Humanism and Humanistic Education in the Eighties: The Lessons of Two Decades

Abstract

The decades of the sixties, seventies, and eighties are analyzed as representing the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of the humanistic dialectic. The sixties represented the decade of independence, affluence, hedonism, dissent, tolerance and non-interference, permissiveness, self-expression, self-actualization, and individualism. The seventies epitomized the advent of dependence, scarcity, anxiety, competitiveness, Puritanism, patriotism, hierarchy, cognition, productive efficiency, and obedience. The lesson of the sixties and seventies is that humanism and humanistic education in the eighties must help us to move from the idea of the isolated self to that of the social, independent, synergetic self. The skills, knowledge, and attitudes of collaboration, mutual creativity, conflict resolution, communication, political sensitivity, and organizational competence will have to become paramount if humanism, humanistic education, and human beings are to flourish in the last decades of the twentieth century.