A Vision for a Learning Society

This is the summary of the last chapter of Peter Jarvis’ (2008) Democracy, Lifelong Learning and the Learning Society: Active Citizenship in a Late Modern Age

The title of this final chapter is

                                        

Jarvis begins by summarizing some of what was in preceding chapters:

·         GC Culture has demanded a certain form of LLL and the Learning Society

·         What developed was more an extension of schooling with less emphasis on critical or liberal adult education

·         There was also a change in terminology, swinging toward “learning” over “education”

o   Jarvis doesn’t make the point here, but the change in terminology also makes it easier to envision a shift in responsibility from the state providing education as an opportunity, to individuals engaging in and funding their own learning as a responsibility.

·         Political power can theoretically trump economic power, but Jarvis claims this is unlikely to happen.  Inter-national unity would be required in a Global Capitalist environment.

o   At best, governments can “cushion” the effects of unrestricted GC.

o   Habermas (2006) seems a little more optimistic suggesting that governments have to catch up to changes in GC culture.  

·         GC industry exercises power through the market and through its influence on financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

·         Opposition has been limited to large/strong nations (e.g. China, Russia).

·         The Enlightenment Project has failed

o   Its values are not capable of creating a utopian reality

·         The concept of “communitas”  (Bauman, 1993; Turner, 2005) offers a more acceptable vision and direction

o   It involves strong feelings of community and social equality

o   Society cannot actually exist as communitas, but it can be experienced in fleeting moments of care/love/agape for the Other

o   Jarvis contends that we all experience such moments

o   He argues for a society whose morality is beyond reason based on agape and those moments in which we experience communitas

I am reflecting on individualism/liberalism and a more community or relationship minded way of being in the world.  Jarvis argues throughout the volume that an ethic of individualism will not lead to a “good” or sustainable society.  One might counter that argument by identifying any large number of individuals who embrace liberalism and individuality and yet still do good social deeds.  One can find, for example, churches of people who will raise money and build a new hospital or provide food and housing for the poor.  But it strikes me that such good deeds often appear to be done not solely altruistically. A common narrative in such communities is often that good deeds in this life will result in reward for the individual in the next life.  One does good deeds because one believes that God wants one to do them and so they can be valued by God. It’s an investment. In this sense, these actions could be seen just as individualistic and self-interested as brushing ones teeth to avoid cavities.  When one does good deeds because one sees the inherent value in another human being, and not for individual reward, I suspect we have a moment of communitas.

·         What is the ideal state to which we should aim in order to produce a just learning society?

o   There are 3 problems:

§  The world is getting “bigger” while its political units get smaller.  Each smaller unit is less capable of opposing the global substructure of the GC science/technology/market core.  The core supports a certain kind of learning society:  one that is not necessarily ideal.

§  What type of political unit do we need?  Democratic forms seem most likely appropriate for communitas. Although it may be hard to determine what political roles education should then take, lifelong learning could help to develop the dialogue required to determine the political direction.

§  At what level can we/should we engage such debate? Local, national, regional, global?  Any of these would be hard to do.  The learned individual has to engage the group (a group). This is the paradox and tension of social order often brought up in this volume:  the balance between the individual and the group.

o   Can we choose a realistic Utopia to guide our learning society and lifelong learning?

§  Non-self-interested concern for the other should be at the heart of any horizon we choose

§  We should not be constrained by dispositions of modernity.

§  We should be guided by morality that puts people first.

Communitas, Democracy and the Learning Society

·         Communitas is an ever-potential state of sense of belonging and one-ness with a group.

·         It can be experienced in social events, rituals and relationships.

o   I started to wonder if communitas was at the heart of the elation one gets when ones school team wins the big game or when we witness man walking on the moon.

·         It is rooted in relationship, not in individuality.

·         Individuality is not put forth as a part of communitas in Turner’s (1969) formulation

o   Jarvis reminds us that there are times when individualism is essential.

·         We experience it in partiality: it is never complete, we are always in many ways outside of it, and yet we always sense its possibility. 

How can we build a society with politics based on a morality of love as the sole good?

·         We can’t.

·         So what should we do?

1.      Do nothing.  We can look at option #2 and dismiss it as Utopian believing that since it in itself is unrealizable in totality, it has no worth.

OR

2.      Continue to encourage a lifestyle devoted to concerned daily living.

This would require changes. We’d have to focus more on types of learning/knowledge other than science/technology with only economic use-value. We would need a broad and holistic learning culture.  This would require truly lifelong and life-wide learning; learning from living itself and the love of learning. Schools should be experienced as democratic communitas where the whole of the person is valued and everyone has a Face. We would encourage a strong moral relationship between people, and not just democracy as a form of individual interest preservation. We need to develop “persons-in-relations” in schooling. It begins with learning to live together in a community.  With a love of learning, these persons-in-relations will be active citizens and the social-learning sphere will flourish where dialogue will steer us ever closer to a Utopian horizon, even if we never quite reach it.

