,,, The conservative movement killed the liberal arts — Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch, William F. Buckley and their latter-day heirs.
They have done so through a combination of decreasing access to education and demonizing academic culture and academics. Make no mistake about it: The death of the humanities is an ideologically motivated murder, more like a massacre.
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Nearly everyone, regardless of their politics, agrees that the decline of the liberal arts is at least in part a matter of economics. The rising cost of college education has made a liberal arts education simply out of reach for students from working-class and lower-middle-class families. These students are compelled to pursue vocationally oriented educations out of necessity.
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This financial war on higher education has been coupled with persistent attacks on the academy and academics as immoral, unpatriotic or simply frivolous. While scientists warning of climate change have recently been targeted, for the most part these attacks have been directed at those working in the humanities.
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This war on the liberal arts is born from the same desire that produces voter ID laws: a desire to limit democratic participation. The goal of a liberal arts education was never primarily direct economic benefit for the recipient or even the sort of personal/spiritual development about which many like to wax lyrically. The purpose of a liberal arts education was always meant to be a political education. The Latin ars liberalis refers to the skills required of a free man — that is the skills of a citizen,,,
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The importance of the humanities in educating citizens is why we have undoubtedly seen the consequences of the decline in of the liberal arts nowhere more than in the quality of the public debate. The disappearance of the liberal arts from American education has meant the disappearance of the liberal arts from American culture. Rupert Murdoch and his media empire have helped by creating a post-humanities agora where a degenerated shadow of the public debate occurs without the intellectual rigor that a populace trained in the liberal arts would demand,,,
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We might also be spared much of the small-mindedness of our current public discourse. The complete absence of reference to any non-Biblical literature during both parties conventions demonstrates how little the humanities are part of Americans’ language. St. Thomas Aquinas is reported to have said, “hominem unius libri timeo”: “I fear the man of one book.” I would add, “populum unius libri timeo.” I fear the nation of one book — even if it’s the Good Book. The fact that the Bible is the only book with which it can be safely assumed a majority of American adults are even vaguely familiar is not good if we want to have a full and vibrant public debate,,,
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Education is a political act. For over half a century, the conservative movement has waged a political war on liberal arts education. They have waged this war because they know that without the skills we are provided by a liberal arts education citizens must abdicate our power. They know, like the Greeks and Romans did, that only those with the ars liberalis can do the job of citizens. That is why we must not allow the liberal arts to be further attacked, economically or ethically. A democracy without citizens will not long survive and citizens are only those who have mastered the ars liberalis.
Conservatives killed the liberal arts - Salon.com
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