This background makes clear that extending liberal arts education from the elite to the many was nothing short of a radical democratic event, one in which all became potentially eligible for the life of freedom long reserved for the few. The notion that all colleges and universities ought to offer a liberal arts degree and that such a degree is one to which all intellectually qualified citizens should have access heralded an order in which the masses would be educated for freedom. Regardless of the quantitative and qualitative limits on its realization, the radicalism of this event cannot be overstated: for the first time in human history, higher-educational policy and practice were oriented toward the many, tacitly destining them for intelligent engagement with the world, rather than economic servitude or mere survival. In this respect, far more than class mobility and equality of opportunity were advanced by a liberal arts education generalized across society. Rather, the ideal of democracy was being realized in a new way insofar as the demos was being prepared through education for a life of freedom, understood as both individual sovereignty (choosing and pursuing one’s ends) and participation in collective self-rule.

Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, loc. 375