Digging our own grave: A Marxian consideration of formal education as a destructive enterprise
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Digging our own grave: A Marxian consideration of formal education as a destructive enterprise Alan Bainbridge1
© UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The negative impact of human activity has been known throughout history. The epic tale of Gilgamesh, Koranic and biblical texts all make clear the potential that humans have to destroy the world in which they live. Climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 have also been predicted well in advance. The “wicked problem” (dilemma) to address is: “Why do humans still persist in ‘digging their own graves’ by damaging the environments they inhabit?” The author of this article argues that the motive to engage in education can be understood as an ancient human response to ecological change. This has led to a range of behaviours, including teaching and learning that serve only to further disrupt the relationship between the human and the “more-than-human” world. When formal education structures are viewed through a Marxian lens, it soon becomes clear that the unsustainable impact of humans on the more-than-human is the result of capitalist entrapment. Karl Marx’s proposition of a metabolic rift helps make sense of the nonsensical, while a discussion of use and exchange value shows how formal education has become ensnared in the mire of capitalist productivity, concealing from view the educationally-induced destruction of planetary systems that support human flourishing. Fortunately, a more sustainable and sustaining education is possible – this is an education for a “long-life” that is no longer influenced by the machinery of neoliberalism. Keywords capitalism · metabolic rift · adaptive lag · ecology · sustainable education · COVID-19 · open world · closed world Résumé Nous creusons notre propre tombe : une réflexion marxiste sur l’éducation formelle considérée comme une entreprise destructrice – L’impact négatif de l’humanité a été constaté à travers l’histoire tout entière. L’épopée de Gilgamesh ou encore les textes * Alan Bainbridge [email protected] 1
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK
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du Coran et de la Bible révèlent la propension de l’homme à détruire le monde dans lequel il vit. Le dérèglement climatique, l’effondrement de la biodiversité et les zoonoses comme la COVID-19 avait été prédits depuis bien longtemps. Le dilemme qui se pose quand on aborde cette question : « Pourquoi les hommes persistent-ils à ‘creuser leur propre tombe’ en portant atteinte à leur propre environnement ? » L’auteur de cet article affirme que l’on voit dans la raison qui pousse à s’instruire une réponse humaine historique au changement écologique, ce qui a entraîné l’apparition de tout un ensemble de comportements, y compris l’enseignement et l’apprentissage qui servent juste à perturber encore plus les rapports entre le monde humain et le monde « au-delà de l’humain ». En observant les struct
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