Abstract

The aim of this paper is to highlight the need for education that is truly enlightening, an education that provides reflexive awareness of what it is to be a human social actor in the context of the many problems facing mankind. Arguably, such an education is a necessary part of any solutions for dealing in a holistic way with global problems. The paper draws on concepts from cybernetics and sociocybernetics to develop both the form and content of the required curriculum. It also includes a discussion of “What is enlightenment?” from an historical perspective. After further elaboration of the proposed curriculum, the paper concludes with some brief considerations of what would be required for education for enlightenment to be recognised as a global need and what would be entailed by the implementation of such a curriculum.

Keywords education, enlightenment, sociocybernetics, curriculum

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology, Gothenburg, Sweden, July 11-17, 2010.

1. Introduction

The paper highlights the need for education that is truly enlightening, an education that provides reflexive awareness of what it is to be a human social actor, one that is empowering for self-determination, one that makes clear the nature of ethical choices, in particular, the choice between, on the one hand, selfless service for the greater good or, on the other hand, the pursuit of short-term personal goals. The paper sets itself in the context of the many problems that are facing humankind globally in the 21st century, namely, as discussed in Scott (2008, 2009): unsustainable economic growth, unsustainable population growth, climate change and a wide range of other ecological disasters. The main thesis developed is that education for enlightenment is a necessary part of any putative solutions for dealing with the global problems holistically.

The main arguments are drawn directly from concepts in cybernetics and sociocybernetics that are helpful in providing a rational account of what is education for enlightenment. Works cited include those of Ashby, von Foerster and Pask. Armed with a clearly articulated cybernetic framework for understanding human social actors and their choices of how to behave, it is possible to usefully draw out from existing spiritual and pedagogic traditions those aspects which are shared and are compatible with the cybernetic understanding. On the basis of these comparisons and considerations, it is possible to set out, in outline at least, the curriculum for education for enlightenment. In spirit, the curriculum in itself is not new. What are innovative are (i) the use of concepts from cybernetics to stand as foundations for that curriculum (ii) the inclusion within the curriculum of teaching about concepts drawn from cybernetics and systems theory.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 is a brief summary of the context in which we are living. Section 3 sets out some introductory definitions, including how the author understands “What is ‘sociocybernetics’?”, “What is ‘education’?” Section 4 is an extended discussion of “What is enlightenment?” and looks back historically to the Age of Enlightenment. It then proceeds to consider what enlightenment means today. Section 5 discusses the idea of what could be the curriculum for education for enlightenment. In particular, it considers how second order concerns about the belief systems of actors and reflexive awareness might be usefully summarised for educational purposes. The paper concludes with a discussion about the possibilities of education for enlightenment being, first of all, recognised as a global need and, second, being implemented on a global scale.

2. The context

In Scott (2009a), I discuss the relevance of sociocybernetics for addressing issues associated with possible world futures. In that paper, I present a figure (shown here as figure 1) as an attempt at a holistic view of a wide range of issues that demand our attention. I comment that possible world future scenarios range from the optimistic to the extremely pessimistic. In Scott (2010a), with respect to the same set of issues, I discuss, in quite general terms, the concept of ‘education for awareness’ as a way of progressing the ‘global conversation’ that may in due course lead to at least an amelioration of the possibly catastrophic changes that face us. I suggest that, “The key idea to appreciate is that the conversation about possible solutions is the first step towards possible solutions.”

Figure 1. An attempt at a simple holistic overview of some global problems

In this paper, in discussing what is education for enlightenment, I argue that such an education always has the form of a conversation and part of that conversation is learning to understand what is effective conversation. These ideas are by no means novel. What I have done in later parts of the paper is, I hope, set out the ideas clearly and placed them in both an historical and contemporary context.

3. Introductory definitions

My understanding is that sociocybernetics is concerned with applying theories and methods from cybernetics and the systems sciences to the social sciences by offering concepts and tools for addressing problems holistically and globally.

