1.？ Real educational goals and educational goals under state control
Nietzsche believes that a real educational institution is a place to provide real education, and real education is to let the educated in Germany accept the true German spirit ("Germany's erudition, Germany's inventive spirit, Germany's sincere understanding impulse, Germany's sacrificial diligence"), which is different from the spirit of other countries, is the soul of a nation and the fundamental reason why Germans become Germans. It is a few geniuses who can really carry forward and accept this spirit. These geniuses were born for metaphysical reasons. The real education is to protect these geniuses from premature death and really give full play to their talents. Therefore, in this framework, the real mission of education is to "cultivate and support geniuses", on the one hand, to give them nutrition and nourishment, on the other hand, to let other educated people consciously form this environment that obeys geniuses.
Nietzsche believes that the object of real education is a few geniuses, which is a natural law. What is a genius? He listed Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Winckelmann and others. However, German education violates this law. In these speeches, Nietzsche tore off the gorgeous coat of universal education and academic education in Germany-aimed at cultivating students' independence and personal freedom. People with universal education don't doubt this vision, because no one wants to admit that he is just a person with average qualifications who only deserves to serve genius. Everyone is an independent individual and is qualified to criticize, create and realize his own unique value. Isn't this much better than prostrating at the feet of genius and sacrificing personal value and freedom?
Why expose this lie? He listed the current situation of college students. "Even when he seemed to be a free man, he was still troubled by endless troubles and doubts and was punished for the great free fantasy. He felt unable to guide himself and help himself, so he was desperately immersed in the world of daily life and work; Mediocre things surrounded him ... indulging in a narrow professional field so early made him afraid ... In a sad and comforting mood, he saw that his plan was futile, and his situation was disgusting and worthless, just the alternation of heavy things and sad exhaustion. " The most terrible thing is that after all this, "he relieved the importance of his struggle and felt that he was ready to pursue any practical or even low-level interests." It can be seen that the so-called personal value realization and freedom are just an illusion. Countless young people eventually face disillusionment and self-doubt. After their doubts, they succumbed to practical interests. Actual benefits! Here, the interests of individuals are finally unified with the interests of the state, and the education controlled by the state only wants to achieve such a goal. Nietzsche accused Hegel's philosophy of providing an indestructible philosophical foundation for this, so that anyone can serve the country in an appropriate way, which is the highest goal of the individual.
2.？ Two Trends of Modern Education in Germany
In order to realize its own interests, the state has shaped education into its servant. This kind of education has two tendencies: one is to expand education, that is, to popularize education and make education a means of making a living; The second is to narrow the tendency of education, that is, the academic nature of education, which is the factory of academic division of labor. These two tendencies merge in the press, and educational news makes education a vassal of news.
The first kind of educational tendency, that is, education with interests as the goal, is not only the interests of individuals, but also the interests of the country. "As much knowledge and education as possible-bring as much happiness as possible. ..... according to this tendency, education seems to be defined as an eye, with which a person can' get ahead' and identify all easy shortcuts to make money ... ". Under this tendency, Nietzsche thinks that the real education "will make people lonely", "the goal exceeds money and income" and "consumes too much time" is hateful. Under the value of this educational choice, "the culture that a person is allowed to have is limited to the need to make money, and there are only so many requirements for him." The public is willing to receive such education, because it can make them get secular happiness. But what they didn't expect was that "the most possible universal education" degraded education to such a degree that it not only failed to give people privileges, but even failed to get respect. The most extensive universal education is precisely barbarism. "
The second educational tendency, "excessive use of scholars to serve their subjects, makes the education of scholars more and more accidental and unattainable." The word "scholar" is just a worker in an academic factory, not an educated person we once thought. In the same way, they are only squeezed for academic interests, which is not essentially different from the logic of the first tendency. The decline of the academic field shows that there is no real educational institution in Germany. Nietzsche did not deny German science education and vocational education. He just came to distinguish real education from other types of education, uncover the things behind modern education in Germany, and prove that we lack real educational institutions. )
These two tendencies meet in the press, and news becomes everyone's daily education source and guides the direction. "Journalists-servants who serve the present-have replaced geniuses, mentors of all ages and saviors who save the present." Or not just news, it can be said that it implies a correct direction, and a way to tell you how to do it is applause and flowers.
