Music and call: Formal education’s purposes in a time of many crises

For John Dewey, education ensures society’s continuity through renewal. Yet our formal education system seems loathe to address tendencies which confront us with the possibility (some would say likelihood) of society’s absolute discontinuity through thermonuclear self-destruction, planetary depletion or the many perils attributable to global heating and climate breakdown. This article tries to think about the purposes of today’s formal education system, why it is so difficult to repurpose that system the better to meet the crises we face, and what might nevertheless contribute to such a repurposing. Rationality is being transformed from a critical force into one of adjustment and compliance. Autonomy of reason loses its meaning in the same measure as the thoughts, feelings and actions of men are shaped by the technical requirements of the apparatus which they themselves have created. (Herbert Marcuse)