Making Education Fit for Democracy

Closing the Gap

Brenda Watson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367220341
• eBook ISBN: 9781000195613
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica per adulti

Dewey wrote his celebrated book on Democracy and Education over a hundred years ago. Making Education Fit for Democracy asks why education has nevertheless failed to deliver such crucial support for democracy and how it should change to reflect ethical and social responsibilities. It seeks to shed light on what has gone wrong and how it can be put right.

Reforming an antiquated system of education should be a matter for public debate. This book is written not only for those currently involved in delivering education, but also for the general public. Arguing that education needs to be holistic, encouraging open-mindedness and developing a wide range of interests, it:

• Highlights the role of education in supporting democracy
• Promotes nurture in civilising values over mere information-giving
• Puts exams and accountability into perspective
• Seeks to bridge the gulf between schooling and life
• Argues for the reform of the whole system of education
• Seeks to use digital technology to personalise education

Touching upon several issues currently under debate, such as the rise of populism, the role of religion and narrow subject curriculum, this book will be of interest to all students studying education as well as those involved in teacher education.

Part 1

Challenging modern day assumptions

Chapter 1

Does democracy deserve its accolade?

The case against democracy

The West has tended to regard democracy with near idolatry, putting it on a pedestal as the definitive answer to how states should be run. The word is bandied about and proudly offered to the world as a panacea for all ills. Yet a precise definition of the word democracy is elusive. The word itself derives from the Greek demos, meaning people, village, administrative unit, and kratos, from the Sanskrit kratu, denoting strength, might, dominion.¹ I accept the general sense of the word as defined by Abraham Lincoln: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Democracy is the notion of rule by the people instead of rule by one person, one family, one group, one party – autocracy of any kind.²

Democracy is, however, an extraordinarily difficult form of government. It contains built-in incoherence and is ill-equipped for the decision-making needed by government in an incredibly complex world. Jason Brennan has written a carefully-considered book entitled Against Democracy about the great problems concerning democracy. He considers that “equal, universal suffrage is in many ways on its face morally objectionable … universal suffrage incentivizes most voters to make political decisions in an ignorant and irrational way, and then impose these ignorant and irrational decisions on innocent people.”³

Brennan develops his argument regarding American politics. He considers that citizens fall into three main groups: hobbits who are “mostly apathetic and ignorant about politics”; hooligans who are “rabid sports fans of politics with strong and largely fixed world-views” and vulcans who “think scientifically and rationally about politics.” He considers that “most Americans are either hobbits or hooligans, or fall somewhere in the spectrum in between.”⁴

His view reflects the judgment of two eminent political philosophers. Ronald Dworkin began his 2006 book Is Democracy Possible Here? with the words:

American politics are in an appalling state. We disagree, fiercely, about almost everything … These are not civil disagreements: each side has no respect for the other. We are no longer partners in self-government; our politics are rather a form of war.⁵

Dworkin echoed what Jeffrey Stout said two years earlier in his book Democracy and Tradition: “It will take all of the intellectual and organisational creativity that the next generation of democrats can muster to sustain recognisably democratic forms of public discourse in contemporary circumstances.”⁶ Both were remarkably prescient regarding the way in which American politics was developing.

Brennan argues in favour of epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable. The notion resurrects something akin to Plato’s vision of the philosopher-king shorn of its despotic associations. Plato taught that only a wise person could govern society well. If this is so, how likely is it that all those who elect a democratic government are wise? If they are not wise, is there any guarantee that those they vote for are wise? Are there not factors in democracy which actively discourage wisdom in its rulers? Recent events, such as the huge Brexit controversy in Britain, present a real challenge to democracy.

A concern for truth can easily become a casualty for several reasons, such as the following:

* Dependence on securing votes can promote easy reliance on slogans, jargon, captions and the like, which are designed to appeal quickly to people’s emotions and discourage actual thinking.

* The need to convince huge numbers of people can encourage the trading of truth for influence or the promotion of bullshit, fake news and a general lack of trust – all marks of a so-called “post-truth” society (to be discussed further in Chapter 2).

* The danger of populism is ever-present. For instance, the manipulation of the masses, not just by charismatic speakers but by such elements as much-publicised opinion polls, plays on people’s general wish to go along with the crowd and keep up with the Zeitgeist.

In more subtle ways forms of dishonesty may be built into the system. In order to establish any structure for decision-making, some form of grouping of those holding possible policies seems to be inevitable and leads to the setting up of political parties. Yet, packaging together views on a great variety of topics discourages independent, genuine thinking and makes it highly unlikely that voters who actually think for themselves will totally agree with anything that is presented to them.

