Bildung and Freedom

Michael Winkler

Bildung and freedomthis topic presents a provocation in itself. Bildung is being associated with many things; the subject of freedom however is a secondary object. Every respective search will lead to a discussion about the problem of participation, with Bildung mostly seen as an instrument to make participation possible. Other search processes will lead to the result that freedom, in connection with Bildung is thought of as programmatic and more neo-liberal, either concerning the access or concerning the possibility to choose freely between institutions and offers which promise Bildung. Bildung therefore is not given an innate value, especially a connection between Bildung and freedom is said to be non-existent, even if this connection is seen as intrinsic and thus dissoluble in the field of philosophy. Following thoughts are not only about this relation. Rather they try to assert the concept of Bildung (and its notions) in all complexity against the trivializations which it nowadays constantly has to endurein public and political debates as well as in disputes, which are subordinated to the peculiar imperialism of educational research which says of itself to be empirical. Indeed: This fight seems to be Don Quichote like in light of the astounding power of the trivial understanding of Bildungparticularly as ones own thoughts could end the same way as the books Don Quichote throws into the fire; with this fatal campaign he wanted to secure Bildung. The problem in fact is that appropriate thoughts have to be complicated in a way that they seem to be even contradictory. It cannot be ruled out that the triumph of
Translated from German by Anna Dobler (Bad Abbach near Regensburg, Germany).

M. Winkler () Institut fr Bildung und Kultur, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Am Planetarium 4, 07743 Jena, Germany e-mail: michael.winkler@uni-jena.de
K. Schneider (ed.), Becoming oneself, DOI 10.1007/978-3-531-19156-0_6, VS Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften | Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2012 89

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the trivial is connected with the complexity the world and its contexts have gained and which only leaves one wish: Simpler please. Probably this also accounts for the understanding of Bildung; the success of PISA and its likes (to say it flat) is linked to this then understandable desire for simplicity. This indicates the structure of this text. Speaking methodologically the considerations are structured systematical, critical, and constructive: A first systematic section illustrates the elements which are seen as the intension and the meaning of Bildung. This section seems apodictic and comes close to something which is gladly and misleadingly said to be a definition, which Adorno rightfully stigmatized as a rechthaberische Erkenntnistheorie, die dort auf Exaktheit dringt, wo die Unmglichkeit des Eindeutigen zur Sache selbst gehrt.1 It is about the approach of a theoryin a strict sensewhich advances the concept as it was historically build, so that its system at least becomes accessible to heuristic and hermeneutics of current reality of Bildung. The critical second part analyses the current discourse of Bildung in its trivialization. The systematic approach is also the basis for the constructive attempt to find sense in present events. It is assumed that the trivialization of Bildung implies a social sense, which is not free from an utopian dimensionit hints at the promise to be able to win back the undisguised concept of Bildung as an utopia of humanity. To phrase it more cheeky and provocative: Facing the size of the possibilities of reflection which the concept of Bildung gives, people probably will not forever engage with and count on the stupidity the currently common stupid chitchat about that what Bildung expresses today.

6.1
Friedrich Schlegel once said that the historian is a prophet looking backwards. This phrase, applies particularly to the analysis of BildungSchlegel naturally had this in mind2: The affirmation of the idea of history and of the theory, which are inherent to the concept of Bildung, both are a kind of normative framework for thinking. This frame is normative, because it holds onto and brings forward that which is to be unexamined when we think about Bildung. As old and out-of-date it seems to be, we need the classical Bildung to account for that which is not mentioned in current discourses or is completely missing in ostensibly or truly empirical results about Bildung: Quite a lot indicates that this framework nowadays stays empty, especially

1 2

Adorno, 1964/1965/2006, p. 198. cf. Schlegel (1991, p. 45).

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when it comes to the aforementioned connection between Bildung and freedom.3 This connection does not play a role in respect of social and especially economic progress which is anticipated from Bildung today; the human being is made the addressee of organizational and pragmatic efforts. The past loses its empathetic subjective meaning and substance, which is mostly used to give an impulse to the Bildung anticipated from society, politics and experts, but this can actually only come from the subjects themselves. You feel reminded of Max Horkheimers main philosophical work4: The Eclipse of Reason; It is about the darkening, the eclipse of Bildung. The German title, Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft tells us what happens: The demand of education is being exploited; it is required yet the impulse is taken away. This is not insignificant: One has to assume that the trivialized concept of Bildung is successful, because people bow to pressure of social circumstances and therefore follow ideas in which these circumstances are shown. On the other hand it has to be mentioned that against all experiences of suffering from new educational realities the ideal and normative content of the concept of Bildung is strong enough for people not only to engage in but also to push events. In other words: There is a lot of evidence which tells that background conceptswhich are to be systematically shownof education stayed so powerful that people are willing to follow this discourse whichif looked at matter-of-factlydenies this concept. If Bildung, at least its discourse, is being so successful, even if the social and cultural reality, programmatic developments, structures, organizations, institutions and pragmatics are hybrid and full of tension, contradictory and torn5, it is initially and primary the basis of what was to be erased: Apparently there are many, fundamental intuitions about what a human being is; these are historically comprehensive (i.e. anthropological), at least in what is said to be modern and is therefore normative relevant because they have to be secured practically. The concept of Bildung insofar underlines a fact which cannot be ignored and makes critic and praxis possible. Today this is more important than ever before. Modernity is not a trustworthy state. Rather it is a possibility which always has to be critically secured, also and especially because it can be lost: The first intuition states: The concept of Bildung was examined and developed in the context of Enlightenment and Romanticism, the German classical period and German Idealism. In a sense it dictates, disillusions and radicalises those.6 Contemporaries did see these connections: Moses Mendelssohn assigned them
see Vieweg and Winkler (2012). see Horkheimer (1991). 5 cf. Mnch (2007, 2009, 2011). 6 cf. Beiser (2003), Seigel (2005).
3 4

