institute this runs an hour and a half.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning, if everyone could go ahead and take their seats. so let me -- i'm ben story, senior fellow here at the american enterprise institute, i want to welcome you all to aei's, american university conference. so when jenna, scholar here and i were talking about what we wanted to do by founding a new conference series on the american university here at aei, we wanted to focus on the ways that universities can help themselves and help the rest of

us by doing better the things that they are best built to do. we want today focus on how thinks that universities can be better universities. now society social changes but institutions dedicate today the discovery and transmission of wisdom and awakening and development of the most profound powers of the human mind. we've been working on this with the help of many people in this room who are on the ground on campus working to make universities more like their best se lves, our goal is to gather the best that is being thought said and done in our colleges and universities so that all of us might think these projects through a little bit better together.

.. .. .. may be public pledge address in april to improve pacific education on their campuses. stanford is launching a required course on citizenship in the 21st century. johns hopkins has great the answer to which seeks to realize the promise of the while of war and modern times. other elite private institutions are taking similar effort. i comes to mind duke university has been developing a particularly fine initiative of this kind. the civil discourse project. but then, just a couple of months ago the news broke a

public school just down the road from duke the university of north carolina at chapel hill i which i happen to be an alumnus scooped duke's star player in this particular competitive sports. it's with us here this morning to be the inaugural dean of the new school of civic life and leadership in chapel hill. porte duca. that was not enough you and cv twice in basketball this year. a list tough to be a blue devil these days mary gerry seinfeld could go down to campus and tell them a joke or two to feel better about themselves. [laughter] now, one reason caroline it was when jet away from duke is a great public universities are doing to be more ambitious things that are private universities.

north ghana, texas, arizona, florida, ohio, tennessee, mississippi, have created an cre entirely new academic units. in some cases entire schools and colleges dedicated to civic education and more such projects are on the horizon. many of projects are animated by the insight we need a new bottle of civic education. all the service learning model of civic education at energy does not automatically offer intellectual training for citizenship. it's university's distinctive role to provide. a significant number of thoughtful scholars drawn by administrators, trustees, alumni, parents, students, legislators and other americans now recognize unit university level civic education needs to

be reimagined. they're pouring tremendous resources of time, money, and talents into that effort. such entrepreneurial projects however often failed to achieve their ends. particularly is times to change the spirit of their founding moment has dissipated. has put the history of civic education and colleges and universities is defined above all by repeated verse of civic resolve that have run aground or lost focus. in particular civic education initiatives in the past have dissipated by the pull of the existing researcher disciplines. set the incentives for how faculty live and what students study. how will those involved and

reviving university level civic education meet the challenge of creating something enduring and fruitful of academic life. against the forces that have dissolved them in the past. subfields and keep disciplines such as history, sociology, english and political science be created look at a specific area of the subject matter from a civic perspective. or perhaps, as we approached you and 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence is time for civic education to declare its own independence. perhaps civic education should assume among the powers of the university lead to separate and equal station to which the just demands of the human mind and the human republic.

perhaps civic education as english literature shows became autonomous disciplines not so long ago. new name to mark the distinctive perspective that it brings to the study of human phenomena. as peter levine and others have suggested for civic thought the possibility of conversations among those leading some exciting new initiatives in public universities. however we answer that question, these are projects soon to become new centers of intellectual gravity in the academic world. they are designed with intellectual integrity and play host to great teaching and scholarship that might avoid succumbing to shift some public attention the entropic forces of university life. that might influence for the

better the ideological atmosphere that's come to penetrate the classrooms, the offices, even the famous safe spaces of our campuses. so, to help all of the people involved in these projects do this vital and urgent work reflectively as possible, today we brought together an impressive question of classes, historians, political scientists to think with us about the fundamental question by this watershed moment. what is a citizen? what does it mean to think like a citizen? how have the political and civic thinkers of the past understood what civic education requires? what is american civic education in particular require? does the thinker need to be humanist? do civic education above a liberal education? what lessons can we take from history that conform of academic

the hiring of faculty, the contours of scholarly projects? how should these lessons be reflected in the syllabi of courses the project students undertake the style in which faculty write their books. we've invited jewell to come to ai to ask these questions and others and hope that reflecting on them more integral, more enduring projects of civic education. so the best chance to successfully resist the entropic forces that seek to subsume them. thank you for the time and trouble that many of you have taken to be here. we'll continue long after these sessions and be useful to your intellectual and practical work. so with that i will turn things over to my fellow scholar who

will moderate our first conversation on civic education the ancients and us. [applause] [applause] >> think you and thank you all for coming. good morning and welcome. you might expect a conflict of civic education past and present would begin with the panel on the ages. but, and our view this is not because the exclude chronologically at western civilization. most more importantly to us greeks and romans are fundamental to conceive of a revived civic education today. they sell with fresh eyes a new human capacity paid the capacity for self-government. the capacity to act and to think like a citizen. therefore it uniquely suited to remind us of the noblest

aspirations of citizenship and the kind of education that is necessary to live up to that vocational ideal. the nobility of citizenship, the high demand and accent education, these are important things. scooped circle stalking both civic education as we often do, people like a contradiction in terms. civics is something we have been accustomed to thinking and having primarily in k-12. it's about learning the basic facts of our country's history, the nuts and bolts of our government system. as you come to the conclusion reads offer the kind of education and our universities today, it is because our schools have failed it. universities of education seems like remedial work. in the ancient perspective and in particular it will feature both of our presentations today civics is not just for kids.

