Political Education for a Polity of Dissensus

Abstract

The aim of this article is to state a case for Karl Mannheim as an interlocutor no less important than Michael Oakeshott for an inquiry into the manner and purpose of teaching politics. Beginning with Max Weber, I develop an account of Karl Mannheim as a prime contender for Weber's legacy in political education, along with two contemporaries, Albert Salomon and Hans Freyer, whose contrasting appropriations of the legacy will highlight important elements that distinguish Mannheim's approach from the stereotype into which Oakeshott would be inclined to cast it. This treatment will offer an understanding of the issues in political education that will give ample reason to give preference to Mannheim's reading of the contrast between himself and Oakeshott and substantial support for the conclusions he derives for the design and point of political education. Mannheim's surprisingly modest conclusions are closer to the `scepticism' with which Oakeshott credited himself in his inaugural lecture, as he ironically apologized for the contrast with his predecessors, than to the rather shallow prophetic convictions of Graham Wallas and Harold Laski, which Oakeshott attacks. Unlike Oakeshott, however, he recognizes not only the urgencies of a conflict where tradition is only one of the parties but also the justice of impatient contenders against an order that persistently does them harm. The need is not to take up a conversation, but to cultivate a `platform' for negotiated settlements; and this political task is the educational work of intellectuals, who must nevertheless never presume to rule.