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to the newcomers of the book language. The development of this concept defines the core of the bourgeois revolution: every human, every single person and at the same time everyone is born free, they design their lives and their society freely and they have to manage this freedom by themselves. Humboldt further sharpens this argument, certainly lesser in his Theorie der Bildung des Menschen but in his Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grnzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen. For: Der wahre Zweck des Menschennicht der, welchen die wechselnde Neigung, sondern welchen die ewig unvernderliche Vernunft ihm vorschreibtist die hchste und proportionirlichste Bildung seiner Krfte zu einem Ganzen (7 [The true aim of any human beingnot that given by changing impulses but that which is given by the unchangeable reasonis the highest and most proportional Bildung to a very wholeness]). This sentence is followed by another one, which oddly enough is not mentioned very often, especially educationalist are not interested in it. It states: Zu dieser Bildung ist Freiheit die erste, und unerlssliche Bedingung (8 [For that liberty is the first and in no way conditioned Bildung]). Humboldt goes on that the individual human always has to fight for Bildung; the approaching Eigentmlichkeit der Kraft und der Bildung is only allowed durch Freiheit des Handelns und Mannigfaltigkeit der Handelnden gewirkt [zu werden]; so bringt sie beides wiederum hervor (9[the individuality is caused by the liberty of actors and by the multiplity of actors]). Finally he summarizes: Bewiesen halte ich demnach durch das Vorige, dass die wahre Vernunft dem Menschen keinen anderen Zustand, als einen solchen wnschen kann, in welchem nicht nur jeder Einzelne der ungebundensten Freiheit geniesst, sich aus sich selbst, in seiner Eigenthmlichkeit zu entwikkeln, sondern vorn welchem auch die physische Natur keine andere Gestalt von Menschenhnden empfngt, als ihr jeder Einzelne, nach dem Maasse seines Bedrfnisses und seiner Neigung, nur beschrnkt durch die Grnzen seiner Kraft und seines Rechts, selbst und willkhrlich giebt (10 [that can be seen as an evidence that true reason wishes that any individual enjoys an unbounded liberty to develop himself from his innate given individuality and in his own individuality. And even his own physical nature may only be limited following measures which are given by his individuality itself]). The state can operate for the welfare of society and the individual person, but only freedom can be the center. Freedom is being worked at through Bildung.
von Humboldt 1792/1960, p.64. ibid. 9 l.c., p.65. 10 l.c., p.69.
7 8

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This fundamental intuition of freedom interconnected with Bildung, means that Bildung is something in which the subjects constitute themselves, they constitute their humanity and themselves as relatives of the Genus Humanum, which itself needs this process of educationi.e. the humanization of humanity. This intuition indicates that the configuration the individual and the species at whole happens against societys and cultural demands, yes, even against the bindings of religion. Again with knowing that one cannot outrun these demands and claims, that Bildung is connected to sufferings, an intentional bearing, which has to be taken over again and again. It can be added up into one formula: Bildung is connected to the pathos of freedom; autonomy is experienced as something possible and at the same time as something which is always denied. Surprisingly this intuition of freedom corresponds withparadoxically phrased a transcendent connection. Bildung cannot be separated from spirituality; there is a certain idea of belief, of religiousness, of transcendence in it. One gets the feeling that the idea of Bildung is being developed to provide a safety net, to give hope against the risk of modern freedom. This is probably connected to the feeling that educational processes in themselves are unsettling, that they cannot be separated from a sceptical, even ironical, point of view. Educated people do not take themselves, their relations and general living conditions serious, because they count on contingency.11 This is not calmingtherefore one looks for connections which last longer than one day. Indeed, this religious and transcendent characteristic is intertwined with the oldest trace of the concept of Bildung. This goes back to the idea of human representativeness of God, which is connected to the conception of human dignity and biography, as well as it points to mysticism, to a pre-rational, overall experience with spirituality.12 This mysticism is inherent in educational thinking, with a huge ambivalence by the way: On the one hand it is influenced by Pascals thinking, which holds onto a God given character of reality, on the other hand Protestantism forces Bildung as a learning project, but at the same time refers back to humanity inwardness. This brings us to the golden hour of German literature, as Heinz Schlaffer showed13, it leaves a psychological trace which continues to have an effect, but also inserts this un-political, if not anti-political streak into educational thinking. Finally resemblance to God has a moment of transcendence. A transcendence for the subjects themselves as well as for the conditions in which they move, even if the crossing of those is only an imaginative possibility. Who approaches God is risking overreaching his/herself and being brought back to earth. It is possible to fall even deeper, at the end even into hell.

cf. Rorty (1991). cf. Lichtenstein (1966). 13 cf. Schlaffer (2002).

