The Process of Democratisation and Social Equality, Inequality. The Old-New Challenge of Politics and Education

Sándor KARIKÓ

University of Szeged

Abstract: Social equality is a primeval and precious concept, a natural history-shaper fortitude, an orphic requirement and impression. Modern (from the new and recent era) politics ceaselessly and directly claims that every person is equal in the social sense. If the state of political and legal equality is confronted by all-time reality, it becomes immediately clear that in everyday life we cannot find social equality, but the gloomy atmosphere of social inequality. This study (presentation) argues that in the contention against social inequality the education for democracy in the short run and directly can only provide little help, however, in a long-term view and indirectly it is able to offer much more. Therefore, from this point of view we can face a negative and positive tendency and effort.

Keywords: poverty, equality, inequality, democratisation, law, education, goodness.

Social equality is an old, precious idea, a history changing force, a natural, captivating desideratum and feeling. As modern (new-age) politics enunciates it constantly: “from a social point of view, every person is equal.”

The various political publications show only a slight difference in phrasing and style, the message (every person is equal and is born free) being the same. I would like to remind you three examples. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776) proclaims it clearly, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, thatall men are created equal, that they are endowed by theirCreatorwith certain unalienable Rights, that among these areLife, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”[1]. Soon after (1789), the fundamental documental of the Great French Revolution confirms it. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”[2]. Coincidentally, the 1946 French Constitution is based upon this statement, “The Nation guarantees equal treatment to all people, regardless of race or religion”[3]. Finally, let me cite the 54^th article of the new Hungarian Constitution which proclaims, “In the Republic of Hungary, every person has the right to life and human dignity”[4].Without going into political discussions, it is clear for everyone that the politically declared forms of social equality raise a restrictive, limiting aspect: the question of equality before the law. When comparing the reality of social equality with the state of political and juridical equality, one can see that in everyday life we do not come across social equality, but we have to face the gloomy reality of inequality. That reality and theory interfere is not a surprise, but philosophy has achieved great progresses in uncovering the reasons behind it, which I intend to briefly mention.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the first steps in the understanding of the issue of social equality and inequality. Rousseau presented a brand new aspect for the masses: do not initiate from political (juridical) inequality but from social inequality. When disserting on the inequality between people, he comes to the conclusion, that “I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among the human species; one, which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul; and another, which may be called moral or political inequality[…]”[5]. What we can notice is Rousseau’s recognition of the fact that inequality – like it or not - lives side by side with political inequality. He sees property as the deepest cause of this situation. “Thefirst man – continues the philosopher - who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of sayingThis is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody[6].

Pointing out the naivety of the writer of the “Social Contract” is a commonplace. We know that the appearance of property and its glorious versus inglorious history is way more complicated than Rousseau thought. Yet, it is an unrefuted fact to this day that the very existence of property was a key factor in the shaping of history, for example in the creation of political inequality, which engenders remarkably controversial social conflicts.

Marx, following Rousseau’s steps, reaches even deeper considerations. In his famous “Critique of the Gotha Program” he emphasises the idea that “the right of the producers isproportionalto the labour they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with anequal standard, labour. But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labour in the same time […] everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognises unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege”[7].

As we know, today it is not really popular to refer to Marx, as we tend to forget the works of Ferenc Tőkei, the not so long ago deceased Hungarian philosopher. Tőkei was the first Hungarian philosopher who responded to the above text from Marx. After interpreting the text of Marx carefully, he comes to a brave conclusion. If we only analyse man from one point of view, as a labourer, and we ignore all the other aspects, then we can see that equality is effectively inverted. “The basis of ‘equal rights’ is that it sees humans only as labourers, and that everybody receives goods according to his labour. But humans are individuals therefore they have different qualities and abilities, so ‘equal rights’ means that every right is the right of inequality”[8]. We confront ourselves with the uncanny reality that law itself brought about only the right of inequality, in other words, instead of equality and justice we only got social inequality and injustice.