The parent discipline, cybernetics, has been variously defined as “control and communication in the animal and the machine” (Wiener, 1948); “The study of all possible machines” (Ashby 1956) ; concerned with “feedback and circular causality in biological and social systems” (von Foerster et al, 1953). In Scott (2000), I characterise cybernetics as a ‘transdiscipline’ (Latin ‘trans’ - across) that abstracts from the many domains it adumbrates, models of great generality. I also characterise cybernetics as a ‘metadiscipline’, a discipline about disciplines (Latin ‘meta’ – above) that aims to understand similarities and differences between disciplines and their genesis as forms of human knowing.

For more about sociocybernetics, see http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/whatis.html (accessed June, 2010).
Ashby (ibid) further states that ‘machine’ is synonymous with ‘system’ and that, “A system is that which persists.”

Implicit in the concept of a metadiscipline is the idea that cybernetics should be reflexive and study itself as the ‘cybernetics of cybernetics’. Von Foerster has generalised this idea by distinguishing a first order and second order cybernetics, where first order cybernetics is the ‘cybernetics of observed systems’ and second order cybernetics is the ‘cybernetics of observing systems’ (von Foerster et al, 1974; von Foerster, 2003).

What is ‘education’? Etymology tells us the meaning is from the Latin, ‘edu-care’, to lead out. This ‘leading out’ that assumes the learner is already an active system. Thus, education provides guidance about the developmental directions that the learner might take. As Pask (1975) puts it, from the perspective of cybernetics, “Teaching is the control of learning.” In this context, one could also say that education is or should be about enlightenment, leading out into the light.

4. What is enlightenment?

Some history

There is a period in European history known as the Age of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. For our present purposes I think it would be helpful to have a look at some of the main outcomes of this age. This was the age in which Europe was emerging from a long series of religious wars. It was also the age when, thanks to people like Francis Bacon, Galileo and Isaac Newton, science began to emerge as a way of obtaining new knowledge based on reason and evidence. Key thinkers debated the nature of knowledge and of knowing. We inherit their thoughts in our contemporary concerns with epistemology. Politics, economics and forms of governance were also central themes and we can trace from this age our contemporary forms of governance: democracy and various forms of elitist oligarchies and totalitarianism and our discussions about their merits and demerits, discussions that frequently lead to armed conflict.

The Age of Enlightenment is considered to extend through the 18th century. Some thinkers would place the beginning with the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 when constitutional monarchy was established in what is now referred to as the United Kingdom. Most would consider that it came to an end with the rise and eventual fall (in 1815) of the Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte.

What is generally agreed is that the age of Enlightenment ushered in the modern era of industrialisation, entrepreneurship and social experiment and invention. It was in the years following the Enlightenment that the forms of life that can be enjoyed in today’s western democratic countries were established and refined, leading to, amongst other things, universal access to education, health and social welfare.

I cannot hope in a short paper or even in a long book to tell a reasonably comprehensive story of all the developments that took place . What is clear is that amongst the leading thinkers and intellectuals of the day there was no obvious clear-cut consensus about any of the issues that were raised. If there was a consensus at all, it was that there should be an intellectual community in which debate can take place, supported by reasoned arguments and evidence, with, interestingly, some of the debates reflexively concerning themselves with what mankind could hope to achieve through the application of reasoned argument and appeal to evidence. There were pessimistic sceptics as well as optimistic progressives.

According to Todorov (2009), it is possible to recognise what can be called the ‘Enlightenment project’. This project is based on three central ideas: autonomy; the human end purpose of our acts; and universality.

In brief, autonomy consists in giving priority to what individuals decide for themselves over what is imposed upon them by an external authority. In turn, individuals may negotiate and agree about the laws, norms and rules under which they will live and the forms of governance which will establish and adjudicate them. Todorov goes on to say that essential for this form of autonomy is the ability of individuals to freely criticise anything that is being proposed or is imposed upon them and for any authority that is established to be essentially human and secular, rather than being imposed by religious diktats or the dogmatic traditions of former ages.

This did not mean that Enlightenment thinkers tended to be atheists. Far from it, many espoused Deism, with God conceived as an unknowable source of all power and all substance. What was important, is that there should be a separation between the state and the private beliefs of an individual, be these beliefs considered to be ‘religious’ or not. (I have used the single quotation marks to indicate I wish to ‘problematise’, to put into question, what it is to be ‘religious’. I address this topic later in the paper.)

