Education as the root of freedom

Reprinted from Constitutionalist

There is nothing more American than freedom. The United States is “the land of the free” and its president is “the leader of the free world.” In short, we Americans are proud of little more than our freedoms. Despite this, we are often torn between two different concepts of freedom – personal and political. Personal freedom requires people to restrain their selfish passions, while political freedom requires the lack of restraint necessary to create their own destinies. Perhaps shockingly, given these seemingly irreconcilable differences, the reality is that liberal democracy can only be sustained by a civilization that values ​​both meanings of freedom. Without personal freedom, society slides first into disorder, and then into despotism; without political freedom, we can only be slaves of the state. Modern America has tragically forgotten this important reality and thus endangered both kinds of freedom. John Quincy Adams, one of America’s greatest thinkers and statesmen, devoted his life to solving this same problem during his lifetime. In his writings, he shows us that the way to renew our free society and eliminate the political division that prevails in our time lies in the strengthening of both types of freedom. The first step in this noble endeavor is the dissemination of liberal arts education.

That education is such an important part of freedom may seem unusual to the modern citizen. After all, most of us today define freedom as simply doing whatever we want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. However, this is because we have lost full understanding of the two basic meanings of freedom.

Political freedom means that people can do what they think is right without undue interference from outside forces. Like a British thinker Lord Acton articulated it, echoing Adams’s view, liberty is “the guarantee that every man will be protected, in doing what he considers his duty, from the influence of power and majority”. This first part of freedom is vital. Political tyranny corrupts both the ruler and the ruled. It turns the citizen into a servant and makes it almost impossible to run wild in pursuit of the good. This freedom can only be fully achieved under a restrained government that imposes relatively few restrictions on the individual or society.

In addition to the unbridled nature of political freedom, personal freedom requires restraint and duty. This kind of freedom requires devotion to virtue, which, in fact, corresponds to the definition of freedom proposed by John Paul II when he stated that “Freedom consists not in doing what we please, but in having the right to do what we must.” To achieve personal freedom, we must all strive to cultivate virtue. It means striving for improvement in all aspects of life and living a selfless life for others and not for yourself. If we fail to cultivate personal freedom, we will become slaves to our selfish desires. Just as political tyranny makes us servants of the state, the tyranny of our degraded desires makes us mere animals. Both must be overcome if we are truly to exercise our free will.

The reconciliation of these two different definitions of freedom was one of the keys to John Quincy Adams’s broader political project and explained the vital role of education in creating a free society. He argued that a lack of personal freedom usually leads to a lack of political freedom. When a society becomes engrossed in selfishness, it goes into disarray. In the face of this chaos, the state assumes a power to which it is not entitled, and the people, weakened by the lack of virtue, resist little. As once Adams observable “Virtue is oxygen, the vital air of the moral world. Itself is unchangeable and incorruptible”, if “the whole soul of every citizen” of the republic does not devote itself to improving “the condition of its country and humanity”, then freedom and justice cannot survive. This was not just a theoretical statement. Adams was always happy to point to examples of great republics that followed this pattern, such as Athens, Rome, or Florence.

Many of the political right and left today seem to understand the danger of moral collapse in America, and in order to promote virtue, they advocate laws that restrict human behavior. More recently, the Department of Education proposed rules restricting due process in an attempt to end sexual harassment on college campuses. Meanwhile, some Republican candidates, among other personal restrictions, proposed prohibition of contraceptives. The problem with such laws is that they almost inevitably lead to political tyranny. Even if one were hypothetically willing to sacrifice political freedom for personal freedom, this is impossible. Adams pointed to the example of the Middle Ages as evidence for his argument. Although Adams was far more religious than most Protestants of the time, he believed that the Catholic Church—at least until the Reformation—did not allow its parishioners to participate fully in the life of Christ. They could not read the scriptures in their own language, sermons were usually delivered in Latin, and priests existed socially and intellectually far from their parishioners. Instead, citizens were forced by the laws of their nation to behave virtuously without even understanding what virtue is. Like Adams himself put it down:”[i]In the theories of the crown and miter, man had no rights. Neither body who soul man was his own.” Adams also observed that the works of Tacitus show that Augustus Caesar saw himself as rebuilding Rome, assuming absolute power and enjoining the good, but this legally required virtue did not last long. Inevitably the Romans fell into selfishness and vices worse than those which Augustus tried to avoid.

How to reconcile the demands of personal and political freedom? John Quincy Adams’ answer was education. He argued that, at its best, education exposes students to a variety of ideas and subjects, unified by their inherent relationship to human life. No education is complete without a serious study of history, literature, mathematics, science, philosophy or religion. All these subjects, in their own way and when properly taught, teach students permanent things. That which has been true in all ages and on which mankind can build a firm moral point of view. Adams summarized this point during speech he said during a visit to his hometown at the end of his life: “Education is the business of human life…as a child must be brought up on earth, so a man must be brought up on earth, for heaven; and, finally, where the foundation is not laid in Time, the superstructure cannot be erected for Eternity.

As president, Adams emphasized the importance of ensuring that liberal arts education formed a vital part of the nascent republic. He claimed in his first annual message to Congress that the United States is obligated to “invest its share of mind, labor, and expense in the improvement of human knowledge, which is beyond individual acquisition.” He argued that by uniting the nation’s future leaders in one university, we could ensure the instillation of the values ​​that flow naturally from a liberal arts education. At the same time, undermining the group and factional divisions that during his lifetime (as well as during ours) increasingly threatened to split the country.

For a number of reasons, the idea of ​​a national university is no longer as applicable as it once was. We are a much larger nation, and pooling the training of the nation’s future leaders in the hands of one group of teachers seems like a recipe for disaster. However, Adams was right in emphasizing the importance of a liberal arts education in building a free society. Unfortunately, over the past fifty years, liberal arts education in the United States has declined. Fewer and fewer higher education institutions offer a curriculum that even remotely resembles the liberal arts, and elementary education has long ceased to equip its students with this vital resource. The consequences of this fall are clear. Social degradation and the weakening of the moral imagination have led to a cruel, self-centered culture. Everywhere people feel less free and less happy. The desperation to overcome these problems has led to the flourishing of ideological extremism, alienating our country not only from personal freedom, but also from political freedom.

Given this, it is not surprising that education has become a central element of American politics over the past year. Local school board meetings are suddenly national news, and many of the most hotly contested political debates revolve around the content found in our classrooms. As John Quincy Adams well understood, what we think as a people determines who we are as a nation. When the right ideas live in the hearts of our citizens, America prospers and is free; when these ideas are distorted, society becomes oppressive and selfish. If we want our civilization to truly flourish, we must overcome the noise of the culture wars and build our society on a solid foundation of liberal arts education.

Tyler Seek

Tyler Seek – Ph.D. PhD in American Politics and Political Theory at the University of Virginia.

Follow him on Twitter @tylersic

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