MATURITY AND SENSIBILISATION AS PRESUPPOSITIONS FOR A PEACE CONCEPTION OF THE YOUTH

MATURITY AND SENSIBILISATION AS PRESUPPOSITIONS FOR A PEACE CONCEPTION OF THE YOUTH

A study on the degree of maturity of 15 years old students in the major Athens secondary Education by the means of a sensitivity experimental method. This process focused on the object of Social and Political Education ( the original Greek word for education being AGOGE or “ leading way” an antique ethically charged term ) is not supposed to be based on the memorisation of key issues but rather on the critical way of opinion development . The central motto that could lead Youth to the conception of Peace as a Universal issue is the understanding of the World inequalities , social change, social stratification, multi-various cultural values, violations of freedom and Human Rights but mostly the necessity of respect to the Difference (and the Otherness) among various races , social classes and gender, surpassing xenophobia trends , racism and sexism . This heterogeneous World in which Youth are asked to live is their only Reality in spite of the pseudo equalising homogeneity proposed and advertised by the mass mediated Globalisation. . This reality has multiple causes and Youth have to conceive that nothing is granted anymore on this planet. if they expect to develop a generalised vision of Peace and Humanism especially in troubled regions such as Balkans. Peace as a much more than a fashionable social term is a total “ fait social ” and cannot subsist the fragmentation ( and the consequent extermination ) of its fundamental meaning.


KEYWORDS

Peace, Globalization, Youth, Meaningful Stochastic Knowledge, Socialization, Sensibilisation, Difference, Otherness, Agoge, Cosmopolitanism, Maturity, Verstehen.

THE PROBLEM IS TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF CULTURE IS SO FREE IN ITSELF THAT IT CONCEIVES AND BEGETS POLITICAL FREEDOM AS ITS ACCOMPANIMENT AND CONSEQUENCE

John Dewy: Freedom and Culture


PREFACE

Peace when it happens, happens because in spite of their violent drives , humans tend to develop and manifest in their social encounters positive practices such as love, sympathy , hope and trust. The failure of these positive values set in action, creates competition, conflict and finally war. Auto-destruction pulses of the human animal have been proposed by psychologists and psychoanalysts such as Freud to interpret the creation of wars. An idea of a Global Peace echoes in our ears as an utopic or a cynic idea. However, the very idea of Peace , being an ethical subject in itself and not a simple political or mass mediated slogan propagated under advertisement form, can be taught and analyzed in classrooms from the very early pupils age. If violence is a tension of human race in sui generis after multiple observations of the human behavior specialists , then also Peace could be conceived as an eternal idea produced by the human mind through the ages.

Our initial idea has been to prove that once this theoretical conception has been transmitted to pupils by experimental ways , it can create its own “ mental and moral tradition” once that pupils discover and LIVE the very nature of notions such as stereotypes, fanaticism, racism, exercise of power. The final results of this mental and moral process will accompany the growing youth till their old age proving their degree of maturation at whole. Also, that this achievement cannot be attained by pure mental ways, but by the emotional way of empathic sensitivity.

After Aristotle’s classification, ethical values such as bravery, justice and sophrosyne ( prudence, wisdom) are related to the notion of habitude ( ethos) not only etymologically but substantially. All these ethical values are not innate as the physical senses might be, but acquired The innate qualities are potentially inscribed in the human genes seeking chances for automatic activation, but the acquired qualities can be manifested and function only by their activation (energeia = energically). Here, the role of the spiritual teacher-leader or mentor, is crucial. The only way to transmit this ethical knowledge to the students in practical terms is to enable them to learn by acting poiountes manthanein= learning by acting or poiein).The meaning of various political institutions in the ancient Polis is to enable the citizens to LIVE by the daily repetition this reality by obeying the laws established by the legislators and by communicating freely in the Commons. If the laws are false as products of an ambitious leader or authoritative tyrant citizens will learn badly their role and Democracy will malfunction.

Following the fundamental points of Aristotle’s political thoughts concerning the development of ethical capacities of citizens in the ancient City , we proposed an experimental model of qualitative teaching for the lesson of Social and Political Education for pupils of the third grade (14-15 years olds). This model consists into the selective teaching of special issues in the formal textbook and to the “measurement” of results in the everyday behavior of young pupils especially aiming to their mental conception of the idea of Peace. Of course this conception is scheduled to be approached indirectly by many relative means such as approach to the notions of social change, human difference through various cultures, tradition/modernity, stereotypes study and finally study of basic political issues. In none of these approaches a direct discourse or panegyric praise of Peace is programmed to be pronounced under the thought that the conception of Peace must not be the outcome of one more theoretical slogan propagated as the ideal one , but rather a lived everyday practical experience.

WHAT THE MEANING OF AGOGE MIGHT BE IN THE POST -MODERN SCHOOL

Learning by acting means to be hopeful that one’s acts will enable him to be better than through previous acts before learning.. In various sectors of education , applied knowledge on everyday social life is the best aim. This sort of knowledge called Social Knowledge needs a rational and ethical background and can be a satisfactory outcome of what the ancient term of Agoge ( note 3) might mean. The mentor and propagator of such a knowledge in the classroom, have to develop pupils emotional potentialities in order to support their rational choices enabling them to approach the synthetic social issues of knowledge. Only by these means , such a knowledge can be useful for the formation of an analogous ideology and for the expression of a free opinion. Pedagogy ( literally paides-agoge )is not only the “art of teaching” to the “ paides” = children, but also the satisfaction of specific aims such as the long-term development of the child’s mind by guiding this development and conceiving the formal curricula as simply tailored to suit pupils’ own expressed interests.

However, in the era of mass mediated everyday life, while the family social encounters are not ideal and the everyday life experiences are not the best for Youth, a guidance of interests in a liberal and open teaching system is necessary. After centuries of conservative pedagogical means conceiving learning as the desired absorption of specific bodies of non applied knowledge and focusing on the authority of the teacher-leader not promoting the dialogue with pupils, the time for a new system of “ sensitivization” of Youth in the classroom during the learning process seems to be a Demand of first priority. Critics related to such an educational model have been developed during the last 30 years from various points. Freire (1972) argues that this model of teaching-learning has radical political implications adding much to the students’ sentimental and rational maturity because it emphasizes personal autonomy rather than social control, others claim that fully developed “ progressive” methods can rarely be found beyond the early years of primary school and are unlikely to have any lasting influences on attitudes , or even that open pedagogy reflects the middle-class value system and is therefore unlikely to have radical implications beyond the school.. Marxist critics ( Bernstein 1977) suggest that the move towards integrated studies as a physical result of this pedagogy, may alter the power structure within the teaching stuff and disturb for good traditional authority relations between teachers and students through in practice teachers resist change. Also his inventive term of “ hidden curriculum” wants to underline that in practical terms the school systems knows how to modify progressive and innovative ideals as a highly conservative system of reproduction of established values.

