Letters to the Editor
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@ Voltaire
Excellent points, Voltaire.
I'd only add that the curriculum you describe has a venerable history. It's called (as I'm sure you're aware) the liberal arts and it dates to the Roman republic.
They were called "liberal" because they were deemed the requisite education of a "liber," or "free man."
One who would be truly free, and fit to participate in self-government and the awesome responsibility of leadership should possess an education to facilitate such goals.
Critical thinking, empathy, an understanding of human nature in all its varieties, basic logic, the ability to contextualize one's own time and place, etc.
The ability to recognize that we are often faced with genuine dilemmas that resist facile resolutions is something that few possess, it seems to me.
But the real problem isn't that the populace is ill-educated--though it's a major problem--the real problem is that "journalists" themselves are just as ill-educated as those they would inform!
They have the sacred duty to act as teachers and instead they show themselves just as profoundly simple-minded as their audiences.
Imagine if physicians knew as little about medicine as their patients. I suspect people would recognize this as dangerous corruption.
What's sad is that we demand so little from those who ought to be able to discriminate the wheat from the chaffe when it comes productive discussion.
Sigh.