11 12

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The thought of freedom, religion and transcendence in a way stand for a structural understanding of the human situation related to present times and future. The concept of Bildung serves as an antithesis, it concerns a historicity which is transported and at the same time illuminates the concept. This notion fights against a thinking which is only oriented at the present and commits itself to that which Henry Ford (and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World) fend off with his formula: history is bunk. Indeed, the concept and notion of Bildung (not the word itself) developed early, actually in the ancient worldjust think of Platos Cave Allegoryand was reinvented in the Renaissance. Nevertheless it was only firmly established as late as the beginning of the 19th century. The concept therefore is not truly new, even if it is now perceived as new. It just unfolds its full meaning and is registered by people in those days. It becomes the leitmotif of their self-conceptionin cutting out all forms of unreflecting certainty, in overcoming immaturity, at the same time it is a self-imposed duty, to find and develop what is now being shown as a possibility namely humanity. The context is easy to identify14: The concept of Bildung was developed in relation to the Era of Enlightenment, to be more precise as its continuity and its critique of giving up its agenda. The connection with pedagogy plays a vital role in this context. Pedagogy is said to downsize itself to the level of bare educational techniques, which follow thoughts about necessity, but give up the individual. At the same time the concept of Bildung cannot be isolated from the development of the bourgeois society as a society which designed and developed humans as a project to be the reality of humanity: There is a strong relationship to the conception of the public, which initially just allows to talk about critique and demands knowledge over pure belief15; another relation concerns the project of emancipation, especially as it was followed through by the Jews who were fighting for their membership in bourgeois society. Basically this discourse about Bildung takes up a sceptical element as early as 1800. It is being discussed with a sceptical view concerning the endangering of humanity. On the one hand this can be perceived through the excesses of the French Revolution: Robespierre or Maratinspired by Burkesuggested a more evolutionary way of development as an alternative for educational theoreticians. On the other hand educational theoreticians realized that bourgeois society was not truly honouring their own demands and therefore asking for radicalisation which asked even more consequently for the anthropological condition of Bildung. Schiller discovered a measuring modality of human existence in the game and difference of the aesthetic,
14 15

For the following part cf. Koselleck (1976, esp. 105ff). cf. Koselleck (1976).

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Schleiermacher points to an anti-pole, namely the feeling of dependency, which only allows religion and transcendence, These seem to be in opposition, but in reality it concerns the constitutive dimensions of freedom, which characterize the educational connection. Bildung means conflict with nature, with its own nature and with history. Traditions are lingering here as well: those of the early, radical Era of Enlightenment that saw the nature of humans as the basis of self-determination, those longer ones that understood history as the expression of this specific self-determination, own actions and the own specificity of humanityas it applies from Vico to Herder. The concept of Bildung brings together nature and intellect, links the very own connection between development and historicity which then allows the insight that humans really create themselves as one of natures creatures. They are naturally able to act in an undefined way: here the notion of a game has a specific function, not only does it take the idea of aesthetics as a basis (esp. Schiller, but also Winckelmann and Wieland) but it also displays the developingassisting and self-determination form of human existence as can be seen in the often under-evaluated works of Frbel. Bildung demands that one ascertains his/herself in comparison with each other. On the one hand this points to an inseparable connection between Bildung and reflectionreflection of the individual me, affirmation of oneself, sometimes in an contemplative way aiming at inwardness and retreat, sometimes ironic, exaggerating, even critical, sometimes even pessimistic or actually intentionally directed to ineffectiveness. There is this cautious, self-sufficient move in educational thinking which can be interpreted as arrogance. This causes the view of Bildung as something apolitical. Maybe Thomas Mann was rightly accused of that. At times the educated refuses a productive, constructive performance in daily-live activities. The bourgeois entrepreneur is seen as someone not concerned with Bildung, only as a nouveau riche; the politician even more is seen as an ironic figure, as well as the busy pedagogue; these two together can only be endured through caricature. This is and will be by the way the Achilles heel of educational thinking, even if at the same time it helps to endure the circumstances. Reflection is not less about them. Bildung may be accompanied with withdrawal, but this does not mean it is sitting in an ivory-tower. The exact opposite is the case: Bildung takes the effort to get to know and understand the world; it is being realized especially in a sociable circle. Bildung means being committed to the liability of a cause, to a liability which first and foremost is accompanied by a general norm. This is the most challenging element of the structure of education. Last but not least because it opens the door for all normative ideas and especially for pedagogical intentions. Bildung

