Also read this article by Bill Christison, a former CIA senior official: Stop Belittling the Theories about September 11th.

One would think that any educational institution naming itself after such profound, meaningful terms would be committed to seeing that its students are on the path toward achieving these mental and spiritual qualities. Thus, I am shocked to read (and hear) about the way certain officials at Thammasat University are treating AJ Hoge and his students. Although they might have their own reasons for firing AJ, their harrassment of the students, as AJ describes it, is nothing short of immoral.

You should have seen how happy our students here in Kyoto were to have been getting to know their Thai counterparts in AJ’s classroom. They read their blogs, exchanged messages, and even recorded video greetings. They were just starting to get warmed up to one another and were going to carry out collaborative webpublishing projects, possibly in the form of podcasts. For Thammasat to use scare tactics, to make threats, and to interrogate students is wrong. And to prevent students from continuing to interact with mine and to discourage them from exercising their right to free speech is a sick abuse of power.

Having spent close to a year of my life in Thailand, I can say with passion that I love its culture and its people. I have also benefitted greatly on a personal level from the teachings of Thai people on the subjects of Vipassana, Buddhism, and Traditional Thai Massage. I thought that Thammasat was really cool place, too, especially for hiring a dynamic educator like AJ who cares deeply about his students and their learning. To read about the way certain people at Thammasat are treating AJ and his students makes me wonder whether the university is has lost its ’sati’ (awareness, mindfulness) and has allowed ‘moha’ (delusion, ignorance) to infiltrate its collective consciousness.

I’m left confused and disappointed about these events as I understand them. I feel sorry for the Thai students as well. Please, would someone at the BAS tell me I’m wrong? Assure me that your students are indeed encouraged to use the English language they are learning to communicate openly with foreign people, to share their ideas cross-culturally, and to engage in meaningful conversation with others using internet technology?

Educators must strive to eliminate violence in the classroom. Our institutions often encourage us implicitly to be violent, sometimes without anyone even realizing it. Paulo Freire provides an explanation:

Any situtation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects. (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p66)

If students are being put through standardized testing and being forced to submit to institutionally defined learning objectives without their informed consent, that is violence. To what extent is any given educator an agent of violence? Why is the foundation of our educational institutions one of control and performance rather than love and respect? What kind of world are we bringing into being this way?

If this is an effort to advance technology use by teachers and administrators, let’s call it what it is: a new system to track progress in making our students better test takers.

He’s smack on. What does any of this have to do with learning? The more emphasis we place on standardized testing and the more we tie student performance on those tests with funding for schools and incentive-based rewards for teachers (I’m assuming that this is happening somewhere), the faster we’re going to see the populace duped by mass media marketing and the rule of the many by the few. We’re conditioning young minds to consume and not to question, unless both the questions and answers are already provided. Back to the production lines…

…it is not technology that causes P2P. Rather, as technology, it is itself an expression of a deep shift in the epistemology and ontology occurring in our culture. But nevertheless, this technology, once created, becomes an extraordinary amplifier of the existing shift.

Are we taking part in the mass rebirth of way of being in the world that emphasizes sharing, partnership, cooperation, and exchange amongst peers? To what extent might this shift continue to amplify and how drastically will it affect the structure of our institutions? Will this movement be suppressed by authorities in power? If so, how will it come about?

I don’t know much about economics and sociology, but I have always believed that free market capitalism is the ideal soil in which a truly communist society can grow. How can you impose of system of wealth distribution on selfish people and expect it to work? Only when the motivation to share resources comes from within the people and those people have the means of acting upon these motivations can a truly egalitarian and democratic society arise. This of course, necessitates unmediated dialogue and cooperation, something P2P technologies like weblogs, wikis, and social networking tools are beginning to provide with greater sophistication.

I believe that Social Software is a vector to a return to an old culture.

When I say old culture, I mean the culture that fits the essential nature of humans and that fits nature itself. I imagine a return to the custom of being personally authentic, to a definition of work that serves the needs of our community, and to a society where our institutions serve to enhance all life.

