Education and Politics
5th January 2017
Alberto Mingardi riffs on a Kevin Williamson article.
In the 19th century, people of a liberal bent tended to support a wider franchise because they maintained that if everybody had a say in decision-making, the quality of decisions would go up. It was easy for kings and aristocrats to send a country to war: they had limited skin in the game, as they tended to observe the battlefield from distance. Let those who are going to die for the king’s honour and pride decide; they might prove more aware of the costs of their rulers’ decisions.
But a big part of the argument for democracy was in fact an argument for a better informed political discussion. Those who believed in expanding the franchise also believed in popular education and a wider diffusion of political gazette. Democracy and mass literacy should lead us towards saner policies: to become better able to engage the government as intellectually prepared citizens.
Here we are. Does better education really make politics saner?
I would argue: Yes, if it really is education. But what we have today isn’t education, but indoctrination, less obtrusive and therefore more insidious than what occurred in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and other totalitarian states.