5/9/2022

This past week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal begins with Jeffrey H. Anderson’s take on the growing controversy over a conference The Center for Political and Economic Thought hosted at Saint Vincent College last month. Because of a presentation by Hillsdale College’s David Azerrad, Saint Vincent’s administration initially banned the posting of all conference presentations (a decision it later reversed) and then took away CPET’s independence by making all future speakers contingent on the College’s prior approval. Anderson says that “St. Vincent College’s actions are the latest example of” what happens when colleges and universities take the side of a minority of students who have deep questions over the value of free speech. “Whether the college gets away with it – and the battle is not yet over – will say a lot about the state of free speech and academic freedom in America today.”

At RealClearEducation, Joseph Knippenberg argues that the “contemplation of the good, the true, and the beautiful,” as exemplified in the work of thinkers like John Adams and W.E.B. DuBois, enables an appreciation of “both the needs of the moment and the dignified purposes of all human striving.” For Adams, DuBois, and other thinkers of their caliber, Anderson writes, “an education in freedom is not merely an education in economic self-sufficiency, nor merely in political self-government, but ultimately one that facilitates human flourishing at its fullest – facilitated by, but not defined by, the economic and the political.”

In an excerpt from his recent book that was published at RealClearBooks&Culture, Tony Woodlief launches a measured critique of modern political pollsters. He finds that they unwittingly increase the spread of ideological politics because they are focused on the specifics of policy and miss the common sense most Americans possess. By contrast, he notes that some scholars have taken the time to “talk with the subjects of these surveys” and describe average Americans as if “they’re capable of – and willing to be – the kinds of citizens the American Founders envisioned.”