Leading Thoughts for February 11, 2021

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Historians Will and Ariel Durant on the need for educated citizens:

“Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that ‘you can’t fool all of the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

If equality of educational opportunity can be established, democracy will be real and justified. For this is the vital truth beneath its catchwords: that though men cannot be equal, their access to education and opportunity can be made more nearly equal. The rights of man are not right to office and power, but the rights of entry into every avenue that may nourish and test a man’s fitness for office and power.”

Source: The Lessons of History

II.

Retired professor William Kilpatrick on the importance of teaching morals and why teaching leadership is critical to leadership development

“None of us wants to go to untrained doctors, or fly with untrained pilots, or have untrained soldiers protect our country, but for some reason, we have come to believe that one can be a good person without any training in goodness. We have succumbed to a myth that claims that morality comes naturally, or at most, with the help of a little reasoning. But it seems increasingly clear that these metaphors and the models that flow from them aren’t working. The ‘natural’ thing to do in most situations is to take the easy way out. The most perfectly rational plan of action is to always put yourself first.”

Source: Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong: And What We Can Do About It

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:58 PM
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