Today, in the beginning of a new Millenium and with crucial changes in the organization of post modern urban life, with the retreat of the role exercised by basic social institutions such as family and religion, the need for the development of new educational and pedagogical techniques and methods is more important than ever. In the era of massification of all qualities, educational system has undergone also an “ inflation” and reminds one more consumption good that can be bought and consumed. Students themselves are deeply convinced through their family background that Education is the only means for their social upwards mobility even if it is not “ a matter of pleasure” and that they have to sacrifice their own various personal interests ( arts, hobbies, athletic activities, social life, subculture habits ) in the altar of educational attainment in order to profit from its fruits ( possible diplomas) and gain in intellectual prestige while continuing their further studies in the tertiary sector of Universities in the seek of appropriate professions of high social status and possibly high income. Tests of preliminary acquaintance in the fist day of schools opening in September, show that students tend to focus their preferences concerning their future profession rather on the conquest of high prestige and money than on their own personal pleasure.

Thus, the role of a mentor or promoter of students interests in the post-modern school accepting a liberal open teaching method, is more complex than even before, since the classical value of acquired intelligence as a result of segregated knowledge is no more accepted and the evaluation of the classroom knowledge has changed for good by the teachers themselves. That meaning that intelligence acquired and developed in school has much more parameters than believed in the past years, there are also other important and valuable factors responsible for the students overall maturation and progress, such as sentimental self esteem, ethical satisfaction, non competitive collectivity and last but not least an optimist life-view that can arm Youth to resist possible failures. The sentiment of self-efficacy usually neglected in the past years is proved to be of crucial importance when one is put to face various challenges as they come up. An open teaching system focusing mainly on the development of ethical values and pointing to the building of a critical belief on one’s self abilities, can supply a young student better to understand in non abstract ways the surrounding World as a challenging extension of his/her classroom micro-world. The relevant knowledge to this aim, called Social Knowledge must be the main goal of an educational object such as Social and Political “Agoge” .If Peace is conceived by educators as an universal trans-cultural value, then this value CAN BE TRANSMITTED creating and due to an acquired optimism for the future of this perplexed Globe.

SIX SUBJECTS SELECTED FOR LEARNING AND THE QUEST FOR ORIGINAL KNOWLEDGE

In the era of the triumph of information due to the technological expansion, the quest for the original and pure knowledge seems to be abstract. However, in social terms, any quest for the origins of a given knowledge is necessary or in other words nothing can be conceived as granted in the social World. The lesson of Mannheim as father of the Sociology of Knowledge can be described as the association between various forms of knowledge and social structure or social origins of their supporters. In other terms, the point is that membership of particular social groups can condition beliefs. The consequence of this acceptance is that if all beliefs are socially located , then there is no place for TRUE BELIEFS and no socially independent criteria of truth. Diachronic or Universal truths and values are difficult to be found in a socially relevant World. If Sociology can recognize and interpret the meanings that people give to their actions, then the Weberian term of understanding ( Verstehen) is the only gnostic procedure by which sociologists can ( and must) have access to these meanings.

Thus, the selection of three gnostic items for the guidance of young students towards the direction of meaningful discoveries applied in the practical life, is a task of the teacher-leader. The further development of relevant learning interests is the expected aim.. If the above mentioned guidance scopes to the understanding of MEANINGS AS CAUSES, then the task of the teacher is to clarify the inner interconnection between the manifestations and the causes of the social phenomena studied in the class with the help of multiple examples.

These six subjects on which the main effort was concentrated were :

1/ The issue of binary terms of Stability/Instability ( structure of social institutions as opposing to atomic freedom, social conflicts and social chaos). The issue of socialization and social control can be analyzed here too.

2/ The issue of Social and Cultural Variability ( with its direct and indirect consequences of Social and Cultural Change ,social inequalities and resulting social stratification , Otherness and Difference )

3/ The Political issue of the meaning of Power and the related Governance problems ( forms of Government , forms of Leadership, uses and abuses of Democracy). Also the notion of Pressing Groups and Social Movements.

4/ The issue of Modernization not as an opposing term to Tradition but rather as a unavoidable historical process. The issue of Globalization is discussed here.

5/ The negative issue of stereotypes and prejudices in our actual life
as causes of Racism.

6/ Further social problems such as Poverty, Ecological Dangers and Racism, social addictions, Delinquency and Criminality.

All these six subjects have been fully described , analyzed and discussed with the help of various examples from the current actuality. However, the effort could easily lead a simple memorization of the proposed knowledge if students would fail to discover their proper truths among them and have taken this knowledge as granted because proposed by the authority of an ex cathedra teaching. Thus, the most appropriate method to help students to form their own conception on these new items, was the free offering of related subjects for composition of written studies by the students. These four items of studies were :

A/ Racism as a modern phenomenon
B/ Poverty in underdeveloped and developed World
C/ The extension of the ecological problems in our days
D/ The historical and actual cultural role of the Silkroad.

These items given to students in the beginning of the school year, permitted them to develop collective interests and collaborative disposition , rare or non ever manifested before in their school careers. The elaboration of these collective studies parallel to the teaching , enabled gradually students to discover interests similar to those in the classroom before presenting the outcomes of their efforts there. The participation of young students in the forming of studying groups was above any expectation (80% or 83 out of 104 students of 4 classes of 26 students each ) and 25 study groups varying from 2 to 6 students have been formed. The most popular subjects seemed to be Racism (7 groups of 28 students ) and Ecology (9 groups of 27 students) followed by Poverty ( 7 groups of 24 students). The fourth subject estimated as of a rather limited historical signification was selected only by 2 groups of 4 students.


WHAT WAS THE SOCIO-CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF PUPILS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPERIMENTAL TEACHING

Socialization of Youth has been the object of many theories and didactic aspirations of educators. The everyday praxis however shows that most of these theories express but the need of adults to construct a formal and normative model of behavior or rather of attitudes of Youth well “ adapted “ to the current socio-cultural system of a given society. If we suppose that the interest oriented personality of a young person has been neglected so far in the classroom communication, the findings of a common school class as related to the students personal and social feelings, seems to be analogous. Competitive ambitions development, gives ambitious interests ( profit ) oriented personalities instead of altruist collaborative optimist young people. The needs of modern society overcharged with technology and information related to it, neglects the overall humanist education as a failed system of inutile theories. This mentality so common in the social success oriented parents , results to an analogous mentality of their children. The emotional outcome of such a life-attitude is an eternal anxiousness and a doubt of the final outcome since the constant dependence of the self to the anonymous others cannot guarantee the final achievement of aims. This model of western type socialization of Youth , gives small room to the development of personal and collective creativity and the most often neglects the quest for the personal talents of the young person in the speed of discovery of the “utile solution” .

