יום רביעי, 28 בינואר 2015

Anthropocialism: The new Socialism

Capitalism remains a deeply exploitative and ecologically disastrous way of organizing social life. The world today needs a major change: become more human. Capitalism continues to operate under the same structural compulsions, producing the same catastrophic consequences as before. It remains ridden with crises and congenitally unable to subordinate its achievements to the needs of human beings, unable, despite its prodigious productive abilities, to offer even bare survival to vast majorities in the world it dominates.  Anthropocialism is the new solution: a combination between Anthropogogy and Socialism. Anthropogogy: The study of human learning
(Greek) – Anthrop (άνθρωπ) means people and Agy (άγω) means to conduct / lead.

Nir Golan, an educational and leadership expert, suggests combining the educational approach into one global term, Anthropogogy: to mean human learning. Teaching should be carried out alongside the comprehensive development of the human being regardless of his/her biological age or global location. The distinction between a local learning and a national learning is not relevant because the differences between people around the world are disappearing. Therefore, all learners should be treated like a global learner. Despite its current apotheosis, capitalism has resolved none of the problems which have for more than a century and a half given sustenance to socialist aspirations and struggles.  The logic favoring a worldwide transition to socialism remains as compelling today as it has ever been.
So it is now with Anthropocialism.  Pointing to the human tragedy that capitalism's continued existence now portends for humankind, this is how Chomsky has put it in his characteristically simple manner: "At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible.  Either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy, and concern for others, or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control." 

According to Golan, Anthropogogy has four basic principles:
1. The independent learner: the perception of oneself as an independent entity. A person sees him/herself as someone who is self-directed; choosing what to learn, how much and how to learn it. The role of the teacher is not to give ready answers to predetermined questions, but to help the learner find out for him/herself what the important questions are and how to answer them. Through these questions, the dependence – independence conflict will decrease and there will be fewer objections to learning.
 2. Adapting learning to that person's needs: the person is ready to learn when he/she needs that specific learning process, and it is incorporated into daily tasks and social functioning. He/she sees that the learning process serves his/her personal development. Since every person has their own characteristics and needs, therefore, the most effective way of learning is to adapt learning to the needs and characteristics of that individual person with reference to their emotional and mental components, and not only to cognitive and behavioral aspects. When, with globalization, just about every state is following the same destructive logic, domestic struggles against that common logic can be the basis of a new internationalism. But looking for that internationalism must not be an excuse for giving up on local national struggles.  The main arenas of struggle against global capitalism still remain local and national.  "Workers of all countries unite" remains the motto but this "unity" obviously begins at home.  There is a growing space for common transnational struggles, but the established order has still to be primarily fought on our own home pitch. 
3. Renovating learning: In the digital age where there is widespread availability of network information, learning should give news and added value to the learner. People approach learning in possession of their life experiences. For learning to be more significant, the learner needs to connect the current learning knowledge with his/her prior knowledge. As such, educators have to find out the prior knowledge of the person and his/her previous experiences in order to connect it to the learning experience and not teach him/her things they already know. Thus the person who teaches should renovate learning.
4. Immediate and practical learning: The main motive for human learning is for problem solving. The learner has a need for the immediate application of the learned material, so learning has to be more focused in giving solutions to the particular problem. Learning which cannot be implemented immediately is perceived as a waste of time.

The world today needs a major change: become more human. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by a blind power; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favorable to, and worthy of, their human nature. 

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