This brief philosophical passage warns us that social inequality – whether we notice it or not - is a necessary phenomenon which we probably will have to live with for another few decades. Or otherwise stated, inequality leads the way to equality. We have to check social work along with political, juridical and philosophical theories. Iván Szelényi’s review of the ‘Social cross-section’ sociological release mentions that “a question so important to Hungarian sociology such as social inequality is the most precious variety of social studies”[9]. Therefore we have a rich social study heritage.

János Ladányi and Iván Szelényi present the question in this manner in their monumental discourse: is there any chance “to tail down social inequality – as some left-wing intellectuals are still hoping for? This seems rather unlikely”[10]. The pessimistic answer of the authors can be traced back to 1996, and the happenings of the last decade and a half unfortunately only amplified social inequality. The country’s economic state is inadequate, but the greatest problem of all is that even to this day the political forces that could bring about a new social contract are too feeble. And this is so not because of the separation of powers, but because of the reduction of inequality. It is unquestionable that to reduce material inequality between people, the current governments have to find (and support) health resources. Today, this has no political reality and the phrasing of the title of the above authors’ book might not be a coincidence: it is about chance and its creation. What they hope for is that the government will at least give the reduction of inequality a chance.

But nowadays it seems that even this hope is about to fade away. As Paszkál Kiss, a famous editor in chief, has put it forth, “many believe that chance of equality is an illusion, particularly in education”[11].

Zsuzsa Ferge paints an even darker picture of the current situation. The poverty researcher’s words are quite depressing: “most of the world’s countries try to achieve some kind of minimal wage for their peoples, thus limiting the growing poverty and inequality. We are moving in the opposite direction”[12]. Inequality is especially prominent in education and education policy. Ferenc Gazsó’s works are essential in this domain. Gazsó (among others) says that in the first decade of the new millennium over one-third of the population of Hungary will live on or below the minimal wage. Under these circumstances, “the costs of schooling can only be weighed down on the parents minimally. (...) In the next few years, no significant change will happen regarding the minimisation of inequality in education. (...) Lower classes (...) do not bear enough pressure to potentially get their interests forward”[13].

Allow me to underline that even though years have gone since, and some really important changes have happened, the inequality in education has not decreased, but rather seems to be unstoppably rising. Let me cite another recent discourse. The transformation of higher education, says Zsuzsanna Veroszta, is “plagued by scepticism and anxiety, (…) for example the decay of “university material”, the decline of the quality of teaching, but also people seem to forget the problem of equality-inequality”[14].  Yet, it is clear that the increasing inequality causes problems in education. Not mentioning that progress like this does not match our education policy and ideology. Pedagogy and education policy can do so much for strengthening democratisation. The sphere of education has to be turned into a national strategic branch (investment). It is so strange to me, and I think it is because of the Hungarian mentality, that the elevation of education policy to a higher strategic level is acknowledged by so many educated people (CEOs, economists, sociologists, philosophers, teachers), yet the country itself is not capable of turning this into an actual program. One can easily find out that the reason behind this phenomenon is that there is no political force behind it in Hungary, at least as yet.

Taking into account the present state of education in our country, Hungary, we need a national collaboration (with international help) in order to detect how exactly education could have an effect on the relation of equality and inequality. Could education subdue the difference between people, and if yes, how, on what basis? I say, that democratisation (first of all education), in the short run and directly, can have too much a negative effect, and in the long run and indirectly, it can have too great a positive effect. We can see that a negative-positive tendency is shaping.

a) It seems that Hungarian educators watch bashfully the necessity of  connecting the arguments of educators and political interest. School leaders, education researchers and educators exhibit some kind of coyness concerning the representation of their interest. Their position regarding the greater influence of politics in education is also weak. György Csepeli speaks about the lack of cooperation of people and the distortion of social rivalry. Going deeper into this topic, he comes to the bitter conclusion, which truth could hardly challenge. “If many people live well without having to work hard for it, or do not have to achieve anything, then crisis is in existence. When inequality rises, only unfair competition is possible”[15]. Let us now juxtapose Csepeli’s harsh criticism with another contemporary Hungarian sociologist’s work. Zsuzsa Ferge says in one of her most recent interviews, “We rightly think in 2010 that the government will equalise the standards of public schools in a way that it would help social integration and soothe the inequality between children. (…) Instead the new public education programme drifts towards obsequiousness and the limitation of free thinking”[16].

