Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective (Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education (Numbered)) - Softcover

Suisa, Judith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604861142 ISBN 13: 9781604861143

Verlag: PM Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

While there have been historical accounts of the anarchist school movement, there has been no systematic work on the philosophical underpinnings of anarchist educational ideas—until now.

Anarchism and Education offers a philosophical account of the neglected tradition of anarchist thought on education. Although few anarchist thinkers wrote systematically on education, this analysis is based largely on a reconstruction of the educational thought of anarchist thinkers gleaned from their various ethical, philosophical and popular writings. Primarily drawing on the work of the nineteenth century anarchist theorists such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, the book also covers twentieth century anarchist thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, Paul Goodman, Daniel Guerin, and Colin Ward.

This original work will interest philosophers of education and educationalist thinkers as well as those with a general interest in anarchism.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at the Institute of Education University of London, Judith Suissa has authored several books and articles on Philosophy, Anarchism, and Education.

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Anarchism and Education

A Philosophical Perspective

By Judith Suissa

PM Press

Copyright © 2010 PM Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60486-114-3

Contents

Preface to 2010 edition, 
Acknowledgements, 
Introduction, 
1 Anarchism – definitions and questions, 
2 Anarchism and human nature, 
3 Anarchist values?, 
4 Authority, the state and education, 
5 The positive core of anarchism, 
6 Anarchism goes to school, 
7 Education for an anarchist society: vocational training and political visions, 
8 What's so funny about anarchism?, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Anarchism - definitions and questions

Before moving on to a discussion of the educational ideas associated with anarchism, we need a broad understanding of what the anarchist position involves – and, perhaps equally importantly, what it does not involve.

As a political ideology, anarchism is notoriously difficult to define, leading many commentators to complain of its being 'amorphous and full of paradoxes and contradictions' (Miller 1984: 2).

One reason for the confusion surrounding the use of the word 'anarchism' is the derogatory meanings associated with the connected terms 'anarchy' and 'anarchic'. The Oxford English Dictionary defines anarchy as (1) absence of government or control, resulting in lawlessness (2) disorder, confusion; and an anarchist as 'a person who believes that government is undesirable and should be abolished'. In fact, the title 'anarchist' was first employed as a description of adherence to a particular ideology by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1840 and, as shall transpire, the substantial part of this ideology consisted in far more than a simple rejection of government. Indeed, as many anarchists have stressed, it is not government as such that they find objectionable, but the hierarchical forms of government associated with the nation state.

A second reason for the difficulty in reaching a conclusive definition is the fact that anarchism – by its very nature – is anti-canonical, and therefore one cannot refer to any single body of written work (unlike in the case of Marxism) in the search for definitive answers to questions on the nature and principles of the anarchist position. Furthermore, those anarchists who have written extensively on the subject have seldom formulated their views in the form of systematic works – largely out of a conscious commitment to the popular propaganda of their ideas.

Yet in spite of these difficulties, and in spite of the great variance amongst different anarchist thinkers at different times in history, it is possible to approach a working definition of anarchism by asking what it is that distinguishes it from other ideological positions. From this point of view, Reichert is undoubtedly right in pointing out that anarchism is 'the only modern social doctrine that unequivocally rejects the concept of the state' (Reichert 1969: 139).

As the discussion in the following chapters will reveal, as a theory anarchism also addresses basic philosophical issues concerning such notions as human nature, authority, freedom and community. All of these issues have an important bearing on philosophical questions about education, and can be usefully understood in contrast with the views articulated from other ideological perspectives. It is, though, perhaps in light of its rejection of statehood that the theoretical cluster of anarchist ideas is best understood.

Historically speaking, it has been argued (e.g. by Miller, Chomsky and Guerin) that the origins of anarchism as a comprehensive political theory can be traced to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Miller claims that the Revolution, by radically challenging the old regime, opened the way for other such challenges to states and social institutions. Specifically, institutions were now regarded as vulnerable to the demand that they be justified in terms of an appeal to first principles, whether of natural right, social utility, or other universal abstract principles (see Miller 1984: 2–4). Yet anarchism as a political movement did not develop until the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in conjunction with the growing workers' movement. Indeed Joll argues that although philosophical arguments for anarchism can be found in texts of earlier historical periods, as a political movement, anarchism is 'a product of the nineteenth century' (Joll 1979: ix). As Joll points out, 'the values the anarchists attempted to demolish were those of the increasingly powerful centralized, industrial state which, in the nineteenth and twentieth century, has seemed the model to which all societies are approaching' (ibid.).

However, the philosophical ideas embodied in anarchist theory did have historical precedents. Some writers have made the distinction between anarchism as a political movement and 'philosophical anarchism' which consists of a critique of the idea of authority itself. Miller, for example, notes that, as opposed to the political objection to the state, philosophical anarchism could entail a very passive kind of attitude, politically speaking, in which the proponent of this view evades 'inconvenient or immoral state dictates whenever possible', but takes no positive action to get rid of the state or to propose an alternative form of social organization. On this view, one can be an anarchist without subscribing to philosophical anarchism – that is, without rejecting the idea of legitimate authority, and vice versa. However, other theorists, such as Walter, argue that, irrespective of the existence of a philosophical position against authority, all those who identify themselves as anarchists share the positive idea that a stateless society is, however remotely, possible and would be preferable to current society.

Most theorists, in short, seem to agree that, as a political movement, albeit not a continuous one, anarchism developed from the time of the French Revolution onwards, and that it can thus be seen as historically connected with the other major modern political doctrines which were crystallized at around this time, namely, liberalism and socialism. It is indeed around the question of the relationship between these two intellectual traditions that many of the criticisms of anarchism and the tensions within the movement can be understood. In a certain sense, the tensions between liberal and socialist principles are reflected in the contradictions often to be found within the anarchist tradition. While many commentators (see for example Joll 1979; Miller 1984; Morland 1997) describe these apparently irreconcilable tensions as obstacles towards construing anarchism as a coherent ideology, anarchist thinkers writing within the tradition often refuse to see them as contradictions, drawing on particular concepts of freedom to support their arguments. Thus Walter, for example, notes that anarchism

may be seen as a development from either liberalism or socialism, or from both liberalism and socialism. Like liberals, anarchists want freedom; like socialists, anarchists want equality. But we are not satisfied by liberalism alone or by socialism alone. Freedom without equality means that the poor and the weak are less free than the rich and strong, and equality without freedom means that we are all slaves together. Freedom and equality are not contradictory, but complementary [...] Freedom is not genuine if some people are too poor or too weak to enjoy it, and equality is not...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PM Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1604861142
• ISBN 13: 9781604861143
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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