Welcome to the Hell seminar!

Why on earth should I dare to organize a social science seminar around a theme like Hell?

Here’s why. We use few exclamations more often in response to the unfathomable, disturbing, and terrifying dimensions of the human experience. Hell is everywhere–in politics, war, religion, sports, jobs, personal relationships, indeed, life itself. When political scientists make judgments about human interactions, they frequently use abstruse jargon to describe their subject matter. But in the end, they must invariably wrestle with the theme of Hell. If they fail to do so, they end up describing a world that doesn’t exist.

At one time, I called this seminar “Ten Images of Hell in the Twentieth Century.” As we entered the 2000s, I asked myself whether there would be enough images to shift the course’s focus to the new century. I gambled, changed the course title and the readings, and have had no reason to look back. This has been great for me. Too bad for humanity.

I define our Twenty-First Century as the period from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 to the current day.

In a mere 24 years, images of Hell abound:  the bloody war between Russia and Ukraine; devastation and despair in Gaza; liberal democracy spiraling into crisis; the alluring appeal of dictatorship on every continent; unrelenting poverty and increasing social stratification in advanced democracies, and especially America; the tragic movement of peoples over artificial state borders; man-made climate disaster; a pandemic that killed more than 1.2 million human beings in the US alone.

Seminar Themes

In this seminar, we will explore our troubled century of Hell by focusing on four themes. As you will see, all four of these focuses correspond directly with the enterprise of social science:

      • The experience of Hell
      • The causes of Hell
      • The consequences of Hell, and finally,
      • Our moral obligation to others who are suffering through Hell

We will address these themes by exploring ten contemporary examples of Hell:  America’s war in Iraq; existentialist Angst (in both a world without God and a world with God); technodystopia and technodictators; torture at Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq; the moral bankruptcy of utilitarian approaches to valuing human life; eviction from hearth and home; the “devil’s highway” of migration to the US; the miserable response to the Covid pandemic and its antecedents; our willing destruction of our natural environment; and life on the edge in war-torn Ukraine.

Our journey is about much more than our ten topics.  It is about us: our lives and the lives of billions of other people who live with us in a world that is as unstable as it has ever been in past centuries.

BUT WAIT!  I do not aim to bring you down. I come with good news. Our exposure to Hell on Earth need not become a recipe for pessimism or cynicism.  As you will see by the end of this semester, this course is also about Hope. There is no better place to think about Hope than at a Catholic university. Indeed, I am proud to say that no secular university can accomplish what we will do in this seminar. Our intellectual advantage is built into the bricks and mortar of Notre Dame.

. . . but those who hope in the Lord

Isaiah 40:31

 

SEMINAR GOALS

I have five equally important goals.

First, I will use the concept of Hell to introduce you to some of the major political and social issues of our times.

Second, I will introduce you to the four defining agendas of the social sciences—description, explanation, analysis, and prescription.

Third, because this is a social science seminar, I shall ask you to keep in mind that we live at a strange and volatile period in world history. In our world, populist leaders have convinced many of our fellow citizens to believe that their “feelings” should trump scientific truth. As a result, the norms of decency and civility that should guide our efforts to live together peacefully have been eroded by moral relativism and naked self-interest.

Fourth, I will work with each of you on an individual basis to develop your skills in reading, writing, and speaking. There is nothing easy about mastering these skills.  I, for one, am still working on each of them. As you will see, the good news is that they are all interrelated aspects of the ability to communicate with others.

Fifth, I aim to encourage each of you to develop the art of persuasion.  Success in life is all about persuasion. We are single beings within a universe of other single human beings. Each of us has the native capacity to persuade others that we have something to offer. If we are indifferent–which is one of the greatest sins–we will be lost in the haze.

Finally, I am on a mission. In focusing on persuasion, I seek to challenge each of you to become a leader in whatever dimensions of life you choose to pursue. By virtue of your presence at Notre Dame, each of you is now a member of the Ruling Class. Your good fortune comes with two weighty obligations. The first is to learn to be a leader while others sit back and wait. The second is to become a good leader. In the battle against Hell, good leaders affirm the intrinsic dignity of each and every human being. They refuse to compromise on this principle. In this way, they are beacons of hope.