July 26, 2013
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When considering how to rectify the various forms of political idiocy that are produced and reproduced by this society, one of the most obvious things that comes to mind is education. After all, at its best education is indistinct from broadening minds, opening eyes, and aiding in the contemplation of our mysterious existences–not to mention solving the problems such contemplation brings to consciousness. As the early-20th-century philosopher John Dewey put it: Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
This point was made very strongly by the French philosopher Louis Althusser. In his 1969 essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Althusser refers to the institution of education as the Ideological State Apparatus par excellence. These days, as schools function as either businesses, or minimum-security prisons, and Janet Napolitano, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, seamlessly slips into the presidency of the University of California system, it is difficult to argue with Althusser’s conclusion. In spite of the above, however, a radically emancipatory kernel remains implicit within the concept of education. For what is the point of education? Though some may contend that it is simply instrumental, its point penetrates further–to question the purposes, the reasons–for any instrumentalization. Such larger, critical questions lead not only to the interpretation of the world, but to questions of social and economic justice.
Consider the community college. Rather than viewing these simply as feeder schools for four-year colleges and universities, community colleges could develop into new forms of social organization. Collectively run community colleges–one for every couple of thousand people across the continent–could develop cooperative economies beyond the compulsion of the market. Developing the potential and the expertise of their respective communities, these colleges could support agriculture and horticulture departments that would meet their community’s food and nutrition needs.
Nursing and medical schools could train doctors and nurses who could, in turn, run and support community health clinics. Engineering, design, and architecture departments, in concert with ecology departments, could attend to the community’s basic heating, plumbing, housing, and transportation needs, among others. Art and cinema departments could flourish within each community. Dispute resolution programs could help resolve disputes within the community in non-punitive ways. Journalism departments could support the journalism that is vital for an informed public.
In cooperation with one another in regional, and inter-regional networks, such community colleges could not only share what they produce, and organize events such as film festivals, they could attend to the problems of their particular community entirely beyond the profit-based demands of the physically, psychologically and environmentally destructive market-economy, and beyond the State as well.
And though it may sound farfetched–utopian even–to suggest that such a reimagining of the institution of education could contribute toward the overcoming of our present-day political idiocy, over the course of human history far stranger things have actually happened.
Republished from: AlterNet