Author: Anttonen, Saila Maarit
Title: Socio-historical learning after Auschwitz?
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is the argumentation about socio-historical learning, power and morality. The philosophical part of the research is an argumentation between critical theory, Habermas’ communicative theory and the Foucauldian power discourse. The historical researches were done by studying the re-education project of the Germans in the archives of the Frankfurt School. The main problems of this paper are: 1) On what basis can modernisation be conceptualised as socio-historical learning, democratisation and equalisation? 2) How have socio-historical learning, democratisation and equalisation materialised in the light of the National Socialist politics of truth and the subsequent re-education programmes aiming at democratisation? 3) What was learnt in Auschwitz and from Auschwitz?
The National Socialism and its barbarous incarnation, Auschwitz, taught, or it should have taught, that this kind of exercising power was morally condemnable. In addition to manipulation, there was also activity that can be more justifiably referred to as education on the basis of the fact that it fostered human growth and “die Bildung” (the formation of culture and civilisation according to the human rights) unlike the National Socialist propaganda and manipulation did. An effort was made to root out the social and historical learning processes conforming to the National Socialist ideology as carefully as possible after the collapse of the National Socialist system – this effort was the re-education of the Germans, which was carried out by the Allied, the Jewish organisations and the critical intellectuals of the Frankfurt School.
Document type and origin: Conference paper will be presented in EERA-conference. Network 13: Philosophy of Education. Hamburg 18th September 2003.
Suggested key terms: socio-historical learning, power, morality, Auschwitz, democratisation, educational and social philosophy, re-education of Germans
Socio-historical learning after Auschwitz?
Ph.D., docent, lecturer Saila Anttonen
University of Lapland
Finland
1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to construct a multidimensional discussion about socio-historical learning, in which power and morality are seen as two basic dimensions. The German critical theory and French post modern philosophy provided the main social philosophical traditions for my study. I will further construct a theory of learning which is fixed both historically and socially. The examination is targeted at modernisation as socio-historical learning. The philosophical argumentation and the elaboration of the dialectical cultural theory is carried out in the concepts of critical theory that come mostly from the social philosophies of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. The theory of socio-historical learning is based on the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, Klaus Eder and Axel Honneth.
The dialectics of power and morality provided main tension of my research (see also Anttonen 1998). The philosophical part of the study was carried out as an argumentation between the critical theory, the Habermasian theory of communicative action and the Foucauldian power discourse (Anttonen 1998, 21-196). The historical studies were mainly carried out by studying the archives of the Frankfurt School (Anttonen 1998, 232-292). The historical materials of the archives of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse are significant in the cultural-historical sense from the viewpoint of researching the National Socialist and the post-war era (1930-1960).
The main problems of this paper are: 1) On what basis can modernisation be conceptualised as socio-historical learning, democratisation and equalisation? 2) How have socio-historical learning, democratisation and equalisation materialised in the light of the National Socialist politics of truth and the subsequent re-education programmes aiming at democratisation? 3) What was learnt in Auschwitz and from Auschwitz?
2. Socio-historical learning
I will first clarify the concept of the socio-historical processes of learning developed by Jürgen Habermas (1981a, 1981b, 1995) and Klaus Eder (1991). The development of modern societies has been examined as socio-historical and collective learning processes from this perspective. The criteria for learning processes which are worth pursuing include equal forms of communication and argumentative moral judgements. These factors also function as the indicators of whether the practices and decision-making of communities are democratic or not. (see also Anttonen 1997, 62-65).
Eder (1991, 9-13) argues that the process of the egalitarian-discursive formation of the communities by the autonomous subjects with a post-conventional view of the world is the first precondition for normative processes of learning in the political system. The autonomous subject with a post-conventional view of the world means that the human being experiences herself/himself as a thinking and responsible being in the sense that she/he takes responsibility for the organisation of the world which is not any longer given, objective and supernaturally justified. Also, political participation and the formation of communities suppose the formation of associations in which subjects like these can act on the basis of egalitarian and discursive principles without any kind of domination or oppression. The most important preconditions of the collective processes of learning are the collective effects of individual acts which are based on intersubjective experiences. These principles of egalitarian-discursive decision-making (die Willensbildung) also function as the preconditions of moral learning which contributes to the equality of different groups and cultures. The processes of moral learning are connected with the postulate of democratisation in politics, education and working life. This postulate means that everyone should participate equally in decision-making concerning one's own field of action.
In addition to the learning processes like these at the micro level, it is also important to examine the learning processes of the systems at the macro level. The socio-historical processes of learning are mostly constructed on the perspective of the capacity of systems to adapt themselves to the changing conditions and environments. According to these examinations, the most important aspirations for learning have come from the efforts of the systems to survive. According to Eder (1991, 21-24, 494), socio-cultural evolution is, however, a process of learning which is much more than just blind variation, or changes in the structures of the systems which have been caused by the new conditions. The central problems of socio-historical learning are more complicated: On the one hand, what are really the problems that force a system to adaptation? On the other hand, what are the conditions which force the continuously changing and complicating surroundings to gradual adaptation? The systems, such as the economic system, the political system or the educational system, are also not only reacting to the imperatives that are coming from the outside. Their own criteria of relevance and the collective learning processes at the intersubjective level with the post conventional view of the world and the democratic-egalitarian decision-making (die Willensbildung) also have an influence on the learning processes of the systems.
