Bates grads welcomed to the ‘reasoning class’

LEWISTON – Stephen Carter, a Yale law professor and best-selling novelist, welcomed graduating seniors at the 137th Bates College commencement Monday to what he called the “reasoning class.”

“We live in a world in which all too few people are trained to use their minds, to really apply the power of human intelligence to try to solve the knotty problems of policy, of politics, of philosophy, of morality,” Carter said. “Human reason is one of God’s great gifts to the human race, and it does us no credit when we underuse it.”

Carter, an expert on religion and law whose novel, “The Emperor of Ocean Park,” was published last year, cautioned the audience not to think of the reasoning class as superior to some other class.

“The reasoning class is open without regard to ideology and it’s largely closed to those whose most important task in life is fitting in and hiding in the crowd,” he said.

Carter asked the graduates, as members of the reasoning class, to move beyond a world governed by media sound bites, knee-jerk reactions, chants that substitute for argument and the “demonizing [of] people because their ideals happen to be different from those you cherish.”

Carter told the 443 graduates at the outdoor ceremony that they can make the world a better place by “applying human reason to problems that divide us and threaten us” and by “drawing into reasonable conversation thoughtful people with whom you disagree.”

The college awarded honorary degrees to Carter; Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund; Dr. Eugene Braunwald, a Harvard Medical School cardiologist; and Donald Harward, who recently retired as Bates’ sixth president.