Presented at the CiRCE Spring Regional Conference 2023.

In Ideas Have Consequences — in a chapter titled “Distinction and Hierarchy — Richard Weaver concurred with the common assertion that “democracy cannot exist without education.” But he went on to insist that real education — education rooted in reality — demanded that students be brought to recognize “the hierarchy of values.” Such an education “encourages reflection” and “inspires a reverence for the good.” In this session, Ken Myers will highlight the claims of other 19th- and 20th-century commentators on education who insisted that the common good in democratic societies required approaches to education that were unapologetically (in the words of Peter Kreeft) elitist regarding ideas yet egalitarian regarding persons.