Any casual observer could sit and watch Princeton University professor Robert P. George and Union Theological Seminary professor Cornel West and quickly conclude they are good friends.
They laugh, they sing and seem to embrace each other every time they get the chance.
What may not be as obvious at first glance, however, is the persistent partnership in the pursuit of truth the two have engaged in for decades, even as they have held on to differing political and philosophical views — one as a self-described progressive and the other as a self-described conservative.
“I just have a deep love for my brother, even when he’s wrong,” West said of George. “I love him when he’s right. (And) I love him when he’s on the way to being either wrong or right.”
Speaking together at a Wheatley Institute lecture held Thursday night on the BYU campus, West and George spoke of how their decades-long friendship began, the principles that have enabled them to have fruitful conversations amid differences of opinion, and how students and faculty at BYU and other universities can integrate these principles as they seek truth and character formation.
The goal is not to win
West and George’s friendship kicked off more than two decades ago, when the two transformed a planned one-hour interview for a new, student-run magazine at Princeton into a conversation that lasted more than four hours.
Prior to this conversation, the two had been collegiate acquaintances who interacted at faculty seminars. After their hours-long conversation — which was organized after West (then a visiting professor at Princeton) chose George to be his interviewee — everything changed.
That initial exchange eventually led them to co-teach a freshman seminar at Princeton University, and over the years, their association has grown into a genuine friendship — one that has included co-writing “Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division.”
Speaking of his early impressions of West, George told listeners that even when he thought West was “getting the wrong answers — which was most of the time — he was the brother, he was the guy in the room who was asking the right questions.”
Likewise, West said he gained an early admiration for George because of his sincerity. George “says what he means, means what he says — (there is) no posing, no posturing, no saying something just to be part of groupthink,” he said. He thinks for himself and possesses a “deep openness” to those he disagrees with.
Decades later, West and George’s admiration for each other continues. And when asked how they’ve influenced each other and managed to maintain such a friendship in an age of division, George said it is because their goal has never been to win or persuade each other, but to gain “deeper understanding.”
Their goal is “not to change each other’s mind — it’s not to win,” George said. “The goal is to get the truth.”
“We’re not at the same place in many ways,” he explained, “but it’s a dialectical partnership in the pursuit of truth.”
And this partnership, as well as their understanding, will only continue to grow as they remain open to challenge and critique, he added.
“We know that our fallibility extends not simply to the minor, trivial, relatively superficial things in life — the stuff we don’t care that much about,” George said. “Our fallibility extends to the deep, important questions … of human nature and human good, human dignity, human destiny.”
The only way to swap those falsehoods for truths, George said, is to “be open to critique, open to challenge, open to criticism.”
“If I’m wrong, I don’t want to persuade him,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I want him to persuade me so that I can swap out that false belief.”
On Latter-day Saint ‘soulcraft’ and character formation
West coined the term “Mormon soulcraft” as he and George spoke of the character possessed by the multiple members and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints they have interacted with.
On their list was the late church President Russell M. Nelson, President Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his son, Elder Matthew S. Holland, among others.
“Soulcraft, character formation — that’s what Jesus exemplified,” West said.
It’s more than being “polite and kind,” he later stated, but rather having a sense of inner joy and a “willingness to serve; being tied to something bigger than you so the relation between eternity and temporality is always held in creative tension.
“And then the smile,” he added. “It’s not a superficial smile. I’m not talking about those cheap chuckles. I’m talking about that (Latter-day Saint) laugh.”
When asked to build upon this concept of Latter-day Saint soulcraft and how BYU faculty may support students in attaining the aims of a BYU education, West relied on three words: remembrance, reverence and resistance.
He said the Latter-day Saint tradition has an “integral memory of persecution, (a) memory of perseverance (and a) memory of persistence.” Sustaining that memory creates reverence, which counters pride and fosters empathy, he said. And resistance invites individuals to cut “against the grain.”