General theories of socialization insist that this process is life-long. However, few insist on the importance of education after the “ stormy years “ of youth. It has been proved that many items related to Social Philosophy , World non ethnocentric History, Psychology, Cultural and Social Anthropology and non dogmatic Religion, presupposes a former maturation of conscience connected with the discovery of real interests. But at the crucial age of maturation, life is running in a too busy rhythm to catch combine the real needs and interests of the person. One is usually very intensely preoccupied by his/her personal socio-economic success and neglects the real personal meaningful interests. The sentiment , so often present in the middle aged specialized intellectual professionals, is that ways of work are meaningless and even useless for the most part of real social needs.
The very fact that most of these “ specialities “ have been selected during the immature stage of the person’s life or under the pressure of others for the fulfillment of absurd values, does not preoccupies theorists of socialization as the most probable cause of future difficulties. And yet this immature selectivity is the most urgent to be cured than the eternal catalogues of rules taught leading to the desired conformity of the young individual to a society existing before his/her birth. Socialization must be much more than meaningless adaptation to the norms and values of elders , scheduled and developed for different aims. The constant indisputable phenomenon of social change should have inspired generations of educators to change their views , but the traditional human need of conformity and respect to the accepted social values can stand as the most satisfactory explanation of this missing chance.

However, what was successful during centuries of traditional adaptation, has been altered in the recent era of accelerated technological innovations and their impact in everyday social life.
In other words the galloping rhythms of social change created a new mentality of the so called post-modernity tightly related with the common acceptance that traditional values are not enough to lead us in a shifting World of multi cultural interrelations , explosion of information in every field and new possibilities of human communication impossible to imagine in the past few decades . And yet, the collective reaction of various human societies thrown in the realm of non demanded post-modernity has been the same …traditional if interpreted correctly. The new trend is to be …” a la mode “ or “in” the social and technological innovations to have a high social profile as a person belonging to the new norms , to be secured as someone who belongs to the establishment, to decrease one’s personal ideals and critical views, to appear as somebody equal and NOT DIFFERENT from the average other.

The most common observation when arriving in a new class is that young pupils if not too much already convinced for the values of being successful in the school regulations and learning demands, are simply indifferent. But both categories have something in common : They tend to be non different of the socio-cultural models transmitted by the mass-media in a everyday basis and accepted as new lifestyles by their social environment , tolerated even by tutors and elderly members of their families ( grand parents). There is not a possibility of school authorities to bridge the gap between the already compromised young pupils and the indifferent or non disciplined almost violent ones who express their everyday anxious feelings of insecurity, fear and anger by aggression resulting usually to so called “ school failure”. The easiest solution of course is to classify these two opposing categories by terms such as good and bad pupils before consulting desperate parents to lead their naughty offspring to the technical education , giving them more chances to express their violent trends in the exercise of manual instead of intellectual occupations. The very important fact that both categories have the same common root of insecurity in this impersonal society of artificial consumer values, is absolutely neglected.

Humanist education of self discovery of personal talents and their application to collaborative tasks, is the stochastic measure that could prevent all the above negative phenomena. By cultivating rationalist trends to immature pupils ( accelerate mathematics from the very young age) with no connection to their personality development and real needs, results to a cultivated egotism and moral laxity. Pupils loose their healthy sentimentality under conditions of socially glorified ( but non demanded) typical rationalism and their essential needs of human and spiritual communication are repressed. Aesthetization of life as an expression of post-modern commercial consumerism, pretends to be the most essential social value promising personal security and the sentiment that one is “normal” because choosing what is already chosen by invisible others, one is similar to these famous and yet unknown others. If school taught mathematics could pass to their young audience their qualitative message, this vulgar aesthetisation could never be successful. Unfortunately , not any psycho-pedagogical guide of mathematics and related topics ( physics, chemistry and biology) underlines the importance of these topics role in our everyday quality of life. Under a more adequate observation , most of these aesthetic objects surrounding us are ersatz ( as the opposite of originals) and evaluated in stylistic terms , pure garbage or using an older term from German, just kitsch.

Summarising, post modern socialization tends to develop a conformity of Youth to the established power system under the liberal-democratic pretext of equality and freedom aiming mainly to the homogenization of all differences. The state is presented as the omni-potent big brother that oppresses nobody to enter in the closed house of its surveillance and yet EVERYBODY IS PREDESTINED TO ENTER THERE TO FEEL THE ABSOLUTE SECURITY OF BELONGING TO THE SOCIETY. The result is the increase of insecurity and anxiousness since all of these aims focusing on the adoration of the objects and the fetichization of the commercial goods, have nothing to do with the theoretically taught general ethical values mostly as examples from a glorious historical and traditional past ( rather as an easy alibi ). The major antinomy of teaching absurd moral values as forms of past social lives and in the same time tolerating absolute immoral ( and amoral too) aspects of attitudes can easy be felt by the healthy sentiments of young individuals playing the social role of pupils, but of course cannot be rationally explained and understood since the rational way of thinking taught in the techno-mathematical lessons is not scheduled by any means to help them to develop the healthy rational mind capable to resolve similar antinomies and problems. The old dream of Plato scripted over the entrance of his Academy ( nobody non-geometrically thinking will be accepted here) seems as a poor historical anecdote since we still seem impotent to seize its original and essential meaning. Stochastic Agoge of his time was oriented to important and concrete goals ( stochastic from Greek stochos=target) aiming to the perfection of future and present citizens. Mathematics under this sense is to understand the depth of a real problem and to propose rational solutions proving truths that could be applied to other similar problems. This model and lesson of Democracy seems to be afar from our postmodern aspirations where the volumes of solutions of mathematical problems are distributed to the students the same day of the distribution of books of mathematical texts.


THE SIX AXES

1/ The study of social Institutions aims to the demonstration of how these social discoveries are needed for social stability and order. The ordinary school textbook describes as a list the main social institutions such as family, education, religion and political and economic institutions too. What it fails to describe and explain is their role towards the direction of overall social organization and also their evolution from archaic and traditional rituals that were first used in primitive small societies of the oral tradition. The student who perceives the passage from primitive social organization to more sophisticated ones, can take conscience of the necessity of the family or educational institution of our days as compared with their initial ritualized analogues. Here, the example of the dowry institution and its evolution is very useful. First, it was a mirror of financial needs of small communities, then it became unnecessary since the recent change of socio-financial conditions ( women’s labor).

Laws are the physical evolution of typical Institutions the same as the latter have been the evolution of non typical institutions and local rituals. Laws need an organized system of political governance to function and they are created by having full power legislators.

Students have the tendency to seize and perceive better sophisticated issues as above if these issues are related to their personal needs and lifestyles. The example of socialization of Youth and the necessity of social control is adequate in this point to illustrate the above institutions and their social role. Socialization of young members for their gradual integration in a given society is something concerning everyone and the study of the importance of social roles and posts is a prelude. Furthermore , the agents of socialization such as family, education, army, Church etc are not different from the social institutions themselves , so their correlation opens new horizons of understanding

However, this Stability as promised by well structured frames such as social Institutions can be easily destroyed by human tendency for atomic freedom , autonomy and selfishness. Students have to realize here the tribute that future citizens have to pay in order to avoid sterile competitions , conflicts, social wars, disorder, anarchy and chaos. The analogies with their school-class discipline and the necessity of school rules to keep the order are more than evident. This is a good introduction to remember for the following topic of Political Governance and the abuse of Democracy called Ochlocracy.
( mobocracy).

