Jefferson, Human Nature, Education & Citizenship

(I am posting this now with the knowledge that is not actually a completed piece. It could stand the backing of a few academic references. At the moment, unfortunately, I do not have access to a good library.)  

    Others have written about Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian impulse before (link 1, link 2). I would like to go in a slightly different direction with Jefferson. There are plenty of moments in history and plenty of political movements that have or could claim something Jeffersonian in nature at their core. What I want to talk about, though,  is more of a view of human nature (and not Jefferson’s human nature, his hypocrisy), and a reflection upon education and citizenship.
    Thomas Jefferson believed in the rights of the individual, and in a democracy that was truly democratic in nature-- one in which even the most common man had input. As I see this, it is a kind of optimism rather than the perhaps more common wariness of human nature. I’m not sure how Jefferson would have felt about the public school system as administered by the federal government-- in fact, I’m sure if I were to open that can of worms, I’d never hear the end of the differing opinions. I do, however, believe that Jefferson was a supporter of broad education. If the masses are educated, then the masses can make educated decisions about their own governance-- which is, in fact, the point of democracy. Historically (and, sadly, at present), the view on the other hand seems to have been much more cynical-- a distrust of human nature, and something perhaps classist as well: Can the poor or the common man actually be trained to think critically, or will they just behave in mob-like fashion?
    I happen to believe in a broad, or shall I say, liberal, education. Lest I get someone’s knickers in a bunch, I’ll remind everyone that when we speak of a “liberal” education we don’t mean a politically skewed one (or we shouldn’t), we mean an education that exposes the student to a broad range of subjects-- it has a (liberal) dash of this, and a (liberal) dash of that. A liberal education shapes a young person into a good, thinking citizen who is ready to be engaged in their own governance. You must practice critical thinking if you are ever going to be able to have real-life discussions where all parties listen and take something away from the discussion.
    Historically, the Jeffersonian impulse toward both individualism and the (yeoman farmer, renaissance man) broadly educated citizenry disappeared and resurfaced from time to time. During the transcendentalist movement of the mid- to late-eighteen hundreds, the ideals of both liberal education and individualism resurfaced quite passionately. Today, I see the ideal of individualism coming back, but not paired with the ideal of the critically-thinking, broadly educated common man. We seem to favor individualism of the selfish and greedy varieties, at the expense of society as a whole, and at the expense of our ethical health. Simultaneously, we seem to be in a process of devaluing both the liberal education and the thinking citizenry capable of self-governance. This, too, is dangerous for our democracy. If the citizenry are prepared only to consume the information a small number of people see fit to feed them, and if the citizenry then base their opinions only on that limited information-- on what little information they have consumed-- then the citizenry will, in fact, not be engaged in any real self-governance, but will, instead, be allowing themselves to be lead. There are plenty of examples from history of what happens to countries when the citizenry become complacent  in their own governance. It is not good for the citizens, and nor is it good, in the long-term, for the country-- in a vacuum, someone will always step in to direct, and usually, that person, or those people, are those with the strongest self-interest, and the lowest adherence to ethical standards and human rights.
    We are not only in a process of devaluing a liberal (broad) education and the critical thinking that goes along with it; we are also in the process of devaluing the generalist. The generalists have always been the critical thinkers and inventors, the curious and demanding. That is not to say that you cannot be curious and be a specialist, but as a specialist your curiosity will necessarily run within the vein of your area of specialization. We need specialists, they are the heart surgeons and engineers of this world. But we also do truly need the generalists. Generalists are the “renaissance men“, they are the thinkers, with wide ranges of interest, and liberal educations. They are capable of both creativity and critical thinking. They are like the Jeffersons of today. Jefferson was a farmer, an inventor, a thinking man, and a politician. Historically, generalists were the best politicians. Today, being a politician is a job in and of itself, complete with a more than adequate pension for life, and a bunch of other benefits. This is not how Jefferson and his ilk envisioned our government. Our government was originally supposed to made up of part-time legislators, farmers capable of critical thinking and decision-making  based in a broad education and an engagement in their own governance.
    The devaluation of the generalist is, to me, just as concerning as, and directly connected to, the devaluation of the liberal education, and for the same reasons. The more people thinking, the more ideas being shared, the more educated the citizenry becomes, the more engaged in their lives both at the small and the large level, the stronger a country will be. In my estimation, no degree of war-like behavior, no amount of military preparedness, no quantity of  capital and/or amount of industry at home can make a country strong if the people living within that country are not engaged in the act of being citizens, and if there is little or no thinking-man’s conversation taking place. Every day that we let the discourse run to misinformation and inflamed emotion is another day spent weakening this country.
    I do not believe that it is impossible to educate the masses enough for them to make informed decisions. I believe that the Jeffersonian optimism that the individual common man was capable of becoming a good citizen is not only true, but right. At this moment in time (and for quite some time, actually), to neither of our political parties can we ascribe a Jeffersonian bent. But, I do wonder if those of us who, regardless of political party, value critical-thinking and a liberal education, and who see the shades of grey, rather than the world in black-and-white, are perhaps not as much of a minority as it sometimes seems. And if we are not a vanishing breed, and there is still room for reasonable, informed discourse, then maybe Jefferson’s citizenry is not dead, and there is still hope for this country to pull itself together and move on.