Education and counter-education in democratic societies

Abstract

The question of the relationship between education and democracy emerges from two perspectives. On the one hand, it relates to the role of educational institutions. On the other hand, it involves the democratic process itself, i.e. the interactions and power relations between groups and institutions in the context of delegating power, making collective decisions and implementing the decisions taken. In this article, I will seek to develop the idea that the democratic process consists of an educational exchange between civil society and the state, between the governed and the governors. I will try to demonstrate that this process occurs in such a way that it also produces counterproductive effects on education. The paradox of the democratic process lies in the fact that it enables collective decision-making through a “political pedagogy”, while at the same time engendering a kind of counter-pedagogy by arousing anti-social sentiments. The result is a political variant of Kant’s sociable sociability (ungesellige Geselligkeit), that is, a form of sociable sociability that manifests itself not only in terms of social cooperation (as in the “Essay on Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View”), but also in terms of collective action to address problems that can only be solved jointly, both nationally and internationally. I intend to draw some conclusions from this description at both levels.