Postmodernity and Education. Death of Man and Death of Pedagogy

Abstract

After the hope for resurrection of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Pedagogy paved the way to moral improvement according to the winds of the Enlightenment. Hence it went from a metaphysical and transcendental formative ideal to a human ideal linked to the idea of education. However, with the advent of post-modernity, a new horizon has emerged that has led to the death of Pedagogy. On the one hand, the metaphysical crisis – which involves the death of man as a creature of God – has resulted in the death of Pedagogy, which has lost its teleological and eschatological significance. On the other hand, structuralism heralded the death of the modern subject, which has likewise has led to the death of man, who had trusted in the Enlightenment dreams of education. Today, therefore, in the post-modern world, Pedagogy has been reduced to a residual discipline in which the body – in a post-organic context – is detached from the idea of resurrection, being instead configured as an element of insurrection. While Christian pedagogy sought perfection and modern pedagogy moral improvement, the goal in the post-modern era is performance.