends that you say the word “finally.” “It will wake them up,” he says.

So, finally, I will describe several threats – external and internal – to our university’s 237-year old argument, which, by extension, are threats to our ability to continue to flourish as a university. And I will describe how Georgetown will overcome those threats, leading the way for higher education.

The first threat is political polarization. One consequence of polarization is that people who disagree do not engage with one another—or at least, not productively. Coupled with this lack of engagement, polarization leads us to see political “others” as abstractions and caricatures, not as full human beings who are just as complex and interesting as we understand ourselves to be.

We decline to offer our adversaries “platforms.” We refuse to listen deeply to their arguments, even when they may have some merit. We cling to our prior convictions as badges of tribal loyalty.

For as much attention as we give to disrupted or disinvited speakers, we should be just as concerned about the speakers who were never invited in the first place, the arguments that never happened. These missing arguments are the dogs that fail to bark, every day, on university campuses across this country.

Our absence of curiosity about other points of view and our failure to assume the best about those with whom we disagree (that is, our failure to practice what the Jesuits call “presupposition”) diminishes our ability to understand different sides of an argument, even those well within the mainstream off-campus.

At Georgetown, we will continue to affirm our core conviction that “serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding.”

We will continue to seek out and welcome diverse identities and diverse points of view. We will welcome conservatives. We will welcome progressives. We will even welcome moderates.

We will adhere to principles of institutional modesty and restraint, avoiding excessive university statement-making in order to preserve space for student and faculty expression – and argument.

We will affirm and defend the robust academic freedom and freedom of expression necessary for the fearless pursuit of truth. And we will sustain a campus culture that creates a welcoming living, learning, and working environment.

We will therefore enforce reasonable limits on the time, place and manner of expression, including the prohibition of expression that veers into harassment.

Importantly, we will also work to remind our community of the vast world full of value and meaning (and fun) that exists outside of politics.

We will seek out opportunities to bring our community together around shared experiences that transcend our partisan divisions – the fulfillment of spiritual exploration, the enjoyment of beautiful art, the excitement of athletic excellence.

A second threat comes from technology. It comes in the form of a fragmented information ecosystem and social media ecosystem that segregates us into echo chambers where algorithms and bots inflame our emotions and undermine reasonable argument. By design and for profit, these technologies distract our thoughts, interrupt our reflection, and fragment our attention.

To the already harmful impact of social media, we can now add the unpredictable consequences of artificial intelligence. AI’s ability to generate convincing deepfakes and enormous volumes of slop (that’s a technical term) is thickening the toxic stew that’s already brewing online.

There is so much about AI that we don’t know. How will it affect the democracy and workplace our students will enter? How capable will AI become at the complex skills that have historically been at the core of higher education’s self-understanding? How can we use AI to enhance, rather than undermine, human flourishing?

For all our uncertainty, though, we do know certain things. We know that AI cannot immerse itself in or sustain a tradition of thought, because it has no sense of tradition. It cannot, by itself, participate in the extended argument that defines the university. And we know that, no matter how AI changes the workplace or our democracy in the future, our students will be better prepared for that future if they learn how to read closely, write clearly, and think deeply for themselves.

As Pope Leo put it in his encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, AI models and agents:

“do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean…. They may… simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.”

AI provides an illusion of knowledge, a simulacrum of wisdom. The danger is that AI’s imitation of knowledge and wisdom is so good that it may tempt us to offload the arduous work of developing those virtues for ourselves.

AI is a powerful, useful, and dangerous tool. Its seductions call to mind Tennyson’s description of the lotus fruit that sapped the will to work of Odysseus’s sailors: “Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore [more sweet] Than labour in the deep mid-ocean….”

Georgetown will give AI the investigation, and vigilance, it deserves. We’ve launched a campus-wide effort to articulate the core principles that will guide our engagement with AI. And we will find ways to safeguard, encourage, and reward those who take up the laboring oars of intellectual growth.

