The following extract from Grundtvig’s writings- as quoted in – The Land of the Living – by Steven M. Borish expresses Grundtvig’s vision of the folk school
” Now I have my eye on something that unfortunately would be completely new among us, namely an institution of Enlightenment, where the People could gradually wake to self-awareness, and where the leaders would learn just as much from the youth as the youth from them, a kind of living Vekselvirkning and mutual instruction, through which a bridge could be laid over the yawning abyss that hierarchy, aristocracy, Latineri and social ambition have built for the people on the one side, and its leaders and teachers, with a handful of so-called educated and enlightened ones on the other side, this yawning abyss, which if it is not bridged, then all of our middle class society and all possibilities for peaceful, historic progressive development must soon fall into its precipice.”
Thus bridging the yawning abyss between those who usually are engaged in exercise of power and the ordinary folk, was not a mere educational exercise but a way of making a new discourse of power possible. This was and remains a radical idea, even in the Western democracies, and one that gives Danish democracy a unique character.
In the democratic models of the United States of America and Britain, the political discourse takes place mainly through the political parties. What this implies is that people with more or less similar backgrounds will debate the vital issues that affects the nation, hopefully from different points of view. People at large watch the debate and support the particular party that they think represents their interests. However, in effect those who conduct the debate are those who have come to be considered the political intelligentsia.
This model is the one that was followed by the Marxist parties too, but with a greater emphasis in fact on the role of the Party, which meant the Party bureaucracy was to lead the masses whose spontaneous reaction needed to be guided by the wisdom of the Party. Political parties remain the main instrument of political and social discourse, though within a Marxist state there is generally only one party. In recent times the one-party-state has attracted many new admirers. Several of the Asian countries are one-party states, for all practical purposes.
Constructed Consensus and Creative Consensus
The formal democratic process tends to create a situation where an appearance of debate and discussion is maintained, while in reality among the people there is no real exchange of views. The parties and media construct this debate; People are onlookers and mere recipients of the arguments. The ordinary people have no opportunity to make or put forward their own arguments. The concept of the Folk School was based on the idea that it was a place where people discovered their own voice and were provided with an opportunity to participate creatively in the debates of their society. Where public opinion is manipulated, it is only natural that the more powerful sectors of society would manipulate it. The concept of Folk School was to strengthen the voice of ordinary people.
Grundtvig envisaged a living dialogue taking place among people all the time, which would determine the content of social and political discourses that take place in a society through political parties, religious groups, and other organized groups. For this living dialogue to take place, no organized form was required. It was to happen but naturally and spontaneously through a mutual learning process by friends and equals and not between antagonists. This system of discourse was not adversarial, nor primarily political. Thus this discourse in no way was a substitute for party political discourse. However, this “new school discourse,” had far more deep and ultimate character than political parties. It had an ultimate character because it implied constant discussion of ethical and moral issues facing the people. Ordinary people’s discussions always bring ethical and moral aspects.
This introduced many new possibilities to the social and political discourse of the nation. The political party debate was governed by considerations of elections and the sensitivities of the electorates. For example a political party or all the political parties at a given time may refuse to take up the issues of a minority, as many United States leaders did in regard to the issue of slavery and black people’s rights, until recent decades. To do otherwise may be considered electorally suicidal.
However, the social and political discourse taking place in the environment created by the Folk School does not have such an impediment. In fact moral responsibility would demand that debate on sensitive issues be kept alive. Besides, such discussions can create far greater possibilities for solving problems by way of Sanghatan and co-operation, to use the phrase from Ambedkar, without depending entirely on the state budget or on bureaucratic red tape. In short, besides increasing sensitivity the Folk School approach can also increase social initiatives.
Thus the Folk School practice when continued for some time has the potential for creating greater social and political sensibilities. Perhaps, this was what in fact happened in Denmark. Writers like Steven M. Borish, have commented on some unique features of Danish society, as, for example, its ability to avoid major social confrontations and violence, the high degree of tolerance even on very sensitive issues like divorce and separation, and women’s freedoms. Even on issues like development aid, Danish society seems to have greater understanding of the issues as compared with some of the more powerful countries. In the international debates on human rights, Denmark has shown a greater sensitivity than some the larger and more powerful countries. Thus history seems to have proved Grundtvig’s vision correct. If there are some doubts about the present direction of Denmark on some issues, such as globalisation, it is perhaps worthwhile for concerned Danes to examine whether a greater impetus needs to be created to revive the people’s voice and take an interest in Grundtvig’s original dynamic ideas.
Stevan M. Borish points to five major ideas of Grundtvig, which have influenced the Folk School movement.
1.Living Word
“The first tenet of [N.F.S.] Grundtvig’s new enlightenment can be summarised in the expression “the living word” (det levende ord). Down through all the ages of history, it was the words that men actually spoke, the words that came from their lips, that had revealed and constituted the essence of their being. Without this spoken word, there could be no life. He saw himself as having been a “book worshipper” in the past, as having lived too much of his life inside the yellowing and withered pages of a book. Yet books had to be regarded now as secondary. His new revelation demanded an emergence from the frozen darkness of print into the bright sun of the living word. This new doctrine for schooling and education would have profound implications.”