With this emphasis on individual autonomy, society moves towards being tolerant and ‘humanistic’, affording equal rights and equality before the law to all. The removal or diminishing of the authority of religious or other traditional institutions also opens up a new form of freedom, the freedom to decide what are the purposes of human existence and to work towards those purposes. This is the second of Todorov's central ideas: ‘the human end purposes of our acts’. No longer confined to the idea of divine or supernatural purposes, strictly human purposes could be formulated. Typically, these purposes were defined in terms of human well-being and happiness. Progressive optimists believed that science and technology could transform the material well-being of mankind and that new institutions of education and democratic governments would eventually leads to a perfectibility of humankind, expressed in the quality of the individual experience and individual creativity and also expressed in the harmonious and efficient forms of social life and governments. As noted above, alongside the progressive optimists one could find the sceptics, those who thought that, by their nature, the vast mass of human beings could not be brought to perfectibility nor could social harmony be attained, except partially and temporally.

It is perhaps worth noting here that in our age, the so-called Information Age, a large portion of humankind now appreciate, at least to some extent, that the dream of endless scientific and technological progress for the good has expired, as outlined in section 2, above. As for the perfectibility of individuals and the perfectibility of individual experience, the debate is still underway. There are now a multitude of paths to perfectibility and Enlightenment to choose from, ranging from those that promise material success and happiness to those that promise some form of ineffable spiritual enlightenment. (I return to the theme of individual enlightenment in section 4.)

The third of Todorov’s three key ideas that formed the basis of the Enlightenment project, universality, emphasises that there is indeed something universal about the human condition, regardless of social station, ethnicity or other defining characteristic. The idea of universality finds its fullest expression in the concept of Universal Human Rights or, as they were referred to at the time, ‘The Rights of Man’.

What we are witnessing today is a re-run of some of the debates that took place in the age of the Enlightenment. ‘Particularists’ argued against the concept of universality, arguing that each cultural group carried with it its own distinct essence, an essence that could not be boiled down to something common to all mankind. Arguments along these lines lead to the rise of nationalism and, in its extreme form, the fascism of National Socialism. In postmodern form it presents as a cultural relativism, which in its extreme form denies the possibility of any grand narrative regarding universals that are applicable to the human condition. Of course, such a denial is itself a form of universalism. We return to the theme of what is universal in the following section, where we consider what enlightenment might mean today, using concepts from cybernetics and sociocybernetics.

Enlightenment today

Since the time of the age of Enlightenment, intellectual concern with the key ideas of autonomy, human purposes and universality have not ceased. My own reading shows that tensions between opposing concepts still persist. In governance, we see the tensions between forms of one-party rule and forms of liberal democracy. With respect to human purposes, there is a tension between individualism and concerns for the fate of the larger whole of humankind, with, still in the middle ground, the Enlightenment concept of enlightened self-interest, which argues that it is in the self-interests of individuals to show some concern about what is happening in the world that lies beyond their immediate circumstances and to aspire to, if possible and if required, to improve the lot of those who live there.

My own reading, drawing on ideas from cybernetics and sociocybernetics, also persuades me that we now have the possibility of distilling out clear and comprehensible ideas about what is the human condition and what the possibilities are with respect to human purposes and the attainment of universals such as peace and harmony on a global scale. It remains to be seen whether or not this distillation of ideas is of value. As noted in the next section, the hope that the ideas in question can be promulgated effectively in the face of the problems facing mankind remains a pious one, we can raise questions and try to answer them, whilst remaining agnostic about longer term outcomes.

In a nutshell, I believe we may now with confidence make the following assertions:

whatever are our cultural or individual differences, as a species, we share one evolving gene pool and one evolving ecosystem

whatever are our individual cultural and genetic inheritances, an increasing number of us now have the opportunity for social interaction on a global scale

as complex adaptive systems, human beings are necessarily constructors of knowledge and experience, not containers or ‘banks’ where knowledge may be transferred and deposited

in our adaptations, we distinguish selves and others and distinguish ourselves doing so

in our distinguishing of ourselves distinguishing ourselves and others, we have the opportunity to explore the similarities and differences between us within our evolving belief systems.

As a consequence, we may choose to learn together and to cooperate for the greater good.