2/ Students have to learn after the Stability/ Instability lesson that variability is the Law of Nature and human societies too. Cultural variability as a reflection of natural variability is a given reality and whoever denies this indisputable fact must be a rather narrow minded sauvinist. The right to the Difference and the Otherness brings us to the respect of this cultural Difference and social Otherness. This will help the surpassing of the birth and evolution of all related stereotypes usually cultivated in family or socially about the unknown Others as the only source of evil and scapegoats

However, a methodological problem arising in this stage is the
Equality/Inequality one. Students usually need to know how and why social inequalities ( mainly financial) have been born and reproduced. . The study of stratification systems often analytical in the school texts ( varying from Hindu castes to our social classes systems ) are not successful unless if it enables students to understand that some human interests and consequent systems encourage inequality and even human exploitation starting from old times human slavery and ending in our days unequal development through neo colonialism and globalization. One has to take conscience that to be different does not necessarily means to be unequal but that in the contrary possible homogenization of differences cannot exclude inequalities. A society of homogenized citizens is not by supposition a society of equality and justice so, man has not to create non natural artifacts and societies of human copies. In our multicultural reality of recent years when and where human travels and emigrations are so intense, one has to learn how to live in the same social environment with representatives of different cultures and this multicultural neighborhood is nothing but the natural analogue of the Variability. In the contrary if one adopts the globalization model of homogenization of every difference ( mutants and cloning) the consequence will be greater than ever inequality mainly in financial resources as the globalization trend is proving to be. Also, traditional ethnocentrisms still noticed in actual textbooks of History leading to possible nationalist ideologies cannot be excluded if one adopts from the early schooldays the stereotype that WHOEVER IS SIMILAR CULTURALLY TO ME IS POSITIVE AND POSSIBLY EQUAL. Students can surpass this trap only if they understand how erroneous this correlation ( but not Cause) might be. Also they need to get conscience of the shadow interests hidden under the surface that are nourished by such ideologies.

Last but not least, students can learn in this stage that stratification criteria that dominated this type of human classification for centuries are some more than the most obvious financial one. Surpassing the initial marxist acceptance, a short mention of the two more Weberian criteria of Status ( social prestige) and Political Power are very useful to interpret the various ways that humans invented to discriminate each other. The extremely complicated topic of social change is not a deterministic acceptance that could evoke fatalist feelings, but in the contrary, it’s the natural outcome of human adaptation on this eternal Variability. Diffusion of social change is not uniform and this is a possible source of competitions and conflicts. These conflicts will be fully discussed and interpreted in the next axe.

3/ Studying the function of social roles in the first lesson in parallel with the study of institutions, a careful pupil must have noticed already that conflicts can arise in the very atomic level as resulting from the opposing needs and aims. Having also perceived and fully understood the reasons of social inequality in both traditional and modern societies, one has a full profile of the multiple causes of human conflicts. If all Humanity can accept the idea of being different as a natural variability of EXISTING , the same Humanity can very rarely accept the idea of Equality or in other words the idea of HAVING EQUAL AMOUNTS OF PRECIOUS OBJECTS. Since Humanity is proceeding by accepting this stereotyped view all politics are a variation of the war game. If equilibrium in the Nature is a byproduct of bio-diversity, this lesson could be applied in human societies’ analogue. In this stage of discussion, the introduction of the idea of the need that humans express for governance and leadership is the most adequate.

Forms of governance ( politeuma in Greek) is closely related etymologically from the root polis=city from where Aristotle created first the term POLITIKA ( politics + policy)for his famous book. That was the first to be written on this crucial topic. Young pupils can conceive that the need to be governed is related to the institutions or social rules of an organized society such as the ancient City. If Youth need to be socialized, only firm social institutions can guarantee this socialization required for the public interest. Thus, the study of forms of governance must be started after the study of various forms of human groups and their role on human communication. Leadership can be approached under this schema and the complicated notions of Power and Hierarchy can be mentioned in this stage of analysis. Examples from Antiquity are the most adequate since Ancient Greeks have been for centuries well known for their sensibility about politics with their orators and the invention of the famous “ free citizen “ with his free expression of opinion in the public tribune ( agora). Historical examples also can be combined with pupils everyday experiences in school and school class councils where representatives are elected by them to handle various practical problems they face in their collective school life.

To study the various forms of governance that were produced historically, one has again to return to Aristotle’s classification of Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Tyranny, Democracy, underlying their benefits and disadvantages one by one. Under the general motto of Citizenship as a Principle of judging and being judged in the same time, as expressed by Aristotle , pupils can be helped to distinguish the positive and negative aspects of Democracy as the proposed best of all the types of governance mentioned above. History proves that after periods of democratic governance, dictators and mobs inverted the stability and these abductions of Power or chaotic situations are the natural consequences of the excess of freedom furnished by Democracy. So, one can learn that even positive issues such as liberty must be furnished for public needs with measure otherwise a tyrant can seize the Power for their interest and lust for Glory ignoring the true social needs and neglecting all previous democratic institutions , eliminating even human rights and freedoms or continuing conflicts can create social instability , devaluation of the institutions power and social chaos.

To give a short idea of connection of all the previous topics with actuality, a connection can be demonstrated among them and the roles exercised by modern mass media in the propagation of news and political announcements. Also the often non typical role of pressing groups ( social movements, activists , citizens’ committees) are important to be analyzed in order to help pupils to create an idea of the various ways that the so called Public Opinion( if any) can be formed Multiple examples from the current actuality can be given in the class off the record, enabling students to feel that the previous knowledge is not a sterile and purely encyclopedic one but rather vivid and dynamic aiming to their placement in the real social life. If one has absorbed his personal role in a small group, one can also seize the importance of these small groups for the governance in a more flexible system of Democracy applied in our post-modern needs.

4/ Modernization may mean different things at a time depending from the point of view of the observer. Cultural modernization for example could mean secularization but this has been not proven. Theorists such as Luckmann argued since 1967 that modern individualism and autonomous self-expression that leads to social mobility can be combined with a type of hidden religion with elements of sacredness and transcendence even in urban life style. Also, cultural modernization might produce adherence to nationalist ideologies by the sense that some powerful social groups with traditional ideology are active into preserving and expanding their cultural heritage under the fear not to lose their national identity. Thus, two opponent mentalities , traditionalism as a cause and modernization as a result may coexist in the same social group. This proves the ambiguous sense of this term that has been often vulgarized and pronounced by politicians during their promising electoral campaigns. In the very political arena , modernization means the development of key institutions such as political parties , parliaments , franchise and secret ballots which are usually supposed to support participatory decision–making. In economy, modernization means increasing of professional specialization for an optimist division of labor, improved technologies, marketing and management techniques and growth of commercial facilities ( free transports, liberal trade and limitation of the state taxes). In social terms , modernization of a given society might mean the limitation of illiterate people, rationalization as a mentality against old traditionalist views and of course urbanization as a modern life-style as opposing to the out of fashion old traditionalist village life-style.

