Session Information
Session 8B, Problems of Moral Education (Part 2)
Papers
Time:
2005-09-09
11:00-12:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Bo Dahlin
Contribution
This article presents a critical analysis of the tendency in educational thought to formulate the aims of educational practice in terms of a single normative or ethical ideal in terms of the aesthetic and prima facie esoteric concept of "kitsch". Drawing on a range of philosophical discussions of kitsch, we begin by developing a conceptualisation of kitsch in reference to six principal generalizations. These are: a. Kitsch does not refer to the characteristics of objects or ideas themselves but rather the manner in which objects or ideas are represented or interpreted. b. Kitsch is enjoyable but the kind of enjoyment involved in the experience of kitsch is not aesthetic pleasure directly connected with an appreciation of the features of the object of the experience itself but rather the inherent enjoyment that engaging in kitsch brings. c. Kitsch is an aesthetic fault but it is an emotional fault rather than a technical one; producing kitsch can be a technically complex affair. d. A kitschy experience involves total engrossment in a mood; in this way kitsch both supposes and seeks to create moods. e. Kitsch, accordingly, is commonly connected with synaesthetic experiences wherein multiple elements (e.g., lighting, music, movement, gestures and language) work together to create particular mood. f. Kitsch is morally dubious in the sense that it tends to obscure the possibility of multiple interpretations; as such it stands in tension with the basic ontological distinction between the world and representations of the world. Next, we use this characterisation of kitsch as analytic tool in consideration of two influential approaches to educational thought in recent decades-namely, Carl Rogers' humanistic psychology and Nel Noddings' idea of care ethics. It would be a facile and uninstructive exercise, however, merely to show that proponents of these approaches to educational thinking are given to kitsch. Rather, what we wish to draw attention to is the fact that both conceptualisations of the educational enterprise are constructed around and justified by a single ethical ideal- that of the "actualised" or "authentic self" in Rogers and of the "caring relationship" in Noddings. Without denying that both these ideals have much to recommend them, we nevertheless argue that the monistic role assigned to them in the Rogerian and care-ethics conceptualisations of education make their promulgation almost impossible without recourse to the particular kind of kitsch characteristic of fundamentalist thinking. In conclusion, we claim that despite the moral precariousness of this kind of kitsch in educational thought and that a world without kitsch might seem desirable on the face of it, ironically there is also a "necessity" for kitsch in education. The proposal to dismiss such approaches as educational fundamentalism underestimates the motivational and moral power they can have by investing the otherwise trivial and routine tasks of day-to-day teaching with ethical significance.
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