Let me ask it openly: is it possible to create social equality with an education policy based on obsequiousness? Do the powers think they do a great job when they follow an education programme that is to produce “well-behaved”, “well-set”, always positive regiments of pupils? Should the conformist student be the ideal again? The explanation resides in the fact that a whole cluster of discourses proved that in the “Kádár-era” conformism prevailed. Are not modern politics and governments trying to level citizens with obsequiousness? I think inequality between people should not be equalised by an old ideological education policy. We need an education programme that should hold back the notion of obsequiousness and give free space for self-sufficient, independent personalities. Nonetheless I know that encouraging children towards independent thinking is highly tiresome, and requires intense effort.

b) How can education represent a positive alternative, and foster education values? Probably it can support aims like this with many tools and proposals. I would like to emphasise one really important aspect. Pedagogy can make miracles happen in every social sphere (economic, political, cultural, and educational) in its own way if it declares and shows the highest importance of education. I am not afraid of the expression: education has to make the “soul” of tutoring clear.

But what is this mysterious essence? I do not want to spend too much time on this question. I would only like to mention one education philosopher. According to Richard Pring, the main purpose of education is “to complete humans; and educators job is to make people good or a better person”[17]. If we like to summarise the purpose, the “sacred mission” of education, we could say, is that education is nothing else but righteousness.

I cannot emphasise enough the concept of righteousness[18]. Righteousness as an education norm exists regardless of time and space. Milán Füst, a 20^th century writer, describes the meaning of education so beautifully that I must quote the whole text which summarises his view on education:

“No matter what they preach in school, what the priest, your mother, your father tells you. […] No matter if you decide in childhood that you will be good, selfless and clean… life will come and you will soon forget it – you will cheat, steal, live a carnal life. […] In your thoughts you might be “idealistic”, but the rest, the “outside world” goes on its own… You are shy, full of doubts […] and you remember the teaching you got from your mother, and how you drank naïve idealism from your mother’s milk. But life – unfortunately – is not like this. You think your mother did not know how life is? She knew, yet she wanted to give you her better self, […] she believed that her child would be able to live a clean life, yet he should not live a different life. And as soon as you have a child of your own you will be reluctant to teach him your other, complicated history of life; to show him the bitterness… and you will introduce him to life as Moses showed the Promised Land to the hopeful”.[19]

This quotation shows clearly that education is the pursuit of goodness, and humanity is operating through it so that to make a person noble. Still, we have to face it every day that the beautiful idealism of education enters into contradiction with the cruel reality, the fallibility of human beings. But even after all the difficulties, hope still lives in us to perpetuate the need of goodness in our children. Today, most people smile at the principle of living a clean, honest, selfless life. They think it is an unnecessary doctrine, an ethical sermon that is not of great help. Based on Milán Füst’s anecdote I can only say, and the democrats can think about this, that removing the idea of righteousness from the history of humankind would be completely impossible. Don’t forget that humans are creatures that are always thirsty for goodness! And I think that the idea of righteousness is more than a simple belief, it implies a steadfast commitment. Righteousness is not just a beautiful idea; it is a real moving force. It is an educational doctrine that can be found in everyday life, in reality too. Do not be afraid to say there are – thank God - decent people living amongst us. I would like to mention György Lukács, the outstanding 20^th century Hungarian philosopher’s splendid realisation, who stays underappreciated to this day (just like Milán Füst): “When goodness becomes real in us, Paradise has arisen. (...) Abandoning righteousness is compulsory for ethics, but righteousness is miracle and mercy; it is “obsession.” (...) In the souls of those who are good, all the psychological arguments are gone, everything has a reason and everything has a consequence”[20].

We know it since Descartes, that the common sense as the most democratic benefit of the world is naturally equal in every person[21].  We have to recognise because of György Lukács that the virtue of righteousness is not equal, not universal, nor essential for every human being. It is more like a state of forgiveness that is given not for everyone, a particular offer of fate, which can charm the educator and its surroundings by its indescribable nature. The idea of righteousness and its importance in education is disputable: not everybody wants to acknowledge it. But foraging for it is a noble thing. I know it is not much, but this is the least we can do. Or what we should do.

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