The conception of the socio-historical processes of learning is problematic in spite of the fact that it is better justified than the conception of history as progress, or the abandonment of the optimistic and utopian conceptions of history such as these, once and for all. The biggest problem is, however, how these processes of learning can be carried out and have been carried out. Furthermore, the historical experiences of the real-discursive processes of learning indicate that this development will not necessarily lead to good life for people. It also is problematic whether there is historical evidence, which makes this conception plausible. What kind of learning processes can actually be pointed out in the history of Western societies-in the processes of modernisation?
3. Power
One of the goals of the research was to examine the dialectics of power and morality in socio-historical learning processes. These learning processes were moved and they were directed by the power system of society. The results of the learning processes were, however, generated by the dialectics of power and counter power in both cases - in the case of the National Socialist politics of truth and in the case of the democratising re-education. The possibilities for counter power to emerge, in particular, explains to what extent the intended and unintended results arose. The National Socialist politics of truth and the pedagogical ideology which was to convey it produced the intended results – the manipulation of the National Socialist subjects in quite the optimum way. But, for instance, the protests by students in the academic world of the 1960s evidence, however, that the re-education in accordance with the democratic-emancipatory politics of truth succeeded in producing the intended results by educating critical subjects, too.
The effects of this politics of truth were not, however, as total by nature as those of the National Socialist politics of truth, as it gave possibilities for many different and pluralistic kinds of subjects to develop under a democratic ideology. The most significant difference in the formation of the subjects who grew in the sphere of these politics of truth was in the amount of power that people had to themselves. The degree of autonomy among the subjects or "the social maturity" varied in the sphere of influence of these two politics of truth in such a way that the democratising politics of truth allowed greater autonomy than the National Socialist politics of truth that was strongly based also on the personal submission to the discipline. The degree of autonomy also varied depending on the positions. The positions of people changed essentially as the politics of truth changed. Autonomy increased in the case of some people, and decreased in the case of the others, especially the former National Socialists. (Anttonen 1998, 335-359; Adorno 1996; Max Horkheimer -Archive V 16.173-184; Max Horkheimer -Archive IX 248.2, 13-15, 17-18, 28-29, 31; Hitler 1941b, 52; Lingelbach 1970, 52-96.)
Both politics of truth were thoroughly permeated by power. Meanwhile, there were significant differences in the degree of suppression and the negative effects of power. The most important difference was in the possibilities of thinking and acting freely. The differences could be noticed in the possibilities to express criticism and in the emergence of communication. The basic nature of the National Socialist politics of truth was suppressive, and it repressed dissident opinion and action. It was not admissible to criticise the system. There were no possibilities for free critical communication. Meanwhile, the democratising politics of truth opened up these possibilities, on the basis of which its power influences can be defined as emancipatory and productive. Thereby, the way in which power and power relations were structured also changed from the authoritarian and hierarchical relations of authority to a networked power system in which the emergence of international communication relations had an important role. (Anttonen 1998, 208, 262-263, 290-291; Bungenstab 1970, 145-162; Hitler 1941b, 49, 53-54; Honneth 1985; Max Horkheimer -Archive IX 172.27, 2-3.)
The power analysis that was carried out made visible not only these power influences on the general social level but also the micro mechanisms of power – the local technologies, the techniques and the tactics of power introduced by Michel Foucault (1976; 1977; 1980). These disciplinarian microforms of power were seen especially clearly in the analysis of the practices in Auschwitz, and also in the examination of manipulation given by the National Socialist youth organisations. The Auschwitz analysis proved that the power influences of the National Socialist system were most questionable from the moral point of view. It is true that the restricted communicative rationality could actually be discerned even in the descriptions concerning the concentration camps, but it still had no chance to direct socio-historical learning processes under this power system. It is grounded to maintain contrafactually that Auschwitz would not have been possible if social power had emerged as communicative power, as it would have required the acknowledgement of the human worth of the Jews and the other persecuted groups. (Anttonen 1998, 218-225, 295-309; Levi 1987; Habermas 1990.)
