UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY
(NOTES)
How We "Understand" Society
Resisting systems which force us to consent to our own deepening self-destruction.
Perceptual Constancy
Perceptual constancy: your past experiences lead you to see / view the world in a way that is difficult for you to change or (reimagine).
Ivian Illich writes to this tune. He says something like this: we rarely consider just how much what we accept as normality. In reality, notions of ‘the way things should’ be are just a recent invention that society has come to settle with.
The status quo then becomes normative power, authority, rule, and governing forces that, for the most part, remain unquestioned.
Accepting this has created contemporary problems of inequality/inequity
The ruling class is merely the reproduction of power
through all things owned and controlled
media
education/schooling
civil/social engineering
institutions
governments
All these reinforce existing power
Because of this we continue to see the social problems of the developed world
Education then becomes a lever of maintaining the status quo.
Illich: dismantles the idea that "education is key to success and social mobility"
This idea has been constructed by the very institutions that benefit from it
Society has been schooled into believing that formal education is the only way to learn
but schools "create a culture that lets unmeasurable experience slip out" Illich
Education as commodity
People look for rankings to tell them what to do (credentialism)
School monopolize learning
Credentialism is valued over competence, character, and integrity
Illich: the ethos, not just the institutions, of society ought to be "deschooled"
Erich Fromm - called Illich's approach "Humanist Radicalism"
Fromm states that what Illich is most interested in - is describing not a specificity of ideas but rather an attitude, a whole approach
According to Fromm, Radical Humanism is based on the principle of "omnibus dubitandum" "everything must be doubted"
Everything Must Be Doubted
Fromm states that this is "not an end" - but instead points to more positive possibilities of transformation
Fromm calls this Radical Humanism,
"the readiness and capacity for critical questioning of all assumptions and institutions which have become idols under the name of common sense, logic and what is supposed to be 'natural'."
In reality the horizon is permeable (John Paul Lederach)
Radical Humanism is not negative
It is the opposite
Deconstructing so as "to reopen the possibilities of transformation of humanity in education and in politics."
Humanistic Radicalism: is radical questioning guided by insight into the dynamics of man's nature and by concern for man's growth and full unfolding." (Fromm)
Illich: "The demonic nature of present systems which force man to consent to his own deepening self-destruction."
Deconstructing as to reopen the possibilities – to reconstruct
A dialectical drive towards something more positive and affirmative
Illich summarizes this possibility: "We can escape from these dehumanizing systems. The way ahead will be found by those who are unwilling to be constrained by the apparently all-determining forces and structures of the Industrial Age. Our freedom and power are determined by our willingness to accept responsibility for the future."