At Georgetown, the greatest scholars in the world are at the forefront of creating reliable knowledge about AI – about its impact on society, the workplace, national security, human health, student learning, and the environment. They are bringing to bear Georgetown’s research excellence to create the conditions for approaches to AI that subordinate it to human dignity. We will support their efforts and extend them.

A third threat arises from the perception that higher education – including Georgetown – is financially out of reach. The affordability crisis is both a matter of reality and perception.

The reality of a $100,000 annual price of attendance calls for deep reflection about how Georgetown manages the costs of delivering a world-class education. And the perception of that price-tag undermines trust in higher education and undercuts the positive impact of need-blind admissions and meet-full-need financial aid, both of which Georgetown proudly pioneered.

The perception that Georgetown has become unaffordable deters superb students from even considering us and undermines the economic diversity of our student body. It leaves behind capable students who could positively influence our country’s future with the benefit of a Georgetown education. And it deprives our campus argument of the perspectives of entire segments of our society.

Georgetown will re-claim our place as a leader in accessibility and affordability. We will manage our costs and find more efficient ways to operate and to educate. (Hoya Faster!) And we will work to ensure that our financial aid packages are once again among the most generous of any highly selective university.

One last “finally.” I promise.

Professor Jon D. Levenson of Harvard’s Divinity School recently expressed a worry, and I quote:

“about the sustainability of the modern secular model of education that limits itself to… the acquisition of skills and knowledge and ignores the soul.”

If we in higher education do not attend to the life of the soul, Levenson continued, people will fill the resulting vacuum with other things, including, soulless careerism, empty materialism, and self-regarding activism.

By remaining firmly rooted in our Jesuit, Catholic tradition, Georgetown will help our students in that essential human search for purpose and fulfillment. We will sustain our commitment to both faith and reason as complementary paths towards the same truth, utraque unum. We will demonstrate to our colleagues in secular higher education that faith is not a departure from the rigorous search for truth but an invaluable partner in that project.

By remaining firmly rooted in our Jesuit, Catholic tradition, Georgetown will help our students in that essential human search for purpose and fulfillment.

And Georgetown will continue to pursue our founding commitment to interreligious dialogue. As Fr. Leo O’Donovan put it in his inauguration speech nearly 40 years ago, Georgetown’s “Catholicity requires an ethos of inclusion.”

Georgetown will continue to encourage students of every faith tradition – and even those not connected to any faith tradition – to attend to their spiritual lives and to cultivate their search for the transcendent.

In the first chapter of Isaiah, God addresses a disobedient people who have turned toward violence and away from justice. But after recounting their many sins, God does not rain down destruction. He does not “go no contact.” Instead, our loving Creator says, “Come now, let us argue it out.”

“Come now, let us argue it out.”

Some translations render it: “Come now, let us reason together.”

What Pope Francis so frequently observed about dialogue is equally true of healthy argument: it’s rooted in relationship – and in love. Today is the feast day of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, whose motto was “Heart Speaks to Heart.”

We argue because we care deeply: about the issues, about the institutions and communities that give our lives meaning, and ultimately, because we care about each other. But good argument is a skill. It requires training and (above all) it requires practice.

This past summer, our nation celebrated its 250^th birthday. Even as we celebrated, it was apparent that, as a country, as a people, we have forgotten how to argue, or at least how to argue well. We have forgotten how to “reason together.”

Thirteen short years from now, Georgetown will celebrate its own 250^th birthday. What will our birthday gift be to our Republic and to our world?

For Georgetown, a university founded in 1789 in the spirit of a new Republic, a Republic that is now 250 years old and showing its age.

For Georgetown, a university committed to the search for truth; dedicated to celebrating the diversity of God’s creation, and to teaching our students about the deeper meaning to be found in the service of others.

For Georgetown, the most fitting gift we could give to our Republic (and our world) would be to help it discover how to reason together. How to once again enjoy a good argument.