Youth tend to be in the fashion , to follow the mode and to define themselves as extremely modern by the fear that if not following the last words of the mode, they will be characterized as not successful and poor in mind. But , young people neglect that this desire to belong to a granted world of values decided by unknown commercial interests of the unknown others, risk to create homogenous and isomorphic societies of human replicas where originality is not needed and copies are the law. As a consequence , original needs and values are eclipsed
and the only needs respected and values desired are the pseudo ones as created by these unknown big ( br)others. Since new things are usually the most unknown ones , it’s evident their easy adoption to create trends of imitation for masses of population and benefits for their constructors. Traditional values can be also exploited by experts who have commercial interests as it happens usually in the tourism. But the difference is that these goods are destined to the strangers who lack knowledge of the language and culture of a visited country , so they can easily buy gadgets of popular arts imitations and original popular music copies. One can easily distinguish the originality of a traditional object or value supposed that he knows elementary the culture that created them. This is not the case with the new objects of modernity that have the quality of the unknown and thus is interpreted the fascination they exercise on the average citizen and to the Youth.

There is also another trend of modernization based on the simulation of forms and the fragmentation of meanings. It is the long term learning that one needs to belong to a Super Power alliance by the means of consuming all this Power’s cultural products even if not understanding it’s language. This can be easily achieved by the psychological process of imitation or mimesis. Now, if another country is enemy by definition to this Super Power’s lifestyle , this country must be punished by any means and the adherents of the Super Power must have the same feelings with no doubt for the rightness of the Cause. Eternal values such as War and Peace are schematically described by the Super Power’s interests and all followers must agree. Globalization is the most recent example of such a “need for modernization mentality”.

By these means , humans tend to be easily uniform and similar while originality is a non desired issue. The lesson that Youth has to learn and realize under multiple practical everyday examples is that the quest of originality excludes all easy adopts of “ new things” under the pretext
of being modern or “ synchrone “( in parallel time). Originality means creation of new things, mentalities and values by the researching subject and not the easy adopt of innovations as produced and propagated by invisible others. Erroneous examples from the mass media area can easily demonstrate to the Youth what really modernization can result. The supreme psychological human need for securing cannot be served by the untried adoption of every possible innovation presented as such. Finally, the need for a secure world Peace cannot be guaranteed by the easy choice of “ belonging to the Powerful of this World” Here, the lesson is that the most powerful a state or a private company is , the most financial interests that need to exploit the masses are hidden behind. The most severe critique of the ambiguous sense of modernity is that this invention that presupposes one to be ahead of time is not a universal cultural value and is based on development of the most powerful and rich against the poor and impotent states not leading necessarily to an equal distribution of goods and social benefits. In the contrary the more often it increases dependency of the poor to the rich. This uneven process can be demonstrated as the best illustration of an ethnocentric model of socio-cultural exploitation and dominance with high financial interests hidden in the shadow. Modernization of lifestyle must be proved that is not the ONLY WAY TO HAPPINESS as it is usually advertised but also the cause of many depressions, conflicts, useless competitions and even the so called “ civilization illnesses”.It must be proved that this system’s deficiency opens space to many other alternatives. Pupils must conceive that small is also beautiful even if it’s cost is much lower than the big. Qualities of life can replace quantities of dry interests.

5/ The study of prejudices and stereotypes , present some difficulties if not related to concrete paradigms from everyday life , underlying their connection with erroneous conceptions of the role of the others, in a dominating social group. It is important to argue about these notions just after learning about social groups and leadership. Historically, social stereotypes have been created as collective defensive mechanisms of xenophobia against the new and unknown modes of expression , a process often encouraged by leaders. Under this scope, stereotypes and prejudices can be interpreted as forms of passive traditionality that hunt us even in our modern life. The importance of this lesson is to track how young pupils accept the breaking down of such non tried or proved myths by the aid of their logic and by the condemn of their consequences in the social life. The latter approach is of a pure ethical type, but it must come after the former, or in other words the rational interpretation of the stereotypes shadow effects have to demonstrate clearly their negative overall results. If students accept the universal ethical values of Justice and Equality, the treacherous role of prejudices and stereotypes easy generalizations can be appreciated as a weakness of the major groups to accept the existence of minorities the same as violence manifested under various types is also an expression of weakness instead of power. By recognizing this fundamental principle as the source of future sufferings, students can structure a new base of confronting this category of problems.

The final benefit of this discussion is that prejudiced and stereotyped views and opinions are the outcome of rational misunderstandings and are qualities of non liberated collectivities and persons fearing for their future in irrational style. Various applications of stereotyped negative thoughts can be demonstrated by characteristic examples in the school class as derived from everyday actuality ( misleading advertisements in the media, unproved opinions in public debates etc). The lesson to remember is that the more a society tend to believe untried opinion makers’ choices , the more stereotyped will be in the confronting of various new types of social life as created in our multicultured World.

Another important lesson with interesting practical applications on the students’ learning methods is that untried knowledge as derived from arbitrary opinions is a pseudo-achievement with negative results. To believe and imitate slogans is not the best method of scientific approach on social topics. Real social knowledge must have elements of the Platonic Episteme or the overall supervision a sort of the Renaissance Panopticon so easily forgotten by the vulgarized mass mediated discourse. The expression of free opinion must be based on a solid and original knowledge otherwise it risks to be arbitrary in its easy generalizations.


THE PROBLEMATICS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS APPROACH


Social problems consist the last chapter of the first part of the school text- book just before entering in the second part of political issues. However, from the five problematic topics examined in the last edition, only two “survived” in the present edition from which only one , the problem of Poverty is important , the other being an infantile approach to the traffic dangers by the boy-scouts’ style of “ learn to avoid possible risks”. The other three topics of major social importance have been mysteriously eliminated. These were, the problem of drug addiction as well as alcohol and tobacco, the ecological problem and the Racism problem. The reasons of this elimination are various, standing from the non proved fear that simple mention of the narcotics name could urge pupils to taste the “ forbidden fruit” and going to the idea that the rest of the problems are well analyzed in other lessons such as Biology or Literature. By these means , students are limited by the curriculum itself to approach 4 important problems not only encyclopaedically but in order to correlate common causes based on previous acquired social knowledge. This was the main reason of offering of related topics for collective students works. These topics were exactly the missing ecological and racism topics alongside with the poverty problem. The reason of this priority was the interference of ecological and racist parameters on various social topics analyzed through the six axes mentioned above.

The methodological problematics raised here is how to demonstrate to the students the risks of adoption of a monolithic technological approach when concerned with social problems. This one-way method that creates a series of new problems while promising to resolve the already existing must be compared with the humanist approach that accepts to sacrifice short-term interests of eternal innovations and modernization in order to preserve human values and respect for the Different unknown Other who might concern us more than believed.

