style="font-size:15px;"> The educational process as here conceived is guided by this ironic likelihood: That man can be content with nothing less than perfection, and that a typically symbol-using species will conceive of perfection in a way that is essentially symbolic, somewhat as “angels” are sheer “message.” Our study of poetic ritual, for instance, would be guided by this notion. And some of Santayana’s ingenious conceits, concerning the aspirations of the spirit to so transcend material conditions that the mind dissolves into the realm of pure being, would be interpreted by us linguistically as the ultimate human hankering for a condition so thoroughly in keeping with man’s differentia that his generic animality would be transformed into a perfect symbol-system. A visible burlesque of such transcendence is seen in the Cyberneticists’ dream of reducing all mental operations to their counterparts in the order of pure motion. And we all know of journalistic critics who read books so fast and write on them so quickly, their minds are hardly more than a telephone exchange where messages automatically converge and are automatically rerouted.
But here again, we come to the point at which, having stated our absolute position, we can settle for much less, as regards the processes of our study. We need but look for the respects wherein the sociolinguistic dimension is observable in all our actions, whereat these actions become symbolic of the principles infusing both a given social order and social order generally. This sociolinguistic nexus is headed in the principle of negativity, the astounding linguistic genius of no, which merges so perfectly with the conscientious thou-shalt-not’s of property.
Thus, in accordance with this view, whereas we would divide the curriculum in ways that allow for the traditional autonomy of the various disciplines, we would so conduct our investigations that we might glimpse, brooding over the lot, a lore of the universal pageantry in which all men necessarily and somewhat somnambulistically take part, by reason of their symbol-using natures.4
School and Society: Social Philosophy
Imagine an educational ladder of this sort:
On the lowest rung would be the training of students in accordance with immediate local purposes, a mode of “indoctrination” designed to assert a narrowly partisan point of view in subjects of a “controversial” nature, and to deflect attention from any social philosophy at all in subjects of a “free” nature, such as “pure” literature.
The kind of education on the next higher rung would be just as narrowly partisan in its aims but more prudent in its ways of working toward such aims. It would be wider in its range so that the student would also know something of other views, because such knowledge would better equip him to combat them. Looking upon all enemies, or even opponents, as instruments of the devil, it would nonetheless seek to give the devil his dues, not because we owe the devil anything, but because we owe it to ourselves to know his powers.
Next above the second rung would be a more “humanitarian” view of alien ways. Holding that people generally have great moral virtues, it would, like the ethnologist, anthropologist, or sociologist, seek to describe and “appreciate” other groups, in all their varied habits, strengths, and shortcomings, not for partisan purposes, but purely in accordance with ideals of “truth” or “scientific accuracy.” Although its findings would have been made in an impartial spirit, they could also be applied to narrower ends. In this respect, the third rung would be but the highest region of the second rung. Otherwise. it would be on a new level, having passed a “critical point.”
A fourth rung would be involved in a much more complicated set of maneuvers. Here, the kind of material assembled in investigations on the third rung would be treated as voices in a dialogue. One would try to decide how many positions one thinks are important enough to be represented by “voices,” and then one would do all in one’s pourer to let each voice state its position as ably as possible. No voice deemed relevant to the particular issue or controversy would be subjected to the quietus, and none would be inadequately represented (as were one to portray it by stating only its more vulnerable arguments). But although one would be as fair as possible in thus helping all positions to say their say, a mere cult of “fair play” would not be the reason. Rather, one hopes for ways whereby the various voices, in mutually correcting one another, will lead toward a position better than any one singly. That is, one does not merely want to outwit the opponent, or to study him, one wants to be affected by him, in some degree to incorporate him, to so act that his ways can help perfect one’s own—in brief, to learn from him.
This fourth principle of education is the most mature of the lot, and the one that would surely be aimed at, in an ideal world of civilized and sophisticated people. But for that very reason, it is very difficult to maintain, except in glimpses and at happy moments. What actually happens in education is that, to varying degrees, all four of these emphases fluctuantly prevail. And if each were signalized by a different light that came on when it happened to be the dominant educational motive in the classroom and went off, to be replaced by the glow of whatever light signalized the motive that next took over, doubtless during a typical session the four would be flashing on and off continually. And though the one signalizing the fourth rung would certainly wear out last, it would have its moments, too.
Though a linguistic approach to education could somewhat fit the needs of all four emphases (naturally being most cramped when used for rung one, which might be called the “Us über Alles” rung), it is not quite identical with any of them. Nor could we arrogate to it a rung still higher than the fourth. Rather, there is a sense in which, as we said regarding “free” subjects taught in the lowest rung, it would in principle deflect attention from any social philosophy. For social philosophies are partisan philosophies, and the study of man as symbol-using animal would deal with universal traits of the symbol-using species. (We shall later discuss reasons why such a principle cannot in all purity prevail.)
Thus, whether confronting a “conservative” philosophy or a progressive” one, we should set out dramatistically to analyze the structure of its statements, considered as symbolic acts. We’d ask what terministic devices are used here, how they combine, etc.
In this sense, a linguistic point of view would be not so much a step “up” or “down” as a step to one side. It offers a technique for stopping to analyze an exhortation precisely at the moment when the exhortation would otherwise set us to swinging violently. It confronts a practical use of language for rhetorical effect by a theoretical study of such usage.
A linguistic approach to human relations would probably be happiest with democracy, of all political systems, since democracy comes nearest to being the institutionalized equivalent of dialectical processes (with such hopes of maturing an opinion as we discussed in connection with the ideal dialogue of education at rung four). But Plato, greatest master of the dialogue form, has warned us that democracy is liable to degenerate into tyranny, owing to an unmanageable excess of liberty. And in practice, democratic states move toward a condition of partial tyranny to the extent that the channels of expression are not equally available to all factions in important public issues. Thus we see democracy being threatened by the rise of the enormous “policy-making” mass media that exert great rhetorical pressure upon their readers without at the same time teaching how to discount such devices; and nothing less than very thorough training in the discounting of rhetorical persuasiveness can make a citizenry truly free, so far as linguistic tests are concerned. But we can say that ideal democracy does allow all voices to participate in the dialogue of the state, and such ideal democracy is the nearest possible institutional equivalent to the linguistic ideal.
As for the question whether schools should be leaders or followers of social change, the linguistic approach confronts us with some paradoxes, which are due in part to the fact that the labels on social philosophies can rarely be accurate. For one can never be quite sure how a doctrine will perform, once it enters into combination with many other factors in life that are beyond its control, and even beyond its ken. We can always expect “unintended byproducts.” Think how many determined Marxists have
