essay on 'elightment through education strengthen through organisation'
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For most people, the word ‘enlightenment’ probably sounds a bit rarefied, elitist even; something which might consume the thoughts of a philosopher in an ivory tower, but which has precious little to do with the rest of us down in the square. Which is more than a little paradoxical, considering the central idea of the 18th century enlightenment was that the people in the square need no longer defer to elites or submit to their claims to authority; that all of us, armed with evidence and guided by reason, can build a better world without recourse to superstition, revelation or dogma.
This enduring humanistic belief – that “we the people” are capable of discovering what is true, deciding what is right, and shaping society accordingly – amounts to a declaration of intellectual, moral and political sovereignty. But claiming that sovereignty, and exercising it, are quite different things. If we are to create a 21st century enlightenment, we need to educate our children for that task.
That means inducting them into the great conversation of mankind – the unending dialogue between the living, the dead and the yet-to-be-born. It means introducing them to the best that has been thought, said and done, and equipping them to appreciate it, interrogate it, apply it and build on it. It means providing them with a more complete and generous education – an education in academics, aesthetics and ethics, or, as we refer to it at the RSA, an education of the ‘head, hand and heart’.
Yet too many children and young people today receive the opposite – a narrow, hollowed-out, instrumentalist education that is specifically designed and tightly calibrated for the task of getting them through exams, but which doesn’t prepare them fully for life.