One more important social problem never mentioned even in the first edition was that of criminality as a consequence of juvenile delinquency. This taboo-like problem was analyzed mainly focusing on the importance of social stigmatization of early juvenile deviate actions. That young transgressors commiting violent acts must be treated by more flexible laws and correcting systems is an indisputable truth. However, all the importance of this lesson is to discover the very reasons of such antisocial acts that could be low standard of education, poverty, racial discrimination , social racism and even drug and alcohol addiction. Pupils who have understood the reasons of previous problems can easily appreciate the depth of this meta-problem often confronted by repressive mechanisms of the society as eternal source of trouble. Especially the comprehension of the role of stereotypes , help pupils to demystify these criminal acts not by the means of emotional identification with the young actors and sympathy, but by the elucidated examination of their motivation.


The same method of approach is the most useful for the examination of the Poverty problem on which certain students had been already sensitibilized by their own collective works. One is not poor because poor in mind or because he chose it by no working and staying in a leisure stage but because society does not offer equal chances for his development. This problem that can be expanded in a macro social level with entire nations starving in the Third World, is coming to coincide with the basic problematics of the ecological problem that tends to turn the whole Humanity poorer in the long term by the extermination of natural resources. Of course, some profit in the short term but the point is that the health of an entire planet is put in danger and local problems are not more the case as before since after the Cernobil era, local problems tend to become global. The lesson given in both poverty and ecological problematics is that this sort of problems concern not only the “ specialists” but all active and conscious citizens and young individuals all-over the World. What today seems remote and stranger, tomorrow may come closer and touch our security and lifestyle at whole. Pupils conceive that one cannot be safe anymore in his small corner under the misleading messages of the media or even the promises of the new technological inventions, but that one has to fight for the right to preserve the long-term global security against various short-term shadow financial interests. Not a technology as sophisticated as it might be can save Humanity from crisis or catastrophe if human agents have not a humanist approach to this sort of worldwide problems. As a student noticed when asked to examine possible reasons of human poverty, technology is not the panacea resolving all problems but in the contrary it can CREATE NEW PROBLEMS such as neo-poverty to social classes that tend to acquire all its latest promising gadgets, borrowing money from the banks to this aim under the eternal slogan of being in fashion, creating thus multiple useless pseudo-needs that never existed a generation ago and increasing their unhappiness in the realm of impressions produced by a competitive society.

Concluding, just as Poverty is not a problem of the “uncivilized others” but it knocks the door of prosperous countries too, all in the same, ecological , racism , chemical addiction and criminality problems have a global dimension and concern the average citizen more even than professional politicians and administrators. This final lesson to remember for life is a critical one and has in view the acquisition of an everlasting knowledge as based on the combination of logic and sensitivity. Students who have approached the topic of poverty or racism emotionally while collaborating with their school mates in their collective dossiers, are more keen to comprehend the causes and consequences of their research objects when analyzed in class after 3 months. A maturation of mind related with the analysis of all previous 5 axes , combined with their notes and the composition of their personal notebook , help them to approach the total depth of the topic that they had probably approached in a more encyclopaedic way before. The way is open now to discuss ethical parameters of these problems

MATURATION PROCESS OF STUDENTS THROUGH LEARNING SOCIAL ISSUES

The problem of teaching classical and universal values to students has been a crucial and central problem through ages. Special lessons such as Religion emphasized on the ethical content and meaning of the values propagated. By these means religious instructors turn to moralists and the knowledge taught loses a part of its scientific strength. In the field of physical sciences and mathematics, all learning objects must be proved and defined by laws and rules. In social and political sciences, the observation must be neutral but intense and moral conclusions are not recommended for the simple reason that they disorientate objectivity. That was the lesson of Max Weber about understanding neutrality (verstehen)( note 1). This concept defines social sciences as those that are concerned with meaningful action and it consists of placing oneself in the position and conditions of other people to see what meaning they give to their actions, what their purposes are or what ends they believe are served by their actions. Weber emphasized on rational explanation putting apart sentimental qualities of the actor interpretation of action with CAUSAL EXPLANATION.

However, when in a school class , a tutor cannot avoid empathy
techniques to put pupils into the agents place. When discussing learning objects such as poverty or racism , the agents concerned are the poor and the non poor, the discriminated others and the discriminant racists. Our approach was a combination of the empathy type method with the Weberian causal explanation as a part of his verstehen theory , focusing mainly on causal explanation. An act such as a racist one can have causes and consequences and one can learn how to search them and to distinguish them too, since a confusion of causes and results occurs very often in many social paradigms. Thus, students can learn how to develop their own critical mind in the very search of causes and results without “betraying” the actors’ position.
What should they do in their place ? Should they have different motivation and values if compared with arrogant racists ? For sure, but just before condemning them morally, the verstehen theory of causal understanding can teach them to trace the meaningful action of these DIFFERENT OTHERS (even racist majorities can be different others).The explanation they can give to their acts in this level is that they have got different values and motivations, that can be themselves a particulate object of study. They can be put in their place only supposing and imagining that they should have exactly their values and motivation once they have described and understood what these issues are. Causes of human acts are not always rationally meaningful as Weber thought , many are emotionally motivated and thus rationally incomprehensible. However, they are important to be examined since they can create important social consequences on the overall society. Thus, the famous approach of coming to another person’s position can be achieved by non rational ways too, but once succeeded, the best method of analysis must be the rational one as proposed by Weber.

Studying the effects of many human actions ( atomic or collective) as that, on society , the next step that a teacher must do is to point out the pros and against these actions judged under the general societal interest. If poverty as a social phenomenon , influences in a negative way more and more human societies, if it can be moderated or in certain cases eliminated and yet some particular interests inhibit this trend, then the balance of values turns against the people who profit from the poverty of the others. The same analysis can be done for globalization, racism, drug , alcohol, and tobacco addiction, ecological catastrophes, criminality etc. In this stage , proposals can be shaped and students themselves after having studied the reasons and consequences of various social problems as mentioned above, can discover some solutions to resolve them by not moralizing in the style of : “we are right and the others are wrong”.

By these means the experience and knowledge acquired in the school-class can be adapted in the every-day life under the form of free opinion. Stochastic education or Agoge, has meaning if it tends to infuse to the students important aims ( stochoi) which they can keep in the next years too, evaluating them by their criteria as interesting. Interest means different in .Ancient and modern Greek and this difference combined with “fresh knowledge” compose all that a young person needs to proceed to future achievements.

To give an historical example ( that can easily been analysed in the classroom) Socrates was accused and condemned to death in his seventies for introducing in the City of Athens new and different knowledge ( kaina demonia ) characterized as “demonic” and thus dangerous for the social establishment. He accepted his unfair condemnation and did not escape from prison even if his students offered him this possibility. Democracy that condemned him, changed its aspect soon after his execution and glorified him, proving that a liberal system can make mistakes but that it can recognize them too and restore the reputation of its children. Should Socrates had escaped , his historical reputation should be much lower that proving that students must learn that injustice as result of misleading interpretation can characterize even the most liberal system of governance but that does not mean that citizens must take the law in their hands and transform Democracy into ochlocracy and anarchic chaos.

