How did Gandhi approach education, and what
could we now learn from that?
[-Back
to In the Name of Their God Videos-]
All videos are in QuickTime format and require QuickTime player to view.
Video Text: This is fascinating. I've been working a lot recently
on Gandhi and education. For Gandhi, education is crucial to peace and
non-violence, and it has to start at the youngest age. For Gandhi, it
has to do with how we socialize children in all these multidimensional
ways--primary school education, how we use language, how we socialize
children in terms of what he would call character formation. Do they
have values, virtue, are they ethical? How do they deal with conflict?
Conflict is part of life. How do you resolve conflict? There are all
kinds of interesting non-violent or violent ways to deal with conflict.
In terms of the university-level, I've tried to apply it. Gandhi would
say the University of Maine and all our institutions are extremely,
inherently violent. It's structured violence. We're socializing and
educating people into an extremely violent world, and we're reinforcing
and rewarding them. For me, this is where Gandhi is so interesting. For
example, let's say if you're in business here, or political science, or
public relations--you're basically assuming an adversarial relationship,
and then the question is how can you win in a win/lose world? By
defeating the "other," controlling the "other." For Gandhi, this
involves manipulation, exploitation, ego. For Gandhi, ego is a big
opponent--ego, greed, attachment to property, viewing success in terms
of how much do you own, how much wealth do you have, how much power do
you have? This is the source of violence and war in the world. Gandhi
would say even if you look at, say, sciences here, they're based on a
violent worldview, most of it. In other words, the dominant model that
we've had in our role is to exploit nature. Nature is just out there for
us to use. So, Gandhi would not be surprised about climate change, and
in fact when you're destroying nature, in this organic, mutual sense,
you're destroying yourself. It comes back to destroy you, and in fact,
the future of humankind now is at risk. And so Gandhi would say we need
a more holistic, organic view. Nature isn't there simply for us to use
and exploit. We are part of nature. How we can develop a more ethical,
spiritual, sustainable way of relating to nature that has some future?
So, in that sense, there are all these dimensions, Gandhi would say. For
Gandhi, ethics is crucial. Gandhi has all these sins that he always
advocates and one is, if you have knowledge without values--power
without character--this is very dangerous. In a full sense, Gandhi would
say, if you graduate with a degree and you do not have values, you're
not an ethical or moral human being, you're not compassionate. In a full
sense, you're an ethical failure. Again, you can see in a way just how
much Gandhi has to offer us in terms of education.
