Following the classical literature, we could say that liberal education differentiates a free man from a slave (passions). The full understanding of the meaning of liberal education can be found, for example, in the literature of Plato (The Laws and The Republic), Aristotle (Politics), and Xenophon (Education of Cyrus), as stated precisely in a passage …
The crisis of the modern world is also the crisis of political philosophy and ultimately manifests itself in the crisis of liberal education.
The well-known political philosopher of the University of Chicago, Leo Strauss (1899 – 1973), said that liberal education led us toward culture and sought to form a man cultivated in mind and in accordance with his nature.
As we all seem to forget today, the term cultivation comes from the word agriculture, which means to take care of the land so that it produces; in this sense, education would be the cultivation of the mind according to its nature, therefore, it would be absurd for example to cultivate vegetables replacing water, fertilizers or light by other means, that is to say, pouring whiskey instead of water we cannot expect our crop to flourish, in the same way, it is not possible to think about the development of human nature if we do not give it what it requires for its development and wellbeing.
In this sense, teachers would be like farmers of minds dedicated to making them bear fruit.
However, as the great teachers (those great minds who were not the disciples of any previous teacher) are even scarcer to be found than the teachers themselves (who are not abundant compared to the farmers), this would be a severe problem. Still, one with an immediate solution, for although we do not have the teachers in flesh and blood, we do find them in their texts, that is to say, through the reading of the so-called “Great Books.”
Thus, “liberal education will then consist in the careful and proper study of the great texts which the great minds have left us, a study in which the more experienced pupils assist the less experienced pupils, including the beginners.”
The term liberal education might initially generate some confusion for those who are not familiar with Strauss’s work or who are not situated in the world of political philosophy. We should not confuse the adjective liberal with the noun liberal.
When Strauss speaks of liberals, he refers to the adjective. A liberal is a person who practices liberality (generosity). For this, he must be a person with certain wealth but who uses it in a moderate way. That is to say, he enjoys it but also shares it with those who need it without losing it or squandering it because, in that case, he would cease to be liberal (practicing generosity).
Liberalism, as a noun, can simply be called an ideology that is identified with freedoms or rights, such as freedom of the press or freedom of expression, and appeared in the 19th century.
Clearly, liberal education is not the training of individual rights defenders but rather of citizens and human beings capable of fully developing their natural potential.
Following the classical literature, we could say that liberal education differentiates a free man from a slave (passions). The full understanding of the meaning of liberal education can be found, for example, in the literature of Plato (The Laws and The Republic), Aristotle (Politics), and Xenophon (Education of Cyrus), as stated precisely in a passage found in Plato’s Laws: “liberal education is education from childhood in virtue, and which inspires the ardent desire to become a perfect citizen who knows how to govern and how to be governed with justice.”
Certainly, two dimensions can be perceived in liberal education. The first one advocates a moral and religious education linked to the constitution of good citizens, as one would say, an education of the heart, while the other, more transcendent, corresponds to philosophy, to the education of the mind found, for example, in the seventh book of The Republic.
Following the classics, civic education was thus based on the formation of character to achieve virtue.
For example, Aristotle understood that the virtues (courage, affability, for example) were all those qualities necessary to be able to develop our human nature fully and that this was possible through the help of the city, hence the close relationship between ethics (which is nothing more than the formation of character) and politics. In contrast, the philosopher’s training was much more demanding in the sense that the search for knowledge has no limits and could, therefore, be fundamentally dangerous.
The essence of philosophy is permanent doubt, so in this respect, it can be seen as antagonistic to authority. The philosopher then had to write in an esoteric manner to mislead authority and thus conceal his true intentions.
There is no doubt that the liberal education of the philosopher, based on dialectics, is fundamentally more important than civic education. Still, we also know that without civic education, there is no point in talking about the cultivation of the mind (without a city, there is no philosophy).
Civic education, i.e. education that moderates the character and curbs the instincts, also inculcating patriotic or moral values, is significant for the progress of the city, in fact, civic education would be the prelude to the development of philosophy.
Strauss also thought that liberal education would serve to shape a good political regime in accordance with human nature, which also made sense of the following definition of liberal education: “Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to climb from mass democracy to democracy as it was originally“.
Democracy had to be understood as the government of free men as opposed to the mass democracy that would be constituted by those men not yet formed by civic education. Democracy, in fact, would be the regime that stands or falls by virtue:
“… democracy is a regime in which all or most of the adults are men of virtue, and as virtue seems to require knowledge, a regime in which all or most are virtuous or wise, or the society in which all or nearly all have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy, in a word, becomes an aristocracy which has expanded into a universal aristocracy“.
However, as Strauss rightly pointed out, the predominance of political science in these times has served to make us see democracy exclusively in merely descriptive terms, appearing more as a procedure that serves, for example, to elect public servants in a competition open to all, in which public posts are contested, rather than as a form of government whose means and ends are virtue, that is, in a normative way, as political philosophy put it.
In this sense, it is understandable why, today, still under the influence of positivist discourse, the scientific thesis of democracy dominates, and thus, the concept of democracy as mass participation, as mass democracy, is assumed. This mass democracy, in turn, generates a mass culture that is achieved with the least intellectual or moral effort and lacks aspirations of transcendence. As Strauss pointed out, the people formed by mass culture are satisfied reading the sports page or the jokes page of the newspapers, but they can hardly be interested in public affairs, let alone be in a position to hold public office.
Evidently, the fact that our society is in crisis and its political institutions completely disqualified is an unmistakable symptom that mass culture and mass democracy have imposed themselves and that this situation is not gratuitous. In fact, this occurs when the spaces for forming and cultivating people, such as the family, the school, and the university, lose their meaning and purpose, thus abandoning their task of forming free and responsible men and women. Such an event only forces us to turn our eyes towards this form of education, which, amid our desolate panorama, appears as a resplendent oasis waiting to serve those who dare to reach out to it.
Sources:
Hilail, Gildin (ed.). An Introduction to Political Philosophy, ten essays by Leo Strauss. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975.
Horwitz, Robert H. The Moral Foundations of the American Republic. Buenos Aires: Editorial Rei, 1986.
Pangle, Thomas L. The Ennobling of Democracy, the challenge of postmodern age. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
“What is Liberal Education?”, in: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, ten essays by Leo Strauss. Gildin, Hilail (editor). Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975. p. 311.
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