What about the arts and literature, so often valued by democratic educators? An education for economic growth will, first of all, have contempt for these parts of a child's training, because they don't look like they lead to personal or national economic advancement. For this reason, all over the world, programs in arts and
the humanities, at all levels, are being cut away, in favor of the cultivation of the technical. Indian parents take pride in a child who gains admission to the Institutes of Technology and Management; they are ashamed of a child who studies literature, or philosophy, or who wants to paint or dance or sing. American parents, too, are moving rapidly in this direction, despite a long liberal arts tradition.
But educators for economic growth will do more than ignore the arts. They 20 will fear them. For a cultivated and developed sympathy is a particularly dangerous enemy of obtuseness, and moral obtuseness is necessary to carry out programs of economic developmenr that ignore inequality. It is easier to treat people as objects to be manipulated if you have never learned any other way to see them. As Tagore said, aggressive nationalism needs to blunt the moral conscience, so it needs people who do not recognize the individual, who speak group-speak, who behave, and see the world, like docile bureaucrats. Art is a great enemy of that obtuseness, and artists (unless thoroughly browbeaten and corrupted) are not the reliable servants of any ideology, even a basically good one—they always ask the imagination to move beyond its usual confines, to see the world in new ways. So, educators for economic growth will campaign against the humanities and arts as ingredients of basic education. This assault is currently taking place all over the world.
Pure models of education for economic growth are difficult to find in flourishing democracies since democracy is built on respect for each person, and the growth model respects only an aggregate. However, education systems all over the world are moving closer and closer to the growth model without much thought about how ill-suited it is to the goals of democracy.
How else might we think of the sort of nation and the sort of citizen we are trying to build? The primary alternative to the growth-based model in international development circles, and one with which I have been associated, is known as the Human Development paradigm. According to this model, what is important is the opportunities, or "capabilities," each person has in key areas ranging from life, health, and bodily integrity to political liberty, political participation, and education. This model of development recognizes that all individuals possess an inalienable human dignity that must be respected by laws and institutions. A decent nation, at a bare minimum, acknowledges that its citizens have entitlements in these and other areas and devises strategies to get people above a threshold level of opportunity in each.
The Human Development model is committed to democracy, since having a voice in the choice of the policies that govern one's life is a key ingredient of a life worthy of human dignity. The sort of democracy it favors will, however, be one with a strong role for fundamental rights that cannot be taken away from people by majority whim—it will thus favor strong protections for political liberty; the freedoms of speech, association, and religious exercise; and fundamental entitlements in yet other areas such as education and health. This model dovetails well with the aspirations pursued in India's constitution (and that of South Africa). The United States has never given constitutional protection, at least at the federal level, to entitlements in "social and economic" areas such as health and education; and yet Americans, too, have a strong sense that the ability of all citizens to attain these entitlements is an important mark of national success. So the Human Development model is not pie-in-the-sky idealism; it is closely related to the constitutional commitments, not always completely fulfilled, of many if not most of the world's democratic nations.
If a nation wants to promote this type of humane, people-sensitive democracy dedicated to promoting opportunities for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to each and every person, what abilities will it need to produce in its citizens? At least the following seem cruciaclass="underline"
The ability to think well about political issues affecting the nation, to examine, reflect, argue, and debate, deferring to neither tradition nor authority
The ability to recognize fellow citizens as people with equal rights, even though they may be different in race, religion, gender, and sexuality: to look at them with respect, as ends, not just as tools to be manipulated for one's own profit
The ability to have concern for the lives of others, to grasp what policies of many types mean for the opportunities and experiences of one's fellow citizens, of many types, and for people outside one's own nation
The ability to imagine well a variety of complex issues affecting the story of a human life as it unfolds: to think about childhood, adolescence, family relationships, illness, death, and much more in a way informed by an understanding of a wide range of human stories, not just by aggregate data
The ability to judge political leaders critically, but with an informed and realistic sense of the possibilities available to them
The ability to think about the good of the nation as a whole, not just that of one's own local group
The ability to see one's own nation, in turn, as a part of a complicated world order in which issues of many kinds require intelligent transnational deliberation for their resolution
This is only a sketch, but it is at least a beginning in articulating what we need. 25
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
Why does Nussbaum begin with selections from the constitutions of both the United States and India? What is she trying to suggest about the ultimate values of both countries as expressed in their most fundamental documents?
What disadvantages does Nussbaum see to using economic development as the primary metric for measuring progress in a country?
Why does Nussbaum believe that economic growth will not automatically produce democracy? What examples does she cite to prove this thesis?
Why is it important to Nussbaum's argument that both the United States and India have enshrined in their constitutions "a group of fundamental rights that cannot be abrogated even to achieve a large economic benefit"? What role does education have in protecting these rights?
For education that is aimed at producing economic growth, what subjects are important to learn? What subjects are unimportant to this goal?
Why does Nussbaum believe that education for economic growth discourages critical thinking? What about critical thinking is dangerous to this educational paradigm?
Summarize in your own words Nussbaum's proposals for a human development paradigm in education. What are the most important goals that such a paradigm should have?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Nussbaum makes the point that Rabindranath Tagore set up a school to facilitate critical thinking and cultural understanding, but that it was eventually turned into a standard state school by India's government. Do the goals for education that she articulates seem the same as Tagore's goals for education in "To Teachers" (p. 40)? How are they similar and different?
Compare Nussbaum's views of education with Gandhi's views of progress in "Economic and Moral Progress" (p. 560). Does her division between education for economic growth and education for human development seem the same as Gandhi's division between economic progress and moral progress?