Understanding Westen Learning Society

Based on the theory, idea and method of Jarvis, the master of western andragogy, this study tries to unscramble the original text (original literature, writing, etc) of western learning society by applying the research approach of understanding and following the principle of combining text and history together. With the approach of combining value concern and rational appeal, logical discussion and history quest, text understanding and practice reflection, forward and backward, the author sketches the thumbnail of western learning society:the background (globalization) and the history (rising, fade, and return); two dimensions (utopia and dystopia); three perspectives (politics, ethics and pedagogy), and derives the revelation about construction of learning society in China from the thumbnail.Background. Basically, western scholars regard that globalization is the social characteristic of late modernity or post-modernity. Nevertheless, its feature of market fundamentalism has not changed. And the consumption culture cultivated by it has become the mainstream culture, which requests everyone kept learning to adapt to the rapid social change and creates the practical learning society.History. Generally, learning society appeared on the western stage as a kind of social practice in1972, as the UNESCO issued the "Faure Report". The report, inheriting the utopianism of early lifelong education writers, not only advocated taking learning as the center of social activities, but also claimed that study is the purpose of human. However, in the eighty’s, with the spread of world economic depression, the ideal of "upbringing society" was no longer attractive and lost the support of the UNESCO. Meanwhile, people focused their attention on the human capital theory and the concept of lifelong learning advocated by the OECD prevailed. However, in the ninety’s, the rapid development of economy couldn’t eliminate the contradictions of capitalism, instead, the contradictions became more sharp and complicated. Therefore, in1996, such sentences appeared on the preface of the "Delors Report" issued by the UNESCO:Education:The Necessary Utopia, which should focus on the personal and social development and rich people through study. So far, the learning society was return. But it is worth noting that, the learning society practice in this period is quite different from the first stage, and social development issues like "employment, tolerance, democracy and self development" are included in it.Utopian dimension. The idea proposed by Hutchins in "The Learning Society","In a society changed by culture, economic purpose is no longer the primary purpose. Thus, the value of education changed, from for "national security or economic and technological growth" to for "bringing all its members to the fullest development of their highest powers", has become the highest value of learning society. Apparently, this value contains the idea of utopia, which is enhanced in the works of subsequent theorists. The theory of Ranson, Welton and Jarvis all contains the characteristics of utopia. Actually, it is also the basic characteristics of western civilization or human civilization, as British dramatist, poet and essayist Wilde said:"A world map without utopian is worthless."Dystopian dimension. Dystopian dimension is the groundwork of this study; it is the reflection of utopian dimension, derived from which is the enlightenment for construction of learning society in China. According to Foucault, western learning society is nothing but a kind of regulatory tool which has many paradoxes. Historical review by Fejes reveals that lifelong learning not only includes what can be tolerated, but also excludes what can be repelled. Thus, Foucault proposed a new liberation-"Transgression", by the method of "Eventualization", accomplish complicated and diversified understanding on events, factors, relationships and related fields. It never consider learning society as a self-ruled social formation which free learning from state, organization, teacher’s dominant, economic impact and power, but as something significant which can free people from their study.Politics perspective. Although the notion of learning society begins with the idea of educators, its meaning has gone far beyond the education category, and become a common entity of social ideal and democracy. As Freire said:education is always political. For sure, in many industrialized countries, learning society is launched because the political department is under the pressure of globalization infrastructure. Democracy,"as a kind of regime organizational form", has the highest value basis of moral obligation that the nation is responsible for people’s welfare. It is indicated in the "Faure Report" that:we must support democracy fully, because it is the only way to avoid human becoming the slave of machine as well as the only condition for human to get intellectual achievements in accordance with dignity.Ethics perspective. The opposite and unified relationship between individualism and social interests is the inevitable contradiction of capitalism, which caused the conflict and moral crisis in modern society. The solution lies in the only way of returning to the highest value of human relations-"kindheartedness". So in the era of capitalism globalization, constructing the "communitas society" which adopts "mercy" as its highest value has become the needs of the times. The idea of learning society conforms to this trend, and takes charity as the moral foundation as well as political foundation.Pedagogy perspective. It is no doubt that global capitalism has influenced the nature of study. Because the knowledge around new product failed to be embedded in culture and failed to finish institutionalization timely, learners must identify knowledge and make learning decisions by themselves, namely, learning ability will become the force at the core for people in globalized society. But we mustn’t neglect that in western society, learning is often kidnapped by capitalist production and consumption culture. For this problem, we should have a critical view. In order to explore the true learning, we must understand the fundamental process of the social type we lived in, and explore the value which caused the forming of such society. Only on this basis, can we reform the direction of society and construct a fairer society. Thus provide connotations for study reform.Revelation to China."Democracy" is the common ideal of human society, which means that people are the masters of the country. The communist party of China pointed out clearly that "the people’s democracy is the life of socialism". Although "democracy is the product of social and historic development", both western and Chinese democracy cannot break away from public reason. In "The law of peoples", Rawls proposed that:"democracy only seems realistic to rational people." The learning society dedicates to the conversion of education value—from considering education as the means which make the country rich and its military force efficient to "make human to be human","self-actualized person" and "rational person". Therefore, construction of the Chinese learning society relying on the people’s democratic should include three aspects:we should devote ourselves to the rationality of political life learning, economic life learning and social life learning.