In the concluding chapter of his book - which argues the need not to abolish Rational Choice Theory but to broaden it to include the insights of the Romantic Movement - Richard Bronk warns against ignoring the place of the nation state ...
The organicist approach ... underlines the strong emphasis by many Romantics on the importance of nation states, and nationally specific as opposed to universal models of behaviour ... with much of our congitive development, our social and economic behaviour,and even our capacity for innovation and creativity, conditioned by national institutions, norms and education systems, it follows that we cannot fully understand patterns of economic behaviour and specialisation without considering the role of nation states.
Secondly social organization in the tradition of Herder helps highlight the anthropological fact that there is no universal system of values ...
Clearly the 'organicist approach' was entirely - deliberately? - absent, both in the Pinochet revolution of 1973, and in the race towards globalization after
the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Of equal importance, in consideration of neoliberalism's emphasis on
methodological individualism - "there's no such thing as society" - and its ally
game theory - everyone else is to be distrusted - is the parallel issue of
utilitarianism:
The Romantics almost all rejected utilitarianism for its inadequate model of human motivation - for reducing human beings to 'pleasure machines' ...
Hence the importance of the corporate consumer 'culture' with it's slogan "because you're worth it", and the importance of branding as a prop to self-image and status, but Bronk's argument goes beyond this ...
The Romantics ... quarrel with utilitarianism went deeper than that.
They asserted time and time again the intrinsic value of love, beauty, freedom and human life - values that are neither directly commensurable with pleasurable feeling (or material wealth) nor in many cases even compatible with them ... values are not (contrary to utilitarianism) all commensuarable according to a single unit of account, and there is therefore no single right answer as to how we should balance the conflicting demands they make upon us ...
Neoliberalism requires human beings to be reduced to 'pleasure machines' since 'pleasure machines' will also lack the felt need to detect the torrent
of crap spewed out by the corporate media for the very purposes of modelling consumers' behaviours.
It is here that the 'insights' of Messrs Watson and Skinner are harnessed to the needs of corporate profit.
The basic tenet of Learning Theory is
that, quite simply, machines is all we are - highly complex, maybe - but in reality blank slates
capable of learning to respond to the right stimulus.
The current deluge of advertising - ostensibly about the success of the London 2012 Olympic Games - demonstrates the manner in which events such as this
can 'model' us 'pleasure machines' into confusing support for the athletes with buying products advertised by 'official' sponsors.
In resisting this sinister modelling of our behaviours the values of the Romantics are essential, but, since they also provide the platform for
contesting corporate neoliberalism, they are no longer considered to be of social or educational value.
[CD]
In his seminal essay - "The importance of knowing how" - Professor A C Grayling argues that ...
Knowing how to evaluate information ... is arguably the most important kind of knowledge that education has to teach. Some schools offer courses in it, and there are a number of books about it on the market.
But only the International Baccalaureate makes critical thinking ("theory of knowledge") a standard requirement, and in this as in so many ways it leads the field, because critical thinking and evaluation of claims to knowledge should always be right at the centre of the educational enterprise.
From issue 2668 of New Scientist magazine, 06 August 2008, page 48
New Scientist 06 August 2008
Those of us who cling to these values are like the character Granger in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, who, in a world where all books have been burned ...
... is the leader of a group of wandering intellectual exiles who memorize books in order to preserve their contents ...
And their values.
About Me
- Born Sutton Coldfield, 1936
- Bishop Vesey Grammar School, 1947-53
- National Service, RAF, 1954-56
- Clerical jobs, 1956-62
- Coventry College of Education, 1962-65
- Primary Teaching, 1965-69
- Special Education, 1969-72
- Edge Hill College, 1972-73
- Adult Literacy - Teacher Training, 1973-80
- Special Needs in mainstream schools 1979-90
Obsessions
- Birmingham City 0
- Blogging
- Classical Music
- History
- Photography & Digital Imagery
- Politics