George answered the question by highlighting the difference between a job and a vocation.
“A vocation is a calling to serve,” he said. Thus, faculty members have the calling to serve their students, “to help to form the men and women entrusted by their families to (their) charge to be determined truth seekers and courageous truth speakers.”
And how do faculty members do that? By words and example — the latter being more important, according to George.
“We help to form our young men and women to be determined truth seekers and courageous truth speakers by modeling it,” George said, “by showing them what it is to be a determined truth seeker and a courageous truth speaker.
“Our students learn more from our example than they do from our words ... including the example of being open to criticism, open to challenge,” he said.
Students attend school to ‘learn how to die’
Stating that students attend school to “learn how to die” has shocked parents, students and teachers anytime they’ve heard it, George and West said.
What it means is that students attend school to learn how to think critically for themselves, to find their voice and not just be an “echo,” West said.
Students attend school to “muster the courage” to love God and their neighbor and “be able to call into question certain assumptions and presuppositions (they) have,” he explained.
“When you let some of them go, that’s a form of death,” he added. “And there is no rebirth without death.” Thus, students are at school to “learn how to die,” to philosophize and discover what “God has called (them) to do.”
But the responsibility falls on them, George said. Faculty members can only help, support, model and encourage their students in swapping out falsehoods for truth and what “really matters.”
“There are some things nobody can do for you,” George told students at the Thursday night lecture, later stating, “No one can make you a person of integrity.”
A prophetic call to students and faculty
Preceding West and George’s conversation on the stands, BYU President C. Shane Reese stood to welcome the speakers and shed some light on a prophetic call to disagree better.
He said that on the very first day of his administration, he was invited to attend — and speak — at the university’s President’s Dinner, where church President Dallin H. Oaks, then first counselor in the church’s First Presidency, and President Holland would be present.
Sitting beside President Oaks at one of the tables, President Reese said the apostle, who once served as BYU president himself, asked him how his day was going.
“I didn’t know it was going to be a therapy session,” President Reese jokingly told the lecture’s attendees on Thursday night. He then said that during their conversation he thought to ask President Oaks for the advice he would give a brand new president.
“It was clear that he recognized this as a moment where he could share something of import with me, and he said, ‘If there is something that this generation, the students of your university need, it is models of how to disagree better,’” President Reese recounted.
Students need models of people who can have conversations with one another, “even though they might not share common opinions on the topics they’re discussing,” he continued. President Oaks said “in the public sphere, there are just not enough examples of people who can have that kind of dialogue.”
With that story, President Reese then welcomed West and George as “beautiful models” of people “who can disagree on some very fundamental and important issues, and yet walk away with an incredible sense of brotherly love.”
What students took from the lecture
BYU junior and Wheatley Scholar Kailene Talbot told the Deseret News she was impacted by West and George’s teachings on and example of love.
“I do love that there was an emphasis on using love as our main motive for everything that we do and letting that trump power or need for accomplishments or recognition,” she said.
“You could tell in their demeanor, their words, their conduct, that they love each other and they love the people around them,” she said, then adding that their example has moved her to be more forgiving, seek understanding and not let her search for truth overbear her search for “connecting with people and helping them feel the light of Christ.”
As for BYU student and Wheatley Scholar Kayson Marler, he said he enjoyed seeing West and George’s example of friendship amid disagreement. “We need more examples like that,” he said, later sharing he hopes to implement their example at home, at school and with friends.
His wife, Madeline Marler, who is studying business management and global studies at Southern Utah University, added her reflection on West and George’s specific advice to students.
To learn how to die sounds somewhat morbid, she said. But what she learned from the phrase is that the education she has the opportunity to receive as a student is a “gift and an opportunity to become.”
“The end goal is never to prove something,” she said, “but it’s really an opportunity to prepare and become” people with the skills, knowledge, thought and capacity needed to go and be “courageous standards of truth.”