Arendt on Education

 

Hannah Arendt

“In her 1954 essay The Crisis in Education, Hannah Arendt says, 'Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it.' How does your view of education compare to Arendt's?”

The question is taken, following our series here, from McMaster University Department of Medicine admission tests.

It seems to me to expect the student to endorse the notion that the formally educated have the inherent right to rule the world. Presumably the uneducated do not get to love the world, nor to assume responsibility for it. What is their role? 

Conversely, is it enough to “love the world” in order to be educated? Don’t you need some knowledge or skill in some field? Medicine, say?

The implications of this attitude are troubling.