Villa Dana - Teachers Of The People Political Education In Rousseau Hegel Tocqueville And Mill - Paperback

Binding: Paperback
Description: 2016 witnessed an unprecedented shock to political elites in both Europe and America. Populism was on the march fueled by a substantial ignorance of or contempt for the norms practices and institutions of liberal democracy. It is not surprising that observers on the left and right have called for renewed efforts at civic education. For liberal democracy to survive they argue a form of political education aimed at "the people" is clearly imperative. In Teachers of the People Dana Villa takes us back to the moment in history when "the people" first appeared on the stage of modern European politics. That moment - - the era just before and after the French Revolution - - led many major thinkers to celebrate the dawning of a new epoch. Yet these same thinkers also worried intensely about the people's seemingly evident lack of political knowledge experience and judgment. Focusing on Rousseau Hegel Tocqueville and Mill Villa shows how reformist and progressive sentiments were often undercut by skepticism concerning the political capacity of ordinary people. They therefore felt that "the people" needed to be restrained educated and guided - - by laws and institutions and a skilled political elite. The result Villa argues was less the taming of democracy's wilder impulses than a pervasive paternalism culminating in new forms of the tutorial state. Ironically it is the reliance upon the distinction between "teachers" and "taught" in the work of these theorists which generates civic passivity and ignorance. And this in turn creates conditions favorable to the emergence of an undemocratic and illiberal populism.
Title: Teachers Of The People Political Education In Rousseau Hegel Tocqueville And Mill
Author(s): Villa Dana
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press
Barcode: 9780226637624
Pages: 376 Pages
Publication Date: 2/21/2019
Category: Civil Rights & Citizenship