We’re taking a bit of a conversational turn on the show to discuss a critical element of democratic politics: citizenship. Are good citizens born or made? If the latter, how do you make and mold a democratic citizen? What habits, values, and moral sensibilities and affections build individuals into civic-minded citizens?
In a polarized age of rapid technological advances that increasingly seem to pull us apart and turn us inward, the need for a robust civics education seems more important than ever, but most of the public discussion descends into hand wringing.
My guest today suggests that the framework for a strong civics education and pathway towards virtuous citizenship not only exists, but it’s relatively simple to deploy… if colleges will get on board.
Eric Adler is a professor and the Classics Chair at the University of Maryland. Today on the podcast, we discuss Eric’s work writing advocating for a classically-informed retrieval of the humanities in America’s institutions of higher education. Dr. Adler views this project as critical to renewing both civility and civics in the US, and we explore both the historic debates surrounding the development and decline of the humanities in American higher education as well as the future possibilities, educational and civic, or its renewal.
Digging deeper
The last word
In a society obsessed with utilitarian approaches to education, our institutions of higher learning should focus on character development just as much as they highlight career training. And in a country often oblivious to the past, they ought to act as stewards of culture, protecting our common human heritage as carefully as they produce new knowledge.
Our system of higher education cannot do these crucial things with leaders who undervalue the humanities, who fail to broaden our approach to the liberal arts beyond the scientistic vision of higher education pioneered in the 19th century.
To a great extent, it appears, our crisis of the humanities is a crisis of academic leadership — a crisis of will, not capacity.
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