it's an endeavor that makes great demands on our minds and honor characters. it could spark sworn intellectual evolution is bound up with the loftiest questions. so this morning, on our planet look here first trip jed atkins you heard about his dramatic move he is now the founding dean and director of the school of civic life and leadership. he also holds the distinguished professorship on the philosophy of women which sets high expectations. [laughter] he's going to talk to us about a more concerned subject and a liberal arts of her civics. after he speaks will hear from eric adler who is a professor and chair of the department of the university of maryland. eric has a doocy duke a phd and the author of several books about roman history and a rhetoric as well as the role of

the classics have played in the history of education and american education when i would particularly recommend his recent book called the battle of the classics 19th century debates can save humanity's today. his presentation this morning is entitled civic education and the need. please join me in welcoming jed atkins to the podium. [applause] >> thank you so much jena for that introduction. the move to from duke to you and see was not that dramatic pair for the last 15 years i went out of my driveway and took a right and drove 10 minutes to work. i know i get in my driveway and take a left and drive 10 minutes to work. it is wonderful to be with you here today. civic life is in crisis.

america's polarizing faster than any other major democracy. republicans and democrats believe that members of their political outgroup are evil. this tremendous polarization is impacting how we address our country's problems of virtually every institutional level from our nations capitol to state capitals. from corporate board rooms to grade school classrooms. trust in on us all of america's institutions that is an all-time low decline in trust includes the university, the majority of americans no longer believe a four-year college degree is worth the cost only 36% have a great deal or have quite a lot of confidence in higher education according to well-publicized gallup poll that was released last spring this is down 48% in 201957% in 2015.

confidence is falling at higherr education across all major subgroups by political affiliation. gender and educational attainment. since october 7 university britain and when this regard. the irony is not lost on the public. the university as an institution that should be best position to foster civil conversations about the weighty matters hope to recruit put sue has become a symbol for our democratic failures. but even amidst the challenges some of us are hopeful the university can equip future citizens and leaders with the knowledge and capacities to discharge the weighty duties of democratic citizenship. my own decision to leave my faculty position at dukes becomes a director and dean of carolina school of civic

leadership was made from confidence in such a hope. and i know many of you here today share this hope. i am going to set up these remarks by recalling something cornell wrote in an essay on democratic hope in the '90s. the prisoner of hope confidently faces the future and the light of the best of the past. as a scholar of classical philosophy of spent a good many years are wrestling with how my work and enrich our understanding of our present political i only like this way of putting the questions. face the future in light of the past? the best in the past into the future is a tradition. often tradition can sound stale and antiquated rather than living and vibrant. one of my friends and former colleagues and theologian roe

likes to speak in terms of traditions innovation. liberal arts itself offers a tradition of education for civic license thought. civic education in this sense might be regarded as that liberal arts for civics. what are some features of such a tradition? how does this a tradition of these features of this tradition distinguish liberal arts for civics from other approaches to civic education. catching a brief answer to these questions i'm going to ask for your patience. i want to draw it out on the bue whole of the liberal arts tradition but i have two excuses for doing so. first this is like when invited me. but he would say about civic education like many professors i'm a good student who likes to do my homework. and so might homework assignment

is completed. but to give credit where credit is due or making a special compelling assignment for a participant on the panel on civic education and the ancients and us. eyes.cicero was an important eay figure and it liberal arts libes tradition. one can make a good case he was the founder of the liberal arts for civic tradition. let me briefly explain. it was one of the writings the term liberal arts first appeared. this work was widely read during the renaissance. had a profound impact on civic and rhetorical education. cicero rights with reference to a life that's proper to consider among what men and whose direction he has been educated. teachers of a liberal arts he has had. what instructors were living.

what business or employment are craftsmanship he has occupied? in what manner does he administer property and what are his household traditions? rule arts. includes alongside other terms he does not explain it. the term would have been familiar to his contemporaries. the use of the term does not seem to innovate. in his early 20s he would later dismiss it as an unpolished work of his youth. google arches in a practical context for once way of life this is also the world. but still, like much else and 60 year old sister deepen and

develop his thoughts on the liberal arts for the rest of his life course for next four decades he would distinct ways one greek and went roman. eventually works of the content of the liberal arts but philosophy that most greek subjects should have an important place. in deed and the work it characterizes is youthful and unpolished his last work on duties he advises his son to read cicero's own writings on philosophy which contains deep engagement with philosophical's of his stated this would supplement the education in athens brought duty with the letter written to marcus junior as he is studying abroad in athens and the publication was addressed to the aspiring young roman ruling class. philosophy is a good development

