A Populace of Employees, Not Citizens (by Karin Lauria)
June 22, 2008
In “The dumbing down of voters” (Op-ed, June 15) Rick Shenkman attributes Americans’ political ignorance to television and the collapse of labor unions. I think there is a deeper problem: The United States tends to raise employees, not citizens.
Our culture emphasizes so-called practical skills, while we thumb our noses at theory, as if theory had no practical effect. Education is being reduced to job training. The humanities suggest pleasant ways to spend our “free time,” as if literature, art, philosophy, and religion had nothing to teach us about how we ought to live.
Work is supposed to be hard, or it’s not work. To commit your life to service means taking a vow of poverty, as if one cannot do good and do well. In short, we are encouraged to act without deep reflection, to toil away without questioning. And, sadly, I suspect that’s how politicians like it.
Karin Lauria
Source: www.boston.com
William Lynn :: Jun.22.2008 :: Ethics, Politics :: 4 Comments »
Generally I think you’ve got a good point: our school systems shouldn’t be focusing on training future workers, but on educating human beings. At the same time, though, I have two thoughts:
1. We should be careful not to over-emphasize studying the humanities or natural sciences in place of job training: the fact is, people *do* need skills to support themselves financially, and the more job training a person has, the better off she is.
2. I think your last comment–that “that’s how politicians like it”–isn’t very fair. Lots of people who have and do hold political office care deeply about education as an end in itself. Besides which, I’m not sure I even see a motivation for why politicians would be glad people only care about learning to get a better job.
And again, please feel free to comment back at me!
–TMG
Hi Moral Guy,
Thanks for your comments. Regarding your first point, I agree that people do need job skills. No where in my letter do I suggest or imply otherwise. The point I was trying to make was that job training is not a substitute for education, broadly understood as helping to shape thoughtful, curious, questioning, and self-reflective people, as opposed to churning out employees. So, as you say, I think we are in agreement there.
Regarding your second point, I’m not clear about what you mean when you say “education as an end in itself.” Can you unpack that a bit?
Finally, given the high level of government corruption by corporations, I’m not at all surprised that there would be politicians who would see benefits in a populace so focused on their jobs that they don’t have time to think about politics.
Thanks again.
Karin
Karin’s points are well-taken. A recent interview with Diane Auer Jones sheds some light on the matter. Ms. Jones is the Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education in the Bush Administration. She recently told the Chronicle of Higher Education
that,
Ms. Jones has left the Department in part for this reason.
You can read the article, Liberal Arts Undervalued by Education Department, Official Says After Quitting at the Chronicle’s website, http://www.chronicle.com.
Hi Karin,
Thanks for responding to my post…always good to know somebody reads these things! I think we’re in agreement about there being some importance to making sure people learn the skills needed to become gainfully employed.
But you asked me to explain what I meant when I mentioned valuing “education as an end in itself.” I initially thought that was a shorthand way of pointing to what you meant when you talked about studying the humanities, but looking back I see we’re probably talking about two different propositions:
(i) Studying the humanities and natural sciences makes an individual more well-rounded and gives us a better idea of how we ought to live.
(ii) Studying the humanities and natural sciences is an end in itself, i.e., there’s just something inherently valuable in knowing about various subjects, apart from the consequences that knowledge might cause.
It seems in your post you were thinking of (i) and I was talking about (ii). Regardless, both are good reasons (at least to me) to place a high value on *education,* not future-job training.
–TMG
http://themoralguy.blogspot.com