Liberal Democracy and Liberal Education

Contributions by John Agresto, James W. Ceaser, Daniel E. Cullen, Donald Downs, Robert P. George, Jakub Grygiel, Yuval Levin, Wilfred M. McClay, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr., Stephen H. Wirls Edited by Daniel E. Cullen

Not available to order

Publication date:

24 December 2016

Length of book:

190 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498502474

The essays in this book reflect on the paradoxical relationship of liberal education and liberal democracy. Liberal education emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, detached from all instrumental purposes. It also aims at liberation from the manifold sources of unfreedom, including political sources. In this sense, liberal education is negative, questioning any and all constraints on the activity of mind. Liberal democracy, devoted to securing individual natural rights, purports to be the regime of liberty par excellence. Since both liberal education and liberal democracy aim to set individuals free, they would seem to be harmonious and mutually reinforcing. But there are reasons to doubt that liberal education can be the civic education liberal democracy needs. If liberal education is in tension with all instrumental purposes, how does it stand toward the goal of preparing the kind of citizens liberal democracy needs? The book’s contributors are critical of the way higher education typically interprets its responsibility for educating citizens, and they link those failures to academia’s neglect of certain founding principles of the American political tradition and of the traditional liberal arts ideal.

1. Liberal Education and Liberal Democracy
2. Political Science and Civic Education
3. Jefferson’s Failed Vision of Education as a Constitution of Liberty
4. Civic Education and Economic Liberty
5. Educating for National Security
6. Liberal Education, Civic Responsibility and Patriotism
7. Educating for Citizenship: Problems and Prospects
8. Liberal Education, Politics, and the Problem of Freedom
9. What’s So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?
10. A Dirge for the Liberal Arts, a Defense of Western Civilization, and a Prescription for Teaching Patriotism

Daniel Cullen has assembled some of America’s leading thinkers on liberal democracy and liberal education to consider an old but still pressing question: what type of education is suited to a free people such that they might enjoy, and maintain, their freedom? The contributions are fascinating on their own terms, and they interact with one another in surprisingly fresh ways. Essential reading for anyone who cares about the formation of democratic citizens.