but it's less important for that. indeed in a letter to one of his friends he will cite philosophy is that liberal art that delights and most of all. and so and cicero's works taken place among the other pursuits being arts after rhetoric and literature and logic and grammar and astronomy, history, and music. all of these was such a rhetoric were seen by cicero and other romans to be greek. even in his later work on moral and that have been transmitted into the latin language units fell at romans may consider them. as being our own. that is the grebe development. this will make clear that liberal arts will have a civic dimension. when he came to the study of politics the romans, but ciceroo could include it would not

succeed for space of the greeks. when it broadens to include the study of the way of life of human beings and political affairs. the late this week become the title of the people on the ideal order on the commonwealth. there a character from a distinguish from my family confesses when it comes to the study of the way of human beings and political affairs he's learned much from the greeks. the commonwealth is not all republic. cicero portrays in the life of human beings and about political affairs. still the roman term as a civic term. i ask you to look at me in this

way. as somewhat neither ignorant of greek learning, nor deferring to the greeks vertically on the subject. educated by the father and inflame from childhood with the desire of learning educated much more by experience that my books. the roman dementia and the liberal arts curriculum was specific dimension but one must study questions. cicero's on the commonwealth takes up the question of to whether and what degree we can achieve a political science with a predicted power and some sense to astronomy is doubtful. but a particular perspective in a particular context. to be a citizen is to be from somewhere. and to occupy some perspective.

once study of the timeless questions has the potential to lift at least to some extent us beyond our immediate horizons and commitments. that liberal arts manifests itself in the civics driving a global arts is a profoundly cicero and he and. for the rest of my time and going to briefly unfold three dimensions of ideas of liberal arts for civics that are relevant to the current civic education movement. again keeping with my homework assignment of today's panel. first of all liberal arts civics combined the political and humanistic. liberal arts for civics combines the political and humanistic. cicero's writing the study of

the rate of life of human beings is linked with the study of political affairs. those who slogans those tags go together. i was at later tradition also kept them together. north carolina general assembly met to establish university of north carolina as our nation's first public university, they did so because they were convinced and convicted they have the duty to establish it education to promote the happiness of a rising generation. and for them for an honorable discharge of the social duty of paying the strictest of attention to their education. the founders of the first public university right without human happiness and civic responsibilities weren't linked .that record is healthy republic required citizens committed to fairways and state invasion to one another. and political charity could not

be achieved without civic education. now called the humanity. we don't suit must not be uncoupled by political analysis and commitment. the history of totalitarian regime of the 20th century with there on the left or on the rights becomes invested with that purpose and meaning that they are not able to bear. politics is transformed into an ideology that is compromised. human happiness of purpose and meaning are necessary to keep politics in its proper perspective. the verse body of citizens work together to come up the best solutions to the current common

problem. for my money the discourse runs downstream from a deeper crisis. the crisis of human meaning and purpose and value. second, liberal arts for civic is vocational. it is vocational for the type of liberal arts education those concerned with the big questions is certainly contrasted with rational education. on one hand that is at peace with the tradition of liberal arts or civics. famously and cicero's on the ideal order we are told the study was the form of learning worthy of a person. and the term worth here what evoke an elite status that freed one from every day menial tasks.

that is one of perspective. on the other hand clearly presents liberal arts as a piece with questions of one choice. business, employment, craftsmanship of the management of property. i suggest we reframe the issue. cicero is not so much talk about the compatibility of liberal arts and technical trading but liberal arts and vocational. the latter invites guidance from the former of one's calling her choice of roles that one will and habits. one chooses to conduct oneself in these roles and offices. the element is clear as duties he talks about the role of the human, which we all play. he addresses how that should relate to and instruct the other various we take up. the doctor, the magistrate, the

soldier, cicero provides advice based on part of the liberal arts curriculum to young roman men have issued consider professions. though they should live and flourish as human beings and other various personal roles. my expense or civics are hungry for such guidance. liberal arts specifics that ignores vocational connection is missing an important opportunity. third, liberal arts for civics offers a general strip of knowledge which is important for political leadership and political rhetoric and decision-making. liberal arts is an education for leadership cicero believes the general strip of knowledge

offered provides the context for political leadership or in decision-making. the dialogue to this point not least the work like the eye on the ideal order and laws at various points in these works especially. cicero suggests that we need to have some knowledge of the whole including knowledge of the natural world. in the place of humanity within it. such a general studies should help the student understand that he and furnish the type of rhetoric and virtues necessary and i continued to vote to guide people, to establish laws and protect the good. famous men into issue instructions for the safety and glory suited to persuading his fellow citizens. his connection between liberal arts education leadership was a powerful and illustrated by the

students by the late charlie hill. charlie was a distinguished diplomat along the founder or greatest strategy program. we talked about leadership and hill said leaders make decisions for them make judgments to take responsibility for decisions that make others. what knowledge and skills are needed? how are they to be acquired? that was a conversation for the lunch conversation this is what charlie told my students. he said you know white generals are called generals? generals are called generals because they are in general less. they have knowledge of the broader context to make make des in a particular domain this case the military the general grasp allows them to weigh and balance the different knowledge information of the specialist. to weigh the alternatives to make a reasonable decision it promotes the good of the institution.

