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The murderous
terrorist attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s offices that left twelve persons dead and others
injured demonstrated, again, the fragility of free expression. Observant
criticism, whether sober or satirical, often provokes strong, emotional
reactions. Among extremists, particularly religious and ideological radicals
whose ardent fanaticism is rooted in delusional beliefs that admit no
contradiction, the reaction can be far out of proportion to the perceived
offense.
Most rational
people shrug off criticism as insulting but not life-threatening. Criticism
based on untruths is countered, sometimes with legal action claiming
defamation, libel, or slander. The legal tests are rigorous, particularly in
the United States because our Constitution values freedom of expression as
articulated in the First Amendment. Extreme beliefs, however, can and often do
lead to extreme actions. The Paris massacre is merely the latest example.
U.S. education
“reform” initiatives, which have come wave after destructive wave over several
decades now, have consistently neglected to emphasize civic education. Such
neglect has resulted in an electorate that is ill-informed about governance
matters—from what the Constitution says and means to how legislative acts
actually affect people’s lives—and largely disengaged from the governance
process. As witness there are the abysmally consistent low numbers of citizens
who vote. Indeed, voter turnout in the 2014 U.S. general election was the lowest
since World War II. Scarcely more than a third of eligible voters cast ballots.
Extremism is an
assault on civitas, the idea that civil society is bound in law, which conveys
both responsibilities and rights of citizenship. Whether in France, the United
States, or elsewhere, fanaticism endangers not only the individual targets of
extremism but also the society as a whole. The purpose of civic education,
therefore, is not simply to help young people to understand how government
functions but to understand how they as citizens can and must participate
meaningfully in civil society.
In a free
society freedom of expression is a value of considerable worth. Such freedom
should not be merely tolerated but prized. But even criticism must be grounded
in truth. Satire, such as the Charlie
Hebdo cartoons, points up untruths and misinformation and pokes fun at
lapses of judgment and delusions. In the United States the satirical Daily Show
offers a complementary forum. Part of the charge of civic education is to teach
critical discernment, which is the root of satire.
The far more
insidious assault on freedom of expression is the promulgation of
misinformation as truth or “news.” Effective civic education would help young
people become discerning consumers of media, better able to distinguish news
from propaganda. As it is, for example, a significant proportion of U.S.
citizens takes at face value propaganda purveyed as truth—“news”—by
organizations such as Fox News, despite fact-checking which shows that a
majority of Fox’s “news” is misleading or blatantly false.
Facts do not
change the minds of fanatics. Extremism is impervious to truth, which is why
most extremist groups oppose education in favor of indoctrination. If the
United States wants to improve education—to enact actual, forward-looking
“reform”—then more effective civic education should be a high priority.
Comprehensive civic education would help young people become informed citizens
less likely in future to be radicalized by mistruths and more likely to be positively
engaged in the maintenance of a free civil society.
*This essay is
cross-posted on two blogs: Advancing Learning and Democracy (http://advancinglearning.blogspot.com)
and Arts in View (http://artsinview.blogspot.com).
