ABSTRACT
Every government therefore has an interest in the character of their citizens. Some, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan through its ministry for the suppression of vice and promotion of virtue, used extreme methods of social control. It should of course be said that it was a government which had a flawed view of what constituted virtue. Those who govern Western political democracies do not seek to use such crude methods. They rely on obtaining uncoerced public approval for their moral education programmes. The quality of political life in a democracy is largely determined by the quality and character of its people. Governments are concerned with citizens and whether the quality of their citizens’ characters is improving or getting worse. It is why many politicians refer to the litany of alarm described in chapter 1. The State, as Aristotle pointed out in his Politics, has an interest in the education of youth, one of its functions being to bring together the competing interests of individuals and factions. The State must cultivate self-discipline among youth, partly through schooling, in order to produce good citizens. Failure in this will either lead to social and moral chaos or to draconian government intent on controlling the population by external means.
