Here’s a quote from the historian David McCullough: “We are raising a generation of young Americans who are by and large historically illiterate.” Ouch.
Don’t we wish that weren’t true?
Put another way: For a meaningful, participatory democracy to be worthy of its ideals, its citizens have to be informed. Not just cherry-picking their way through self-validating media, faux included. It means, as they say, reading the minutes of previous meetings. About American and world history. About current geopolitics.
If you don’t know how we got here–the societal and global trial-and-error–you don’t know the best way forward. And you don’t have a good handle on whom to follow. It’s the 21st century version of Plato’s cave.
Oh, and this just in: an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has indicated that a third of respondents didn’t know enough to have an informed opinion of Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director. At least they were honest.