Aristotle's Politics: The Art of Living Together › Education and the Formation of Citizens

Aristotle devotes significant attention to education, which he sees as fundamentally political. The purpose of education is to form citizens capable of participating in and sustaining the political community. Different constitutions require different kinds of education. A democracy needs citizens habituated to equality and free speech. An aristocracy needs citizens habituated to recognize and defer to excellence. > The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. This sounds authoritarian to modern ears, but Aristotle's point is as much descriptive as prescriptive. Education always shapes character, always transmits values, always forms certain kinds of people. The question is what kind of citizens to form. A community that neglects civic education does not produce neutral individuals. It produces people shaped by other forces: family, market, media, peer groups. These may or may not align with what the community needs to flourish. Aristotle recommends education in music, gymnastics, reading, writing, and drawing. Music receives special attention because it shapes the soul, habituating emotional responses that either support or undermine virtue. The wrong music produces the wrong character. This concern may seem quaint, but the underlying insight remains relevant. The media we consume shapes who we become. A culture saturated with images of violence, consumption, and shallow pleasure will tend to produce people habituated accordingly.