I’ve recently had the pleasure of re-reading two of Plato’s dialogues, the Phaedrus and the Sophist. Reading Plato is always a pleasure. Even when he’s wrong, i.e., when his philosophy is inadequate, he’s never wholly wrong. 

I’ve argued here (see, for example, my June 20, 2023 post “Joined at the Hip”) that liberal learning isn’t just a nice thing; it’s essential to democracy. CHANGE MAG. But such high-minded scribblings beg certain practical questions about how exactly we can achieve the parallel goals of more liberal arts and more democracy. And while we’re at it, let’s add another key ingredient: better media. It takes all three to make the soufflé of democratic culture rise. (As they say at The New Yorker: Block that metaphor!).

There’s a reason why I devote an entire chapter of Inside the Liberal Arts to the idea of complexity. I argue that complexity is one of the foundational “gateway concepts” of liberal learning: an intellectual driver that (as part of the simple-complex axis) explains a lot about how we explain things to ourselves and one another. And it’s hidden in plain sight, so to speak. We can choose to recognize and use it, or not.