Theoretical thoughts at 4am...
....that still need a lot of development.
But, at 4am here in St. Paul, what do you expect.
Anyway....
I have a growing sense that somehow, in some way, the culture of education is inextricably tied to modernism in some way. Yet, in a very strange twist, it is a distinctly anti-modernistic stance that, in an even stranger twist, seems to be more Aristotelian than anything.
To boil it down very briefly...
One framework of thinking about politics and democracy is to chart the primacy of the good and of rights. Do "rights" come before the common good of a society, or do we sacrifice "rights" in the name of the "common good?"
Enlightenment theorists and some contemporary political theorists (Mouffe, Laclau, et al) assert the primacy of individual rights. Others, such as Habermas and Novick, look more towards notions of civic republicanism as they seek to assert the primacy of the common good over individual rights.
But what does any of this have anything to do with what I do?
Education in our culture seems to be obsessed with the common good over individual rights. Our grading systems, our curricula, even our pedagogy stresses "good, democratic citizenry" as a result of "good" education. Yet...it is assumed that what a "good, democratic citizen" is...is universal. Hello Aristotle!
Writing, interestingly, is one of the few areas where this all starts to fall apart. Even in the most strict assignments, students are still creating things with language. And the language they use to craft things carries with it so many things that it cannot be said to be the same thing for everyone. In short, writing asserts (or at least suggests) the primacy of individual rights (that is, the individual self as opposed to a collective conscious).
Anyway, it's now 4:40 AM. It made so much more sense to me when I was running yesterday. More thoughts...later.