Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
4, 2001
INTRODUCTION
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Bakunin was even more outspoken in his critique of `that individualistic, egotistical, malicious and illusory freedom extolled by the school
of J. J. Rousseau, as by all the other schools of bourgeois liberalism'
(Bakunin, 1971, p. 1). Accordingly, several theorists have proposed that
it is in fact equality, or fraternity, that constitutes the primary value for
anarchists (see Fidler, 1989). Others, like Daniel Guerin and Noam
Chomsky (1970), suggest that anarchism should be viewed as `the
libertarian wing of socialism', echoing Adolph Fischer's remark that
`every anarchist is a socialist but not every socialist is an anarchist'
(quoted in Chomsky, 1970, p. xii).
Whether or not one accepts such claims, it is undoubtedly true that, in
terms of historical influence, it was the social anarchists who played the
greater part, as well as providing the greatest mass of written work.
Therefore, while not wishing to gloss over the tensions within anarchist
theory, I shall focus mainly on this group, who also offer interesting
insights on philosophy of education.
In spite of their focus on the class struggle and on the need for social
revolution, there are crucial differences between the social anarchists
and the Marxists, and much of Bakunin's political theory took the form
of an attack on Marx. The anarchists opposed common, central
ownership of the economy and, of course, state control of production,
and believed that a transition to a free and classless society was possible
without any intermediate period of dictatorship. Fundamentally, they
consider the Marxist view of the state as a mere tool in the hands of the
ruling economic class too narrow because it obscures the basic truth that
states have certain inherent properties. By using the state structure to
realise their goals, revolutionaries will, according to anarchism,
inevitably reproduce all its negative features. Thus the anarchists were
highly sceptical about the Marxist idea of the `withering away of the
state'. They also objected that the Marxist claim to create a scientific
theory of social change lead to a form of elitism. Bakunin, in a speech to
the First International, attacked Marx as follows:
As soon as an ocial truth is pronounced having been scientically
discovered by this great brainy head labouring all alone a truth
proclaimed and imposed on the whole world from the summit of the
Marxist Sinai why discuss anything? (quoted in Miller, 1984, p. 80).
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ANARCHIST EDUCATION
The school had no rigid timetable, and pupils were allowed to come and
go as they wished. Although somewhat sympathetic to the antiintellectualism of Rousseau, Ferrer did not scorn `book-learning'
altogether, but a great emphasis was placed on `learning by doing',
and much of the curriculum consisted in practical training and fieldtrips. Ferrer was also adamant about the need for teachers to be
professionally independent, and was highly critical of the system by
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HUMAN NATURE
Bhikhu Parekh notes that, although the concept of human nature `is one
of the oldest and most influential in Western philosophy', there is little
agreement amongst philosophers on what the term actually means
(Parekh, 1997, pp. 1516). Parekh proposes a minimalist definition,
emphasising not only the universal constants of human existence but the
`ways in which they are creatively interpreted and incorporated into the
process of human self-articulation and self-understanding' (ibid., p. 26).
As he notes, philosophers have used the concept of human nature to
serve three purposes: `to identify or demarcate human beings; to explain
human behaviour; and to prescribe how human beings should live and
conduct themselves' (ibid., p. 17). It is the third purpose that is of central
concern to the philosophy of education. Indeed Anthony O'Hear has
articulated a view similar to Parekh's, stating that `human nature is not
something that is just given. It is something we can make something of,
in the light of how we conceive ourselves and others' (O'Hear, 1981,
p. 1). Accordingly, emphasising particular traits or potentialities as
uniquely and essentially human often plays an important role in
philosophically evaluating and promoting normative positions on
education.
In anarchist thought, the concept of a common human nature is
employed in order to demonstrate the feasibility of a society based on
mutual co-operation, solidarity and self-government. However, contrary
to the opinion of many critics, the anarchists did not ascribe to a na vely
optimistic view of human nature. In his detailed study, David Morland
(1997) notes that both Proudhon and Bakunin, two of the leading social
anarchist theorists, hold a contextualist view, according to which human
nature is inherently twofold. As Bakunin picturesquely expressed this
idea: `Man has two opposed instincts; egoism and sociability. He is more
ferocious in his egoism than the wildest beasts and at the same time more
sociable than the ants and bees' (Maximoff, 1953, p. 147). Similarly,
Kropotkin, in his monumental treatise Mutual Aid, attempted to counter
the extreme version of social Darwinism often put forward as a
justification of the capitalist system. Kropotkin was anxious to show
that the simplistic notion of `survival of the fittest' was a misleading
interpretation of evolutionary theory. Of course, `for most of us,
Darwinism suggests anything but communality and co-operativeness in
nature' (Nisbet, 1976). Yet the Origin of Species is full of references to
man's `social nature', and by ignoring this emphasis in Darwin's work,
the position referred to as `social Darwinism' amounts to, as Robert
Nisbet notes, `scarcely more than a celebration of the necessity of
competition and conflict in the social sphere' (ibid., p. 364). Kropotkin's
extensive study of evolution and animal behaviour (published in 1910)
was intended to redress this perceived imbalance in the interpretation of
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being that of the Paris Commune. Colin Ward cites research into smallscale experiments in education and health care as supporting both the
idea of the benevolent potential of human nature, and the connected
anarchist theory of `spontaneous order'. This holds that: `Given a
common need, a collection of people will, by trial and error, by
improvisation and experiment, evolve order out of the situation this
order being more durable and more closely related to their needs than
any that an externally imposed authority could provide' (Ward, 1982,
p. 31).
