Since the middle of the twentiethe century, but especially in the English-speaking world, the mainstream in philosophy is called analytical philosophy. This school of thought revived in a way the work of Socrates who, humbly and while claiming his ignorance, asked people, supposed by their profession to be able to do it, to define concepts.
They were not doing it satisfactorily.
First linked to logic, mathematics and science, this work of conceptual clarification of analytical philosophy soon spread to other areas of philosophy: ethics, aesthetics, politics, etc.
In the early 1960s, in England and at home, they began to rethink education, its institutions, teacher training and all that followed. An analytical philosopher working in politics, RS Peters (1919-2011), was then asked to join this vast project. With collaborators, Peters set out in particular to propose definitions of the main concepts of education, starting with this one, of course, but also other central concepts such as teaching, curriculum, knowledge, and so on. I am not mistaken, and it is a pity that almost nothing of this vast and important work is translated into French. (I translated some texts in my anthology Education, at Flammarion).
Another important concept that these people worked on was indoctrination. When we launched the project for a course on citizenship and Quebec culture, it seemed appropriate to me to stop there.
Indoctrination …
Robin Barrow and Geoffrey Milburn offered a clear, interesting and useful definition of indoctrination. To indoctrinate is of course, intuitively, a dangerous opposite of education: the latter must liberate, indoctrinate encloses; To educate means to possess ideas, through indoctrination, these possess us. Indoctrinating is something we want to avoid, write Barrow and Milburn, along with an accusation we gladly level at those whose ways we don’t like. But how is it appropriate to define indoctrination more precisely and distinguish it from education, socialization, influence and training? “
Beautiful and important question.
They first recall four criteria by which we wanted to define indoctrination: the criterion of the method used; a certain design and therefore the criterion of intention; the type of information that is transmitted and therefore the criteria of the content; finally, the criterion of consequence, which suggests that one can only indoctrinate if and only if one manages to close someone’s mind on a question.
I spare you the detail of the reasoning, but they arrive at this: To indoctrinate is to use non-rational means in order to establish an unconditional adhesion as for the truth of certain indemonstrable assertions, and that, with the intention let the people to whom we speak stick to it firmly. “
The definition, as is often the case, requires thought in order to be fully understood and appreciated. But as soon as this is done, important practical consequences emerge.
Of course, we immediately think of sects and their recruitment strategies, of political parties, but also of school and in particular of all these teachings which, by necessity, address doctrines. How to speak of literature without evoking surrealism? Classicism? Of politics without speaking of economic liberalism or the ideas of the libertarians? You will easily extend this list, which brings us back to this famous course.
… and the new course
We would first like to see clearly recognized as doctrines these contents which must, with all that that implies, be approached in the course – because it would be a mistake not to treat them. We will therefore want the teachers who give it to be aware of this risk of indoctrinating and that for this, they understand what it means, know ways to avoid doing it and thus avoid this possible serious accusation. . We can thus present as a fact that such or such a doctrine (laïcité à la québécoise, because it is indeed one at the moment) exists among us; but we should avoid saying that of the vast questions raised and intended to resolve this position, it is the only one possible. What this requires of the curriculum and of the teacher must be clarified. But we already know that all these non-rational means (charisma, emotional blackmail, concealment of relevant data, polarization, demonization and many others) that slide from teaching to indoctrination should be avoided.
The doctrines do not all have the same dangerousness and this is a function of various variables (the age of the recipients, the context, the topicality, in particular). We will therefore want a sort of gravity scale to be present in the minds of teachers and for the curriculum to be deployed over time taking into account the danger of tackling certain subjects with indoctrination potential with too young children.
I am convinced that you can extend this list of warnings, like me if I did not have to close this text. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing how the curriculum for the new course takes all of this into account.
The task is not simple, but it is at this price that such a course will educate and empower and empower, as citizens, to think and act freely.