We must return to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God".

• Author: Arnn, Larry P.
• Position: American Thought

"The economic policies being proposed these days ... represent a return to the idea that the American Revolution repudiated--the idea that some are equipped by nature or training to manage the lives of others without their consent.... The Obama Administration ... wants to control [private enterprise]--and the rest of us as well--through a regulatory apparatus overseen by czars and bureaucrats."

THE STANDARD thing to say on the topic of education and economic development is that the former is vital to the latter. We live in the modem world, so we all have to be highly informed and skilled and understand the power of modem science. It is a task of the very first importance to train a workforce that will be able to compete in the global marketplace. We hear this stated often by education bureaucrats from the Federal level on down and, of course, it is perfectly true, as far as it goes, but there is more to be said.

The practical point of this standard thing to say is that the U.S. needs more technical education--more scientists and mathematicians. Again, that is perfectly true. However, I like to remind people that, when they make this point, the word "technical" comes from the Greek word "techne," which means "art." Aristotle points out that art is about making, and that the question of what one should make always is superior, in point of order and logic, to the question of how to make it.

What does this mean? Consider one of the greatest scientific achievements of the last century--the development of the atomic bomb. The question of whether to build an atomic bomb, and then the question of whether to drop it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end World War I/without the need of invading and conquering the Japanese mainland, were more important questions--superior in order and logic--to the question of how to make the bomb. The brilliant physicists who accomplished the latter had immense technical training, but that training gave them no special knowledge about those more important questions--or, to put the point in a slightly different and more general way, a technical education can make a person wealthy and famous, but it does not teach that person what is best to do with wealth and fame.

So, the first point I would make about education and economics is the importance of a liberal arts education. Many think of liberal arts as a broad education but, in fact, it is a high education. We understand things to be arranged in a hierarchy. Our college, for instance, has plenty of science and math majors, and our students go on to the very best graduate and professional schools. Yet, whatever their majors, they learn the distinction I just made about questions of greater and lesser significance, and...