Unlike accounting, marketing or computer programming, which are skills, human rights, a free press and democratic government are ideas. Consequently, if those who believe in democracy don't stay conversant with ideas and how they should influence us, an appreciation of the subtleties that allow democracy to work will dissolve. We're already seeing it every time we turn on the news.Here's the whole column:
Democracy Dies in Materialism and the U.S. is at Risk
Shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump, in what amounted
to an ongoing editorial about his administration, The Washington
Post situated the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" right
below the paper's masthead. It's a bold pronouncement: not entirely
inaccurate, but one that falls far short of encompassing the broader threat to
the democratic order in the United States.
It's more accurate to
say that democracy dies in materialism, by which I mean our utilitarian
attitude today that knowledge is rooted only in marketable skills. It changes
our perception of democracy from being a way to secure abstract rights and
liberties into a means by which we can have fewer limits on what we obtain,
measure each other by what we have and block those who disagree with us.
A materialistic view
doesn't equip us to think deeply about human rights, civil rights, the role of
government or human flourishing. It cripples our ability to
think historically and critically, and so reinforces the tribalism that's already
transforming our politics into isolated echo chambers of certainty and
hostility.
As a teacher I see
this constantly. "I love history and I would major in it, but my parents
won't let me," is one of the saddest things a student has ever said to
me. What she meant was that she loved it and wanted to study it but
her parents insisted she get a degree that would get her a job.