a leader within civic, social political context must have the knowledge of the domain of civic thought. they ask where you have the opportunity to acquire the generalist of knowledge and capacities needed for leadership? not in the workforce or in graduate school. or a professional school, where you will quickly specialize. and your undergraduate education take advantage of this opportunity pursue a liberal arts education not a professional when he advised my students. of course leadership dimension of a suggests an education for a few. we cannot all be leaders. cicero runs to rome is fine with this. others beginning at least the riding in the country have been troubled.closer to the truth ine

best arguments and evidence that

is a difficult undertaking. it's far better. thanks. [applause] thank you for the kind introduction. a civic education into the need for a more humanism. the story asked me to link my presentation to my book from 2020 call the battle of the classics i did my homework as it turns out so we have the basic argument of that book and as you are going to see it focuses on the proper defense of the humanities. but by the conclusion of my remarks i will also related the thesis of the book to the topic of today's conference that is to

say civic education. in an attempt to argue american institutions of higher learning are going to succeed and providing their students a decent approach to civic education. they will need to revisit the spirit of humanism that has been marginalized in u.s. colleges since the late 19th century. as you are probably aware that humanities aren't a very well these days. in response to the situation, scholars of the humanities have fought back and in my book i joined their ranks but also disagreed profoundly to show why the humanities matter and must play a foundational role. the rationale pertains to civic education as well. many contemporary defenders of the humanities provide answers

to the questions what should the humanities do. to determine whether they provided the best defenses of the humanities that we can muster i note most recent defenses are not really defenses of the humanities per se. rather they center to inculcate various skills in students. the skill most often vouched for for critical thinking. they promote critical thinking and the skills to raise a

dissenting voice. apologists who center their case on critical thinking are obviously well-intentioned. those who base their case on this thinking seldom determine what that means. as victor noted in his book liberal arts at the brink, quote, there are few college presidents who do not routinely feature critical thinking but what exactly is critical thinking and how does it differ from plain old good thinking given the importance of the contemporary defenses of the humanity the striking would feel the need to explain this concept. why would they allow the argument that the professor of english literature to dismiss as a phrase without content.

moreover to convince skeptics the disciplines must be maintained in higher education it seems crucial to demonstrate the humanities provide something that other disciplines do not yet it is far from a certain it is the sole domain of the humanities. can they contend they do not know how to think critically and as they wondered whatever critical thinking maybe why is it more likely to be learned by the english literature or philosophy than business management. we can point to another downside associated with justifying humanities and the critical thinking. the problem is the recent defenders of the humanities recently appeal to the authority of the social sciences to validate conclusions about the humanities as conduits for promoting the skill set. social scientists conduct which

most effectively promote critical thinking however they define it. as a result, skills-based defenses suggest the social sciences and not the humanities have the proper tools to assess value thus must turn to social scientists to validate their impressions. by doing so they demonstrate the superior value of the social sciences and a signal that they lack any ability to evaluate. the dangers to the social scientific justification for the humanities shouldn't appear obvious. what happens when a group of social scientists conduct a study that shows engineering majors outperform in humanities majors and some skills they associate with the collegiate learning and of the humanity must live by the social sciences they will die by the social sciences. in opposition to the

skills-based approach that dominates the recent humanities my book seeks to provide a substance-based defense for the humanities. to do so it looks back at american education history to a time when debates over the role of the humanities in higher education took central stage. in the late 19th century america witnessed what historians in higher education labeled the battle of the classics. at this time most intellectual energy in the nation was expended on by the defenses of the role of the humanities then commonly conceived of as the classical humanities in lower learning. the traditionalists in the battle of the classics hoped to maintain the classical languages in many cases synonymous with the humanities as the core of higher education in the u.s. opponents that are often called modernists by contrast to any

prescription and the dominance of ancient greek in the american colleges. i think that we can learn much from these arguments that will be applicable to our own situation. later chapters analyze the debates over the role of the classical humanities and the battle of the classics and argue traditional defenders in the late 19th century made the exact same error that the defenders of the modern humanities are making today the defenders overwhelmingly base their case with a classical humanities on skills and more specifically the traditionalists maintained central parts of the u.s. college curriculum because they were supposedly the best infiltrators of something called mental discipline.

as one needs to exercise to grow strong one must exercise one's mind to increase the faculty and sensibility. they must remain prescribed elements of the curriculum because they supposedly offered the most effective form. it didn't take long to debunk that claim as various social scientists noted at the time there was any proof that studying the ancient languages was taxing than to make matters worse by stressing the cardinal importance of mental discipline

it unwittingly made social scientists the arbiters of education value thus for example when the psychologist reported on a study he conducted of american high school students in which he demonstrated then those that had taken stenography classes the supporters of the languages had no answers. for the humanities to understand because as the historian has correctly stressed critical thinking is the conceptual successor. the current apologetics in the modern humanistic disciplines which routinely reflect the critical thinking suffer from the same flaws in the defenses of the classical humanities in the context. such should be obvious to the