3.？ The opposition between educational institutions and livelihood institutions
In "The Essence of Education", Nietzsche believes that people are born with curiosity about serious questions and have the ability to "understand the metaphysical unity of all things" from nature, and the position of fighting for existence stifles this ability. Struggle for existence's purpose, object and means determine that man grasps and uses nature from the standpoint of conquering nature rather than from the real metaphysical standpoint. In combination with the above, people are educated to become a creature that makes more money and pursues the so-called earthly happiness. If we have ever pursued eternity, it is only illusory eternity represented by money, power and reputation. Therefore, on the track of this kind of education, all packaged words, such as "education", "art" and "truth", lack a real spiritual connotation, and all meet the needs of lower levels, rather than the purest and truest demand for true knowledge. Here, everyone refuses to give up the "self", which is neither a free self nor an independent self, because true independence and freedom do not exist at all in this context (see the description of young people's present situation, which is the hard evidence of reality), and only belong to personal self-interest, so they refuse to obey the genius and choose to obey the interests under the cloak of independence and freedom. "Therefore, for a truly educated person, what is lost is priceless, that is, he can be constantly loyal to his childhood meditation instinct, thus achieving a kind of tranquility, unity, a kind of connection and coordination, which a person trained to fight for survival never dreamed of."
And why people's livelihood education fascinates so many people? Because its temptation is aimed at people's "egoistic impulse, their weakness and vanity", livelihood education not only fails to correctly guide these weaknesses of human nature, but makes use of them and gives them full play, so that they are nourished in the soil of livelihood education. Under this siege, people who really have lofty character and cultivation can't move a step. We like to talk about personal happiness and happiness, but who really asked, what is the essence of these happiness and happiness? Do we really want to bury our heads in the sand like ostriches, regardless of all this, to pursue the ugly essence of self-interest and self-protection, and even regard the responsibility of others as a fig leaf for obtaining so-called happiness? Today, no one is innocent in this educational situation! Nietzsche said that real education belongs to a few geniuses, and only a few people can persist in the truth and suffer great mental and physical pain. People who can't do it, together with countless people who can't do it, build their seemingly indestructible kingdom of interests. Here, no matter how ignorant, greedy, hypocritical, obscene or even shameless, everyone has a piece of the action. They can use their "free talent" to expand their territory, and kill and enslave seeds with extraordinary talent and noble spirit.
4.？ Real liberal arts middle school and university education
Nietzsche listed the educational performance of German liberal arts secondary schools and university education under these two tendencies, such as replacing real philosophical thinking with historical literacy and embodying eclectic learning through textual research and verification. Nietzsche mentioned many times that Hegel's philosophy provided a philosophical basis for this practice. Hegel's theory of opposition shows in his last part that the whole history has actually proved his logical system, which is God's creative logic, "Being is reasonable". Even if this can explain all these wretched realities, we can never say that the "rationality" here conforms to the truth and the noblest spirit of the universe! He used the whole history to prove his philosophy, but we can use this to refute it. To give a more specific example, Hegel said that "the history of philosophy itself should be philosophical", and later this proposition evolved into a more excessive "philosophy is the history of philosophy", that is to say, philosophy itself is the thinking of predecessors on philosophical issues, but we can also say no to this, the real philosophical thinking can belong to everyone, and the original problem hangs in the starry sky above everyone's head, and the essence of philosophy is not historical textual research.
On the other hand, the propaganda of modern education allows students to criticize at an early stage, express their views on the views of masters and write independently, which is euphemistically called to cultivate students' independence and creativity. But in fact, people are not afraid of genius works, and any great works can be commented by Tom, dick and Harry. Nietzsche believes that liberal arts middle schools should first conduct strict language training for students, cultivate their awe of language and perception of beauty, and make them physically ill when they see fashionable words in the news. This is why Nietzsche proposed that the beginning of real education lies in obedience, not freedom. But at present, teachers in liberal arts middle schools don't have the ability to do it, and they can only do some work of speaking like a book and exegeting.
In order to realize real education in universities, Nietzsche summed up three aspects, one is the need of philosophy, the other is the instinct of art, and the third is the classical culture of Greece and Rome. In fact, throughout the book, Nietzsche insists that the source of German spirit is Greek and Roman classical culture, and he has mentioned the ancient Greek spirit many times. And we finally go back to the introduction at the beginning of the article. "All education begins with opposing all those things that are now known as university freedom, from obedience, from obeying order, from training, and from being willing to serve." The clients here are of course geniuses. In the end, Nietzsche did not explain why most people should serve genius, and real education should serve genius. He just used a scene as a metaphor:
"... however, finally a genius, a real genius with fantasy wings, came to this group of people (referring to the band playing chaos)-you immediately felt something incredible. This genius seems to have entered the bodies of all these half-beasts in a lightning-fast mental change. Now it seems that only one magic eye is looking out from everyone. You are listening and watching-but now you are not satisfied! If you observe this band that sometimes growls and sometimes whispers, and feel the dexterous tension of every muscle and the inevitability of every posture rhythm, you will feel the same way, and know what is the predetermined harmony between the guide and the guided, and how everything is squeezed into such a well-structured organization in the spiritual order. "