Civilizing Breaking Point

The Appropriateness Of A “Disobedient” Education

Abstract

This paper intends to warn against the lack of forcefulness of technological education and, by extension, of formal education as a whole, especially with regards to the analysis of STS relations on the solutions to serious contemporary issues that are endangering the survival of the human race and other beings. We are going well beyond the limits of passivity and are becoming almost complacent to a suicidal civilizing process that is as elitist as it is dangerously cruel. The variables at stake in the complex game board constituted by the societies of the Northern and Southern hemispheres should become the teachers’ focus of attention and work, in order to overcome the passive educational systems worldwide and, at the same time, contribute to the shaping of a mindset that prioritizes good living as well as social equality. In the light of the foregoing, some contemporary authors from different fields of expertise defend this idea, a call to disobedience in the face of the wrongful present civilizing process; should it continue being overlooked in education, it might have dreadful and irreversible consequences for humanity. In short, taking reflections on the civilizing equation as a starting point, this paper intends to bring to the foreground the variables and key elements involved to this end, with the purpose of supporting projects and actions capable of reverting this context.