humanistic tradition. those that reshape and reinvigorated the classical humanities and renaissance revolted against the skills focused in the european higher education. they had placed paramount value on the techniques associated with the reasoning. it was in opposition to the spirit such as leonardo advocated a curriculum based on the works of ancient greek and literature. to the fellow humanists such had to be encountered by all students because they could perfect the students character and style. thus supported a curriculum of substance work of great wisdom on self-improvement. importantly to the renaissance humanist is seen as too narrow to meet the intellectual needs

of the present. how then can humanists defend the approach to the modern humanities? steering clear often associated with the pieces of ancient greek and roman literature were the great books. here i think it is to focus on a crucial figure in the humanistic tradition who wrote at the tail end of the battle of the classics. irving in 1865 to 1933 is a professor of french at harvard university and provided the strongest defense of the humanities in his era in opposition to the skills focused apologetics of the late 19th century, he rekindled a genuinely humanistic approach to the study of literature. when properly studied he maintained the humanities shouldn't label people to live up to their higher

potentialities. they've expressed the duality of human nature and to babbitt, human beings possess both impulsive desires and the ability to restrain or affirm these desires. during and believed the humanistic education must present students with works of great insight to engage their imaginations. such works would enable them to strengthen the check through such means and they might have happier lives. the modernists in the battle of the classics had abandoned that conception of education and abandoned humanism.

modern american higher education had traded in its commitment to humanism frail and all-encompassing humanitarianism and identified two types of humanitarianism that in the absence of the counterweight were together striking higher learning in the u.s. the first scientific naturalism identified and the second sentimental as the most powerful exponent of romanticism. more generally he denied the duality of human nature and believed human beings were intrinsically good and the society and its institutions had corrupted them thus preached the cultivation of the impulses and viewed him as the intellectual inspiration for the elective

curriculum championed in the battle of the classics. the system that remains with us and slightly modified form allows students to choose all of their own courses. about the scheme he wrote in the first book, quote, there is no general norm as the humanists believed with reference to select courses he should make his selection with reference to his own temperament and supposedly unique requirements. the wisdom of all the agents is to be not as compared with the inclination of the software,." to the sentimental naturalists with human nature there was no need for young people to increase their characters because human beings were by nature good. thus the scientific naturalists could avoid the goal of character development in favor of a false path of gaining power over the natural world.

by achieving scientific naturalists lost control over themselves. naturalists whether the utilitarian variety denied of the civil war in the case. a war between human beings and society. without regard for personal improvement the cultivation of one's role and is present humanitarianism would unleash order on the world. at the contemporary curriculum promotes the message that discipline specific skills or the obtainment of an educated person. this is not a curriculum that will allow humanism or civic education to thrive. moreover stressed such a curriculum approach is based on the unsound foundation that people can rightly avoid the goal of self-improvement in favor of turning their attention to improving the world.

while underscoring the cardinal importance of character formation, he also managed to broaden the humanistic tradition to allow it to look beyond its western origins. western origins. he did so by stressing the problem of the one and the many. he transferred the problem of the one and the many to the human soul. human beings are simultaneously all different and all the same. as such all human traditions have contributed to the wisdom of the ages, the universal experience that could help us determine the standards for life. he demonstrated a proper approach to the humanities should center around the study of global masterworks. after all it led to a rich variety past and present. we can attempt to discover whether there is a central court

of human wisdom that could help us grapple with the best ways to live. in order to thrive, the humanities needed to do something that other disciplines in the contemporary academy do not do. how does this pertain to civic education? and a few fundamental ways i think. first, i would note civic education just like the humanities cannot be taught well through the distribution system that dominates general education in american universities. the distribution system, which is based on what was first called required electives implicitly contends no content is more important than any other free and educated person. it is a difference between comic books and the federalist papers. all are simply text through which students can learn skills. as the stories report on the

civic thought correctly maintains, civic education cannot deny the importance of content thus their approach to the curriculum identifies the writings of specific authors for example plato, catherine of siena and frederick douglass is indispensable for civic education. proponents of civic education then must fight against the choose your own adventure curriculum that dominates american higher education. second, civic education cannot thrive without a concern for character development that is properly associated with humanism. benjamin franklin famously responded to a woman who asked him what the constitutional convention of 1787 had produced with of the republic if you can keep it. franklin meant that he constitutional republic necessitates great intellectual and moral prerequisites among its citizens. the citizens needed to possess what the philosopher has called

the constitutional personality. a system of higher education based on scientific and sentimental naturalism which cast aside character development would do a poor job at providing the u.s. with citizens of high character who possessed this constitutional personality. it is instead supplying america with what was called efficient megalomaniacs. [laughter] it should be noted that cicero that offered the first theoretical articulations of the value of humanistic education is talked about vouch for this approach to pedagogy in the context of a crumbling roman republic. for cicero, the humanistic education can supply people with a moral quality necessary to save the roman state, thus cicero intrinsically connected humanistic education and civic

education. our higher education's obsession with methods at the expense of content speaks to its dangerous one sidedness. we cannot improve the world if we cannot improve ourselves. for this reason, our institutions of higher learning require an approach to civic education and a new human. thank you very much. [applause] thanks to both of you for those very rich and interesting presentations. i'm going to ask you some questions for about ten, 15 minutes and then we will open up to the audience. my first question has to do with a topic you both raised. too many people working on civic education and the university today that is the relations of civic education to liberal education. so i might set out a view of ref this that is common among some

