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nication across generations possible.
In
my view, this result is what we
must expect, when we cease to treat education as an end in itself and re–
gard it instead as an instrument of social engineering.
This is only a first step by way of a reply to the radicals. And it cer–
tainly will not satisfy them. For it is extremely difficult to demonstrate
that there is real knowledge contained in the traditional curriculum, just
as it is difficult to demonstrate that there is an objective morality or a valid
method of legal reasoning, even though our society is founded on the as–
sumption of both those things. And there is a further reason for thinking
that the radicals will not be persuaded, one that goes to the heart of our
present crisis. The traditional curriculum, I maintain, had no political
agenda; the radical curriculum, by contrast, has nothing
bl/I
its agenda. It
makes appeal, certainly, to an objective social science. Yet the desire to
discover the nature of that science is so feeble, in comparison with the
desire that such a science should uphold the radical agenda, that the search
to define it will never be honestly embarked upon. The political agenda
comes first and generates a "will to believe" dictating the goal and the
form of study.
It is here that we should look again at the conflict between philoso–
phy and rhetoric. There are two ways of coming to an opinion. One, that
of rational inquiry, has knowledge as its goal; the other, which makes use
of rational inquiry only to the point where reason threatens it, aims at the
identity and cohesion of a group. When Plato contrasted knowledge and
opinion, and philosophy and rhetoric, as the paths to these disparate goals,
he had something like this in mind: Some of our views come about
through free inquiry. Others come to us stamped with the authority of a
group, membership in which is of visceral significance to us. Religious
opinions are of this second sort, but in an age of declining faith, politics
takes the place of religion. Political opinions cease
to
be hesitant hypothe–
ses and become ardent principles of faith. Group opinions are badges of
membership. To utter them is to give voice to a password, securing your
passage inwards, into the safety of a herd. Such opinions do not encounter
refutation or dispute. On the contrary, they avoid dispute, by excluding
the heretic, anathematizing him, and ensuring that his discourse will not
be heard. Group opinions are also sacred opinions, and those who deny
them are not to be refuted but destroyed.
Group opinions are useful. Not only do they foster the cohesion that
enables people to seize power from their rivals, they also establish a reign
of peace once power has been acquired. A society can coalesce around
them as a hive around its queen. They are the supreme instrument of
crowd control, and the demagogue who makes judicious usc of them has
a power that no mere philosopher could ever hope to obtain. It goes
