Editorial: Cultivate free thought, not specific ideologies

Many universities, including Pitt, encourage undergraduate participation in community affairs…. Many universities, including Pitt, encourage undergraduate participation in community affairs. But although countless students consider themselves politically active, some pundits — including Washington Post guest blogger Carol Geary Schneider — believe the American school system deserves an “F” in civic engagement.

Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, advocated on Tuesday a renewed emphasis on “civic” education — that is, education that fosters the “capacities of mind and heart that are basic to a principled democracy.” Our nation’s universities, she maintains, were created primarily for just such a purpose.

Her blog post coincided with the release of an AAC&U/Department of Education report, “A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future,” that criticizes American schools’ liberal-arts-deficient curricula. Every level of instruction, the authors say, must reclaim its “fundamental civic and democratic mission” by teaching young people about our country’s values, ideas and political institutions.

On the surface, these arguments seem relatively innocuous. But although we believe universities should foster students’ political awareness and critical thinking abilities, we’re hesitant to endorse the reforms Schneider and the report propose — reforms concerned more with upholding democratic values than calling them into question.

Ideally, every American would agree on the characteristics of a perfect society and the means to achieve it. But because the political process is nothing if not a series of ongoing debates, instructors should refrain from stressing specific values too ardently. Rather, they should encourage students to examine a wide spectrum of political ideas — even those considered “un-American.” The cultivation of individual thought, not the furthering of specific ideals, should be educators’ main objective.

Even if we presuppose, as Schneider and her Department of Education colleagues do, that a strong democracy and liberal arts education go hand in hand, then we should nonetheless assign comparable weight to unconventional political theories. Indeed, to do otherwise would run counter to the very American principle of free thought.

Finally, for the record, Schneider’s assertion that U.S. colleges were founded first and foremost to foster democracy is only partly true: Many of our country’s most reputable universities, including Carnegie Mellon, began as technical schools.

This isn’t to denigrate democracy, nor is it to discourage students from engaging in public affairs. But until we reach a consensus about what, specifically, our nation should aspire to, we should never espouse democratic values uncritically. Remedying our current “civic recession,” as Schneider terms it, has less to do with bolstering our political system and more to do with enabling students to think independently.