Only engaged and enlightened citizens will save us
By G. Michael Pace Jr.
and H. Timothy Isaacs
John Adams said at the dawn of our new nation, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” His was a hopeful warning based on the belief that the American experiment in a constitutional republican democracy would succeed where earlier attempts — Ancient Athens and the Roman Republic — had failed. Adams understood that a civil society founded on democratic ideals would be impossible to sustain without a continuously engaged and enlightened citizenry who understand what makes it work.
Democracy cannot exist without the rule of law, the universal ideal by which individual rights and the collective rights of community in civil societies are equally recognized by consent of the governed under a set of core principles which, through government, are guaranteed and protected.
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Pace is CEO of the Center for Teaching the Rule of Law at Roanoke College, the 2008 president of the Virginia Bar Association and managing partner of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore. Isaacs is vice president and director of education for the center and a career educator with more than 40 years of experience in public education.
October 7, 2012 - 8:01 AM
It’s good to know that this resource is available right here in the valley. The rule of law is a “real life concept,” and it should be taught as part of a larger interdisciplinary approach to social studies instruction. Where the SOLs have failed is in their insistence that the retention of factoids qualifies somehow as education. Facts are entirely useless without a larger context.
Like all of our founders—federalist or anti-federalist–John Adams’ greatest fear was of anarchy, when “no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure.” You are absolutely right in assuming that the only way to ultimately succeed at proving Adams wrong is to teach citizenship. I hope this sentiment makes its way deep into the bowels of the Department of Education. On the one hand, it’s a pity that this kind of organization should exist at all; on the other, it’s a great relief to know that it is available.
I attended Farm Days yesterday with my wife and four-year old granddaughter. What does this have to do with the rule of law? Among all of the games, rides and food, I saw too little interaction between parents and children apart from shared reactions to outside stimulus. At times, blank expressions of parents and children as they rode on the hayrides or on benches slurping on ice cream cones mirrored the equally vacuous expressions of the livestock they were there to see. Where was the parenting, aside from the transportation to this fine event and the money spent on food? What a singular opportunity this was for exercising another feature of early America—“republican motherhood.” Sadly, I saw far too few republican mothers or fathers.
The rule of law had a powerful ally in the now-forgotten idea of republican motherhood. It looks as though The Center has a workable plan in assuming some of this role through public programming. Now, if only there was a way to reach the parents. Moo.