ARTICLES Liberal Education and Politics: Lessons from the American Founding Lorraine Smith Pangle Editor's Note: This essay was delivered at a Carleton University conference tided "Po- liticizing the Classroom" and will be published with the other papers by the Univer- sity of Toronto Press in 1995. This essay is printed by permission of the University of Toronto Press. L iberal education in our society is in a quietly deepening state of crisis. The politicization of the classroom, including the politically correct muz- zling of free speech on campuses across North America, is only the most dra- matic sign that education as we have known it is in trouble. But it would be wrong to assume that if we could simply get politics back out of the taproom all would be well. Politics has never, in human history, left education alone, except when those in authority have been reasonably satisfied that the educa- tion being offered is supportive of or at least in harmony with the politicai regime. The current turmoil on campuses is so troubling not because a proper wall of separation between education and politics has been breached, but be- cause the turmoil reveals a lack of consensus about fundamental principles, both in politics and in education. Until recently, Canada and the United States enjoyed a broad consensus about such things as the natural rights of individu- als, the limited ends of legitimate government, equality of opportunity, the possibtity of objective reason, and the power of reasoned discourse to bring us to an understanding of truths that are beneficial to man in a variety of ways. This consensus, rooted in the Enlightenment, may seem to be under assault only in the academy and among intellectuals. But we see the erosion of this consensus more broadly in the self-doubts that weaken our foreign policies; in an uneasiness about imposing "our" basic political principles upon anyone else; and in the growing uncertainty in both countries as to whether immi- grants and other minorities should be expected to share with the majority a common culture, language, education, or even a common set of fundamental political beliefs. When I speak of the consensus that was grounded in the Enlightenment, I am of course painting with very broad strokes, leaving out of the picture all Lorraine Smith Pangle is an independent scholar living in Toronto. Please address correspondence to Academic Questions, 575 Ewing Street, Princeton, NJ 08540-2741.