Challenges to “the West” from “the Rest”

Here is an important and challenging piece from Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) at the New York Times re: challenges to the liberal order.  In discussing the “cracks” in the liberal order, Douthat gives a laundry lists of challenges to the “western” “liberal” “democratic” status quo (or, at least, modus vivendi and operandi).  Everything from ISIS to the failure of Greece, to the breakdown of Spain’s political spectrum to Trump’s serving as harbinger of the looming destruction of the U.S. Republican party.

Douthat is talking about global political trends.  But, he touches upon a vitally important aspect of liberal education.  Insofar as is it rooted in and symbiotically dependent upon liberal democratic values, liberal education–particularly, the American model of liberal education–must teach about, interact with and embrace an increasingly illiberal (and less western) globe.  But, it must do so without the pretense or assumption that the western model is the telos of global political or educational development.  Despite Francis Fukuyama’s assertions about the end of history some 25 years ago, history has continued and western liberalism now must confront the reality that it is another step in global political development. If the sun set on the British Empire and the American century may already be over, western visions of liberal democracy and liberal education may also be about to experience a course correction if not an eclipse.  The great challenge for educators (particularly those who would internationalize US campuses and expand our campuses around the world) is to demonstrate those liberal learning skills so that the best of the liberal educational model endures while it adapts to a less liberal, less democratic world.