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3 3 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Liberal education is the “constant intercourse” with the great minds. Theinteraction requires a sort of skepticism of common opinion. To question thegiven opinions of the day—to question custom—requires a certain courage:It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard theaccepted views as mere opinion, or to regard the average opinions asextreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the moststrange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberationfrom vulgarity. 75The philosophic concern, or interest, with common, or vulgar, opinion is to liftus higher to the most important things, and, as Strauss wrote, the most beautifulthings. We might conclude that to be concerned with something above ourmere opinions means to be interested in the “isness” of things. To have thatoccupy us means that we think there is a truth, a wisdom, worth pursuing.Liberal education is the concern with the finest or highest things. Liberallyeducated human beings pursue politics and philosophy: “they are inearnest because they are concerned with the most weighty matters, with theonly things which deserve to be taken seriously for their own sake, with thegood order of the soul and of the city.” 76 The liberally educated man, Strausscontends, is the gentleman. He is concerned with the health of the body politic,and therefore, about justice. The gentleman is concerned with ruling inthe interest of the entire society.Generally speaking, “liberal education in the original sense not onlyfosters civic responsibility: it is even required for the exercise of civic responsibility.By being what they are, the gentlemen are meant to set the tone ofsociety in the most direct, the least ambiguous, and the most unquestionableway: by ruling it in broad daylight.” 77 Just rule, a just politics, is not conductedby force or in secret in a free society. The just city is framed by men overmen, and the men who make the laws, if liberally educated, will also obeythose laws. Yet a liberal education is not merely concerned with the here andnow or with various policy preferences in themselves. As mentioned above,liberal education understands philosophy as a higher pursuit than mere politics.Certainly, as Strauss writes in “Liberal Education and Responsibility,”politics ought to be about a pursuit of certain ends, but there should be someknowledge of the ends themselves: “For everything which comes into being75Ibid., 319.76Ibid., 324.77Ibid., 327.