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takes place in subjects and happens to them as their own deed. This procedure cannot succeed without substantialityhere in its widest sense, which encloses ideas. The crucial point is: Bildung cannot circle in itself; the educational process needs a foreign, so to say alienated object, whatever this may look like. This represents the second intrinsic relation of Bildung: It is always connected to something else. Even more: It is a constituent of Bildung, that this other is reflexively being averted to Bildung itself as one possibility of the own being of the subject or person. Hegel shows this through the relationship between lord and servant: Bildung demands being sure about the others position. Today one would call this Perspektivenbernahme (taking over the perspective of another person). But Bildung cannot be satisfied with that. The educational process includes a further step: examination concerning the possibility of generalizing the experienced objectivity. Hegel offers the possibility of universality as a debatable topic, which does not necessarily need a positive outcome. Bildung, however, allows the subject to see and appreciate the singular as something essentialby the way: one can see a connection to love, which will here not be pursued further. Finally: Despite this bond between Bildung and worldly objectivity, even though Bildung is always connected to working with substantiality and measure this substantiality with universality, Bildung is in all its aspects subjectiveconcerning the subject and all of his/hers achievements-, it is a personal matter, which does not close. Bildung is an individual process of development, which takes place in a subjective view of the world; it cannot be finished and certainly not be measured. The judgment that someone is educated wants to hold onto a certain state, but in the end it merely is a social distinctionas seen clearly by Friedrich Paulsen.16 Those who talk about Bildung have to be very careful not to try to connect Bildung with systematically organized, systematized, institutional and standardized, professional contexts. Bildung has a relatively weak, as bitter as this might soundfor exampleto teachers, connection to pedagogy. Those who think systematically about Bildung will at most realize that education, if it wants to do justice to its concept, only tries to make processes of Bildung possible and to accompany how they are realized in a relatively contingent way through all individual peculiarity of developing subjects and against all worldly liabilities. If it does not want to drill, then education cannot do any more, but also not less concerning Bildung. At latest with the beginning of the 19th century it became clear that Bildung is connected to the development of the individual subject, to the development of a person, who has to ascertain him/herself in an area of conflict which is given from the
16

see Paulsen (1903).

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experience of its regulations originating from its nature and social contexts. Bildung largely means coping with given contexts, bearing Gods given will in what is called profession17, acquiring ones own body, understanding of the own and other, the individual subject enclosing nature, and lastly the understanding of given historical and social conditions. At the same time Bildung means debating about all of the above mentioned, overcoming and realizing a difference that develops from ones own self-governed producing process, which in the endas Schiller showedis possible especially in the aesthetic practice and in a game. Both, the suffering of the subject as well as the active, seemingly self-governed, but nevertheless limited practice, are about being oneself, later being caught in the term identity, they however are about freedom. Even suffering, that means having to cope with the given, includes the element of freedomnamely freedom as a proposition to act free with all certainty. This requires a distance that has to be builteven if only reflexive. Vice versa Bildung itself restricts this freedom, which is the basis of activityparadoxically this is the meaning of autonomy which at the end of the 18th century can be and is defined: autonomy means cultivating ones own freedom. Kant exemplary describes this as the main problem of education in his pedagogy: How can one cultivate freedom within constraint? But only Herder, Schleiermacher and Hegel truly grasp this problem because they refer it to rationality: Herder, who points out how subjects can find and define their freedom if they understand the historical process; Schleiermacher, who understands how a developing subject can only determine him/herself in ligations to others; finally Hegel, who reconnects Bildung to everything that is being found in practical morality within a real societyadmittedly with the perspective that this society is a step in the development of the intellect and therefore proofs as an expression of reason.

6.2
Against this background one can now critically examine what nowadays happens with the concept of Bildung and the aforementioned intuitions. Prima facie it is noticeable that and how the concept of Bildung is described in a non-understanding and non-conceptual way. If one insists on evidence based thinking and action it does not really catch ones eye that the discourse stays pre-theoretical, it is bound to talking which does not ascertain its own self, the actual situation and especially not the normative implications. This is surprising as every effort to win data from experience is connected to antecedent rationality. Today this somehow differs: research
17

cf. Witte (2010).

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concerning Bildung, the educational praxis, political talk about it, they all pretend that Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant did not exist, not to speak of the newer theoreticians of cognition and science, who were concerned with empirical studies. But it is not possible to take the easy road, even if it is often done todayunless one wants to blacken out the emptiness and hollowness of ones own business. What is executed as pre- and un-theoretical nothingness here in todays discourses on Bildung indeed means that we are not talking about a concept of Bildung anymore, but that we can put the focus on a use of the word itself. By the way this is not methodological and methodically pretentious, neither in a sense of common language approach nor in a sense of theoretical discourse. Bildung today is only a word nothing more, this is what the widely noticed experts (or especially those) agree on and this actually could be an argument for the current discourse. Indeed a historical insight does not play an important role within educational debates and public as well as political contextsHumboldt would probably turn in his grave if he knew who cites him when and what is citedin addition the critical considerations, which were produced since the middle of the 20th century are blanked out. Those include Adornos Theorie der Halbbildung as well as Heydorns attempt to hold onto an idealistic concept of Bildung against the bitter comprehension that a society inspired by Marxist analysis implemented on him. But the reality is: The concept of Bildung was yet actually depleted in the 20th century. On the one hand it wasin the truest sense of wordsused up and devalued by educational economics, although the involved persons were more earnest than common today: During the 1970s there was a spate of reforms in which educational economics developed the notion of human resources and the human demand approach to skim the educational reserves with all-day and comprehensive schools18. This approach was more earnest as it did not even use the seemingly moldy concept of Bildung, but from the beginning only talked about skills, which were to be measured and calculated in their value-adding notions. On the other hand historical analysis documents in a more or less bitter way that the concept of Bildung was contaminated as a bad formula which was only used to secure the status of the intelligentsia. It seemed to have been used as resentment to amalgamate the connection between the presumptuous educational aspirations, ideas of intellectual ideality, a conservatism which feared mass society and quite simply brutal, antidemocratic ambitions of power, which all together destroyed the Weimar Republic. Georg Lukcs already wrote this in his Destruction of Reason, even if there is a certain amount of scepticism against his interpretations; further evidence can be found in Georg Bollenbecks groundbreaking survey about the German pattern of interpretation of Bildung and
18

Critical on that Altvater and Huisken (1971), Huisken (1972).

