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What Kind of an American Civilization Do We Want?

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  • F.S.C. Northrop

    (Yale University)

Abstract

There are reasons for believing that we do not now have the kind of America we want. It can be had, how ever, providing three major subjects are given a place of pri macy throughout our educational system and in the training and the practice of all our legal, political, and other cultural representatives. These three things are: (1) creative art and the cultivation of aesthetic sensitivity; (2) normative tolerant religious, moral, legal, and political philosophy together with the presentation of alternative theories; and (3) continuous training in imageless formal thinking by means of the teaching of English grammar, traditional and symbolic logic, mathe matics, and the theory of experimentally verified mathematical physics and its philosophy. Only if these three things are done is it likely that America can keep her ideals in the forefront of what she is doing to win the confidence of free men and also possess first-rate instruments for protecting and implementing these ideals.

Suggested Citation

  • F.S.C. Northrop, 1959. "What Kind of an American Civilization Do We Want?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 325(1), pages 1-10, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:325:y:1959:i:1:p:1-10
    DOI: 10.1177/000271625932500103
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