Using historical data of certain important persons of the past as the example described above, can facilitate and encourage students to understand these persons’ motivation and values by entering in their place ( using thought their own rational skills). Casual interpretation of large scale phenomena such as the passage of extended family type to the nuclear one risks always to generalize but in general lines can give satisfactory explanations on the reasons of the social changes. Sometimes social change is the cause and the result of various other social phenomena important to be distinguished and analyzed. Economic new division of labor, political less authoritative system encouraging participation , religious secularization, social implication of education expansion increasing rates of literacy to the whole of population, all these are possible causes of cultural shifts and these cultural shifts as a form of social change can produce in their turn a series of other social phenomena as consequences. For these reasons, the study of social and cultural shifts in the school-class are of major importance enabling the final maturation of students since the very temporal dimension of these shifts proves in social terms the old Heraclitus doctrine of ALL CHANGING DURING THE TIME. If biological maturation of humans is a pure temporal parameter, intellectual maturation succeeds and is integrated by the conception (rational + emotional) of the meaning of social change and its importance to our everyday life.

Knowledge transmitted in the school is the product of the socio-cultural background it entails. From the one hand, knowledge creates new cultural forms and from the other hand it is influenced itself by these forms in a dialectic relation of mutual dependence. The final aim of a true knowledge cannot be other than the discovery of the … truth but the problems start in the moment that most aesthetic forms carrying new cultural meanings have nothing to do with truth. The most of the influences coming to young peoples’mind are mainly of mass media origin and it derives from the aesthetic realm In the same time , formal learning at school consists into receiving a knowledge supposed to be a direct product of science and technology. It is hard from one hand to teach stereotyped formal knowledge according to a strict curriculum aiming to the demonstration of supposed eternal truths by following conservative methods of discipline and order in the school-class and from the other hand to receive daily a flood of information focusing on the commercial facilities of a homogenized society claiming for a simple common sense appropriate only to transform everybody to an ideal individual consumer an anonymous member of a monstrous mass society. Both teachers and students are victims of this ambiguity.

ON PEACE AND COSMOPOLITANISM AS CORNERSTONES OF AGOGE

Peace is a universal value per se. Since it is an opposing value to war- making and conflicts that could cost human lives, Peace is a moral value too. The crucial point to discover here is if this major moral value has the same validity and weight in all cultures of this World composing a Universal and diachronic Value or if its meaning depends of the interpretation given by each different cultural system. Our idea is that even in the nation-state institutions that cannot accept authority superior to their exact nation-state ( this being the definition par excellence of the Nationalism) there must be cultivated a “ Culture of Peace” through educational mechanisms as the only way of confronting the well known paradox of everybody wishing peace for security reasons, and in the same time everybody approving wars made for national interests. The classical phrase “ if you desire peace, prepare yourself for war” is exactly opposing to this conception of a systematic cultivation of a Peace Culture in the Youth in the school because it reveals the complete lack of trust to the activities of the “ unknown Other” ( in other terms your potential enemy exactly because Other, Different and Unknown). In the contrary a Culture of Peace to be learned and propagated in the educational praxis, presupposes the absolute trust to the other’s peaceful intention. The Other who can be your potential friend.

Such a Peace Culture can be the outcome of a free social knowledge as described above ( stochastic agoge ). Schoolboys and girls can approach this delicate hidden world of knowledge and truth only by discovering it by themselves after being sensitibilized to the World problems. They have to learn how to distinguish rationally their interests for learning and discovery from their other profit self-interests to avoid pronouncing ever in their future life the amoralistic answer of Athenians to Melians as recounted by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War : “ We have listened to you , and we understand you perfectly well, but we are going to massacre you anyway, because it is to our interest to do so”. In this case the famous Weberian Verstehen Principle proves to be impotent with all its rationality invested. For these reasons a more emotional approach of the rights of the Other is necessary. Values such as Patriotism supplying nationalistic interests are as the interests of Athenians against Melians. By encouraging the idea of autonomous nations-states or even Super Powers dominating the World by various ways, this sort of interests will never be surpassed. If the real source of patriotism and nationalism is ethnocentrism ( most of actual textbooks of History are still written and taught under its motto ) and if the quest of national identity under racial and political terms is the main purpose of all nationalism as such, then the only response to that traditional trend is the adopt of the classical answer of Diogenes the Cynic when asked where he came from: “ I AM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD” meaning by this that he refused to be defined by his local origins as Corinthian a definition so common to a self-image of a conventional Greek male citizen. The community that is most fundamentally the source of moral obligations is not any local or national community for his ideological succedors the Stoics, but the World or as put by Seneca: “ We measure the boundaries of our nation by the Sun”.

What such a cosmopolitan aspect might mean in the beginning of the third Millenium and the triumph of market globalization ? What students can retain from this issue once they have rationally understood the misleading tricks of commercialized globalization by the pretext of…liberation of the markets ? How can they surpass the xenophobic trends of an adult society that they are prescribed to inherit ? What examples from the past are the most adequate to illustrate by non encyclopaedic but rather by comprehensive method this cosmopolitanism that flourished once upon the remote time after Alexander’s conquests creating the so called Hellenistic World and the ruining of the classical City State system ?

Cosmopolitanism is to begin a moral conception and not an applied political term. It rejects the culture of aesthetization so much propagated by the commercialized goods and proposes the discovery of new moral codes concerning ways of living together of small or larger communities under a neutral administration. It is based on the Culture of Peace described as above. The very fact that the term of cosmopolitanism is rarely found in anthropological and sociological dictionaries but in political science ones ,proves the false interpretation that this old term has undergone in the western theoretical thought. More than explicative of standardized historical periods of the past, it can exercise its role in the present if we admit the stagnation of the “ neo-liberal” nation-state ( alongside with the various alliances to a Super Power” ) for the administration of our post-modern realities. The collapse of the socialist model and the useless various local conflicts for domination among opposing nationalisms lead optimist minds open only to this alternative perspective. Cosmopolitanism is not “a politics of difference system “ as called by many actual political scientists, because its strength comes mainly from cultural issues that compose its real essence and its “ raison d’etre”. Judging this issue etymologically, it cannot be utopic since it’s locus ( topos) is the whole World ( Cosmos). In this system an individual must learn first how to administrate and distribute the wealth of his/her home ( eco-nomy strictu sensu)( nomi=distribution/administration in its first sense in Greek before giving the paragogue of nomos=law) and second how to bring all the benefits of iso-nomy ( equal distribution) and human equality in his./her conscience ( eco-politan). After achieving these two important steps, a man or a woman can name him/herself a CITIZEN OF THE WORLD or cosmopolitan in a way that together with other similar they could create a system of COSMONOMY to replace the actual Economy. Instead of democratic administration a new cosmocratic ( Cosmos in the place of Demos)one can guarantee for a better worldwide distribution of goods with no competitions and conflicts resulting to wars.