Such discouragement applies with especial force to those elected. Some politicians fail to express any personal opinion. As the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Iolanthe expressed so humorously, yet unfortunately still relevantly, over one hundred years ago:

When in that House M.P.s divide,

If they’ve a brain and cerebellum, too,

They’ve got to leave that brain outside,

And vote just as their leaders tell ’em to.⁷

This is bad news for the pursuit of truth upon which a flourishing democracy depends. We need politicians who think for themselves. Voting for what a person does not wholly agree with offends that person’s integrity. Of course, the principle of necessary compromise comes to the rescue, but unless resorted to in an intelligent way, it also serves to discredit the idealism responsible for democracy in the first place.

Other factors discouraging responsible democratic government include:

* The illusion of power which the right to vote gives. Voters are so remote from actually making decisions or having to be seen as being responsible for their outcomes that taking part in elections can become a low priority or seem to be a charade.

* The ease with which voters can lose trust in politicians on the grounds that they “are just out for themselves”.

* Short-term power can promote short-term thinking, such as the idea that there is no need to bother about the effects that political decisions may have in a few years’ time.

* Needing to get elected can promote bloated egoism, especially if the individual is successful. Egotism, in turn, can lead to irresponsibility in making judgements or decisions, which is in direct contrast with Edmund Burke’s ideal: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.⁸

* The danger of tyranny by the majority, whereby minorities are trampled upon or oppressed.

The problems facing any kind of meaningful democracy are immense. The political scientist James Fishkin summarises the reality well: “We live in a world of relentless advocacy, massive financing of the persuasion industry, the viral spread of fake news, social media discussions among the like-minded, and the pressures of political competition built into our practices of democracy.”⁹

What can democratic government offer to counteract these threats and difficulties? Fishkin quotes E. E. Schattschneider’s short, widely-read book, The Semisovereign People: “The people are a sovereign whose vocabulary is limited to two words, ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. This sovereign moreover can speak only when spoken to.”¹⁰ Schattschneider argued that, as generally practised, democracy is far from being universal in scope; it is unbalanced in favour of a fraction of a minority.

Fishkin expresses the problem clearly:

If elites or other political actors manipulate public opinion or mass political behaviour, then even if the public appears to be exercising popular control, it is not. It is not in control of itself. Someone is pulling the strings. Furthermore, if manipulation works, then there will be incentive for political actors to engage in it, whether they are candidates, parties, or political operatives with partisan or interest group leanings. After all, the incentives within competitive democracy are all about winning, and not much about truth-telling.¹¹

Why democracy deserves to be affirmed

These are grave problems. Nevertheless, democracy remains a noble ideal. It has two major advantages over other forms of government.

1 A built-in means of safeguarding against tyranny

Democracy can lay claim to being the most effective way, as yet experimented with, of being able to safeguard against tyranny. Following a conference on democracy at Yale University in 1997, Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordón quoted the political scientist Adam Przeworski, who grew up in Communist Poland:

The miracle of democracy is that conflicting political forces obey the results of voting. People who have guns obey those without them. Incumbents risk their control of government offices by holding elections. Losers wait for their chance to win office. Conflicts are regulated, processed according to rules, and thus limited. This is not consensus, yet not mayhem either. Just limited conflict: conflict without killing. Ballots are “paper stones” as Engels once observed.¹²

They further comment: “To those who reject this view as too minimal to be worth valuing, [Przeworski’s] answer is straightforward: tell that to the billions in the world who currently live without it.”¹³

Even Brennan concedes as much: “The only thing that could justify unrestricted, universal suffrage would be that we cannot produce a better-performing system. … In general, the best places to live right now are liberal democracies, not dictatorships, one-party governments, oligarchies, or real monarchies.”¹⁴ Democracy has built into it opportunity for criticism and renewal, even though both are difficult to achieve. Its structure, however varied, contains the need for ongoing criticism, accountability and reform, which helps to prevent the accumulation of absolute power which, as Lord Acton famously remarked, “corrupts absolutely.”

2 Democracy embodies the moral insight of the equality of every person

Democracy’s embodiment of moral equality is an ethically mature notion which strikes a universal chord. As Brennan notes, “most philosophers think that we should value democracy the way we value a painting or a person. They claim that democracy uniquely expresses the idea that all people have equal worth and value.”¹⁵

Equality is an insight of which the West can be proud – one almost unknown in earlier civilisations. Throughout human history there has been enormous resistance to the notion of power-sharing. For the most part it has been simply taken for granted that the role ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Note on icons introducing the chapters
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1 Challenging modern day assumptions
• PART 2 Education: The need for reform
• Index