The Edges of Education

The terms ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ are employed here in a symbolic and metaphorical sense, but they can also sometimes be applied in a literal manner. Schopenhauer (1966a), for instance, sees light as ‘the condition for the most perfect kind of knowledge, and therefore of the most delightful of things’ (p. 203). How we find what is delightful – what is good and beautiful and true – while also acknowledging the difficulties we face is very much an educational problem. Light finds its way through our struggles, often coming to us not as a blinding flash, but more gradually and intermittently, and in more subtle forms. We can detect glimmers of light without having to undergo a sudden and dramatic process of illuminating transformation. The path is seldom smoothly upwards and will often involve setbacks, compromises and uncertainty in knowing what we have achieved. The ‘darkness’ of existence remains, even where joy can be found, and will often intrude exactly when it is least expected or wanted. The writers examined in this book help us to see that this dark undercurrent is not an aberration; not something that can be quickly and easily ‘fixed’ or removed. Rather, despair is always there, even for those who are seemingly most happy, most content (Kierkegaard, 1989). It may be masked – by denial, by distraction or by ignorance – but it continues to exert a quiet influence over our lives. Looking more closely at despair is itself an educational task worth undertaking, though by no means an easy one. There is a sense also in which light and darkness can intermingle, creating shadowy spaces for educational investigation. We may approach these spaces – these situations, experiences, ways of understanding and being in the world – with trepidation, perhaps with fear, but also with curiosity and a desire to know more. The chapters that follow flesh out some of the pathways for exploring these spaces and for making sense of them when we inhabit them.

There is, this book argues, no ‘cure’ for the despair we experience, but there are ways to learn to live with and from our suffering. There is, among the thinkers considered in this book, a common recognition of the value of art in making life more bearable, in expressing what is within and in revealing enduring truths to us.⁷ This is especially so for Leopardi – himself a great poet – but it is also the case for Unamuno (who was a fine novelist and short story writer as well as an erudite scholar) and for Schopenhauer (who was, in later life, highly regarded in European art circles).⁸ In Maxine Greene’s work, there was always a seamless integration of educational, philosophical and artistic concerns. Education for Greene was very much an aesthetic process. Weil too was eclectic in her reading tastes and wanted to give literature and the arts a more central place in the curriculum. For some of the writers featured in this volume, a certain calming of the mind is seen as crucial. Schopenhauer speaks of the importance of developing a state of absorbed contemplation, allowing us to be delivered, even if only momentarily, from the agitation and suffering engendered by constant willing. Weil, likewise, places a premium on the cultivation of our capacity for attention. Attention requires humility and patience. We must, Weil argues, learn to listen and to wait. Only then do we open up the possibility of overcoming the persistent influence of moral gravity, allowing grace to intervene. For others – most notably, Unamuno – restlessness and uncertainty are themselves signs of hope, keeping us alert, awake and alive. From each of these figures, we can learn that it is possible to go on, while simultaneously acknowledging that life is difficult, sometimes terrifyingly so. What emerges is a more rounded and realistic portrait of what it means to be human and with this, a reconsideration of the nature, purpose and significance of education.

A few brief comments on the structure of the book are needed. As befits a work in a series devoted to complicated conversations, The Edges of Education can be seen as an attempt to engage in a difficult but rewarding dialogue with a number of deep thinkers: Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Unamuno, Weil and Greene. Other fictional figures – Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and Beauvoir’s Regina and Fosca – also enter the conversation at different points.⁹ The ideas advanced by these writers, and the lessons we can learn from their literary creations, remain timely and important. They speak to pressing problems in our present age, including educational concerns, albeit in ways that might not be immediately obvious. The book is thematically driven rather than chronologically organised. Leopardi and Schopenhauer appear first in the book because of what they have to say, not because they happen to have been born first, and Chapters 3, 4 and 5 do not follow a similar chronological order. The progression across the chapters is from a starting point of disarmingly frank pessimism towards a position of hope with uncertainty. Leopardi and Schopenhauer paint a very bleak picture of the human condition but, it will be suggested, this need not be disabling. For educationists in particular, the starkly ‘negative’ nature of their outlook on life provides an invitation to think again about why, how and what we should seek to know. These possibilities expand as the focus shifts to the work of Weil and Greene, who encourage us, as teachers and learners, to be open and attentive, to ourselves, to others and to the world around us. The movement in the direction of uncertain hope reaches its limit, in this book at least, with a consideration of what some see as the biggest mystery of all: death. Death, it will be argued, provides the ultimate companion throughout our educational lives, quietly accompanying us at every stage of our learning journey, exerting a hidden but powerful influence over almost every decision we make.

The book begins with a focus on the thought of Giacomo Leopardi, who spent most of his short life in the Italian town of Recanati in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. Leopardi is best known for his poetry, but he also wrote at length on philosophical, cultural and artistic matters. Many of his most important ideas are captured in the Zibaldone (Leopardi, 2014), a vast collection of his reflections on nature, history, literature and the human condition. With his father’s library at his disposal, and tutors available to assist him in his learning, Leopardi immersed himself in the scholarship of his intellectual forebears. He took his commitment to study to the limits of human endurance. He read widely, in multiple languages. He developed great breadth and depth in understanding, but the long hours bent over a desk had damaging consequences for his already frail physical health. He died while still in his thirties, having led a lonely but highly productive existence. A troubling, provocative thinker, Leopardi has, to date, attracted little attention from educationists. Chapter 1 sets out to show why this gap in the educational literature is worth addressing. The chapter begins with a brief account of Leopardi’s philosophical position on nature, reason and the inevitability of human unhappiness. This is followed by a more detailed discussion of the educational dimensions of his work. It is argued that while Leopardi’s grim perspective on life may be off-putting for many, his honesty in describing the realities of existence can also be enabling and educative.

Arthur Schopenhauer, like Leopardi, is well known for his philosophical pessimism. At the heart of Schopenhauer’s worldview is the concept of an all-powerful will. For Schopenhauer, the will is timeless and universal; it is present in we human beings and in all of nature. The will stands behind everything that happens: every experience, every event, every thought, feeling and action. We distinguish ourselves from other living creatures in our striving to know, but this too is an expression of the will; we sense that we are deficient in something, and we endeavour to address this. In doing so, however, we remain perpetually dissatisfied. As subjects of willing, filled with hopes and desires, we remain restless and unfulfilled; as soon as one want is met, another arises. At first glance, there appears to be little room for hope here. Schopenhauer does, however, identify several avenues for finding some relief from the suffering that is characteristic of human existence. One of these, considered at length in chapter 2, is via moments of absorbed contemplation, where we find ourselves temporarily free of the dictates of the individual will, seeing, as it were, with the ‘clear eye of the world’ (Schopenhauer, 1966a, p. 186). The chapter reflects on this idea in the light of Schopenhauer’s wider philosophy and explores its educational implications.