17 The Needs of the Many, the Needs of the One

My family was a Star Trek family — Star Trek when there was no other Star Trek. The original, the classic. We had the entire television series on VHS and added the entire series of movies to our family collection as they were released. I clearly remember the first time I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with my family, and just as clearly remember the moment of shock and devastation when (spoiler alert) Spock died. There were genuine tears: we grieved for the character we had all grown up with. Keep in mind that, when it was first released, we did not yet know he would return in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

To explain his self-sacrificing action that would save the USS Enterprise and its crew but would inevitably end his own life, Spock tells Kirk, “It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And yet, in the subsequent The Search for Spock, Kirk and the rest of the crew risk their careers, their freedom, and potentially their lives in an effort to bring him back. During the retraining of Spock’s mind on Vulcan in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, his mother explains the “irrational” behavior of Spock’s human shipmates by telling him that they believed that the good of the one outweighed the good of the many. The tension presented in these two movies — between logic and passion, between reason and emotion — reflect a balance in perspective-taking that I was able to develop in large part because of the humanities courses I took as part of my general education experience.

All things being equal, my tendency is to fall more towards the Spock end of the spectrum. Logic and reason have always been particularly important to me, and so it was no surprise that I excelled in math. In high school, I was on the math team (we even had a math team cheer), and during my undergraduate studies at Loyola University Chicago, I majored in mathematics. In addition, I completed a minor in psychology and developed an interest in the analysis of human behavior, leading to my master’s degree in counseling psychology. I suppose it is fair to say that my academic foci were rooted in the natural and social sciences. After graduate school, I became a mental health counselor at a small university in Chicago and quickly shifted focus from mental health counseling to teaching and student development. As an educator, it can be all too easy to lean into the Spock mentality: that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few. Whether that means continually selecting teaching methods that resonate with “most” of the class or always relying on a popular vote to drive student programming, it would be easy for my analytical brain to justify such actions. It is a very utilitarian ethic: do what does the most good for the most people.

Let’s go back to Loyola. In addition to the math classes I took for my major, the psychology courses for my minor, and my elective courses, I needed to complete a number of general education courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy, literature, arts, and theology. Looking back, I have great appreciation for my advisor who really encouraged me to use those classes as an opportunity to explore something new — to find new ways of thinking. I took a philosophy course called Knowledge & Reality, a course that focused on making logical arguments and identifying logical fallacies. In my Women in Literature course, I was exposed to authors who are so often left out of the literary canon, introducing me to voices and perspectives that I might not have experienced otherwise. World Religions: The East exposed me to value systems completely different from my own, and Action & Value: Ethics helped me engage in ethical arguments with others in ways that honored everyone’s humanity.

Most of the “nuts and bolts” — the content I learned in those humanities classes — has settled into the recesses of my mind, but the ways of thinking and knowing remain. I still have five of the seven books we read in my Women in Literature class and I read them with regularity, each time noticing something new. I couldn’t name very many of the logical fallacies I learned, but I know how to recognize them even if I don’t know their precise names. I don’t remember many specifics of the world religions, but I do know to evaluate whether my thinking is narrowly rooted in one value system. I could not list the different frameworks we used in my ethics course, but I’ve never forgotten the practice of trying to understand the other side of an argument.

My knee-jerk response is still to be like Spock, and it probably always will be. But because I have learned to consider the humanity of the person with whom I disagree, learned to be intentional about amplifying the voices that often go unheard, and learned to challenge my own thought processes and find the fallacies in my own logic, I believe I am a better educator. I know that it is important to look at the many, and we do it all the time when we talk about the percentage of students who meet a certain outcome, or who graduate within a certain timeframe, or who find ways to engage on campus.

When, in a class of 25 students, 24 of them understand the material I am teaching, my inner Spock is very happy – that’s a 96% success rate. But I am very grateful that I have developed an inner Kirk, too — albeit quieter than my inner Spock — who reminds me that the needs of the few, or even the one, can be just as important.

About the author

name: Thomas Murray

Tom Murray is the coordinator for UNIV 101 in the Office of General Education. When he is not focused on work, he spends time playing taiko with Odaiko Sonora and training for and running ultramarathons. Taiko performances and ultramarathons almost never go to plan and so require a significant amount of problem solving, a skill that Tom believes was finely honed in his own general education experience.