Wheels in the Head

Educational Philosophies of Authority, Freedom, and Culture from Confucianism to Human Rights

Joel Spring

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135155377
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

In this popular text Joel Spring provocatively analyzes the ideas of traditional and non-traditional philosophies from Confucianism to human rights regarding the contribution of education to the creation of a democratic society. The goal is to explore how governments use education to control and manage their populations, and to examine forms of education that claim to free people from authoritarian control. A critically original work, it is widely used as a text for courses on philosophical, social, political, and historical foundations of education, and critical issues in education. Reflecting its global relevance, a Chinese translation was published by the University of Peking Press in 2005.

New in the third edition:

• Expanded analysis of the use of education by authoritarian states
• Revisions to more clearly relate educational ideas to the theme of "wheels in the head" – a phrase coined by philosopher Max Stirner - to describe the use of schools by modern governments to control their citizens
• New sections on liberation education and on human rights education
  

PART 1
Autocratic and Democratic Forms of Education

CHAPTER 1
Education and the Authoritarian State

My goal is to contrast education as a source of freedom and political power with education as an instrument of social control and political despotism. Since the 19th century, modern nation-states have relied on schooling to organize and train their workforces, prepare students to conform to the requirements of their governments, and instill some form of morality needed for social control. By the 21st century, Western forms of schooling were globalized, with most of the world’s nations having similar school organizations and curricula focusing on educating workers for a global economy and instilling values to ensure a stable government and society.¹

The central role of schooling in the modern nation-state was predicted by Max Stirner (1806–1856), whose phrase “wheels in the head” serves as the title of this book. Stirner warned that controlling dissemination of ideas through schools was fast becoming central to the governing processes of modern nation-states. This warning occurred as Western nations were establishing public school systems. Stirner might have been surprised that the Western form of public schools would eventually be globalized. Also, he did not know that new forms of media and information technology, such as movies, radio, television, and the Internet, would develop to compete with schools in disseminating ideas.

Stirner’s phrase “wheels in the head” refers to ideas that schools (and now media and information technology) consciously intend to implant in human minds as a means of controlling behavior. These wheels in the head own the individual rather than the individual owning the idea. In his classic volume The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority (1845), Stirner writes this about wheels in the head: “The thought is my own only when I have no misgiving about bringing it in danger of death every moment, when I do not have to fear its loss as a loss for me, a loss of me.”²

Stirner warns against ideologies that have the power to dominate individual actions even to the point of self-destruction. An idea truly becomes a wheel in the head when a person is willing to die for it. Stirner’s warnings went unheeded from the 19th to the 21st centuries as countless lives were lost defending communism, socialism, liberalism, fascism, imperialism, Nazism, and religious ideologies.

CLASSICAL IDEAS ON EDUCATION, AUTHORITY, AND THE STATE: CONFUCIUS AND PLATO

Both Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BCE) and Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 BCE) considered education central to governing and maintaining a moral society. Although their goals were similar, their conceptualizations of morality and truth differed. Both rejected any form of democracy involving mass participation in governance.

Both philosophers have had a lasting effect on cultural traditions. Cross-cultural psychologists have demonstrated their influences on differences between how cultures see and know the world. In The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … Why, Richard Nisbett makes a distinction between Western and Confucian-based ways of thinking.³ Asian ways of thinking, according to Nesbitt, can be traced back to Confucius and his followers, whereas Western ways of thinking can be traced back to the early Greek philosophers. Though I do not intend to discuss recent findings of cross-cultural psychologists on cultural differences in ways of knowing and interrelating with the world, I think it is important to note the lasting effects of these classical philosophers.

Confucian ideas were central to imperial rule in China. In the 12th century, government-supported schools spread through the nation and Neo-Confucian scholar Chu Hsi (1130–1200 CE) selected a group of four Confucian texts that would serve as the basis for the imperial civil service examination system from 1313 to 1905. The interest in education by the 12th-century Sung dynasty was in part sparked by rapid development of printing between the 9th and 12th centuries, which reduced the cost of books by as much as 10 times. The Sung dynasty considered education and the civil service examinations a method for recruiting talented commoners to government service. Local districts clamored for schools as education and the examination system became an avenue to wealth and prestige. Chu Hsi, the leading Confucian scholar of the time, worried that students were just studying for the government examinations rather than learning for learning’s sake.

The examination system determined entrance and rank in the government bureaucracy. It was justified as a method of ensuring good government by testing a future government official’s knowledge of moral and ethical issues.⁴ Three of the books used in the examination were based on reports by Confucius’s students about his teachings and were titled The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, and the Analects.⁵ The fourth text, Book of Mencius, was a compilation by Mencius’s (371– 289? BCE) students of his teachings.⁶

Similarly to Confucius, Socrates believed that the government should be controlled by scholars who had knowledge of moral principles. However, they differed over the source and nature of morality. Like the students who reported the words of Confucius and Mencius, Plato (427–347 BCE), a student of Socrates, recorded from memory the words of his teacher. Socrates did not write down his ideas. Consequently it is difficult to determine how much of the resulting texts contained Plato’s ideas embedded in his reporting of Socrates’ discussions. Plato reported Socrates’ words in the form of dialogues Socrates had with his students using what would become known as the Socratic method. These dialogues were supposed to lead to an understanding of ultimate truths, such as the meaning of justice and the good. In this book, I focus on Plato’s Republic, which reports a Socratic dialogue leading to an understanding of the best education for maintaining a just government.⁷

Unlike Confucianism, Socratic thought would never be the basis of an imperial examination system. However, Socratic dialogues, and most important, the educational and political principles of Plato’s Republic, had a lasting influence on Western thought. For instance, I discuss in chapter 7 the importance 20th-century American philosopher Allan Bloom placed on Socratic thought as the underpinnings of Western education.⁸ Also, this lasting influence is exemplified by the current network of Paideia schools (paideia in ancient Greece referred to a system of education), which use a Socratic method advocated in the writings and work of philosopher Mortimer Adler.⁹

In closing, I would like to remind the reader of the contemporaneous development of the two world’s most influential philosophical systems:

CHINA	GREECE
Confucius (551–479 BCE)	Socrates (469–399 BCE)
Mencius (371–289? BCE)	Plato (427–347 BCE)

Why did the evolution of these two civilizations take place during the same time period? Will historians ever be able to explain this parallelism? Why did these two civilizations turn education into an authoritarian method for social control and place the scholar at the pinnacle of power?

