Gordon, Mordechai (Ed.) (2001). Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World

	Gordon, Mordechai (Ed.) (2001). Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Pp. vii + 274. $70 (Cloth)       ISBN 0-8133-3964-2 $28 (Paper)       ISBN 0-8133-6632-1 Reviewed by Stephanie Mackler Teachers College, Columbia University August 29, 2002 Winds of Thinking Review of Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World In her final work, The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt (1978) wrote, "...but if the wind of thinking...has shaken you from sleep and made you fully awake and alive, then you will see that you have nothing in your grasp but perplexities, and the best we can do with them is share them with each other..."(p.175)The authors of Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World, edited by Mordechai Gordon, clearly were awakened by gusts of thinking. These thinkers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds draw from Arendt to explore and share their thinking about a number of educational concerns. Although they have a common interest in the relationship between education and politics, their specific interests vary, including democratic education, multiculturalism, cooperative learning, and higher education. This compilation should be thought-provoking (and aptly perplexing) to those both familiar and new to Arendt's work. The purpose of Gordon's edited collection is both to show broadly that Arendt has something to offer to educational discourse and, specifically, to enrich our understanding of democracy and education with the help of Arendt's philosophical thought. The relation between politics and education is, of course, a hackneyed topic for those of us knee-deep in educational discourse. In the last few decades, we have been bombarded with talk from both the left and the right about the political nature of education. We might wonder whether there is anything left to be said on these matters. And, yet, there can be no doubt that there is need for more talk, in light of both recent efforts to create educational systems in new democracies around the world and the continued battle over privatization-marketization versus public education here in the United States; all of these highly charged and political issues depend upon visions of democratic education. However, as Mordechai Gordon says in his introduction to the volume, scholarly research on democratic education tends to be flat, one-sided and often detrimentally polarized. Thinkers often fall into one of two camps: the leftists adopt a radical critical approach to show how educational institutions take part in social injustices. The rightists, or conservatives, argue that there is and should be nothing political about education. Gordon writes, "Although the essays in this volume are generally very sympathetic to the critical-revolutionary tradition, many of the authors maintain that the perspective from which to interrogate the relationships between politics and education needs to be expanded" (p.2). Furthermore, as several of the authors imply and Aaron Schutz argues in "Contesting Utopianism: Hannah Arendt and the Tensions of Democratic Education," a return to a Deweyan model of democratic education is no longer possible. Dewey's vision and those he inspired, Schutz claims, are too utopian; they fail to take account of the inevitable messiness of pluralistic communities. Arendt's notion of sharing perplexities is less utopian; even her language—the "best we can do is share them"—is appealing in its realistic and yet still hopeful tone. Finding Dewey and the current alternative notions of politics and education insufficient, the authors look to renew our conceptions of democracy and education. They find in Arendt a way of thinking that allows them to do so. They thus simultaneously convince the reader of Arendt's value as a thinker and refresh an ongoing conversation to broaden and complicate our understanding of the ways education is implicated in the creation of pluralistic democratic communities. The words from Arendt cited above encapsulate the two passions of her life: action and thinking. Action, for Arendt, includes speech and consists of the coming together of diverse but equal individuals to create something unexpected. This, and not what we normally think of as politics or government, is what Arendt considered political. But she did not want action to be uninformed by thought. The collaboration of thoughtless individuals, she suggested, led to the horrors of Nazism and of twentieth century totalitarian politics. Hence, she cherished thinking, which she said includes questioning ordinary assumptions. Perplexity occurs when we are confronted with something we do not understand, that throws us out of our unthinking confidence as knowers and into the realm of thinking where we look for new perspectives and understanding. Although she insisted thinking could not affect action directly, she believed the creation of spaces in which perplexities could be shared, perspectives widened, and judgments made was our best chance at a "decent" world. A livable world, according to Arendt, requires both the thinking mind and shared spaces of action in which ideas can be expressed and lived together. These two forces in Arendt's life and work are not unfamiliar to those of us in education. Educators know a lot about both perplexities and togetherness, about thinking and acting. Learning occurs through perplexity—through the realization that one does not understand—and the thinking that necessarily accompanies this. The confused look on a student's face is, in part, how we know that learning is occurring, that we as teachers are in the thick of our work. Likewise, whether one tutors a student one-on-one or teaches in a classroom full of students, teaching always entails sharing—sharing of texts, of conversation between teacher and student, of an understanding of and preparation for the world in which we live together. Arendt probably would have disagreed with this last claim, as she wanted to separate education from the realm of action; nevertheless, though she might have grunted at my view, I believe she would have allowed that educators do have something to do with action. In fact, both of these themes—thinking (now often called "critical thinking") and democratic community—have characterized twentieth century educational-philosophical discourse, beginning at least with John Dewey. But it is not until recently that Arendt has been brought into conversations on education, perhaps because she wrote little that explicitly addresses the subject. Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing Our Common World, the first complete work on Arendt and education, explores this strange dance of sharing perplexities and coming together that characterizes much of the educational endeavor. Arendt is a suitable figure for this task, as she is known for her independent thinking and refusal to take sides. She angered conservatives and liberals, equally, valued tradition as much as novelty, authority as much as freedom. As she herself said (1994), "You know... the left think I am conservative, and the conservatives sometimes think I am left or I am a maverick or God knows what. And I must say I couldn't care less. I don't think that the real questions of this century will get any kind of illumination by this kind of thing"(p.xxii).It seems to be precisely the fact that she is so hard to pin down that makes her an inspiring and appealing thinker for these authors. As Peter Euben says in his contribution to the volume, "I choose her... because it is so difficult to fit her into fashionable intellectual and political categories" (p.184). In keeping with Arendt's love of the quest for illumination, Euben and the other authors look to her—not to take sides with or against her (or anyone else), but rather, to further our understanding on matters of education. The fact that the contributors come from a range of academic disciplines, including educational philosophy, psychoanalysis, women's studies, political science, educational policy, American studies, and philosophy is also in keeping with Arendt's love of plurality and her belief that understanding can happen only when a broad range of perspectives is brought to bear on reality. There are some difficult aspects to bringing Arendt to the educational discourse. To begin with, she wrote little that formally addresses education. When she did, she was adamant that it be separated from political action, which would make her seem an unlikely candidate for an exploration of themes within democratic education. Further, she seems to have two concepts of education, which we might characterize as instruction (which she refers to in her explicit remarks on education) versus learning to think independently (which is a recurring theme in her life and writing). Because she never fully developed these ideas, it is confusing at times to know how to relate her to contemporary reflections on education. In spite of these and other potential obstacles the authors in this volume are convincing in their claims that Arendt can be helpful to educational discourse. They learn from both her explicit discussion of education and her other philosophical work, often moving between the two to see how each can enrich the other. In fact, at times it seems that the tensions within Arendt's work are precisely what make her such a rich figure for intricate thinking. The book's subtitle is one such example. The idea of "renewing our common world" comes from Arendt's notion that communities exist because of the contributions of distinct but equal individuals; it is a prime example of the way Arendt seems to be on two sides at once, loving both old and new, tradition and innovation, education and politics. The "re" before "new" is important for Arendt and for many of the authors here. Arendt's view of education is arguably conservative: education, she claims, is the means by which we introduce students to the already existing world. However, she believes educators should teach students (who are newcomers to the world) about the world so that they can take part in its renewal. Thus, Arendt resists the utopian impulse to create a new world from scratch and emphasizes, instead, that we can revitalize and change what is. Education is both conservative and radical; likewise, action to change the world is always connected to an understanding of the world as it is. This unique view of education as conservative for the sake of radicalism is provocative for several of the authors in this volume. For instance, Mordechai Gordon finds in Arendt an ally in "Hannah Arendt and Authority: Conservativism in Education Reconsidered." Gordon pries open traditional conceptions of education to bring conservatives, who he says tend to be turned off by talk of radical social change, into the discussion on democratic education. He wants to hold on to the values of radical social change without rejecting the authoritative role of the teacher and of cultural tradition altogether. He writes: The import of Arendt's approach is...[partly] in her ability to help us understand... that children will not be able to be revolutionary and creative unless educators first introduce them to the values and ideas of the past. Recognizing that these two responsibilities are mutually dependent is significant because it enables us to break the impasse between the mainstream conservatives' emphasis on preserving tradition and the progressives' focus on critical citizenry and social justice. (p.63) The fact that Arendt shares many views with conservatives allows Gordon to draw the conservative viewpoint into the discussion of pluralistic education and to propose ways to balance within the tension between tradition and revolution. Natasha Levinson's "The Paradox of Natality: Teaching in the Midst of Belatedness" also deals with the question of old and new in education but with a different concern. Levinson is explicitly concerned with educating for social justice, though her analysis extends far beyond these particular aims. She suggests that Arendt's notion of a world that already is and yet can be renewed offers a challenge. This is partly because students are "belated." They arrive in a world that existed before them, and this means they are saddled with responsibilities, guilt, identities, and relationships that they never asked for but nevertheless condition their lives. Ignoring this fact can lead to naïve action in the world, while dwelling upon it can render one hopeless. To prepare students to change the world requires teaching them about the world so that they both accept the fact that they are constituted by what came before them and feel empowered to act to change the world. Levinson writes: To preserve