people working in the university and i would like you to respond to that. on the view of civic education it's about pouring knowledge and informing people about the particular community to which they were born whereas liberal education is about questioning what you've learned and becoming more attached and focused. as a little twist or a complementto this by referring k of campbell is a great historian who might attribute this position to the dominance of what he calls the liberal education that was dominant in his telling in the 20th century higher education institutions and i think is a hypertrophied position laid out. according to bruce campbell it was obviously a different account of the relation of civic and liberal education. i'm curious to know if you can

tell us in a nutshell what is the understanding of the liberal education to say to the understanding and also witnesses or know what to say to the character diversion of these understanding offered at the beginning. >> i will go ahead and start. i touched on my talk a little bit the civic education is an education concerned with place that has an acknowledgment that we come from a place, we don't start from nowhere. and in the liberal education it's one that invites us to these starting points to think about the higher and universal but never transcend those starting points.

and again one of the great glories of being at a public university like where we have students from every county in the state, rural counties and cities and different backgrounds we have a great diversity and of the type of a liberal education that we ask from these starting points we are not saying to begin from there but then we can also share this intellectual undertaking that invites to transcend personal perspectives in the enterprise and then the terms from hopefully a deeper point of view. it's the kind of perspective that invites you permission to

stay home or return home. so often there is a type of education that i encountered so often in my past institution where cities felt it was perceived to move up and move on and move out, and i needed to tell them that that's fine if you want to move up intellectually and religiously and politically and all the ways they feel they must if that is true for you, but you also need to know and be able to have the freedom to return home to your place. and that i think is a specific part of the education that it gives you the freedom to return home and to love that place and

invest in that place and build that place. >> i admire the work very much. an extraordinarily strong. i think that he would admit this distinction between the philosophical foundation for the liberal arts and the kind of rhetorical information is the simplification and i think here it probably hurts us more than it helps, so it isn't really about questioning but also learning the substance of things in the course of when it's occasion we should think about the natural sciences inc. the social sciences and so forth. and a similarly the civic education, you are going to learn lots of things but when a student is naturally going to be questioned about some of those things about the tradition itself and so forth. so i think that there are some strands blended together better than the kind of decision to try to push them apart would suggest. >> i want to ask about another question many of us are talking

about today which is from the observation that civic education currently doesn't have an adequate home in the university. you both talked about that a little bit today and in another context. how do you think the civic education can be defined and entering place? >> while, that is a big question and a good question and i suppose also a question for strategy. in other words what you think civic education is about and also a place of how that education fits within our different institutions and a different direction. the certificate is liberal education for civics and there's a place where it's the type of education that transcends any

kind of discipline. i would imagine if one wanted i think the closest one might think about this coming up with aristotle, this older idea of politics, studying the regime, the role of light in the city and institutions. the architect knowledge that guides the orders of all the other subdisciplines. if one wanted to recover a certain type of field i would actually suggest it is probably aristotle that would be the ultimate model recovering and restoring the understanding of politics like a tectonic discipline. i think really they look at

liberal art specifics and that could be understood but it also could be as a different field that opens up to the different questions and provides a perspective in which to understand the possibilities each field provides. this different options and it's a strategic sort of question. >> i was listening yesterday to the conversation you had in which you talk about what seems to be for understandable pragmatic reasons a very strong rationale for making civic thought into a discipline. i understand that and i think too big degree i agree on the

pragmatic level to make this something that is lasting and at the same time you talk about or you talked about the fact this was also important to general education so it wasn't a sort of an all or nothing one or the other. i confess that although i understand that strategy of making this into its own discipline, my understanding of the history of higher education makes me more nervous about that to some degree. what i'm talking about for instance i'm reading a book right now by john called professing criticism in which he talks about the way in which various academic fields professionalized in the united states in the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries so he's focusing on the literary criticism and one thing that he notes is in the course of the professionalization, the disciplines start to become more homogenous. they are more like one another as a result of the process encouraging that so they'll wind up having their own peer-reviewed journals that tend to work on more minute questions

into the scholarly societies and so forth. my fear is if we only make this into its own discipline that despite the best of intentions that 20, 30, 40 years in the future what's going to happen is it's going to look a lot more like the other disciplines in the contemporary academy of which democratic. more focused on the scientific naturalism and less focused on the kind of things that we've been talking about and stories of the great big broad questions viewed generalists, being able and capable to be a citizen as opposed to someone with a narrow technocratic specialist. pragmatic that is one avenue in which i think general education is deeply important, but i do think we have to if we are going to go in that direction i don't know why i say we but if you go in that direction then i think

at the same time we have to recognize and guard against certain pitfalls with that socialization process. >> very good. not the place to debate that right now, but very interesting perspective and look forward to that. i will ask my last question then open up to the audience. so, another discussion that's being had among the civic education today is whether civic education should be primarily focused on developing capable citizens of the national community particularly of the american democratic republic or whether the civic virtues that we are teaching should be aimed equally at a variety of different kinds of groups, state and local governments, churches, schools, advocacy groups, international organizations. so, i'm curious to know what you thinink about that.

