Galston's liberal stance on a "liberal education"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/indoctrination-has-no-place-in-education-desantis-rufo-liberal-free-debate-civics-e387a608

Indoctrination Has No Place in Education

The way to make good democratic citizens is to teach students to think for themselves.

William Galston

Wall Street Journal

September 12, 2023

The problem with Galston's narrow and self-serving analysis is that his party is adverse to facts and science while placing a total emphasis on feelings and opinions. A "liberal education" in these terms lacks any attention to facts, data, hypothesis, science or statistics which, absent that, makes any claim of "critical thinking" hollow if not fraudulent. Rhetoric never solved a problem. Oratorical skills are nice, but they are insufficient for sustaining life. "Knowledge" isn't enough. "Knowledge" alone is not enough to constitute an education, liberal or otherwise. You also need skills and data to which you apply that knowledge to produce critical thinking. Reason, the "great books" and woke opinion ALONE doesn't get you anywhere practical or useful.

America's progressive public education is built upon opinions absent facts, feelings absent truths, arguments absent data, and criticisms absent solutions. Achieving "equity" is not problem-solving; it's a mathematical and realistic possibility. A "liberal education" is fine for -- as one of my liberal arts colleagues asserted to me years ago -- "making conversation at a cocktail party," bit it doesn't get the car to work, or the economy to run, or wealth to be created.

Galston wants, in effect, a "liberal's" education, not a meaningful education. He misses the key point with a rhetorical flourish.