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culture19, Martynkewicz illustrates the events through the connections between the publisher couple Bruckmann from Munich and the National Socialists20. If looked at matter-of-factly the concept of Bildung became quite shabby, caution seemed and seems advisabletodays canonization gives headaches: Bildung is an unholy concept, a zombie in many respects. In fact, not the concept Bildung is used today but only the word Bildung, though in a downright universal meaning, often recited in a kind of self-affirmation-attitude and connected to a requesting gesture. Bildung is a joker so to speak, which can open, carry on and endlessly lengthen every conversation, sometimes this becomes the quality of Dadaistic art, sometimes one feels like being in the middle of abstraction processes, which were practiced in the irritatingly so-called concrete poetics. Lastly even EHEC was connected with Bildung through consumer information and hygiene regulations. Some people call Bildung a container-term, a concept like a ship-container, either empty or filled with variable content. But this image is limited because we are confronted with the word Bildung nearly everywhere. What are the reasons for this ubiquity of usage? Negatively seen one would firstly assume that today language is used rather insensitive, that there is barely any accurateness to be detected. This applies to private language use which is in need of dictionaries to decode texts and emails, but it applies even stronger to the public and academic usage which tends to arbitrariness. Words are used to attract attention and provoke a stir. We are dealing with a successful word, its success depending on good luck. Like other consumer goods words are thrown into the market and tested there, just to silently disappear again. The word Bildung shows how modern societies are following the economics of attention-policies21. The value of an expression is decided not through its contents but through its ability to arouse excitement andto tie it to a figure of Niklas Luhmannto save Anschlusskommunikation (following communication), preferably in various talk shows. With that it fulfils its duty, especially in a society where experts are proud of not any longer having time to read. How did these experts get their expert opinion? They do not have any, because for receiving expertise it is enough to talk publicly and juggle with words. Bildung is basically used without content; one should not wait for any substantial information. This gives us the impression that the agitated debates about the so-called Bildungsstudien (educational studies) are without effect, because they leave out the actual meaningin the end it is the ministry of finance

cf. Bollenbeck (1994). Martynkewicz 2009. 21 cf. Franck (2005), Trcke (2002).
19 20

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which decides about the educational reality. This reality did not really change in depth, but only on the level of talking about it.22 But then the ubiquity of Bildungs-chitchat ormumble as this societys key note is based on its role as an alternative for religion. A symptom for that would be the on-going repetition of the term and its usage at all times. If one cannot think of anything else, the word Bildung can serve as common ground, it seems to be a mystery but at the same time a disclosed one, which cannot be grasp rationally (and does not need to be). The structure is a rather catholic one: Bildung is the one and only true church, there are no other beliefs next to itquestions about security, equity, about a good life are possible, but they have to be asked sub auspiciis concerning Bildung. The word Bildung brings together all social protagonists and it can be carried around before oneself like a monstrance. But this evidencei.e. the contingency which correlates to the mechanism of a society full of attentiveness, the assurance of Anschlusskommunikation as the basis character trait of society and finally the ritualistic momentare insufficient: In reality the linguistic use shows a discrepancy between a certain usage and emptiness of content. This arbitrariness can paradoxically be seen in the usage of the definite article. One needs the Bildung, it all depends on the Bildung. The inherent ambiguity for German terms ending in -ung disappears, process and product, procedure and result are named at the same time. Bildung points to an objective, fossilized object that can be measured. This petrifaction practically accompanies the unindulgent tendency to sum up Bildung in a process of regular and everlasting institutionalization for everyone at the earliest age. Bildung has since long ago been strongly and only connected to school. Schoolthis disgusting modern kraken which sucks out the vitality of human life, pockets and suffocates it with its tentaclesis the reality of Bildung nowadays, which no longer concerns the subjects and persons but only the addresses. Only the observer, not the involved person is puzzled how this objectivity is accompanied with a psychology of learning that praises the constructivism and stands against teaching and individual learning, especially in non-formal educational contexts.23 But, as soon as it comes to the very

22 The discussion about day-care centers could serve as an example: Some years ago they were seen as highly problematic as they did not communicate the seemingly necessary Weltwissen. Although proof is missing, if and how they fulfill their duties today, day-carecenters are obligatory for all children as early and as extensive as possible. 23 Not to mention that here again all historical debates about the formal and official side of instruction is pushed aside; the debate concentrated strongly on mere formal learning as it is used in schools and tests. Social pedagogy and youth welfare excelled in this topic and successfullyand quite empiricalintroduced non-school learning spaces, just to turn back to school as the only possible place of education.