At this point, I am reflecting again on a statement I made in an earlier blog regarding the ‘numbers game’ of democracy.  I had pointed out that the fact that a majority of people want or vote for a particular outcome does not make that outcome a ‘good.’  Any number of historical events could illustrate that the majority often want, collectively, what many would see as a social evil.  But it occurs to me while reading this segment that this is true because of the acceptance of individual self-interest as a valid moral position.  There is a sense that ‘if enough people want it and would benefit from it, it must be good.’   However, in a state of communitas, and in an ethic of agape/concern for the Other, the paradox of the numbers game of democracy doesn’t seem so problematic. If the majority of the people want or vote for an outcome, and if it is done in the spirit of concern for the Other and not for self-interest, then it will more likely represent a social good.  

The Public Debate—Morality and Politics

To negotiate between the concepts of society held between communitarians and liberals (what Jarvis often refers to as the paradox of the individual and the group) we might look to Rawls’ public reason or Habermas’ deliberative politics. Either way, this debate is learning. (I would add that it too is more than an individual-learning but more of a community-culture learning in which the entire community learns, and not just an individual)  But the public forum has been weakened.  We need citizens who are learned (I am using the term ‘learned’ here although Jarvis does not.  It implies to me people who have been engaged in a number of forms of learning, not just formal education, and are equipped to participate in informed debate) to participate in the debate and to be politically active beyond the debate.

Jarvis reviews the paradox of the individual and the group as he has done in several of the preceding chapters.  I won’t summarize that here, and point readers toward my previous blogs, particularly December 24, 2010.  Similarly, he reviews Rawls’ theory of liberal democracy which can be reviewed in the December 30, 2010 posting. He then posits that visions of how society should function should be

…judged by a morality which, while not far removed from justice as fairness, puts the welfare of persons first, irrespective of their ability to reciprocate in the first instance.(p. 218).

Jarvis wants to suggest beyond Rawls’ concept of law formation based on justice as fairness, that

…at the heart of all political consideration and law should be the agapistic principle of disinterested concern for the Other—but, paradoxically, this can become individualistic unless it is put into the context of the community’s own existence  (p. 218).

This is where Jarvis connects agapism and communitas.

He reminds us of one of the pillars of Learning in UNESCO’s Delors Report (1996) which is “learning to live together” and reminds us that learning roles citizenship (broadly interpreted here as social roles, not simple ‘civics’ lessons) may be more important than learning occupational roles.  This process is lifelong and life-wide.

He suggests one addition to UNESCO’s 4 pillars of learning.  In addition to

·         Learning to do

·         Learning to be

·         Learning to know

·         Learning to live together

Jarvis adds

·         “Learning to care for the planet.

He also encourages us to

…create a learning society in which the debates are not all about wealth-making but about people-caring the world over. (p. 219).

Prophets, Teachers and Leaders

Utopian visions like communitas and agape are the unrealisable dreams that show us that what we have right now can be improved and give us direction in which to proceed.  It is the role, says Javis, of teachers, prophets and leaders to help move society to an unknown but better direction.

Prophets

Prophets (not necessarily taken as a religious prophet) exist today.  What they do is

·         Warn us that today is not good enough (denunciation)

·         Point us in a new direction (annunciation)

Jarvis refers to the prophets currently denunciating and annunciating about Global Climate Change and tells us that we need to learn from the prophets and not just condemn them.

Teachers

Teachers need to help people achieve their humanity and stimulate a love of learning to last a lifetime. Teaching is a moral task and involves a commitment to society. Teachers may have to denounce before they can announce.  I would add, in a Freirean way, that a teacher’s job is beyond ‘announcing.’  This to me implies teaching what one believes the learner needs, instead of starting from the position of the self-identified needs of the learners.  So, I would say that a teacher needs to instil a critical way of being in the world so that students will be able to question and denounce for themselves, and a curiosity so that they will be able to announce for themselves.

Leaders

Jarvis intentionally avoids the word “politician.” 

He claims that we need leaders that can help us toward a ‘better society’ and not necessarily a wealthier one.  They also need to be able to engage and enjoin the public forum of debate and contrasting visions. These leaders will have to be lifelong and life-wide learners to keep up with an ever-moving utopian horizon and the rapid changes in the world.  They need to have a driving vision of communitas that is relevant to the people and an ethic of agape.

Conclusion

We need to develop a society “in which those elements of existential communitas can find an enduring form.” (p. 224). To do this, we have to cultivate and re-experience our early life experiences of relation and love.  We need citizens who love and whose love for learning never stops. 

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Tomorrow I am going to start reading and summarizing a 2008 Routledge book entitled

Foucault and Lifelong Learning: Governing the Subject

It is edited by Andres Fejes and Katherine Nicoll which has mostly European contributors, but includes 3 others from New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

I will present the first chapter tomorrow, written by the editors, entitled

Mobilizing Foucault in Studies of Lifelong Learning