Corrupting Youth: Political Education, Democratic Culture, and Political Theory

J. Peter Euben

Published by Princeton University Press 1998

Corrupting Youth

Political Education, Democratic Culture, and Political Theory

J. Peter Euben

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400822331

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Corrupting Youth, Peter Euben explores the affinities between Socratic philosophy and Athenian democratic culture as a way to think about issues of politics and education, both ancient and modern. The book moves skillfully between antiquity and the present, from ancient to contemporary political theory, and from Athenian to American democracy. It draws together important recent work by political theorists with the views of classical scholars in ways that shine new light on significant theoretical debates such as those over discourse ethics, rational choice, and political realism, and on political issues such as school vouchers and education reform. Euben not only argues for the generative capacity of classical texts and Athenian political thought, he demonstrates it by thinking with them to provide a framework for reflecting more deeply about socially divisive issues such as the war over the canon and the "politicization" of the university.

Drawing on Aristophanes' Clouds, Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannos, and Plato's Apology of Socrates, Gorgias, and Protagoras, Euben develops a view of democratic political education. Arguing that Athenian democratic practices constituted a tradition of accountability and self-critique that Socrates expanded into a way of doing philosophy, Euben suggests a necessary reciprocity between political philosophy and radical democracy. By asking whether we can or should take "Socrates" out of the academy and put him back in front of a wider audience, Euben argues for anchoring contemporary higher education in appreciative yet skeptical encounter with the dramatic figure in Plato's dialogues.

Author / Editor information

J. Peter Euben is Professor of Politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is the author of The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road Not Taken (Princeton), the editor of Greek Tragedy and Political Theory, and coeditor of Athenian Political Thought and Reconstitution of American Democracy.

Reviews

In this wide-ranging study of political thought in classical Athens, Peter Euben locates Greek explorations of the civic community, and how one educates people for it, in the context of contemporary debates over higher education in the United States. . . . [This] work, probing and reflective, with many surprising twists and turns, will spark quite enough (democratic) discussion and debate as it is.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Chapter I. Imploding the Canon: The Reform of Education and the War over Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter II. Corrupting Socrates Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
Chapter III. The Battle of Salamis and the Origins of Political Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
Chapter IV. Democratic Accountability and Socratic Dialectic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Chapter V. When There Are Gray Skies: Aristophanes’ Clouds and the Political Education of Democratic Citizens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Chapter VI. Antigone and the Languages of Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Chapter VII. Oedipean Complexities and Political Science: Tragedy and the Search for Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Chapter VIII. The Gorgias, Socratic Dialectic, and the Education of Democratic Citizens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Chapter IX. The Protagoras and the Political Education of Democratic Citizens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267

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