The above assertions, arguably, are beyond dispute. As individuals, we may wish to bring other assertions to a particular debate. Differences of viewpoint about these assertions may be settled or left unresolved by reasoned argument and evidence. The truth or otherwise of some assertions may be logically or empirically undecidable. Recognition of their undecidability may lead to an agreement to disagree.

It is my belief that, in a very simple and pragmatic sense, for an individual to be able to claim the title of being enlightened, he or she must comprehend and accept the above assertions as true and also accept the truth of the following proposition: “There is no such thing as an enlightened self-interest, there is only an enlightened other-interest.”

Of course, I should immediately point out that the idea of an enlightened other-interest being worthy of practice is not new. It is to be found almost universally in human cultures in the form of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and its many variants, for example, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”

I should also point out that it remains a moot point with respect to any particular individual who knows of the Golden Rule whether or not the Golden Rule is practised in any particular situation. I can only propose that comprehension of the assertions set out above would appear to be, if not a guarantor, at least a facilitator in seeing that the Golden Rule is applied.

In the following section, I set out some ideas about how education for Enlightenment might be practised by addressing the question, “What should be the curriculum for an education for enlightenment?”

4. The curriculum for an education for enlightenment

Knowledge domains

At the commencement of our discussion of what is the curriculum for education for enlightenment, it is useful to make the following distinction between knowledge domains, a distinction which is, in essence, an application of the distinction between a first order and the second order cybernetics.

There are knowledge domains which, in the usual forms in which they are presented, are essentially first order: they comprise the study of observed systems. Such knowledge domains usually come with a set of given conceptual understandings and given methods for investigation and application. Both the set of conceptual understandings and the methods for investigation and application are open to modification and evolution. I have in mind here, as examples, the natural sciences and positivist approaches within the social sciences.

There are knowledge domains which are essentially second-order: they comprise the study of observing systems, although this may not be made explicit or be set as central within the domain in question. As before, the knowledge domains come with some given conceptual understandings and some given methods for investigation and application, both of which are open to modification and evolution. I have in mind here the broad spread of disciplines that are referred to as the social sciences, the arts and humanities.

I should of course immediately point out that, within the second order domains, there may well be many instances in which first-order domain knowledge is called upon. I should also point out that within the first order domains, any assertion about a first order system may be put into question on the grounds that the assertion emanates from a particular human observer or community thereof.

What is peculiar to second-order domains and second-order questioning within first-order domains, is the reflexive nature of the praxis. An observer’s understanding of observing systems (qua ‘social actors’) provides the observer with understandings of him or herself.

The first order curriculum

Comprehension of the assertions set out in the previous section as necessary prerequisites for enlightenment rests on prior understandings drawn from first order knowledge domains. In brief, there needs to be some understanding of certain key concepts and their associated entailed concepts.

The key concepts I have in mind are:

heredity and the gene pool as a self-reproductive system,

the ecosystem as a dynamic system of circulating constituents,

organisms as evolving complex adaptive systems that are organisationally closed and energetically open and which, in their adaptations, become informed of their environments.

The second order curriculum

Comprehension of the assertions set out in the previous section also rests on prior understandings drawn from second-order knowledge domains. In brief, there needs to be some understanding of:

the ontogeny of self and other awareness;

the dynamics of interpersonal interaction that lead to the constitution of collectives;

a reflexive understanding of how individuals in interaction with their worlds and in conversation with themselves and with others come to know;

a critical understanding of limits on what may be known and understood;

an appreciation that individuals and cultures comprise organisationally closed systems of belief, each with a unique form of life.

Pedagogy

A curriculum has content in the form of desired learning outcomes. Made explicit or implicit within the curriculum, there are prescribed processes for mastering the content. These processes of learning and teaching we shall refer to here as ‘pedagogy’. Note that the curriculum as a whole or part of it may be process oriented, where what is emphasised are the learning processes that the learner should engage in, rather than the mastery of particular knowledge ‘content’. There are corresponding requirements that the teacher should teach as a ‘learning coach’ or ‘learning facilitator’. The learning outcomes emphasise that the learner becomes an effective learner and an effective reflective practitioner.

