A silver lining in this mess; some thoughts on education.

I make my daily bread as a political science professor. Sometimes it's a humdrum task more dedicated to dealing with banal concerns like advising and accreditation than the life of the mind, but for all of the events of this week I am not despairing. Given what has recently happened, I am now more driven than I've ever been to do what I do because I'm more convinced than ever that it's needed.

On Wednesday morning I asked a class of 25 students how many had any recollection of studying the electoral college in high school. Two or three raised their hands - seriously. We are living as part of a public where most of the citizenry is unequipped with basic knowledge of our political processes and structures to participate in public life.

We don't have to go so far as that old Socratic saw about all evil being due to ignorance to appreciate that education plays a role here, we can look to pretty much any exit poll to see that college is the inoculation against Trumpism. Completing college makes a person far, far less likely to vote for this stuff. I'd like to think that's not because college is a place where a bunch of leftie academics indoctrinate vulnerable students, but rather because learning about the world broadly teaches empathy, humility, and compassion. I'd like to think so, anyways.

Wednesday morning I was teaching a section of early contract law cases in my Constitutional Law course, and I spent some extra time in advance of Proprietors of Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) dwelling on the rise of Andrew Jackson and the Taney Court, as j44ke mentioned earlier. The students quickly realized that we have indeed gone through this before, but they also realized it was in the run up to, and expressive of the tensions that caused, the Civil War. Sure makes an old pissing match about toll bridges seem heavy, but that's probably appropriate given our moment.

If I weigh my students down with a feeling for the power of politics and their place in history, I guess I'm okay with that. Maybe more than okay, happy with that. If I spend my life teaching students about the political moment they inherit and the power of their actions within that moment, I'm more than okay with that, I'm happy with that. Seems to me like as good a thing as anything spend one's life doing.