newness is to teach in such a way that students acquire an understanding of themselves in relation to the world without regarding either the world or their positioning in it as fixed, determined, and unchangeable... The point of this exposure to the world as it is not to fix the world, but to motivate our students to imagine new possibilities for the future. (pp. 19,21) Levinson's keen and subtle understanding of the belatedness of students is an inspiring start toward imagining an education that prepares students to "renew our common world." Stacy Smith also dwells within the tension between Arendt's conservative-radical stance on education, in "Education for Judgment: An Arendtian Oxymoron?" The fact that Arendt separates education from action in the world makes Smith wonder whether Arendtian judgment, which is a predicate of action, can have a place in education. For Arendt, judgment involves "visiting" with the viewpoints of others. The broader the range of perspectives, the more likely the action will be informed by good judgment. The trouble is, Smith tell us, Arendt claims judgment cannot be taught. However, Smith delves further into Arendt's thinking to see how an education for judgment is not impossible in an Arendtian framework, even if Arendt said it was: "Insofar as judgment allows us to live in and share a common world with others, opportunity to cultivate this faculty seems vital, in Arendtian terms, to 'becoming' complete human beings... 'education for judgment' is a pivotal component of Arendt's self-proclaimed educational project of preparing young people 'for the task of renewing a common world'" (p.68-69). Smith argues with and against Arendt in order to offer a complex and compelling proposal for an education in judgment; such an education would teach students to engage with multiple perspectives in order to ready them for the pluralistic public sphere. Another prominent theme in this volume comes from the tension within Arendt's stance on diversity, or what Arendt referred to as plurality. Advocates of multiculturalism and identity politics often accuse Arendt of being blind to, and even scornful of, the way cultural, class, gender, and sexual differences shape human lives. And, yet, Arendt is well known for her love of plurality, which is perhaps the condition of human life she most cherished. The authors show that Arendt's peculiar and seemingly contradictory stance on diversity can help renew some well-worn—but still enormously significant—issues in multicultural education. Both Ann Lane's "Is Hannah Arendt a Multiculturalist?" and Kimberley Curtis' "Multicultural Education and Arendtian Conservativism: On Memory, Historical Injury, and Our Sense of the Common" ask whether Arendt can contribute something to the discussions on multiculturalism in spite of her relatively conservative position on identity politics. Ann Lane responds to claims that Arendt's Eurocentric focus and her disparaging attitude toward identity politics make her texts unsuitable for university courses intended to help students explore their ethnic, racial, class, gender, and sexual identities. "Given such liabilities," Lane asks, "what makes Arendt so compelling in my multicultural classroom? Why do my students learn so much from her about the very issues she would appear to be inadequate to address, about regions of the world in which she appears to have no interest, and about people she is said to have denigrated?" (p.155). Lane asserts that Arendt is in fact profoundly helpful and relevant for such courses because her work speaks to struggles common to social movements, such as the challenges of initiating something new (acting). In this way, though Arendt's concept of politics is particular, it has much to say to our common discourse on politics and especially on political movements. To support her argument, Lane draws from her classroom experiences to shows how Arendt speaks loudly and clearly to students of varying backgrounds and persuasions. Kimberley Curtis is equally eager to bring Arendt into discourse on multiculturalism but at times finds Arendt's "decisive divorce between education and politics unacceptable in its unqualified form" (p.144). Thus, Curtis works on multiple fronts, simultaneously defending Arendt from certain advocates of multiculturalism while also defending multiculturalism from conservative, liberal, and Arendtian critics. Whereas advocates of multicultural education almost always argue that education is necessarily political, Arendt segregates the two. However, Curtis is not content to give up on the possibility that Arendt can contribute to our understanding of multicultural education. She argues that Arendt's emphasis on a common world—of the coming together of different perspectives—is at the heart of multicultural education: "...Arendt's educational conservativism both illuminates and underscores the significance of multiculturalism's deepest impulse. Advocates of multicultural education are not only partisans of identity groups... they are partisans of the world in an Arendtian sense..." (p.130). To further her argument, Curtis looks at the 1968 political movements to bring Chicano/a scholarship and experiences to school curricula. On the one hand, this effort arose political concerns. On the other hand, Curtis asserts, its goal is keeping with Arendt's idea that education should present the world as it is. By broadening the perspectives included in the curriculum, more of the world is presented to students. This "more" is both more to be learned about and more to be renewed. "Hannah Arendt on Politicizing the University and Other Clichés," by Peter Euben, similarly looks at the issue of textual legitimacy to consider the implications of Arendt's thought on the culture wars. Although Arendt viewed primary and secondary education as non-political, Euben says that higher education stands at the "end point of education and the beginning of politics"(p.186). Euben draws from Arendt and her depiction of Socrates to argue that all higher education is necessarily political insofar as it challenges ordinary modes of thought. While thinking should not, Euben agrees with Arendt, serve as an instrument of politics, it can have political implications when it changes thinking. The culture wars have missed the point, he says. A text is "great" and possibly indirectly political if it challenges our perspectives and encourages us