Whether old or new, it certainly makes a lot of sense to me. For I see societies of people alienated and manipulated by institutions of government, big business, advertising, and healthcare, while institutions of education merely provide more fodder for the status quo machine: brainwashed, powerless, and mentally enslaved “citizens” who equate happiness with material possession and consume, vote, and act in accordance with such conditioning. This becomes even more problematic when actual war results just to keep those big institutions running and the power structure stable. How else can we explain how Bush was re-elected by popular vote and that Iran is soon to be the next victim of a violent military and cultural invasion? Is this what the concept of ‘democracy’ was meant to embody? Of course not.

Such a tragic situation cannot be changed for the better merely through political and social means, but is actually a battle that must also be fought in the mind itself. I believe the answer lies in the cultivation of autonomous mind in the individual; not the autonomy of merely a detached, objective person with freedom of choice, but rather one that emphasizes a process oriented, interdependent, critically reflective, publicly engaged person whose very notion of self identity includes the other, suggesting compassion.

The possibility that personal webpublishing might encourage a move toward autonomy is real. Just as Fromm argued that the social structure determines which aspects of the social character are dominant, perhaps likewise the semantic social network as learning environment might play a role helping learners become more autonomous in the way described above. If institutions of learning founded their pedagogy and practice on learning methods that allowed the learner to develop this kind of autonomy en route to cooperative knowledge creation and the development of useful skills, we could indeed achieve at least a partial degree of sanity and peace in this world.

I believe that Robert is right in predicting the enormous benefits that can result from the widespread use of social software, or what could also be called personal webpublishing.

To make matters more confusing, I was required to sign an affidavit on the front of the ballot which required me to ‘check off one of the following descriptions’ as to my reasons for being abroad. Every single option listed claimed some kind of affiliation with the military or U.S. government. Below that was a warning that I would be guilty of perjury for providing any false information. As you may know, I am an educator working for several private universities, both in the U.S. and abroad. If I checked one of the options provided, I would be lying and my ballot would not be counted. If I failed to check one of the options, my affidavit would be incomplete and my ballot rendered void.

To solve this dilemma, I made a long distance phone call to the voting office in Missouri and explained my situation. They instructed me to find some blank space on the affidavit and write in a description of my reason for being abroad. The man on the phone assured me that such creative alteration of the official affidavit wouldn’t affect my vote being counted. Hmm…I wonder about that. Is scribbling one’s own handwriting in the margin of an official document acceptable? Why was the ballot designed this way? Why was there no space provided for people who fall into ‘other’ category. Why was there no option for teachers, researchers, travelers, entreprenuers, NGO workers, buisinesspeople, etc? Why did only government employees and their affiliates count on this ballot?

I am confused. Will my vote be counted?

Democracy matters are frightening in our time precisely because the three dominant dogmas of free-market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism are snuffing out the democratic impulses that are so vital for the deepening and spread of democracy in the world. In short, we are experiencing the sad American imperial devouring of American democracy. This historic devouring in our time constitutes an unprecedented gangsterization of America - an unbridled grasp at power, wealth, and status. And when the most powerful forces in a society - and an empire - promote a suffocation of democratic energies, the very future of genuine democracy is jeopardized.

West refers to the sleep walking U.S. citizenry, upon which the imperial vision and policy is being imposed. As educators, we have what Giroux calls a ‘civic mission’ to foster critical minds capable of sustaining a healthy democracy. We need to design and promote learning environments that help cultivate critical consciousness with a political orientation. Crucial, though, to our success is finding ways of linking learning with action. We must apply what we are learning in society and, in tandem, learn by taking part in society. If true democracy is the type of society in which we wish to live, we cannot afford to forsake that connection.