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core, constructivism, life-long-learning and non-curricular contexts are pushed aside to make room for a institutionalised formatting of Bildung.24

6.3
Every speech about Bildung is therefore not really about Bildung itself. What then is the social sense of this Bildungs-chitchat? Bildung is not saying anythingand that is exactly why this word means reification and objectification and repudiates directness and flexibility. Young people are being specific behavioural patterns, which are seen as competences, by professional engineers of souls. These then are performative examinedcontents have since long ago been left out because they cannot be connected to flexibility, fungibility and fleetingness as demanded by those societies, which determine the project as their own content and likeness of their members.25 The new educational discourse has the prior function of collectivization within the demands of current circumstances: The Tantra of Bildung with its pseudo-religious parts serves the construction of social integration; the Bildungs-chitchat secures the key note, the prosodywhich is used to define a society and its members, though not in a Beachboys-Good-Vibrations way. It is not about the people themselves; they rather are to be erased within their humaneness. The function is in fact to press the individuals into the logics of consumer society, in which on the one hand everything becomes something that can be consumed, on the other hand everything stays a process, to be exact, stays performative, because one is not supposed to hold onto stuff, as society then would not be able to operate. If seen this way we are concerned with a collectivisation of Bildung, with its commodification. The subjects of Bildung are becoming consumer goods and are oriented at market mechanism. Consequently the realization of Bildung in processes of institutionalisation and the disappearance of the debate with regard to content is getting cloudy, but it also calls attention to the integration of Bildung into

24 cf. Rauschenbach (2009). This is a truly perfidious phrase, as formatting means erasing earlier data. It thus deletes history so that new programmes can overwrite with new data. 25 Within this all potential critics are being silenced. The curricular development serves as evidence for that: subjects are being abolished or freed from those contents which would need reflection. Thinking about society, power and authority becomes obsolete. The Bavarian G8 timetable for higher education cuts down topics like National Socialism to give more space to activities concerning the development of an industrial society. In Saxony history lessons have been more or less abolished. The shock over murdering neo-Nazis can therefore only be seen as hypocrisy. The question is: Isnt the ministry of culture the supporter of that development?

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a society which is oriented on the exchange value of basic processes. This society is accompanied by a highly formal notion of freedomnamely freedom, which not only enables and enforces the reduction to being a consumer good and its embedding in trade, but also bents this as an integrated character trait on human existence in general. Bildungs-chitchat serves as a dynamo of performance which is powered by constructive learning. To make them stay on track they are caught in institutionseven family seems to be too high a risk, one could gain autonomy. Those who do not want to adapt these new norms of flexibility are threatened with strict institutions: youth welfare, psychiatry or even prisons. These are being enlarged nearly everywhere. Bildung as mere chitchat, to be precise: the usage of the word without content and meaning, only with performative relevance, but then again attaining its social sense exactly through this usage, is indeed connected to modified social and cultural contexts. If Bildung really exists in modernity it has to have exactly this meaninginsofar critics are wrong, if they moan too strongly about Unbildung (lack of education)26. Unbildung is in a manner of speaking a character trait of society and its culture, one should not marvel about it. With actually enabling reproduction, Unbildung is a feature of this society. This can be seen through the sanctions which are implemented on those who do not want to be a part of this new educational formation, who do not want to be drilled to adjust themselves. This adjustment corresponds with a dimension of development in modern society. Old capitalistic structures are restituted in this dimension. Those can be seen in class relations, in new forms of social layering with a sometimes dramatic inequality and brutal social exclusion, which involves human life as a whole27. Social membership is overall defined in a negative way, either as a materialistic doom, or often as a stigmatising, random identification which is accompanied by controlling affected persons. An example for such an assignment to a specific group is the concept of underclass. That way a growing group of people daily fighting for survival is developing. Sometimes they have seemingly decent employments, but often they are employed in the so-called Niedriglohnsektor (low wage sector). This sector spreads epidemic like and will become something which cansocially and individuallyonly be called a precarious system of full-time employment. Bourdieu said about these circumstances: Misery of life is raging. Increasingly these new social differences end in social exclusion i.e. exclusion from society: humans are being marginalized; their life is perceived as wasted or they are literally cleared away28. Humans become social and cultural garbage without any value, allegedly useless and unnecessaryor they
cf. Liessmann (2006). cf. Wilkinson and Picket (2010). 28 see Bauman (2005a), Bude (2008), Bude and Willisch (2008).
26 27

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are only able to live off garbage. Sometimes they live their life directly in front of others e.g. when searching public garbage bins for usable stuff. More and more local authorities banish the poor and miserable. It is just a matter of time until bottle collectors, who try to improve their pension, have vanished from public areas. These living conditions firstly mean that humans do not even have the slightest chance to look into subjects in which there can be seen something like humanity. They are quite simply eliminated from the process of humanizing the humanethey even are bereft of the hope for spirituality as it is indicated in thewrongly interpreted dictum of religion as opium of the people. Social exclusion also means that they are forced to imprisonment or exclusion and being forgotten about. They are only able to receive Bildung if they find a way to themselvesbut this seems improbable. These cultural and social hardenings turn life something very icy indeed. They are escorted by a strange dissolution of social and cultural institutions which is accompanied by increasing dynamics of change. Worldly wisdom is defined by acceleration29, this has long been examined by French sociology30. Processes of change, which characterize modernity in a manner of speaking overwind and end in a certain state, the formative situation of liquid modernity31, in which all existing aspects and dimensions become at first brittle and fragile, then liquid and liquid in love32. Identity becomes frailer or disappears, only the single moment count as an event which is prepared as a project33. Humans are forced by circumstances to absorb this notion and organize their own existence as projects this is the new mode of their existence34. Continuity becomes unlikely, if not illegitimate. To end relationships one just has to press the power-off button. The up until now framing and binding milieus, churches and political parties, unions and clubs, all of which brought together people, are fading into the background. Only short-dated, fashionable life-style models are offered, the Synopticum replaces responsibilities as well as the old-fashioned surveillance system of the Panopticum. This is followed by a dramatic situation which affects Bildung: Because living only in the status of an event the personal subjects being reduced to a mode of living in a project way and in presence of performance will not find an resource for a true life, no source of their selfto quote Charles Taylor. They will not find sources on which they can rely, which will strengthen their life or give them a kind stronghold. There is nothing left of that we-experience in which sociality acts as solidarity
see Rosa (2005). cf. Aubert (2004, 2010), Ehrenberg (1991, 1995, 2000). 31 cf. Bauman (2009). 32 Bauman 2005b, 2007. 33 see Keupp (1996). 34 see Boltanski and Chiapello (2003), Boltanski (n.d.).
29 30

