This video is found on my YouTube playlist "Being Wrong and Other Insights"
In this lecture Coleman warns of the danger of the combination of oversimplifications of civic engagement, idealization of the expert, fragmentation of knowledge, emphasis on technical mastery, and neutrality as a condition of academic integrity -- she sees these things as being dangers to a functioning democracy because they yield the playing field of civil engagement and the big questions -- about who we are and what we should value -- to the fundamentalists.
Coleman's main point is this: There is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators.
Coleman begins with this question: How do we, as a society, provide an education that is worthy of free men and women?
The problem, according to Coleman is this: True liberal arts education no longer exists in the United States -- we have professionalized liberal arts to the point where they no longer provide the breadth of application and the enhanced capacity for citizenship that is their signature.
Coleman says that in the past century the expert has overthrown the liberal arts generalist so as to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment. The price of the dominance of expertise, she says is enormous.
Coleman says that the progression of today's college student is to jettison every interest except one, and within that one to continue to narrow the focus, learning more and more about less and less, despite the evidence all around us of the interconnectedness of all things.
As one moves up the academic ladder, she says, questions dealing with matters other than technical competence are moved off the table.
Questions such as What kind of a world are we making? What kind of a world should we be making? What kind of a world can we be making? are treated with greater and greater skepticism and are set aside, she says.
As we do this, Coleman argues, the guardians of secular democracy have, in effect, yielded the connection between education and values to the fundamentalists, who you can be sure have no compunction about using education to further their values: the absolutes of a theocracy. [I would add here the absolutes of any ideological system]
Educational institutions are not helping either, she says. "When the impulse is to change the world, the academy is more likely to engender learned helplessness than to create a sense of empowerment."
Coleman says that this brew of oversimplifications of civic engagement, idealization of the expert, fragmentation of knowledge, emphasis on technical mastery, and neutrality as a condition of academic integrity is toxic when it comes to pursuing the vital connection between education and the public good, between intellectual integrity and human freedom.
Coleman reminds us of the cautionary words of Thomas Jefferson:
Coleman says that the reality of the 21st century is this: No one has the answers to the challenges facing us in this century -- not even the experts -- and everyone has the responsibility to try to find answers and engage in the civic process. Everyone has the responsibility to participate.
Coleman calls for a transformation of liberal arts education in which "the continuum of thought and action are its life's blood." She says that education should become more problem and project-oriented; instruction should become more interdisciplinary; and activity in the classroom should be more closely linked to the world beyond the classroom environment.
Coleman defines history as being the laboratory in which we see played out the actual as well as the intended consequences of ideas.
She sees education centered on civic engagement and problem-solving as having the effect of undercutting self-righteousness, radically altering the tone and character of controversy, and dramatically enriching the possibility of finding common ground. Through this approach, ideology, zealotry and unsubstantiated opinions, she says, simply will not do.
What we learn, in the process of trying to make principled but non-partisan and non-ideological effective change, is that the hard choices are not between "good" and "evil", but between competing goods.
Coleman says, "There is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians and spectators."
Coleman says that being overwhelmed is the first step if you are trying to get at things that really matter on a scale that makes a difference. But what does one do when one is feeling overwhelmed? Coleman offers this advice -- she says you have two things: you have a mind and you have other people; start with those and change the world.
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