Update: Joe Trippi’s new book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, is sure to have some insights into internet-based grassroots attempts at political change. via Robert Patterson
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The less you are and the less you express your life, the more you have and the greater is your alienated life. - Karl Marx

In To Have or To Be?, Fromm defines two different human modes of existence: having and being. In the having mode, life is seen as a substance and the self is seen as a separate, permanent entity. The result is a mindset that equates the pursuit of happiness and self-affirmation with having more, giving rise to aggressiveness, materialsm, selfishness, yearning for power, envy, war in Iraq, etc. In the being mode, nothing is real except processes, including the self. A conscious mind centered in being is an open mind, a listening mind, attune to reality as it unfolds; one that is able to love and to know. These two modes do not exist in society as mutally exclusive domains, but rather as a continuum. Very few people exist entirely in a having mode, while equally few exist completely in being mode.

Fromm rightly argues that there is an integral relationship between social character and social structure; a change in one will affect the other. This does not mean, however, that we can bring about positive change in the individual by merely changing the social structure; the historical failure of revolutions can attest for that. Nor does this mean that we can change society simply by changing our consciousness, for the change either remains in the private sphere of the individual or the attempt to preach its values fails in a social climate in which practice is of the opposite nature. However, social structure determines which aspects of the social character are dominant. So in a technocratic, industrial society, the having mode is fed. If a being mode is desired, we must replace the values and practices of society from profit, power, and intellect to being, sharing, and understanding; thus tipping the scales of society from one mode of existence to the other.

Traditionally in education, we have practiced acquiring knowledge as a possession, as if it were a commodity, convincing people that having more knowledge is optimal, thus strengthing the having mode. There have, though, been movements to overcome the having mentality, especially from constructivists and practicioners involved in alternative and holistic education.

I believe that personal publishing via weblogs and wikis on the growing social semantic web can be an excellent educational practice for feeding the being mode in young minds. The medium emphasizes process over goal, collectivity over individuality, decentralization over centralization, humanity over automation, authenticity over simulation, freedom over control, self-directed over teacher-directed, and the dynamic over the static. Furthermore, it can be self-reflective, potentially giving rise to insights into the socially constructed nature of self-identity.

Since schooling plays such an important role in social conditioning, it would seem urgent for educators to realize the truly educative and liberating potential of this technology and to start putting it to use. When learners are given the chance to join in the authentic and cooperative social practice of constructing knowledge in society, we are providing a new educational arena which encourages a participatory and potentially political orientation toward the ‘world out there’ - necessary for a healthy democracy. I can’t help but wonder though, whether our institutions of “learning” are commited to helping young people ‘know themselves’ or to merely condition them for a status quo existence, currently a predominant having mentality. What other ways might blogging in education contribute to shaping the person of tomorrow?

The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of a culture, in which life does not need any justification in success or anything else, and in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside of himself, be it the State or the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self. (p269)

Of course, this was written against the threat of a rising fascist power in Europe and a growing monopolistic culture of capitalism in the U.S., but it is clear to me that his words are still relevant to contemporary society. To what extent has the average person lost his/her ability to think criticially and act accordingly? How many of our desires and dreams are so strongly conditioned by a consumer society who places great value on success, beauty, youth, and material wealth; while holding false understandings of the conditions that lead to true happiness, freedom, love, and personal integrity?

It is clear what the role of education has in reversing this self perpetuating state of affairs: espousing practices of learning that encourage critical thinking skills, personal autonomy, self empowerment, responsibility, spontaneity, process-orientation, and action toward social change. As individuals though, aside from our own strivings toward greater awareness and balance, what kind of changes in the practices of our daily lives can we make toward helping others to overcome the hypnotic spell of a profit-oriented culture and the automated habits the economic machine has demanded for its ceaseless “progress”? I also cannot help but wonder at what role the internet might play in the struggle for freedom and democracy, and for enabling the necesssary solidarity of those who strive to realize a different set of values at the level of society, politics, and government.

I still haven’t read Free Culture and Extreme Democracy. Any good reads out there on related topics?