时代精神与教育理念

The Spirit of the Time and the Idea of Education

教育与时代精神关系密切,互相成就,大学则是时代的理智良心。与两个世纪之前的乐观主义不同,包括海德格尔在内的绝大多数思想家惯于以"黑暗"和"虚无主义"来界定当今时代精神的实质,而福柯则认为没有必要过分夸大现时代的特殊性。这些或悲观或客观的反思实际上表明西方巨大的精神危机已经为一个新时代做好了准备。时代精神危机的根源首先在于现代意义上的"民主"观念已经固化为一种意识形态。民主本身是社会政治的机制,而不是教育和时代精神的理念,它对无原则平等的诉求忽视了个体差异,以数量取代质量从而抹平了时代精神的高贵性。这种"多数原则"只能走向价值中立的技术化,忽视品质的现代教育变成了流水线加工厂,技术而非德性成了新的信仰,最终导致"无思"甚至教育、历史、哲学的"死亡"。当今教育思想批判无意于"抹黑"时代,也不卖弄廉价的悲情,而应面对现实,只有这样,我们才可能找到恰当的出路,让新的可能性开始呈现出来,毕竟,我们面临着前所未有的世界性范围内的根本变革。

Education and the spirit of the time are closely related to each other,and university is the rational conscience of the time.Unlike the optimism two centuries ago,most thinkers,including Heidegger,used to define the essence of the spirit of the times with "darkness" and "nihilism".Foucault,on the other hand,believed that there was no need to exaggerate the particularity of the present era.These pessimistic or objective reflections actually show that the great spiritual crisis in the West is ready for a new era.The root of the spiritual crisis of the time lies in the fact that the concept of "democracy" in the modern sense has been solidified into an ideology.Democracy itself is the mechanism of social politics,not the idea of education and the spirit of the times.Its demand for unprincipled equality ignores individual differences and replaces quality with quantity,thus erasing the nobility of the spirit of the time.This "majority principle" can only lead to the technology-oriented value neutrality.Modern education that ignores quality becomes an assembly line of processing plant,and technology instead of virtue becomes a new belief,which eventually leads to "no thinking" and even the death' of education,history and philosophy.The criticism of today's educational idea is not intended to " discredit" the era,nor is it to show off the cheap sadness,but to face the reality.Only in this way can we find an appropriate way out and let new possibilities begin to emerge.After all,we are facing fundamental changes on an unprecedented worldwide scale.