Worldview Dialog

9 Apr Filed under Education.
Part 1 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education

PREFACE

In the Fall of 2008, I enrolled in Education for Social and Cultural Change (ELC 721), a graduate course in the UNCG Education Leadership and Cultural Foundations program.  The course was taught by H. Svi Shapiro.  The curriculum included reading and discussing the following books (all links to openlibrary.org):

The final assignment was to respond to the following:

To be citizens of this country and members of the global community means to understand something of the force and pressures that are shaping our lives. It indicates an awareness of the political, moral, religious and cultural movements that are
contesting for influence and power here and elsewhere in the world.

How has this course contributed to our understanding of what citizenship education in a postmodern world should mean?
In what sense can it be argued that such an education is an intellectual, moral and spiritual process?

With some modifications for the blogoshere, this series, Citizenship Education, is my final paper submission. Read More »

On Affluenza

9 Apr Filed under Education.
Part 2 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education

Affluenza is the negative consequences of over-consumption. Our society is one which is experiencing a sickness over our obsession with materials. I agree with the vast majority of what the authors of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic wrote. However, I wonder if they do not quite locate the root of the cause. Why do we appear to be collectively choosing stuff over people; material over relationships? What is the root causes of Affluenza? According the authors, humans are not naturally hoarding creatures, for there are plenty of “Stone-age” societies who stop hunting and gathering when they have sufficient food, clothing and shelter. They enjoy leisure time, telling stories. (De Graff, et al, 129-130) Perhaps we are being victimized by greedy profiteers, who use clever advertising to dupe us into believing that if we only had the next thing we would be happy, but I do not think this tell the entire story. No one is forcing us to consume excessively.

I think we are searching for significance. We ask, “Am I valuable? Do I have worth?” I do not find it surprising that in an era where matter was seen as the foundation of reality, and ultimately the source of value, we would become a people which would associate significance with materials. It is as if we think, “People who are valuable, have valuables.” We are individually and collectively experiencing the dehumanizing effect of the Modern worldview. I think Affluenza is just one example. We are ultimately left unsatisfied with things, for things have no power to ultimately satisfy us. When we anticipate material goods will satisfy us we are granting them an authority over us they do not possess. We are subjecting ourselves to things. We will not be happy if we trust in stuff to make us happy. Moreover, we become like what we worship. When we glorify material objects, we objectify people and find we treat each other like objects. Those experiencing Affluenza demonstrates these symptoms. We should be critically reflecting on our worldview to understand how it informs our perception of material goods, and how we treat our neighbor. Affluenza, the book, is a significant contribution in a dialog concerning the negative consequences of a dysfunctional worldview.

Idolizing Democracy

9 Apr Filed under Education.
Part 3 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education

The philosopher Richard Rorty believes “the word ‘Postmodernism’ has been rendered virtually meaningless by being used to mean some many different things.” (262) But at a minimum, he understands it to signify “a perceived loss of unity.” Rorty’s use of the world “perception” is important. It signifies the existence of a worldview, one which is entertaining the idea of universal chaos. Rorty attributes this “loss of unity” as the to-be-expected growing pains of a truly pluralistic society, one which is coming to terms with the radical implications of Darwinism. For Pragmatists like Rorty, humanity is struggling with abandoning its ancient ideas of spirituality. Rorty would have us believe humanity is maturing but finding it difficult to put away our childish things. Rorty’s hope is that we will grow increasing comfortable with the realization that there is no source of norms other than matter and it is humanity’s role to give it voice. But what is important to recognize is that reality hasn’t suddenly begun to behave differently. In short, reality still operates the same way as it always has, since the beginning of history and before. What has changed is our understanding of a particular worldview. Richard Rorty would have us believe we are a mature species to give up a meta-narrative for reality, a unifying story. As I said earlier, while I do not think humans can live without a worldview, I do think we are capable of not recognizing the worldview we embrace. Rorty’s own writings contain an overarching theme of human progression and emancipation. It is a faith in human-directed transformative power. History is the story of humanity affecting positive change for its own good, breaking down the barriers that would hold us back. It is anti-authoritarian, and embraces self-reliance. We can have hope because we have within us the power to overcome and we will overcome. A failure to embrace this story, and return to “convictions [that are] archaic and ingenerate,” threaten human happiness. (Rorty, 276) Cornell West, a student of Richard Rorty, echoes this story. However, West rejects Rorty’s version as being too secular. He writes, “[Rorty's] secular policing of public life is too rigid and his secular faith is too pure. Ought we not be concerned with the forms dogmatism and authoritarianism in secular garb that trump dialogue and foreclose debate?”(161) West is acknowledging that Rorty’s position cuts the spiritual aspect out of our humanity. According to West, this elimination it to our detriment. Indeed, all the authors read in class embrace spirituality, acknowledging it contributes to a better understanding of humanity. But what is spirituality? How do the authors understand it? Read More »

Love, but Not the Love of God

9 Apr Filed under Course Work.
Part 4 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education

Michael Lerner’s book, The Left Hand of God, has a great deal to say about worldviews. And his assessment of Modernism has much in common with my own. Lerner attributes Scientism as the root of our social ills.(130) Scientism, is granting naturalistic facts of “might makes right” and “kill or be killed” prominence in every aspect of our relationships, from economic to familial. Politically, this manifests itself as policies driven by Fear, symbolized by the Right Hand of God. The result is a society which is antithetical to neighborliness and which has a sacred/secular split.(133) Lerner advocates we recognize and choose to give prominence to values derived from spirituality. We should adopt Hope, the Left Hand of God, as the primary political force. Read More »

