Inside Higher Ed quotes Teagle Foundation President Andrew Delbanco at length on the crucial role of the liberal arts in general and the humanities in particular for making sense of the riots at the U.S. Capitol and preventing such anti-democratic actions in the future: “If we needed a reminder of the fragility of our democracy, we got one…In the long run, the only force that can save democracy is an educated citizenry.” Quoting President James Madison, who told the U.S. Congress some 200 years ago that “a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people,” Delbanco said the idea is truer than ever. Delbanco elaborated, “The only protection against demagoguery is education…[not] ideological indoctrination, not technical training, but humane education that helps people grasp the experience of others different from themselves.” Despite the pressures facing the humanities education, it is “not a luxury” but a “desperate necessity.”
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