Tocqueville Program fosters self-governing citizens

Mike Sabo, editor of the American civics portal for RealClear, turns to Furman University’s Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey to understand how the politics and international affairs professors meet students where they are in their quest to make sense of the political problems we face. The professors point to several programs at the university that seek to unravel questions of politics, justice and government and how those square with God and the so-called “good life.”

Furman’s Tocqueville Program, Society of Tocqueville Fellows, Political Thought Club, and an Engaged Living Program for freshmen all serve to bolster political and social IQ, engaging students in a deep “appreciation of self-government as an activity with its own intrinsic dignity,” the Storeys say. They also note that students should not only be able “to tolerate the different opinions of their fellow citizens, but to also genuinely listen to those opinions, in hopes of further clarifying the grounds of their own ways of life.”