GENDER AND THE AUTHORITARIAN STATE: CONFUCIUS AND PLATO

One, but not the only, measure of state authoritarianism is the degree of subjugation of women. How can people be called free when almost one half are treated as chattel? In both ancient China and Greece, women were subjected to the will of men and did not have the rights of full citizenship. In Confucianism, women were given unequal rights and denied an education. At a time when Athenian society denied women full rights, Plato’s Republic advocated gender equality by making the community the family for all children.

Both Confucius and the Neo-Confucian leader Chu Hsi spoke of women’s secondary role in the social structure. Confucius considered all women to be part of the lowest social class. In the Analects, Confucius said, “Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented.”¹⁰ Another translation of Confucius’s statement is: “Women and people of low birth are very hard to deal with. If you are friendly with them, they get out of hand, and if you keep your distance, they resent it.”¹¹ Chu Hsi said, “Between men and women, there is an order of superiority and inferiority, and between husband and wife, there is the principle of who leads and who follows.”¹²

Symbolic of the place of women in Chinese society, when a boy was born he was placed in a bed and when a girl was born she was wrapped in cloth and placed on the floor to teach her subservience. Schools were not provided for women. Women could not take the civil service examination, and they could not hold government positions. Men believed that women lacked the intellectual and moral qualities needed to govern. In the organization of the family, men and women were given distinct roles and women were subject to their husband’s commands. In the homes of the rich, women occupied the inner spaces of the building whereas the men occupied the outer spaces. This division of space symbolized the fact that men dealt with the outer world whereas women were confined to the inner world of the family. For rich men, it was important that their wives were never seen in public. The Chinese terms for wife, according to Bettine Birge, “like nei-jen, literally ‘person inside’, or nei-chu, ‘domestic helper’, reflected this restriction [confinement to the home] of women within the house.”¹³

In the Republic, Socrates proposes achieving equal rights for women by making the entire community the family and by requiring selective breeding or eugenics for the propagation of children. During Socrates’ lifetime, women were not given full citizenship in Athenian society. Males were given authority over women and slaves. Homosexuality was justified by the supposed inferiority of women. As Michael Kochin states:

The Greek ideals of masculinity influenced a man’s choice between these relations [heterosexual and homosexual] insofar as his notion that women are inferior moved him to pick a partner of the superior sex … the sharp division of gender roles appears to allow friendship to play a greater part in sexual relationships between men than between men and women.¹⁴

Contrary to the traditional treatment of women, Socrates proposed equal status and education. This, he believed, could be achieved by changing the traditional childrearing methods, which placed the responsibility on the mother. Socrates believed that this could be accomplished by creating a community of men and women, where no one knew who their parents were. Socrates explains, “These women [selected to be guardians of the state] are to be all common to all men; no one must have a private wife of his own, and the children must be common too, and the parent shall not know the child nor the child its parent.”¹⁵ For the purposes of procreation within this community of men and women, Socrates proposed marriages based on the principles of breeding dogs and horses, with only the best mating with the best. In the deceptive world of the Republic, the rulers are to ensure that only the “best” men and women breed and that the children of the “worst” are killed. Socrates asserts, “The best men must mingle most often with the best women, but the opposite, the worst with the worst least often; and the children of the best must be brought up but not the others, if the flock is to be tiptop.”¹⁶ So that the children would not know their actual parents, they were to be turned over to nurses “who will live some place apart in the city; those of the inferior sort, and any one of the others who may be born defective, they will put away as is proper in some mysterious, unknown place.”¹⁷

In summary, Socrates’ solution for female equality imposes harsh laws requiring a collective of men and women, selective breeding, denying children the right to know their biological parents, and euthanasia of unwanted children. Though denial of equal rights to women subjugates almost one half of the population to the will of men and the state, Socrates’ solution appears equally authoritarian. In the Republic, the family becomes the state. Therefore, in the context of women’s rights, China prior to the 20th century, ancient Greece, Confucianism, and Plato’s Republic must all be considered authoritarian.

CONFUCIANISM: EDUCATION, AUTHORITY, AND THE HARMONIOUS SOCIETY

Confucius and Mencius envisioned an ideal society that was hierarchical and authoritarian with scholars providing guidance on how to create harmony within the social whole. “Some labor with their minds,” Mencius said, “and some labor with their strength. Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their strength are governed by others. Those who are governed by others support them; those who govern others are supported by them.”¹⁸

Filial piety or the reverence of children for their parents is central to the authoritarian and hierarchical structure of Confucian society. It is in the family that the child is first exposed to social relationships and can learn social practices that promote harmony. Through learning to show respect and obedience to their parents, children are prepared to demonstrate similar attitudes to superiors outside of the family. In addition, as I discuss later in this section, family interactions foster two important Confucian values, compassion and empathy. In other words, through filial piety the child learns to obey superiors and to have compassion and empathy for social inferiors.¹⁹

The importance of filial piety for maintaining an authoritarian state is expressed in the opening sections of the Analects when philosopher Yu affirms its value in preparing for obedience and compassion toward others: “They are few who...