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Liberal States, Authoritarian Families - Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Hardcover)
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Liberal States, Authoritarian Families - Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Hardcover)
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Children have posed a longstanding dilemma for liberalism. The
authority of adults over children has always been difficult to
square with liberalism's foundationally anti-authoritarian
premises. But since liberal regimes rely heavily on education,
finding a way to square adult authority with children's natural
liberty is essential. The logic behind anti-authority childrearing
and educational advice is that of congruence; to form good citizens
of a liberal democracy, families and schools should resemble
miniature, protected democracies so that children can practice
liberty and equality in a low-risk environment. This kind of
congruence between family and state has very old philosophical
roots, surfacing first in ancient Greek and Christian thought and
re-emerging in its modern form in the seventeenth century. In
Liberal States, Authoritarian Families, Rita Koganzon rejects this
impulse, demonstrating that it rests on misunderstanding and
neglect of the arguments of early liberals-specifically John Locke
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau-about what kind of upbringing and
education liberal regimes require. Koganzon shows that not only did
early liberals emphatically deny the possibility of congruence
between pedagogical and political authority, but they
counterintuitively demanded that parents and teachers exercise
extensive personal authority over children, while denying the
legitimacy of such authority over adults in politics. While
contemporary theorists argue that the family should be democratized
to reflect the egalitarian ideals of the liberal state, this book
argues that the desire for "congruence" between familial and state
authority was originally illiberal in origin, advanced by theorists
of absolute sovereignty like Bodin and Hobbes. Early liberals
opposed modelling the family on the state, even on a democratic,
egalitarian state, because they viewed the "authoritarian" family
as a necessary educational buttress for children against the new
fashionable forms of social tyranny that liberal, commercial states
would develop. Unlike the old authorities, these forces might leave
our bodies and properties alone, but they would subtly and
forcefully shape our understandings, subjecting us to a new tyranny
of public opinion. Koganzon finds that the educational writings of
early liberals reveal an important corrective insight for modern
liberalism: authority is not the enemy of liberty, but a necessary
prerequisite for it.
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