Hannah Arendt
THE CRISIS IN EDUCATlON *
I am not a professional educator and so I shall be speak–
ing to you on a subject about which, in the specialist's sense, I know
nothing. What interests me in the question of education is the fact
that, in America at least, it has become a political problem of the
first magnitude, reported on almost daily in the newspapers. I shall
therefore be speaking from a background of experience that in many
respects is sure to be unfamiliar to you; it is not my intention to go
into it in detail. I can count on your being aware of one thing, how–
ever- the fact of the crisis itself. For the crisis in education, which
as it happens can
be
best observed in America, is really just one
aspect of the general crisis that has overtaken the modern world
everywhere and in almost every sphere of life. Naturally this crisis
manifests itself differently in each country, involving different areas
and taking on different forms. There is always a temptation to be–
lieve that we are dealing with a specific problem confined within his–
torical and national boundaries and of importance only to those im–
mediately affected.
It
is precisely this belief that in our time has
consistently proved false. One can take it as a general rule in this
century that whatever is possible and true in one country may in the
foreseeable future be equally possible and true in almost any other.
Aside from these obvious reasons that would make it seem ad–
visable for modern man to keep the thank-God-that's-not-how-we-are
to a minimum, there is another less obvious but not less cogent reason
for his concerning himself with a critical situation in which he is not
immediately involved. And that is the opportunity, provided by the
*
A lecture delivered at Bremen, May 13, 1958.
