Bonjour à tous ! :-) Je suis en train de lire "Education and the significance of life" de Krishnamurti, et j’ai trouvé plusieurs passages très intéressants et inspirants... alors j’en retranscris ici quelques-uns ! :-) c’est surtout axé sur l’éducation, mais c’est une réflexion très générale sur le sujet... les derniers points par exemple, sont très intéressants vis-à-vis de l’approche de la "carotte et le bâton" que David exprime dans sa réponse à l’article de Sylvie... je n’ai toujours pas participé au forum attaché à cet article car j’ai l’impression avoir beaucoup de points à apporter à ce sujet, mais ces extraits de Krishnamurti apportent quelques parcelles de réflexions à ce sujet... bonne lecture et réflexion !

"(...) Ideals and blue-prints for a perfect Utopia will never bring about the radical change of heart which is essential if there is to be an end to war and universal destruction. Ideals cannot change our present values : they can be changed only by the right kind of education, which is to foster the understanding of what is.

When we are working together for an ideal, for the future, we shape individuals according to our conception of that future ; we are not concerned with human beings at all, but with our idea of what they should be. The what should be becomes far more important to us than what is, namely, the individual with his complexities. If we begin to understand the individual directly instead of looking at him through the screen of what we think he should be, then we are concerned with what is. Then we no longer want to transform the individual into something else ; our only concern is to help him to understand himself, and in this there is no personal motive or gain. If we are fully aware of what is, we shall understand it and so be free of it ; but to be aware of what we are, we must stop struggling after something which we are not.

Ideals have no place in education for they prevent the comprehension of the present. Surely, we can be aware of what is only when we do not escape in the future. To look to the future, to strain after an ideal, indicates sluggishness of mind and a desire to avoid the present.

Is not the pursuit of a ready-made Utopia a denial of the freedom and integration of the individual ? When one follows an ideal, a pattern, when one has a formula for what should be, does one not live a very superficial, autonomatic life ? We need, not idealists or entities with mechanical minds, but integrated human beings who are intelligent and free. Merely to have a design for a perfect society is to wrangle and shed blood for what should be while ignoring what is.

If human beings were mechancial entities, automatic machines, then the future would be predictable and the plans for a perfect Utopia could be drawn up ; then we would be able to plan carefully a future society and work towards it. But human beings are not machines to be established according to a definite pattern.

Between now and the future there is an immense gap in which many influences are at work upon each one of us, and in sacrificing the present for the future we are pursuing wrong means to a probable right end. But the means determine the end ; and besides, who are we to decide what man should be ? By what right do we seek to mould him according to a particular pattern, learnt from some book or determined by our own ambitions, hope and fears ?

The right kind of education is not concerned with any ideology, however much it may promise a future Utopia : it is not based on any system, however carefully thought out ; nor is it a means of conditioning the individual in some special manner. Education in the true sense is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern. (...)"

"(...) Only love can bring about the understanding of another. Where there is love there is instantaneous communion with the other, on the same levelt and at the same time. It is because we ourselves are so dry, empty and without love that we have allowed governments and systems to take over the education of our children and the direction of our lives ; but governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments - and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.

Life cannot be made to conform to a system, it cannot be forced into a framework, however nobly conceived ; and a mind that has merely been trained in factual knowledge is incapable of meeting life with its variety, its subtlety, its depths and great heights. When we train our children according to a systme of thought or a particular discipline, when we teach them to think within departmental divisions, we prevent them from growing into integrated men and women, and therefore they are incapable of thinking intelligently, which is to meet life as a whole. (...)"

"(...) Why are we so sure that neither we nor the coming generation, through the right kind of education, can bring about a fundamental alteration in human relationship ? We have never tried it ; and as most of us seem to be fearful of the right kind of education, we are disinclined to try it. Without really inquiring into this whole question, we assert that human nature cannot be changed, we accept things as they are and encourage the child to fit into the present society ; we condition him to our present ways of life, and hope for the best. But can such conformity to present values, which lead to war and starvation, be considered education ? (...)"

"(...) To condition the student to accept the present environment is quite obviously stupid. Unless we voluntarily bring about a radical change in education, we are directly responsible for the perpetuation of chaos and misery ; and when some monstrous and brutal revolution finally comes, it will only give opportunity to another group of people to exploit and to be ruthless. Each group in power develops its own means of oppression, whether through psychological persuasion or brute force.

For political and industrial reasons, discipline has become an important factor in the present social structure, and it is because of our desire to be psychologically secure that we accept and practise various forms of discipline. Discipline guarantees a result, and to us the end is more important than the means ; but the means determine the end.

One of the dangers of discipline is that the system becomes more important than the human beings who are enclosed in it. Discipline then becomes a substitute for love, and it is because our hearts are empty that we cling to discipline. Freedom can never come through discipline, through resistance ; freedom is not a goal, an end to be achieved. Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end, it is not to be found in some distant ideal. (...)"

"(...) Sensitivity can never be awakened through compulsion. One may compel a child to be outwardly quiet, but one has not come face to face with that which is making him obstinate, impudent, and so on. Compulsion breeds antagonism and fear. Reward and punishment in any form only make the mind subservient and dull ; and if this is what we desire, then education through compulsion is an excellent way to proceed. (...)"