Globalization and Identity Sacrifice

25 Mar Filed under Course Work.
Part 5 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education
In The Name Of Identity
Amin Maalouf; Penguin (Non-Classics) 2003

Evolution of consciousness, or growing awareness, is a common theme of the authors we read in class.   Amin Maalouf‘s book, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, shares this theme. Maalouf advocates that we become more aware of the importance of particular components in a persons identity.  Globalization is inevitably, according to Amin Maalouf, and certain groups will have components of their identity challenged and ultimately subsumed. For many individuals, the idea that certain aspects of identity may have decreasing value in the global society is frustrating and even angering.  Sadly, the best way to react, engaging in the globalization and thereby propagating one’s cultural components, is frequently not the course of action taken by those challenged. Rather, isolationism is often the response, which then naturally leads to stagnation. Failure for identity components to be validated and integrated typically leads to thoughts of victimization, and ultimately the feeling of a need for strong, even violent, reaction.    How are we to assuage those who react violently to the perception that the core of their identity is at risk? Read More »

Human Love is first a Response

9 Apr Filed under Education.
Part 6 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education
All About Love
All About Love: New Visions
Bell Hooks; William Morrow 2000
WorldCat⋅LibraryThing⋅Google Books⋅BookFinder

One of the benefits of the postmodern era is that spirituality is being re-evaluated. We are recognizing that material alone, the skin, the bones, the cells, the synapses, the atoms, all of matter, fails to give an adequate explanation for relationships that add value to life, one’s marked by love and sacrifice. For too long we have been encouraged to view spirituality as a private choice, an optional component to one’s life. And yet when it is removed, we discover that we have no basis for a morality or ethic that results in a true love for my neighbor. Self-interest and preservation, pragmatism, ultimately fail to explain how it is one man might die for another.

Bell Hooks’ book, All About Love, addresses many of these questions. And yet, her book largely left me dissatisfied. I fail to see how Bell Hook’s view can explain the current state of reality. Bell Hooks’ conceptualization of love is of an eternal essence, the very foundation of reality, “we are all one, that love is all.” (79) If we are all love, and love is all there is, then how did we come to be in the current state? How is it that we we don’t love each other? Hooks view is that we learn hatred from others, from parents and spouses.(131) Hook’s view seems to be in the tradition of radical Romanticism, which saw people as perfect in the state of nature, but become corrupt in authoritarian social entities, like family and church. (Pearcy, 129) It is right to condemn abuse and neglect, but this view fails to do justice to our neighbors. While many examples of the abuse of power in family and church (and market and state) can be produced, an equal number of counterexamples can also be produced. In fact all of history contains examples of people who largely benefited from diverse social structures, who developed an identity within their family, who because authentic in the church, who extended resources to satisfy the basic material needs of many through the marketplace and who sought justice through the state. When we discriminate against social institutions we despise those who took part in them, who were often trying their best to love us. We cannot completely isolate a person from his or her relationships. Sadly, Bell Hooks, in her attempt to do spirituality justice, seems to fail to do justice to humans, and the diverse array of societal entities in which they manifest aspects of their humanity. Read More »

Loving my Neighbor: Respecting the Diversity of Viewpoints

9 Apr Filed under Doctorate Program, Education.
Part 7 of 7 in the series Citizenship Education

IN CONCLUSION

This course, Education for Social and Cultural Change,  strengthened my conviction that reality is comprised of a wonderful diversity that amazingly provides a coherence to human experiences. The discussions especially affirmed my understanding that humans everywhere intuitively recognize that each person has inherent value and deserves dignity. Though humans are diverse in ability and experience, each has something to contribute. Humans perceive norms in the diversity of reality that enrich each and everyone’s life. In order to communicate these norms, however, we must understand them to some degree. We therefore require worldview which explains the diversity between people and their relationship to the the world, but at the same time explains how the rich diversity holds together. How is it that two people can have shared experiences? What explains the coherence of the diversity? Reductionist theories, which seek to prioritize one aspect found in the diversity, ultimately fail to do justice to all the aspects of reality. (Clouser, 186) Several aspects were addressed in the reading, namely economical (production and consumption), justitial (authority and democracy), ethical/moral (love), social(culture) and fiduciary (religion and faith). A good indicator of reductionism is the tendency to not give one’s neighbor, and his or her experiences, the respect they are due.

“Neighbor” is a complex relationships between two persons, which includes, but also transcends, the State. The relationship includes all aspects of reality, including social, economic, moral and spiritual. Therefore, if education is to promote human flourishing the curriculum must include what is normative in each aspect. At what point in the relationship between two individuals is human flourishing threatened? What does a normative relationship look like when considered from the economic aspect? The biological aspect? The fiduciary aspect? What does it mean to be a neighbor and when does one fail to be a neighbor?

One aspect is that of justice, of which the State helps mediate. Since I do not foresee a singular, global State, nor do I think that would be best for human flourishing, I think citizenship education would involve a commitment to advance the cause of human flourishing within a particular state, using the means of the people within that body, while recognizing that other states may also advance the cause of human flourishing in a diverse way using different means. Therefore, Citizen education is to participate in and commit to a lifelong process of formation, articulation and reformation of a worldview, with full knowledge that a diversity of views will exist and that dialog will result in points of connection and points of disagreement.