Motivation for this sort of alternative teaching to the Youth can be produced only if teachers will be convinced that the dominant western model of development neglecting most of the human values in its essence and aiming only to the quantitative wealth, destroying in the same time most of the natural resources of this planet, is false and dangerous. Only when the blind power of the dominance of the stronger will cease to further develop itself and give its place to the Will of Giving , conflicts will end to Peace and mechanical alienated life will turn to real wisdom and global planetary knowledge.

The only original revolution of next Millennium will be accomplished in the realm of knowledge. To transform the World we need to transform the human mind and its ways of thinking. To search for the truth far from the misleading tricks , consists an ethical act per se as said by Plato ( every science distianciated from virtue is a ruse ). In the same time the social impact of such an act are crucial for the formation of young people’s identities followed by the expected maturity. “ To know thyself” has been the testament of Socrates to the Youth of every culture and tradition. Sophrosyne ( note 2) or the golden measure of wisdom is his last virtue after Justice, Bravery, Intellect and Beauty. This sophrosyne is reflected to another wise man’s testament who was Solon the first legislator of Athens. “ Getting old while continuing one’s learning experiences “. The synthesis of these two testaments’ message compose the secret of the knowledge meaning as spelled by Plato : “ How to become yourself by understanding yourself through the process of learning yourself”.(genei oios essei mathon).

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NOTES
1/

In the question if there exist ecumenical values or if all values are relative the answers of pupils can be classified into three categories :

a/ Positive responses ( 47,22%)Some say that they exist but not having the same signification. Some other mention examples of such values as love, friendship , freedom , education, peace, humanism, nationality. Some say that universal human values are few and the rest are relative to the particularities of the cultural system. One student mentions that these values are transmitted by generations.

b/. 38,8% of the students respond in a negative way insisting that most of values are relative. The argumentation is various. Some say that the reason is that cultures in eternal interrelation get cultural elements from each other, other mention even the side effects such as ethnocentrism for instance. One student says that if all elements were similar there should not be any culture at all.

c/ The smaller category is that of few students trying to combine both sides (14%) Here, the effort is more difficult. One says that in a diplomatic way that every culture is judged by its means. Another insists that there exist ecumenical values but they are differentiated .relatively to the personal values of each member of a given society. Another gives an analogous but less moral interpretation arguing that habitudes and rituals are differentiating in the everyday life our values.

The problem of validation of various students responses in the final written exam of the season, poses some crucial questions : 1/ Under what axiological criteria the teacher must validate the answers 2/ The point is on the techniques of argumentation used by students to support their opinion, or in the absolute Truth and it’s approach while answering ? Is there any knowledge close to the absolute Truth ?
3/ Knowledge needed to support a free opinion can be validated as such or does it need a causal explanation interpretation ? Students giving meaning to their responses while trying to enter in the other’s position are keen to generalize in their conclusions but the consequence of the Verstehen method and correlations following meaningful comprehension , usually ends to the well known difficulty to combine these two methods.

2. SOPHROSYNESoundness of mind, moderation, prudence, self-control.The Greeks had a word for it, at least classical Greeks like Plato did. Translating the idea into English, however, has always posed a difficulty, since we don't have one word that summarises his ideal of excellence of character and soundness of mind combined in one well-balanced individual. He defined it as "the agreement of the passions that Reason should rule". It's usually translated as temperance, moderation, prudence, self-control, or self-restraint. The idea of this harmonious balance is the basis of two famous Greek sayings: "nothing in excess" and "know thyself" - it's the exact opposite of arrogant self-assertion or hubris. The word has only appeared in English within the past sixty years (W H Auden used it in 1944) but it has resonated with some moderns because the idea is quite close to that of wholeness. Note the word has four syllables, not three. It derives from Greek sophron, of sound mind, prudent.

3. Ancient Athens was so brilliant, their art work, political theory, and philosophy still set the standards, but along with their glory was their mistreatment of large groups of people who were relegated not just to second class, but to no class of citizen. The largest of these groups was women, whom, we are taught, the men in power feared, if not despised. The impression of Athenian misogyny is based on literature and mythology, from Hesiod to Aristotle. But what about the women? Were they misogynists, too? Were they misandrists? Neither? In Ancient Greek Love Magic, Christopher A. Faraone looks at evidence from erotic charms, spells and potions to form a mixed picture of what relations between the sexes were really like.
In Ancient Greece, the men appear to have had contempt for and fear of their women because of the women's supposedly unquenchable lust. Semonides captures this in his caricatures of women as descendants of such animals as dogs, donkeys, pigs, and weasels. But if women were truly so rapacious and men so disinterested, what would Lysistrata’s sex strike have accomplished? And how did Faraone compile more than 70 spells by men to make women lustful?
Faraone says the Ancient Greek world had misogynists and misandrists side-by-side. In the misandrist model, it’s the men who are out of control, violent, and cruel, while the women are controlled, sedate, and reluctant to have intercourse. Most of the spells Faraone examines relate more to the misandrist than the misogynist outlook.
There are two basis categories of spells, agoge and philia. Agoge spells are used by those in socially superior positions who wish to attract their social inferiors and lead them away from their families. The type of love involved is eros, rather than agape or philia (love for friends and family). Eros is described as “ballistic,” in a literal and figurative sense: literally, the god Eros shoots lust arrows or men throw charmed love apples at their victims; figuratively, in that women are supposed to be driven mad with lust. Philia spells, usually used by social inferiors are intended to keep mates interested, to rekindle affection, and to make the socially superior more loving. Generally, the spells fall along gender lines, with most of the philia spells performed by women on men. Of 80 surviving agoge spells, only seven were used by women to attract men.
The traditional misogynist model looks upon women as locked inside the women’s quarter, yet the spells aimed at getting women out of the house and into the bed of the would-be lover, have no effect on the women’s guardians. If sufficiently motivated, the lusted-after woman would simply walk out on her own. Faraone suggests women had free egress from their homes. That they stayed with their parents means they wished to. The agoge spells were designed to break down this filial attachment.
Agoge spells sometimes used effigies of the victim. The man would burn these pin-studded dolls while he asked the appropriate deity (mostly, Pan, Eros, Hekate, and Aphrodite) to make the victim burn with enough passion to reject her parents and join him. Sometimes a determined would-be lover procured a iunx bird. This small, supposedly sexually rapacious bird would be affixed to an instrument of torture (a wheel) where, with the right incantations, it would transfer it's sexuality to the human victim. One instance of a iunx spell comes from Theocritus Idyll II where it’s a woman who calls on the iunx to bring her man to her home.
Philia spells, whose goal wasn’t to wrench someone away from home and loved ones, but to temper or restore kindly feelings, tended to be more benign, using potions and ointments rather than effigies. Still, a potion made too strong would have more deleterious effects than a vicarious burning spell. Perhaps the most well known philia spell to backfire was the ointment Deianeira spread on Heracles’ garment when she was trying to win back the affection she saw drifting away from her and to a new woman (Iole).