Following Pask (1975, 1976), Augstein and Thomas (1991), Freire (1996), Oakeshott (1989) and others, I propose that education for enlightenment must be dialogical; it must take the form of a conversation. Pask’s theories of learning and teaching emphasise that the teacher facilitates the processes whereby a learner comes to know, including coming to know his or herself as a knower. The teacher provokes learning, demonstrates effective performance, including the effective performance of being a learner. In dialogical learning, learners and teachers are both learners with the aim of learning together.

This means that, necessarily in a ‘learning conversation’ (the term used by Augstein and Thomas, op cit.), the question of why the learning is taking place has to be kept under review. In reviewing why the learning is taking place, both learner and teacher are positioning themselves as autonomous selves who are making independent choices within worlds that they themselves have constituted as fields of possibilities.

With respect to the learning that, ideally, takes place in a university, Oakeshott (op. cit., p. 109) says the following: “The pursuit of learning is not a race in which the competitors jockey for the best place. It is not even an argument or a symposium; it is a conversation.” He goes on to say, “A conversation does not need a chairman, it has no predetermined course we do not ask what it is ‘for’, and we do not judge sentenced by its conclusion; it has no conclusion, but it's always put by for another day.”

Freire, in another context, the teaching of literacy to the ‘oppressed’, sees the goal of the pedagogy as providing an escape from illiteracy that enables the learner to become a ‘subject’ capable of critically reviewing the world in which she finds herself. Freire, himself, has a Marxist perspective, in which he distinguishes between the oppressors and the oppressed. “The energy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanisation” (Freire, ibid, p. 30). “Any situation in which ‘A’ objectively exploits ‘B’ or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression” (Freire, ibid, p. 37). Thus Freire’s goal is the humanist liberation of both oppressor and the oppressed, something that can only be achieved by critical awareness, ‘conscientizacāo’.

He goes on to say (ibid, p. 33, footnote 6) “The structure of domination (false consciousness) is maintained by its own mechanical unconscious functionality.” Given the context in which we find ourselves, as set out in section 2 of this paper, we could, I propose, in direct analogy with the situation of the oppressed, illiterate peasant and his oppressor and in the same spirit, assert that “The structure of the myth of endless economic growth has been maintained by its own mechanical and unconscious functionality.”

Implications for an education for enlightenment

My very simple proposal is that, given the context in which we find ourselves, not only should we pursue the rational goal of ameliorating disaster but that, in addition, in order to avoid the possibility that we are merely ‘tinkering’ with the mechanisms that are destroying us, we should pursue our explorations of the human condition. In the sense of the Enlightenment goal of ‘perfectibility’, we need to become more human and to aim to empower others to be more human, too.

Here is Freire again: “To affirm that men and women are persons and yet do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality is a farce” (ibid, p.32).

Let me make clear that what I am proposing is really simple in concept. However, reflection tells us immediately that putting the concept into practice in all places at all times is far from simple. In many parts of the world, it is positively dangerous. Even in our benign liberal democracies, to act so as to maximise the possibilities of the growth of human awareness may lead us into serious difficulties, as when, for example, our personal economic or physical security is put at risk. Let us dare to speak the truth and to speak that truth in love.

“There is no true word that is not at the same time a practice. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world” (ibid, p. 68).

5. Concluding comments

Up to this point the paper has discussed the concept of education for enlightenment and the processes for bringing it about. It is argued that there is a sense in which every word we speak – every speech act - has the potential to support the processes of education for enlightenment. What then of the possibilities of education for enlightenment being, first of all, recognised as a global need and, second, being implemented on a global scale? This is a topic that I have discussed in some depth elsewhere (Scott, 2010b). The good news is that we do now have the means for doing both of these things through the power of the Internet, the World Wide Web and the tools that afford social networking. In my optimistic moments, I perceive everywhere the seeds of an emerging global conversation and the emerging critical awareness of those who are participating. In my pessimistic moments, I perceive that most of the time we are still all trapped in the false consciousness of a disastrous ‘business as usual’. It behoves those of us who would claim to be enlightened to enlighten others. We are in a race against time. It is also likely that as events unfold we will be shocked into the necessary awareness of the folly and emptiness of our ways of thinking and behaving. By then of course, for many of us, if not for a majority, it will be too late.

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