For many, the term "citizen" means the right to vote.
Through history, it has meant much more.
According to Mortimer Adler, the word
"citizen" has been "proudly adopted by men to mark their liberation from the
yoke of despotism or tyranny...."
The basic distinction between subjugation and citizenship is inseparable from the equally basic distinction
between absolute and limited, or between despotic and constitutional,
government."
For the Greeks, as Adler put it, there are citizens and
there are the rest--those who live as slaves or subjects of government "in
childlike submission to absolute rule."
Also, through the history of free
nations children have not been citizens.
There is a reason for this.
The
assumption has been that children cannot be citizens because certain things are
required of citizens, and that these things are weighty and important, that
they are so essential and also challenging that they are adult-level duties.
Some of the great writings of mankind on citizenship
emphasize rights, but just as many deal with responsibilities.
Because these
duties of citizens are so important to freedom, the great books consider the
educating of citizens "the great problem" of free societies.
This is profound.
Ultimately, freedom depends on the
citizens.
Through history, the upper classes have tended to see
education of their own offspring as preparation for ruling and the education of
others as preparation to be ruled.
Lower classes have tended to see education
as a means of class mobility, as preparation for jobs and therefore as a way to
move out of the lower class.
Governments have typically seen education as a way
to promote the agendas of the government into future generations.
In contrast to all these views, the middle class in free
nations has tended to see education as a way to prepare good citizens and
therefore perpetuate real freedom and widespread prosperity.
When the middle
class loses this view, for whatever reason, the middle class shrinks in size
and loses power in society.
When elite classes seek to gain power over a strong
middle class, they try to convince the middle classes to view education in
lower-class ways--as job training.
As Adler put it,
"Vocational training prepares a man to be
an artisan, not a citizen.
"Only liberal education [by which Adler means wide
and deep reading in the Great Books] is adequate..."
Many duties belong to free citizens: voting wisely, giving
truly wise service on juries, sacrificing to keep the nation safe, influencing
government policy, paying for the wise and constitutional actions of
government, ratifying or not ratifying the constitution, and keeping the
government within the bounds of the constitution.
But at root, the greatest
duty of citizens, the one that makes them good at all the other
responsibilities, is clear, concise, virtuous, independent thinking.
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Social Leader Daily by Oliver DeMille
