John Adams’ warning about mixing money, politics and national security

 

 

The United States of America is the elder sibling of formerly colonized nations and our national security depends upon us remembering the responsibility that comes with this historic position.

 

With every election cycle, we affirm our social contract by infusing our elected government with new representatives as a means of avoiding oppressive disconnections between those who govern and the governed.

 

In this presidential election cycle, we celebrate the opportunity that we have to achieve success. Definitions of that success vary. For some it is measured by service to civil society. For others it is measured by the ability to employ many others. Some are able to do both as they live out the concept in our Preamble to the Declaration of Independence that we have the inalienable right to the “pursuit of Happiness.” We are also painfully aware, and under international scrutiny, that this right is not yet universal.

 

In this presidential election cycle, we are also challenged to diligently pursue the inalienable right to Liberty. Liberty is more humane than the anarchy that arises when people take it upon themselves to step outside of the bonds of our social contract and disrespect the rights of others. Daily vigilance promotes Liberty.

 

This daily vigilance includes monitoring a source of corruption that Founding Father John Adams identified. “When the legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.” One cause of that corruption, future President Adams warned, occurs when the power of the ordinary person is diminished by money power. “The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism.” Adams was wary of the power of monied interests usurping the sovereignty of the people. He recognized a role in the polity for those who are now identified as the One Percent. “When he has obtained the object of his wishes, you may still hope for the benefits of his exertions, without dreading his passions.” John Adams warned us that some members of the social class commonly referred to as the One Percent may use their power in philanthropic and virtuous ways to enhance “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for all while a few others, acting for an infinitesimal constituency, may betray our Preamble.

 

In this presidential election cycle, we, the collective elder sibling of formerly colonized nations, have an obligation to secure Liberty for ourselves and to model for other nations the benefits of living within the values enumerated in our Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. It is a matter of national security.

 

Preamble to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

 

John Adams was quoted from The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851) IV: 290-291.

Smart and Wise. What is a liberal arts education?

 

 

There is a contest over using the business model to run institutions of higher education. In that contest, one question may be the polka-dotted elephant. What is the product? It is a logical question for a business.

 

Years ago, when I was the graduate student representative on a Presidential Search Committee at the Ohio State University, I had an opportunity to peruse a volume about the history of the Ohio State University. It seems that there was a concern in the middle of the nineteenth century that the proposed university would produce graduates educated in the mechanical arts such as science, engineering, etc. There was also much debate in the newspapers that the university should produce polished mechanics who know about the classics. Why?

 

At the time that I served on the committee, I was a non-traditional mother, divorced and raising three children. I added what I learned from that volume to what many of my mentors taught me. I produced a mantra for my children. I am sure that I am not the first to use a this phrase or a version of it.

“Smart is knowing how. Wise is knowing when.”

Yes, the grammar may not be perfect. It is easy to remember.

 

In this age of increasingly digitized education, it is easy to focus on mastery of the content of texts as measured by multiple choice questions. What is the right answer? Which is the right sentence to copy from the book into your homework? What is the missing word in the following sentence?

 

I want my doctors and engineers to know the answers to these questions.

 

When should this knowledge be deployed? What is the proper application of our knowledge to questions not yet asked as of the publication of the textbook? How can we advance science and the economy and political power while remaining human? Are humans only animals? Are we humane? Why does that silent E have so much power over our social engineering and civic decisions?

 

Humans are smart enough to produce clean solar and nuclear energy and biofuel. Humans are smart enough to house and feed all on the planet. Do we have the will to be humane enough to do so?

 

Liberal arts courses are the space where we polish our “mechanics.” Our products are what Durkheim called sacred and profane social facts. We produce humane homo sapiens, people who are wise enough to know when to apply their trade in a way that benefits all. We learned something from Ashoka’s enlightenment and from Plato’s concept of “souls of gold” who are pure enough in intent to not make decisions based solely on the bottom line of the quarterly statements.

 

Without the humanities, universities will produce rational, genocidal bipedal animals with lots of tools.

 

So, to those who are leaning toward a rational business model STEM education without ample humanities courses, I recommend advice I learned from some nineteenth century people in a state that was full of cornfields and forests. While you focus on making people smart about the What of STEM, be certain that your outputs are Wise enough to know When.