Compulsory philosophy

Philosophy instruction is mandatory in Brazilian high schools, meaning nine million students take the subject for three years. The question becomes whether or not this will create better citizens, even if legislators claim the study of philosophy is 'necessary for the exercise of citizenship':

But can philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasn’t Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didn’t thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just aren’t philosophers in his view. To make them question the beliefs and customs they were brought up in isn’t useful because they can’t replace them with examined ones. So Socrates ended up pushing them into nihilism. To build politics on a foundation of philosophy, Plato concludes, doesn’t mean turning all citizens into philosophers, but putting true philosophers in charge of the city—like parents in charge of children. I wonder, though, why Plato didn’t consider the alternative: If citizens had been trained in dialectic debate from early on—say, starting in high school—might they have reacted differently to Socrates? Perhaps the Brazilian experiment will tell.

In other education news, Vladimir Putin's proposal for an obligatory reading list looks scary as hell. Indeed, "it is a rule of history that only tyrants are interested in what their subjects read."