4. Morality and the re-education of the German people
Although the socio-historical learning processes advancing from the National Socialist politics of truth to the democratising re-education programmes were indisputably democratising and egalitarian, the realisation of moral learning processes, in particular, left a lot to be desired, as post-conventional morality was not achieved on any large scale and the nature of the learning processes was not determined according to the principles of discourse ethics. It is true, however, that it proceeded in that direction at least officially. Moral learning remained, however, for the most part an unrealised learning potential, as both of the politics of truth were based on egoistic interests according to which they realised the conventional moral principles. Democratic re-education politics declared an emphasis on the universal human rights. The goals of this politics and the education that was planned for its direction contained the idea of collective learning and communicative rationality, but they could not realise such learning processes in practice. The problem was above all the moral learning processes, although some progress was indeed made in the realisation of democratic learning processes. (Habermas 1990; Anttonen 1998, 307-309, 353-359; Anttonen 2002.)
The pedagogical practices of the democratising re-education programmes aimed at learning processes that could realise the communicative rationality, as the goal was also to influence the dissolution of the positions of dominance in the German society. The basic conflict between pedagogy and social learning was seen in these attempts as well. Even though it would have been possible for rational communication to exist in pedagogical interaction, it was not necessarily possible for it to exist as political communication in these extremely conflicting circumstances. And the realisation of rational political communication is the prerequisite for the social learning processes to evolve in the direction of the communicative rationality. (Habermas 1979; Habermas 1981a; Habermas 1981b; Habermas 1995; Bungenstab 1970; Kellermann 1981; Lange-Quassowski 1981.)
In my researches, the most important problem was the question of what kind of social learning processes emerged as the dominant ones from among the ambivalent tendencies and potentialities in the German society in the researched era, ranging from the 1930's to the 1960's. A second problem was how the relations between pedagogy and social learning processes were constructed. The relation between the pedagogical and socio-political became dialectical in such a way that an aspect of domination manifested itself even in the democratic re-education programmes, assuming a conflicting relation to the communicative rationality that pedagogical activity strived for. This conflict had an influence on the main direction of socio-historical learning. The situation was defined in this age of social transformation as a field of counter forces. On the basis of the historical analysis, it is necessary to observe that the effects of the manifestations (including education) of the communicative rationality were smaller than those of general politics, the practices of which were still strongly characterised by the instrumental rationality. (Anttonen 1998; Anttonen 2002; Max Horkheimer -Archive IX 248.1-4.)
No unambiguous answer can be given to the question what the influence of pedagogy and education was on the realisation of these democratic social learning processes, as it is not possible on the basis of the analysis to distinguish the effects of pedagogy and education from the effects of the other cultural processes. It can be said, however, that the influences of the re-education programmes and of the humanitarian democratic mentality that emerged in the sphere of their influence have not been minor in the German society.(Max Horkheimer -Archive. V 13.49; Max Horkheimer -Archive. V 13.50-52, 32-39.) The communicative rationality did not, however, assume a central role even in these processes, although the moral issues did receive more emphasis in public discussions. Power was still based strongly on the positions of domination and the power struggles. The politics of the re-education programmes was also characterised by the manipulative aspect that is typical of communication directed by the strategic-instrumental rationality. The educational and pedagogical activities and the scientific discourse on which these activities were based were, however, paving the way for the learning processes into the direction of the communicative rationality. The mainstream of social learning processes proceeded, however, above all in the economic and technological learning processes just like it had been before. Serious attention was given, however, to the importance of political and moral learning processes in this critical situation, which also raised these processes to a position in which they could direct the socio-historical development. (Anttonen 1998, 353-359; Max Horkheimer-Archive V 13.40 (40-41, 45-47), 1-5.)
The theory of the communicative action introduced by Jürgen Habermas (1981a; 1981b) was supported by the historical analysis of my researches. The discourse without domination remained, however, a utopia. Its realisation is not realistic or not necessarily even reasonable to wait, because it would be likely to mean the end of communication (Habermas 1995, 152-153). So, on what basis is it grounded to maintain that the communicative rationality is reasonable, if its ideal form, the ideal speech situation, is not?
5. The dialectics of power and morality
I will examine what kind of learning potentialities these two politics of truth, the National Socialist and the democratising re-education, opened up, and in what form the learning processes which were developed in their sphere manifested themselves (and in what form they did not). The re-education of the German people and the democratising politics of truth opened up more learning potentialities than the National Socialist politics of truth did, with the latter being based on an ideology that was defined as the only right one. The learning processes complying with the National Socialist politics of truth were oriented, above all, militaristically and nationalistically, although they also promoted the economic processes and the employment. These politics of truth did not allow intellectual learning processes. The moral learning processes were determined according to the nationalistic moral code, which was a code that allowed "immorality" from the viewpoint of the universal human rights. It was a standstill of moral learning processes and a barbarous regression in the light of the Habermasian theory of discourse ethics and the discourse of morality in the critical theory. The National Socialist politics of truth were lacking any democratic practices. The democratic learning processes were restricted to the conservative view on the equality of opportunities. An inconsistent idea of equality prevailed in the National Socialism. The conservative educational equality was emphasised, among other things, although the system finally became elitist. This fact results in the conclusion that the democratic political practises and the egalitarian learning processes can proceed at a different pace.