>> for this final question i think cicero's answer is pretty clear in the sense that on duty as he elaborates a persuasive account of the society where you began with the household of family and move out through your allegiances to have the village and the nation and to some extent the world and you have the proximity and that your deepest commitment and love should be to those that are closest. and by loving people and actual places and it can be broadened and deepened. should never be left behind.

to put that into a public context i at a public university, they have something to say. they must have something to say. about the country. developing the knowledge of local history is foundational, and understanding as we want to understand, must do so in the context of other regimes, other times and places. it simply deepens the self-knowledge and learn from others, an example, i taught a course called good life, and

the new testament, it deepens that whether from china or not. come from a chinese confucian crew traditional christian and there's a deeper understanding as we engage with thoughts about ultimate questions that help us revisit and rethink and at the end of the day come to appreciate more deeply their own traditions so i don't think -- it's at a piece and i do think from that perspective there must be a place for the local and the state and the nation. >> i would reinforce what judd has said. it's the order though i can't remember where cicero talked about the subject's requisites for education of an order and

statesman and that history is one thing that one ought to know and he specifically says one needs to know about one's own polity's history, but others as well and the idea, he doesn't fully flesh this out, you will get no sense of the strengths and weaknesses of your own polity unless you look at the history of other polities as well. even for civic project for one's own area it seems important to learn about other regime types in the history of other areas or you will have a much narrower understanding of your own polity than is -- i don't see attention between those two things. >> raise your hand if you have a question. introduce your self and wait for the microphone to start. make it to the side of our room. ryan is over here.

in the front, thank you. >> i barely flickered my hand. larry cooper at carleton college. i am in great sympathy of everything i heard today but concerned that we are writing off a caricature something that can't be written off so easily and my question, isn't there something intrinsic to liberal arts education, just call it philosophy or socratic philosophy that at the minimum is in tension with this particularism and you can think about what has been observed historically by rousseau, nietzsche, critical history and

the like and let's say thinking of plato's republic as a work that possesses two kinds of liberal education and those who ultimately study dialectic and philosophy don't do so until an advanced age and not until after they have had a musical and gymnastic education that grounds them and love of their own. that may suggest that some set of principles on which we could protect against subversive skepticism if that is what it is but i wonder if you could speak to that a little bit. >> i do think there's a tension but it's a productive tension. part of the human condition is

one the wrestles with the knowledge of our own partial perspective that have shaped us, and the universal, and i think that part of being a political animal is to belong somewhere, to be embodied and state politics if you think of the philosopher who transcends the cave and has to go back down. we are living in the cave, i think those wrestling with what is our own and what is universal, and the reading of plato's republic touches on

exactly this point of tension between things that are one's own and things that are universal and i think actually that -- i don't think that is above any place but is a future. that is what i want my students to do, to wrestle with the truth seeking that is on their lives. and they recognize and affect on their own -- obligations one has from the community use in which they've grown up. actually that has chastened. on the one hand a type the type of critical perspective that asks us to leave behind, created us and supported us but on the other hand hoping to give a perspective on our past

and commitments that can be helpful and reflective to help us think more about who we are and who we want to become. the tension is very much a feature and cicero's own reading is interesting because he criticizes plato, plato moves too much beyond for the commitments to the present, you need to have both their. >> jim stoner. >> jim stoner. the particular's question about our particular, america and what are the tensions with america in particular. it struck me three came to mind in the course of your comments, first, in relation to professor

adler, defending education in relation to skills just appeals to the american practical sensitive tocqueville is right about americans you won't defend things if you can't speak up the practice, second, the professor's comments about one's own place, americans are always on the move, we are a country of the frontier, commercial society, we've moved from the beginning, that's part of what we are. we called the new world but i'm tempted to say the spirit of the sophomore is the spirit of america in a lot of ways. i wouldn't -- the third point is something you mentioned in passing that has to do with the christian side of things. we are not as religious a people as we were when justice douglas through that into a supreme court opinion when he

thought he might but doesn't that create a certain tension with the project of civic education that is highly informed? >> if i could look at the part that was addressed to me, i fully recognize that this is a strong point that are can't say come study the classics, we are going to make you a perfect person, we are going to make you live up to their higher potentialities and so forth. there's a degree to which one has to reinforce the schools focused narrative in order to give parents who are nervous or spending a lot of money and are nervous about what the end outcome is going to be, about the value of that particular education and the suggestion the person is going to be perfect it is not going to be a

great argument in the classroom. this is another reason why i think general education and reform of general education is so important. i don't think only classics majors need to be better people, everyone should be a better person so i think we should focus more attention on general education and less on the majors as we do as a sign of success. at the same time i do think institutions of higher learning should be in some senses countercultural institutions that actually reinforce some of the hierarchy you don't see in the leveling of the united states, one of the major problems it seems to me as a focus on democratizing everything which fits very much with the american character and i'm not an opponent of democracy but there's a sense in which institutions of higher learning need to offer something else as well and that will be you to the benefit of the united states and individual citizens too.

