- Jun 2024
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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To extend thisa bit using a term not present in Barzun’s review, the lesson was thateven if by superior reading skills “culture” became attainable by all,uniform conclusions by enlightened readers would not necessarilyresult.35 A democratic culture did not mean homogeneity necessarily,nor conformity.
How does culture tie us all together? Does shared culture necessarily mean a regression to some mean?
Compare this with the cultural pressure of religious identity in America which does seem to press toward a particular way of thinking, living, and being.
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As Leon Fink wrote of that period,“education ranked . . . high on the agenda” of Progressive intellectu-als and reformers. Considering the logic of reformers he added: “Ifthe people were to seize their democratic birthright for the greatergood . . . they must engage their higher faculties of reason” and be“schooled in sense of civic duty.” This would make them a “demo-cratic public.”8
Check Fink to see where the seeds of this idea of linking education and democracy sprouted...
TL's references for this:<br /> Leon Fink, Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 13–14; Robert B. Fisher, “The People’s Institute of New York City, 1897–1934: Culture, Progressive Democracy, and the People” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974), 1, 9; Hugh S. Moorhead, “The Great Books Movement,” (PhD diss. University of Chicago, 1964), 110–111.
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democratic culture is always at risk. It requires an engaged citi-zenry full of informed, critical voters
evidence?
We hear this regularly, and it seems intuitive, but... where is the proof of this...
Just how "informed" ought a person to be? How critical? Everyone is "critical", the internet is full of criticism, but not necessarily in the sense meant here.
He and others are usually talking about some perceived "perfect democracy" which doesn't really exist in actuality.
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- May 2024
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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Lacy, Tim. The Dream of a Democratic Culture: Mortimer J. Adler and the Great Books Idea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. https://amzn.to/3R2rCox.
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- Aug 2023
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If leisure and political power requirethis education, everybody in America now requires it, andeverybody where democracy and industrialization penetratewill ultimately require it. If the people are not capable ofacquiring this education, they should be deprived of politicalpower and probably of leisure. Their uneducated politicalpower is dangerous, and their uneducated leisure is degrad-ing and will be dangerous. If the people are incapable ofachieving the education that responsible democratic citizen-ship demands, then democracy is doomed, Aristotle rightlycondemned the mass of mankind to natural slavery, and thesooner we set about reversing the trend toward democracythe better it will be for the world.
This is an extreme statement which bundles together a lot without direct evidence.
Written in an era in which there was a lot of pro-Democracy and anti-Communist discussion, Hutchins is making an almost religious statement here which binds education and democracy in the ways in which the Catholic church bound education and religion in scholasticism. While scholasticism may have had benefits, it also caused a variety of ills which took centuries to unwind into the Enlightenment.
Why can't we separate education from democracy? Can't education of this sort live in other polities? Hasn't it? Does critical education necessarily lead to democracy?
What does the explorable solution space of admixtures of critical reasoning and education look like with respect to various forms of government? Could a well-educated population thrive under collectivism or socialism?
The definition of "natural slavery" here is contingent and requires lots of context, particularly of the ways in which Aristotle used it versus our current understanding of chattel slavery.
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Democracy and Education was written before the assemblyline had achieved its dominant position in the industrialworld and before mechanization had depopulated the farmsof America.
Interesting history and possible solutions.
Dewey on the humanization of work front running the dramatic changes of and in work in an industrial age?
Note here the potential coupling of democracy and education as dovetailing ideas rather than separate ideas which can be used simultaneously. We should take care here not to end up with potential baggage that could result in society and culture the way scholasticism combined education and religion in the middle ages onward.
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- Dec 2016
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codkashacabka.files.wordpress.com codkashacabka.files.wordpress.com
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about their expectations
The less we expect of our people, the less democracy we have.
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