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and as a condition for socialization, in which people constitute themselves in their own specific character. Jean-Claude Kaufman shows how this mixture, which exists between cultural absorption and coming-out, is being dissolved35; partly this means provocative de-socialization, which lies in secure socialization. This mixture was necessary for managing open societies, for the integration of individuals in it, the mixture contributed to integrating and reproducing the society itself. Atomised individuals are dealing with events, in all tragic aspects, but these events instantaneous lose their eventful quality because their recapitulation is advertised with the promise of excrescence; heroes of oneself, hros de soi-mme appear, without noticing how the Culte de lurgence corrodes their character36. That, which the individual has always perceived as a supporting and important, highly relevant fact of personal history, is denied. Society and culture become porous; they cannot offer any foothold to the individual. Shallowness and arrogance compensate this; sometimes they lose their grounding, their sense for reality. Dis-embedding becomes the relevant experience and a structural characteristic of socialization processes. These correspond to modern society, which demands a formal, market like subject that cannot be predicted and is only able to live as an artist of his/herself. Socialization then means this strange form of de-sociality, which allows deviance as a way of life. The modern individual, the individu hypermoderne starts within itself37, it is a-priori free, detached and relieved from all constraints and attachments. Distinguishing character traits are no longer interesting; the only thing that counts is the appearance, the acting and in the end the exhaustion, which develops from depressive breaking down over ones own enforced nothingness. The new model of Bildung, as it is shown in educational chitchat, matches this condition. It not only realizes a socially and culturally given freedom, it postulates growth freed from institutions and frames and at the same time wants to prepare this state. In this respect it is about a technique of power, namely mastering people in their new freedomwhich includes that they themselves cultivated this freedom. What is said to be Bildung and especially how Bildung is said to be leaves the subjects to fulfil structural empty conditions: to talk about Bildung without content, to abstain from true awareness of things, allegedly earning competence, which in reality is only performance, and in the end to be confined to the triviality of handling testsall this composes Bildung and is as such functional. The new techniques of power which seem to be Bildung demand and enable complete flexibility, which furthermore is attained by throwing away all weightcynics speak of
Kaufmann 2005, p.287. see Sennett (1998), Aubert (2004). 37 cf. Aubert (2010).
35 36

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the beautiful art of pauperising. Bildungs-chitchat as techniques of power means that the individual is being made available as they comply with demands and standards, all of which strangely stay in the dark. Norms for ones own physique are being formulated and used. The belief in fitness demands to stay fit i.e. to adjust to satisfy certain norms, which are open and volatileat the same time substantial elements of modern identity fall into the domain of current society. Autonomy and self-reflection constitute basic regulations which are activated through the subjects for self-control. But without breaking an ethical agendaas Hegel said in his Phnomenologie des Geistes and in his Grundlinien der Philosophiefrom which there could grow self-determination that would allow distance to social powers and irony against oneself. Here at the latest one can see a counter movement: The new educational discourse suffers from an inner antagonism. This antagonism develops because modern freedom can only be handled through Bildung, otherwiseas the possibility of exclusion showsthe terroristic game of exclusion wins. But this is not working, as society then is not reproducing itself, least of all with its dynamics of chance and even lesser as a consumer society. This is one of the reasons for the success of educational chitchat: Bildung and freedom belong together; even the most modern modernity cannot avoid this without destroying its own requirements. This is even more valid in transient modernity: It is therefore quite true to say that Bildung is not dispensable. But the only dilemma is: Bildung in liquid modernity as well as the Bildung which is oriented on flexibility, projects and performances of subjects needs the requirements, the frames of securing terms and conditions. The more modern society ignores these requirements due to its own strangely empty educational efforts, the more it only wants to generate the volatile subject, the more it demands competences which only care about manners concerning themes and motifs, social conditions and the subject itself, the more it abdicates the acquisition and mediation of contents, the more this society is trapped. It then needs even more protective terms and conditions to stabilize a subject which is no longer able to hold onto objects and to constitute itself through the association with objects. Society reacts to this with the aforementioned enforced institutionalisation and a tendency to professionalism and training. But through this it creates a prison like structure which contradicts its own fleeting and dynamic character. Those who focus on Bildung cannot do this without the subjects; it is even less possible under the condition of an a-social sociality. This becomes the Achilles heel of modern society, which wants to save itself from reproduction problemsparadoxically saidthrough Bildung as mere educational chitchat. These reproduction problems are produced by societys liquid structure. Educational chitchat here appears to be some kind of magic formula, with which one can activate subjects to

