Illich vs. Comenius: The Educational Enterprise in the Light of the Gospel
September 13, 2005
For your reading pleasure, redolent with the aura of underground radicalism, here is a mimeographed (now PDFed) copy of Ivan Illich’s manuscript of a lecture he gave in Chicago on November 13, 1988 called “The Educational Enterprise in the Light of the Gospel.” It is timely reading now as the press and assorted talking heads go through the pantomime of shock and denial at “discovering” third-world America in the wake of the flooding in New Orleans. In his lecture, Illich plumbs the nature of evil and the causes of systemic dysfunction in American society to a fine point of radical truth-telling that goes beyond the idle chatter of the so-called political left and right. Speaking of the public school system, Illich champions the dropout and writes:
“You really must be a tired, beat down inner city resident of Chicago, or Detroit or New York to live with the fact that these schools are taken for granted by millions of people as a daily trivial reality. What use to raise one’s voice? Each separate item is believable: rape and crack – brooms flying through the classroom and spies in the toilets and terroristic counselling and soda-bottles as the principal equipment in the physics lab. But, unless you have experienced them, lived in them, these details do not come together to form the frame for an imaginable human condition. The obsession of our society which forces slum children to attend slum schools is a senseless cruelty which, together with the heroismeof a very few marvellous teachers exceeds the psychic amplitude of my colleagues.
“Let me read the passage from the [Chicago Tribune] which had intruded upon my daydream in the drawing room last Saturday: (I quote) “Principal McDonald reaches up to smooth a shock of white hair that has spilled onto his forehead. He notices the smudge of blood on his hand, then he lunges, eyes flashing ‘give me that pipe!’ Circling him on the second-floor hallway are two pre-teen students, Arnary Bibs who Is armed with a long, unravelled piece of cardboard tubing, and Norris Elliston, who is swinging a stubby piece of copper pipe…’shut up’ says Maurice… McDonald grabs the pipe.
“By confessing to my daydream, I know that I cannot but call for rebuttal. I know what I do. In a sense there is no way of comparing the class of historical events that go under the name of Hiroshima, polpot Cambodia, Armenian Massacre, Nazi holocaust, ABC-stocks and, or human gene-line engeneering on the one hand, and, on the other, the treatment meted out to people in our schoolrooms, hospital wards, prisons, slums or welfare shelters. But, in another sense, both kinds of horrors are manifestations of the same epochal spirit. We need the courage and the discipline of heart and mind, to let these two classes of phenomena Interpret each other. Consequences that are Implicit In the ideology of the industrial mode of existence, and which by now are taken for granted, were simply not tolerated in 1940 except under the Nazi regime. The use of modern science and technology for the use of separating people Into masters and slaves was then impossible except under the flags of Hitler or Hirohito. Under different names this separatian is now considered an inevitable outcome of an educational system, which is part and parcel of the only social reality my contemporaries are able to conceive and which compounds majority status with the sense of failure. One thing which makes the Schindlers of the world alike is this: they expect nothing from an evil system in which they have made their career but the chance to make its total victims feel that they can beat it.”
Illich goes on to discuss the nature of power, evil, the gospels, “the anarchist Christ,” the needfulness of a “bookish” culture (which is under attack) and its monastic origins. He also passes through a critique he made elsewhere (e.g. Tools for Conviviality, “Vernacular Values,” Shadow Work, and Deschooling Society) of the Protestant John Amos Comenius who pioneered modern state schooling and introduced the idea that education is salvation that must be brought to–indeed eventually forced upon–all people. This marked a shift in the western conception of humanity, and for the new homo educandus, the school became “analogous to the Church for the Christian.” This is an interesting observation in light of the phenomenon of Protestant schools, colleges, and universities eclipsing Protestant churches in a process of secularization.
Recently a short article in Christian History endorsed Comenius’ vision as a model for anti-secularization and European unity: “a Christ-centered, universal education called ‘Pansophism.’”
He believed that a broad-based educational program bringing together people of diverse backgrounds in a common understanding could help avert further strife.
Comenius was no naive visionary. He knew the foolishness and futility of the world and expressed it poignantly in his rich allegory, The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart. But he believed that education, though not in itself redemptive, could complement the gospel by fostering international restoration, unity, and peace. People have long understood that one potential benefit of a liberal education is the tolerance and generosity of spirit it can instill in its students.
And for the side of complete Luddite rejectionism in the name of Illich, Berry, and Postman, locate “The Arts of Real Presence” on this page where a Canadian campus chaplain argues,
Comenius’ legacy is the dis-enchantment of the world. The path of Comenius leads us, as Illich has pointed out, to the terrors of a world understood as a yet another device for the use of education and not as a good creation of a creators imaginative and windy engagement with chaos. Creation as a technique or method or as raw material to be used to manufacture the new humanity is the alchemical black magic of such noxious views as Skinnerian behaviourism or the re-education camps of the cultural revolution or even more insidious the liberal Christian view that salvation is won through proper schooling.”
Touching on the same subjects, Pantagruelist McCarraher has an article in the latest Modern Theology (not online for free but discussed here) which rejects the Weberian disenchantment narrative in favor of a “theological history of capitalism” wherein modernity creates a secular parody of the sacramental, ritual, and liturgical life of the church.
For the interested: An Interview with Illich.
This is Illich vs. Comenius: The Educational Enterprise in the Light of the Gospel in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Undercover Freshman Learns Nothing | Next: Among the Detritus of the Storm: Calvinism, Intelligent Design, and the End of Friendship | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
Trackback Pings:
TrackBack URL for this entry: