Many people continue in life without a “life plan,” or an understanding of the meaning of life.
On the same level, UCLA coaches would never enter a game without a game plan.
If this were to happen, they would be fired, says Christian writer, lecturer and social scientist Os Guinness, who will speak on campus today about living an examined life at 7 p.m. in the Korn Convocation Hall in the Anderson School of Management.
Guinness is the great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Irish brewery of the same name. He was born in China during World War II, where he survived the concurrent Japanese invasion and the famine that took the lives of his two brothers along with 5 million others.
He returned to England in the early 1950s, where he would later complete his degree in social sciences at the University of Oxford. He worked as a freelance reporter and worked in various faith-based and freedom of speech organizations. In 1984, he moved to the United States, where he works now as a writer and social critic in Washington, D.C.
As a European observer, Guinness said many American professors fail to address life’s deeper meanings in the classroom and tend to focus more on research, but students’ passions lie beyond that.
People in their early 20s are growing up in one of the critical periods in human history, Guinness said. In a globalized era, questions will be raised about nuclear and environmental issues, as well as about the prospects of the human race. This generation must give answers to these questions that will help move humanity forward to the next century, Guinness said.
“Many people are just ambling into the future without a thought to what the meaning of life is, and what humanness is and what morality is,” Guinness said. “Living the unexamined life is not worth living. You wouldn’t for a moment go into a sports game without a game plan and yet people go into life without thinking about the meaning of life.”
These question will be raised in Guinness’ talk, “The Journey: A Thinking Person’s Quest for Meaning,” as part of the Veritas Forum at UCLA, free for anyone to attend.
The forum serves as an open setting for students and faculty to explore issues of faith once a year with an invited speaker, said Susan White, community liaison for the Veritas Forum.
“If you have any opinion on faith … this is a forum that welcomes any questions from left field,” White said. “If you’re apathetic, you might be surprised.”
Veritas began in 1992 at Harvard University and first came to UCLA in 2001. Guinness spoke at that forum, as well.
Robert Chao Romero, an assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, will moderate the talk and host a question and answer session afterward.
As a law student in 1997 at UC Berkeley, Romero saw Guinness speak and was inspired to earn his doctorate degree and become a professor.
“When I was first in law school, I had an ambition of becoming a corporate lawyer and driving a Ferrari,” he said. “I’ve never seen a Christian articulate their faith so eloquently.”
The event’s guests may see a side to Christianity from Guinness that they haven’t heard before, Romero said.
“There’s a caricature of the way a Christian is supposed to be,” Romero said. “Through his talk, Dr. Guinness will turn that stereotype on its head.”
He added that the discussion will be an analysis of Christianity from the point-of-view of a sociologist.
“He’s able to examine contemporary and historical events through a thoughtful, educated and Christian perspective,” he said. “I’m looking forward to … seeing this different portrayal of Christianity, because that’s the experience I know.”