>> just to add, one thing is we are not rome. america has a certain type of culture, the american frontier, the idea of opening and adventure and that's really important. on the other hand, on the other hand that might be all the more reason why from time to time we must be reminded of place and commitment and ties as part of profiling more fully orbited education within the american political order, i would say, for the question. and the question about the practical.

because we have been so happy to have in a couple months coming to search me out and one of the things they want is guidance on how to live well. 50% of surgeons across the medical field suffer burnout so we have a deep crisis in purpose in the medical field and civil discourse in the medical profession. when we think of civic education these are not merely instrumental, more capacious and steer away to lead a wise in the context of their profession and their careers and so that is not just skill.

that's providing something deeper and richer and i see a deep hunger for that in our students. >> an opportunity to ask questions? >> thank you all. i fully appreciate your concerns about the obvious case and that concert in and your emphasis on the importance of general education which everybody in this room has loved and teachers in here, part of their teaching work, however, i want to make an argument for thinking about this in a different way, in part, strategic and substantive arguments. as you know, general education is a thing of importance, what constitutes general education?

there can be no general education without some sort of adjustment. the secondly, the argument for thinking about civic education is a discipline in its own right, there is such a thing as a disciplined generalist. judge joe give us an example driving a generalist who thinks about wide range of things in a new way. would it not be appropriate to have a body of scholars on campus who understood it as their distinctive mission to cultivate that kind of general intellectual confidence in dealing with all the things upon which our civics concerns touch? >> thank you for those thoughts. i agree with what you said entirely especially as far as strategically how to handle things because suggesting, you don't want to make this a discipline, you want to do something else, everything else you try to do is going to be a

lot harder in some sense. that's part of your point. you have to change education, it's not about a distribution system, you have to set up a core curriculum, you have to get all kinds of buy-in from the rest of the faculty who are following in some sense and incentive structure that is opposed to a core curriculum. something that strikes me in writing about these issues, number of people opposed to a core curriculum of any support suggests it is illogical. i submitted is for pragmatic reasons and it is because professors want to spend as little time as possible preparing their courses so they can spend as much time as possible doing their narrow peer-reviewed research because that is what they are incentivized it to do because that is how they get hired, that's how they get promoted and get tenured and jobs elsewhere. to fight against that is going to be very very difficult. at the same time, that sort of tension is going to have an effect on any field including

civic process fields. civic plot professors in their own disciplines cannot simply sit there and discuss what it means to be a citizen. they have to produce peer-reviewed research to get promotion and tenure and jobs and so forth. this has to be done carefully because you are fighting against the culture of the institution which is anti-humanistic and therefore anti-civic education as a broad generalist project. i take your point that's the best way pragmatically forward. there are pitfalls involved in that too. >> demetri. >> thank you. i am a grad student at harvard. a question for professor adler, between the content debate and skill-based. so i was intrigued by your

treatment but it sounded to me like the argument is still with the kind of school-based argument. you called it strengthening the inner text. sounds to me like self-mastery, self-discipline and maybe that's better than critical thinking that out to be promoted over critical thinking but how does a particular content relate to that skill? >> thank you. that's a really good point and something i wrestled with in writing the book. to some degree everything is a skill. how can you say you're not learning skills by learning? your learning skills even when you are not in the classroom you are learning as well. there's a sense in which self-mastery or what have you is a skill too. i agree with that but only to a limited extent and one of the reasons why i do is this is the

kind of, i think, simplification of babbitt's ideas i offered to suggest it all boils down to this. one of the things babbitt talks about which i think is deeply important as well as the role of the imagination in human flourishing one of the other reasons he thinks that content is so important because what we read matters, what we take in matters. this is something that advertisers recognize implicitly. when we watch television and you see a commercial seldom do you see a commercially which they tell you what the benefits of the products are, you see matthew mcconaughey shirtless driving a lincoln. people would be fools to think that if they buy a lincoln, sorry to say this, that you are going to be transformed into a shirtless matthew mcconaughey. at the same time that obviously works because that is what they put out on the air and this gives us a sense of the importance of the imagination and the way we see the world more generally.

the content is important to that. one of the strange things about the fight over k-12 education versus higher education is there are very serious fights about what the curriculum not to be in k-12, whether they're out to be the odyssey are heavy and adult fiction and people get to college and think whatever you want, doesn't make any difference. that, seems to be, is undercutting the role of the imagination so i agree that there is a sense in which this idea of self-mastery is a skill, it will be impossible to quantify, however, so i don't think you're going to be able to find social scientists who will test whether you sufficiently self mastered or happiness, the ultimate goal of happiness is another problem as well but in some sense by seeing that only as a skill, we are undercutting the broader value of what he's trying to say. >> we are out of time at this point but we will reconvene in half an hour. would you please join me in

thanking our two? [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> today on c-sp t houses back at 10 a.m. for general speecs followed by legislative business at noon. members will begin the process of considering several police related bills to highlight national police week. on c-span 2 the senate returns at 10 am eastern to consider the nonaon or permanent representative to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. asell as district court nomination for eastern new rk at 10 a.m. am on an