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bow to those mechanisms modern society demands. To intensify the effect of this magic formula it is strengthen by a socialpolitical promise, an appeal to equity and equality. This does the job wonderfully because on the one hand it distracts from the emptiness of the educational discourse, on the other hand it serves classic mechanisms of distinction as they appear in educational panic38: The way Bildung is talked about, namely empty, binds the individuals. They are forced to freely decide on Bildung. An enforcement which is intensified through talks about Bildung which transports a claim of universality, that is to be applied to free individuals. Thus Bildung ensures freedom and at the same time binds people. This is to ensure an identical starting point for everyone in the educational system. But at the same time everything is done to bring people to their starting blocks and to create competition. From the beginning the idea of cooperation is suspended although evolutionary biology and neurobiology give out warnings that basic human character traits are altruism and community which secure evolutionary progress39. Nobody is interested in the mere possibility of humans being able to actually generate the demanded efforts. Even worse: those who fail in competition have to take the whole blame; there are no longer any infra-structural systems to help. It is no coincidence that these mechanisms function so well with talking about Bildung. This talking has to be aimed at the people themselves and is backed up by an invaluable benefitit still sounds like the concept of Bildung and its assigned intuitions. Patterns of mentalities, hopes, utopian energies, which were born during a century long fight for Enlightenment, even more: the older religious feelings, which are aroused through the word Bildung and therefore are still viable in its contentall that still exists, even if only rudimentary, sedated, in the depths of human souls. This may not be something modern technicians of education in pedagogical psychology like to hear as they do not know the soul because it is not measurable. But this is not something that can be hold against its existence; the exact opposite is true: That it cannot be measured actually proves its ability to resist. The educational chitchat, the current educational discourses are parasitic, they attach themselves to the echoes that still exist in human ears. And this is exactly where Bildung becomes powerful. That what the concept of Bildung could reveal becomes a utopian energy which can be found in places where nobody wants to know about it. There is an even greater suspicion: because the concept of Bildung is empty today, it not only needs stuffing. It rather even wins its stuffing. The alternative grows through humans themselves, not only because they remember the intuitions, which back them up in their freedom, better and longer, but because they notice and know that there are relations and requirements that cannot be given
38 39

cf. Bude (2011). cf. Tomasello (2009, 2010).

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up, they do not want to give them up. Traditions are effective because they are cherished by people who are not satisfied with innovation and reform, but who ask about the content. Maybe the Wutbrger (someone who openly acts against things he/she does not like, mostly political) is the subject of a new educational thinking, which tries to affirm the concept of Bildung and takes in intuitions that mark this concept. This reclamation of Bildung could be done in pedagogical praxis. Andy Hargreaves showed that even the daily teaching business could contribute to that40, other scouts and educators might assistwith all reservations against pedagogy, which still tends to legitimise power and control, repression and enforced happiness. What is there to say against this pedagogic optimism? It is the ability of resistance of Bildung in its inherent systematic sense, especially in its pedagogic context. The lasting and expanded talks about Bildung show this as well as the mere engaging in these talks even if people realize that these political, public and pedagogical discourses have not much to do with their intuitions about Bildung. The length of the discussion foils the statement of acceleration, fleetness, eventful character and points to a connection of a different quality. The talks about Bildung do indeed miss the material structure of Bildungbut this tattle beyond all constraints seems to be connected to a need that lies deeper. Neither the educational chitchat and murmur, nor those disgusting testing procedures constructed by featherbrained, pedagogic psychologists and educators who pass on substance and objectivity, nor the ludicrous ignorance of affects and emotionseven against the moral and ethicalcan destroy the inner core of Bildung. Even if it is only resisting as a word, it gives people hope to maybe find themselves, to develop something that could save their humanity. That what they experience as a runaway world (Giddens) shows them what actually is important for them and their lifeincluding the danger to trap oneself in a cocoon, to abandon the discussion with those who want to control them. The educational chitchat nourishes a desire for Bildung, a desire for Bildung and freedom, as Schiller realized. People are looking for something else, not for an institutionalised, standardized and constructed by experts of formatting pedagogical professionalism. At the moment we are still imprisoned in the time of PISA, which represents these wrong and evil concepts of Bildung. But this wont be the case forever; the idea of Bildung will not be overheard for much longer. It will be accompanied by a search for secure, stable spaces, for islands of de-acceleration; it will be accompanied by the effort to find new social logics, which will fight with a warming care for each other against the cruel cold logic of markets. The basic human mechanisms point to this development, lastly with the experience of evolutionary biology, which not only shows that joint activities and cooperation is primarily human and
40

Hargreaves 2003.

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enables communication, but also that it is the basis of the breathtaking cultural evolution. In the end the desire for Bildung embodies the search for humane cooperation, whichto say it in the words of French philosopher Levinasdoes not reject the other, but does the exact opposite: it realizes this other as a condition for the possibility to flee the pitfalls of present times41. Those will be the topics of a future debate about Bildung, which is indicated in the wrongs, but cannot be avoided: The debate will be about stability, about a safety in which individuals can identify themselves; it will be about solidarity and objectivity which allows acquisition. The debate about Bildung will be carried out in a new way, indeed more with a view on the other, in search of concrete humanity which respects substantial freedom.
Acknowledgement Thanks go to all those who have given sharp critics to a forgoing version of the paper delivered as a lesson. For that the paper was rearranged completely. Nevertheless I do not know whether my argument has got sufficient clearness by now.

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