The Lion's Pride Volume 9 (January 2018) | Page 11

interact with others. It is not the time to limit knowledge. Rather, it is a
time to expand and widen knowledge and information, to increase skills
and abilities. Overall, it is a time to engage the world and learn different
new things in order to flow with the waves of globalism.
General education is also important, particularly in the United
States, because democracy requires informed citizens. Every citizen in a
democratic country is indirectly a part of the government, and
democracy cannot run without the involvement of citizens. People often
mistakenly believe that democracy is a system of rights, but it is also a
system of civic duties, one of which is voting. However, voting requires
knowledge. In “From General Education to Civic Preparation: The
Public Purpose of the Liberal Arts and Sciences,” Joseph Urgo, a
Provost at the University of North Carolina Asheville, insists that those
people who are unfamiliar with the proper functions of American
democracy should not participate in it. Indeed, citizens of the United
States must have knowledge of what they are voting on, whether it is a
leader or some important issue, in order to make a decision that is in
their best interest. Further, citizen votes affect the functioning of the
state and federal government as well as the daily lives of others.
Certainly, the vote of a citizen affects everyone in the United States,
including those who cannot vote. Therefore, the present and the future of
the nation depend on the voter’s enh anced knowledge.