The thesis of this article is simple: the primary function of political scientists is to nurture civic skills and political understanding within our students and those who read our literature. The principal component of both skill and understanding is the capacity to visualize and interpret events through several quite different metaphors. Sensitivity to alternate metaphors comes through liberal education, as traditionally defined. A capacity to recognize the limitations to any given metaphor depends, first, on puzzling life experiences, secondly, on a reservoir of alternate ways of viewing the world, and thirdly, on educational experiences that cultivate deep analytical thought and build self-confidence with thinking differently than other people do If it is true that a liberal education frees people to recognize perspective, predisposition, and prejudice, and if politics is indeed the art and science that must integrate into courses of action values about nature, humanity, society, and the Divine, then political scientists have an enormous stake in the general education curricula of our universities and colleges.