to join the company of others: Such company includes the examples of persons living or dead, real and fictitional, who come to mind as we face decisions and choices that constitute who we are and the lives we have chosen but are also chosen for us. The pedagogic questions and general curricular implications are clear. What ways of teaching and reading texts cultivate the political and moral imaginations of our students so that they are able to see the world from other points of view?" (p.194) To ask and begin to answer this question, Euben suggests, could help us find constructive ways to move forward from the culture wars. The last two contributions in the book take a refreshingly different approach to Arendt and to the topic of politics and education. Whereas the earlier pieces focus primarily on the Arendt's interest in political action, Eduardo Duarte's "The Eclipse of Thinking: An Arendtian Critique of Cooperative Learning" points out the importance in democratic action of Arendt's other passion: thinking. Duarte argues that recent emphasis on cooperative learning, though seemingly in the service of democratic aims, actually does a disservice to its aims: "I am contending that the need to withdraw, in order to stop and think, is being repressed or ignored by many educational theories and practices, specifically those that are emphasizing the ethico-polical potential of schooling" (p.212). Learning to think independently, he points out, is equally as important to participating in a common world as is working with others. Duarte looks at Arendt's concept of thinking to show the solitary nature of what, for Arendt, was a withdraw from the common world. If thinking is a solitary activity, and if thinking is a goal of democratic education, then, Duarte asserts, we must think about how to balance peer learning with opportunities for students to, in Arendt's words, "stop and think." Furthermore, "cooperative learning models may be creating conditions of 'nonthinking.'" (p.202). Following Arendt, he suggests that if the failure to think is a condition of evil, then the failure to teach solitary thinking has serious ethical implications. This is not the main focus of his work, but it is an intriguing possible implication of it. The final contribution, an epistolary exchange between two of Arendt's former students, Jerome Kohn (director of the Hannah Arendt Center and Archive at New School University and a trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust) and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (Arendt's biographer), adds both depth of understanding of Arendt's philosophical thought as well as a look at its relation to her actual practice as an educator. They both agree that Arendt engaged with dialogues—both internal and external—with the perspectives of other thinkers; this enabled her to think differently and to take part in a common world both in her writing and teaching. Kohn suggests that Arendt is, " if ever there was one, a teacher who embodied the spirit, of Socrates. Like him, she never forgot that she was a human being among a plurality of human beings who share a common world..."(p. 231). Young-Bruehl further adds that Arendt's approach to education was designed to show one how to imagine an exemplary figure as a kind of crossroads where one can see elementary human conditions in flux, reconfiguring... Many social scientists, of course, look down their noses at Arendt's method as anecdotal. But she, I think, thought that the well-chosen anecdote was worth a thousand statistics or citations or evidences. (p.227-288) In light of this, it seems fitting that a volume on Arendt and education should end with reference to her as an exemplary figure whose work as writer and educator can be understood not only through her texts, but also by anecdotes from those who knew and learned with her. This perspective on Arendt as thinker, writer, teacher, and member of a common world provides further reason that Arendt has much to offer to discourse on education. Probably the only significant weaknesses that stand out in more than one contribution to the book are the explicit links made to schools. Although classroom examples can clarify and vivify philosophical thinking, the references to practice made here often seem forced, as though the authors are trying to prove the relevance of their thought to practice. In fact, good educational philosophy speaks to the experiences of teachers without force, and the works in this volume are generally of that quality without their concrete examples. What makes Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World so inspiring is that it bothdraws from and fulfills Arendt's plea that we share our perplexities with one another. The authors turn to Arendt's concept and love of the common world in order to think through their own questions about politics and education; in so doing, they create instances of shared perplexities. They show that Arendt's maverick thinking does indeed have much to contribute to educational discourse. Taken together or separately the essays have much to say about democratic education. They continue the critical radical tradition in their concern for social justice and change belief that education changes the world but avoid simplistic and polarized analyses of how this is so, as Gordon claims in his introduction. Following Arendt's lead as a maverick thinker, they maintain their passion for democratic education without losing sight of the complexities of their charge. They renew a space of discourse into which we—educators of all levels and students in higher education—can enter and be swept up in their winds of thinking. Once shaken from our sleep, we can begin to think about how to join these authors in the effort to renew our common world. References Arendt, Hannah (1978). The Life of the Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. Arendt, Hannah. (1994). Essays in Understanding: Uncollected and Unpublished Works by Hannah Arendt. Jerome Kohn (Ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. About the Reviewer Stephanie Mackler is working on her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is interested in philosophical hermeneutics and draws largely from Arendt's work to explore the relationships among thinking, acting, understanding, and making meaning. Her current research focuses on liberal learning and the idea of the university.