IV
In summary, the anarchist understanding of human nature is not as onedimensional or optimistic as is often assumed. Interestingly, it also
shares many features with classic liberalism. As Michael Taylor points
out, both anarchism and liberalism rest on certain assumptions about
human nature. This point is especially relevant to education. For
example, the question posed by Meira Levinson in The Demands of
Liberal Education namely, `what characteristics of the individual does
the liberal state see as important and worthy of encouragement?' is,
in essence, a question about human nature. Anarchists choose to
emphasise benevolence, sociability and voluntary co-operation as those
characteristics worthy of encouragement, arguing that they are most
effectively fostered in a stateless, de-centralised society. Liberals make
similar methodological choices. For example, in the context of liberal
arguments for justifying the (minimal) state, it is, as Taylor notes,
`effectively assumed that every individual is an egoist' (Taylor, 1982,
p. 55). Furthermore, Bikhu Parekh points out that Mill's ideal of the
autonomous individual, on the basis of whom the liberal society was to
be founded and sustained, was acknowledged by Mill and his
contemporaries to be one that often `went against some of the deepest
tendencies of human nature' and was thus regarded as an `extremely
difficult and precarious achievement' (Parekh, 1994, p. 11). This, of
course, is one reason why Mill's liberal doctrine went hand in hand with
the requirement for global educational provision. So both liberalism and
anarchism highlight certain aspects of human nature that, innate or not,
need to be re-inforced by education in order to sustain the desired
political system.
In addition to these methodological points, there are interesting
substantive points of convergence between liberalism and anarchism.
Primarily, in assigning a central position to autonomy, liberals must
obviously be assuming at the very least a human potential for
benevolence, for otherwise institutions far more coercive than those of
the liberal state would be needed to guarantee individual freedom. Leroy
Rouner notes that the idea that humans have an inherent capacity for
goodness `is deep-seated within the liberal tradition' (Rouner, 1997), and
Alan Ritter makes the further claim that the anarchist contextualist view
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The liberal solution to this problem is, of course, to accept the framework of the coercive state, but to limit its power so as to guarantee
maximum protection of individual liberty. The anarchists reject the state
outright but have to rely on a certain amount of public censure to secure
the cohesive force and survival of society. As Ritter points out, it is
because anarchists `affirm the worth of communal understanding' that
they can, unlike liberals, regard such censure as having a relatively
benign effect on individuality. In short, `to redeem society on the
strength of rational, spontaneous relations, while slaying the leviathan
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(Jonathan, 1997, p. 30). The values and beliefs implicit in this substantive
position are, of course, at odds with those at the core of the anarchist
position.
How different, though, are these anarchist values and the anarchist
ideological perspective from those of Marxism, especially with regard to
education? Anarchists obviously share certain Marxist assumptions
regarding the structural inequality of capitalist society, and the
possibility of subverting this by means of a critical pedagogy. Indeed,
the Platonic ideal of education as freedom from illusion is one that
underlies much of the tradition of radical and critical pedagogy,
reflecting yet another point of convergence between liberalism, Marxism
and anarchism. Yet anarchist thinkers would reject both the theory of
social reproduction and the idea of the socially constructed nature of
knowledge implicit in much contemporary work in critical pedagogy. As
an Enlightenment movement, anarchism involves a great deal of faith in
progress and universal values. It is this, indeed, that separates it from
postmodernist theories, in spite of its decentralist, anti-hierarchical
stance.
Whereas in Marxism there is basically, as Todd May puts it, `a single
enemy: capitalism' (May, 1994, p. 26), the focus of Marxist revolutionary thought thus being on class as the chief unit of social struggle,
anarchist thinking involves a far more tactical, multi-dimensional
understanding of what the social revolution consists in. Connectedly,
an anarchist thinker, unlike a traditional Marxist, cannot offer abstract,
general answers to political questions outside of the reality of social
experience and experimentation. In an educational context, this
anarchist perspective is reminiscent of Freire's notion of `situated
pedagogy'. Yet the dominant interpretation and implementation of
Freire's ideas on dialogue and critical pedagogy (in spite of his warnings)
often reduces his pedagogical approach to what Donaldo Macedo calls
`a form of group therapy that focuses on the psychology of the
individual' (1994, p. xv). As Macedo points out, the sharing of
experiences should not be understood in psychological terms only. It
invariably requires a political and ideological analysis as well. The
political project at the heart of anarchist educational endeavours would
seem to avoid the potential pitfalls of a pedagogy centred on particular,
situated relationships. Specifically, the substantive focus of the anarchist
critique, dealing as it does with the reality of oppression and injustice in
its various forms, has the possibility of directing pupils' consciousness
outwards, away from their own subjective situation, and towards a
positive content.4
Of course, the extension of Marxist analysis contributed by critical
theorists provides a far richer understanding of power relations in
society than that found in the works of both traditional Marxists and
social anarchists who, while focusing on the top-down nature of power
in the state, often both overlooked the complex ways in which power
continues to play a role in inter-personal relationships and failed
adequately to consider the categories of race and gender and their
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We are still left with the broad questions we started out with: Is
anarchism utopian, what does this mean and what implications can this
have for our philosophical thinking on education?
The preceding discussion suggests that anarchism is not utopian at
least in that its account of human nature is not completely counterintuitive. Of course, the charge of utopianism still has some truth if one
accepts Karl Mannheim's classic account, according to which `utopian'
refers to `that type of orientation which transcends reality and which at
the same time breaks the bonds of the existing order' (Mannheim, 1979,
p. 173). But there is an important sense in which anarchism is definitely
not utopian, as noted by Isaiah Berlin:
The main characteristic of most, perhaps all utopias is the fact that they
are static. Nothing in them alters, for they have reached perfection: there
is no need for novelty or change (Berlin, 1991, p. 20).
643
Perhaps the same could be argued for a critical and vital philosophy of
education. And perhaps, as the above account suggests, these two
tensions, and their dynamic interplay, can in fact be found in the work of
the social anarchists.
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