Education, Forms of Life, and Civilisation.

Education is often discussed in terms of institutions, curricula, methods of teaching, and the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Yet beneath these immediate concerns lies a deeper question: what kind of human being should education cultivate? This question cannot be answered independently of the civilisation within which education takes place. Different civilisations have embodied different conceptions of knowledge, formation, human flourishing and the good life, and these conceptions have shaped the ways in which succeeding…

Continue reading

Two Idioms of Belonging: The Nation and the Civilization

We often come across two kinds of idioms being used in our everyday political life: The civilizational and the national. Both are idioms of belonging, expressing a shared world of going about. Sometimes, the two journey along together, with the civilizational idiom feeding into the idea of nation. And there are times when the two come into intense conflict. Intriguingly, both are today seen as belonging to the political right as opposed to the grammar…

Continue reading