The Growth to Love and the Dialectical Paradox of Enlightenment. Max Horkheimer on the mimetic element in education

Olli-Pekka Moisio
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
Finland

email: olmoisio@cc.jyu.fi

 Max Horkheimer gave a talk in Ingelheim Germany 5^th of May 1960 with the title “Sozialpsychologische Forschungen zum Problem des Autoritarismus, Nationalismus und Antisemitismus”[1]. In his lecture Horkheimer schetches education as an activity which is concerned to support the realisation of individual autonomy. Horkheimer stresses the mimetic element of education which flees before the rational control. This mimetic element of education unfolds the social bindings of education. Education and the overall human development is a result of a history and via this historical dimension the whole ethos of the given historical situation has an effect on both of them. In his lecture Horkheimer asks still a very important question: how the socially unwanted tendencies can be overcome by education?

In my presentation I would like to outline a certain kind of theoretical framework by which we can find ways to criticise both the conventional educational practices and also the different kinds of positive forms of critical pedagogy. I will maintain that it is very important that we take into a concideration the whole spectrum of social relations that are at work in the educational situations. In this I will follow the insights of the first generation of the so called Frankfurt School, mainly Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. I will argue that also in critical pedagogy it is all too often the case that the critique take heed only certain aspects of the educational situation be it the teachers actions, pupils responces, school culture, institutional frameworks and so on. If we want to develop a critique that can have an effect we must understand educational situation as a constellation on different force fields that are constantly shifting with the historical situation.

In my presentation I will firstly follow through the development of the subject as it is developed in the famous book Dialektik der Aufklהrung (DdA). I will show how this subject runs into the paradox of Enlightenment where the instrumental reason takes a determining role and the subject turn into a reticend subject. Secondly I will try to think through what this theory of modernisation means to the educational practices both in school and at home. I will present Horkheimers views on the crisis of family and the experience as a result of the developments in the social-historical situation. In this part I will also schetch the different aspects of the concept of authority (i.e. irrational, rational and anonym authority). I will maintain that the concept of authority is a central part of the educational practices. I will end my presentation to the reflection about the democracy and the concept of Bildung.