2. Enlightenment of Life
“Another critical tenet of Grundtvig’s new faith was the idea of Enlightenment for Life (livsoplysning). What he meant by this was that an understanding of the real and deepest truths that constitute Enlightenment never comes from rote study of classroom texts. One can learn the facts and theories of received tradition in the classroom, and these might prove useful, but they can be no substitute for Life’s Enlightenment, which can only be taught by life itself. Herein lies a paradox for educators: it is and must be the deepest task of our lives to acquire this Enlightenment for Life, for only through its realisation will we be able to distinguish light from darkness, truth from lies and the cause of death from that of life. Yet this liberating insight is something that no schoolroom lesson will ever teach us.”
3. People’s Enlightenment
“A third and related concept is that of the People’s Enlightenment (folkeoplysning). Due to the depth of Grundtvig’s commitment to all things Danish, it is easy to see why some foreign authors have mistakenly labeled his views as chauvinistic. Yet his lifelong work as a universal historian, which culminated in an immense three-volume treatise on the history of mankind, was not written from the point of view of a narrow nationalism. He was convinced that each people, each tribe, each nation on earth had a valuable role to play in the unfolding of world history. This unfolding was taking place in its own time and its own way in accordance with God’s plan of creation. Grundtvig had a high degree of respect and admiration for the other cultural traditions of the world and never looked down on them. There is love for Denmark in his writings, but nothing at all about Danish superiority to the other peoples of the globe. Nor is there a belief that all grassroots movements were necessarily good or right (a naive position that has been attributed to him by several foreign observers).
“There is thus a dual thrust to his concept of folkeoplysning. On the one hand, it argues that all humans everywhere are born into a particular folkelig and historical context, and it is within this framework that their own personal drama of Enlightenment must be played out. Hanne Severinsen writes that ‘for Grundtvig it was a fundamental condition of human life, that it unfolds itself in a definite people, who have their own character created through history.’ On the other hand, it suggests that there is a collective as well as an individual aspect to the experience of Enlightenment, and that it must be the goal of a society to create, through wise and farsighted policies, the conditions that will facilitate folkeoplysning, the People’s Enlightenment.”
4. How to Create preconditions for enlightenment – The Balance
“A fourth of Grundtvig’s key ideas, the notion of vekselvirkning, speaks to the question of how to create the preconditions for this enlightenment within society. After a good deal of thought, I would suggest the following translation: ‘a balance between two things that remain different, but that should fertilise each other in their differentness.’ Grundtvig was only too aware of the tendency for both the people within a society and the different social institutions to attempt to dominate and control each other. Between State and army, church and State, State and school, each is always attempting to take over the other and create a situation where the power flows in only one direction. The same can often be observed in the classroom, where the teacher attempts to dominate the students in order to fill them with his or her knowledge and views.
“Grundtvig was opposed to domination in a way that stands outside of the European emancipation tradition, with its emphasis on liberal individualism. Influenced in particular by his reading of the French Revolution, he was on guard against the idea that the way to obtain freedom is to dissolve the power structure. What you will get, he says, is most often another form of power that is worse than the one just replaced. He wanted to substitute for violent revolution a peaceful transformation of all elements in society based on a mutual recognition that all had the right to exist. Yet his views on vekselvirkning went further than the mere tolerance of diversity. He was really insisting upon a mutual recognition that each institution, each power centre and indeed each individual could both teach and learn in a dialogue predicated on mutual respect. Furthermore, such dialogue [ 21] would create in the long run a society with widened social and individual perspectives, constituting the type of fertile soil in which the experience of enlightenment could best grow.”
5. Ordinary People – Source of Enlightenment
“A fifth central concept is Grundtvig’s unswerving belief in the wisdom of the ordinary people over and above the educated and the elite (folket overfor de dannede). It was the ordinary people, and not those he contemptuously referred to as “the learned ones” (de lorde), who would be the source of enlightenment, if only they were given a chance. The theme is one that permeates his writings. An excellent statement of it can be found in 1871 when, at the age of 88, he would react to the first violent conflict between labour and capital in Danish society by warning against overvaluing the physical work at the expense of the spiritual work – and the reverse. The two views give rise to a danger, which can only be prevented by a People’s Enlightenment, which in contrast to the Academic arises from the People itself [italics added].”
[21] On the issue of dialogue, Dr.K.E. Bugge states, ” Dialogue can very well be a static concept in so far as it does not entail any suggestion as it does not entail any suggestion as to what goes before or what comes after the dialogue. The mutuality of the dialogue in itself is often considered to be prime importance.
Dialectics, on the other hand, is a concept involving not only the present, but also past and future in a perspective of development. Dialectics, however, is essentially a logical concept. Applied to human life, every logic-and also dialectical logic-sometime offers excellent interpretations, and sometimes it does not. And if not, then so much the worse for the facts of human life, which must then be shaped and reconstructed in order to fit the Logic! In such instances, logic can easily turn out to be tyrannical with respect to life. On the basis of historical way of thinking, Grundtvig offers another, third, solution. Educational interaction is according to Grundtvig a way in which human beings gradually gain more and more insight into the meaning of life. In this connection he speaks about education contributing to ” the clarification of human life”. Grundtvig’s concept of interaction, therefore offers a challenge, a critical note, to our concepts of dialogue and dialectics. Being embedded in an overall historical perspective, which reaches from the beginning of time to the end of the world, Grundtvig’s concept of educational interaction adds a development perspective to the logic of dialectics. That being so, Grundtvig’s ideas of interaction in education are very relevant to our education debate today.” Heritage and Prophecy-Grundtvig and the English speaking World. Ed. By A.M.Allchin, D .Jasper, J.H. Schjorring and K. Stevenson [back to text]
