Liberal attitudes to education are under attack but authoritarianism is no way to teach right from wrong, writes Kate Holmquist.
As Junior and Leaving Cert students this week dutifully regurgitate the information they have been told to memorise, it may be a mistake to equate this with learning. Straying from the point, asking too many questions and exploring alternative avenues of thought isn't rewarded with high points. Quite the opposite, actually: what is rewarded is the ability to do well in exams. There is a danger that by programming students with a pre-determined curriculum, students are learning how to parrot, not how to learn. This makes them vulnerable to letting others tell them what to think on a whole range of philosophical, moral and ethical questions.
At the same time, there's an increasingly popular view amongst media commentators, particularly in Britain and the US, that we're in an age of moral decline which has its roots in the opposite approach, liberalism. Under-age drunks puking in the streets? Out-of-control youths stealing cars? Blame the liberal agenda. Bring back the bootstrap, or something that mimics it - such as Asbos.
In the West, many say our moral malaise is demonstrated in rising crime, lax sexual attitudes and relativism - an approach that says that there's no objective right and no objective wrong, only what's right or wrong for you and me in our individual contexts.
The relativist view, which can be seen in some of the the religious education programmes of our secondary schools, is that there are many diverse religions that deserve equal respect, but that not one of them possesses ultimate religious truth.
Relativism is the stick used by the increasingly conservative tabloid media to beat liberals with. Recently, Pope Benedict used his visit to Poland to launch a philosophical war against moral relativism. In the US, the ranks of reactionary radio hosts constantly blame the rise of relativism on liberalism.
But in a passionate defence of liberalism, Stephen Law writes in a new book, The War for Children's Minds, that relativism has no relationship to liberalism.
"While most of my friends and colleagues are pretty liberal, I can't think of any who are moral relativists," he says.
Law, a lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, is himself a committed liberal, but believes in right and wrong, and approves of religious education.
It is a myth, he says, that liberals don't have core values. It is untrue that they don't believe in the need for religious values, the authority (with a small "a") of religious leaders or the requirement to respect the police, the law and the headmaster or headmistress.
Liberalism, he argues, is about freedom of thought, not necessarily freedom of action. Authoritarianism with a capital "A", by his definition, requires people to think in a particular way, no questions asked, or suffer the consequences. A liberal school should encourage children to ask questions, to explore moral dilemmas and to form their own opinions, while an "authoritarian" school teaches children that there is one right way to think and believe.
Law believes that authoritarianism is on the rise not just in the fundamentalist Bible Belt of the US (which voted George W Bush into office) but also in the UK, where, in response to panic over socially unacceptable behaviour and rising crime, Tony Blair has given support to religious-based schools. There's a general view that even fanatical religion is better than no religion.
Authoritarians argue that the freeing of individuals to make their own choices led to the permissive society, where moral autonomy resulted in selfish individualism. The public, they believe, can't be trusted to make their own ethical decisions and need the authority of a religion or political philosophy to tell them how to behave. But the danger of turning our backs on liberalism and returning to the black-and-white era before TV, the Pill and Women's Lib is that it could lead us straight back to the kinds of society dominated by Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler.
Democracy requires people to think critically and independently. For a democratic society to survive, its children must be taught in the liberal tradition to think for themselves. If they do not, says Law, they are much more vulnerable to brainwashing by religious cults and political fanatics. It is possible to be liberal and tolerant of a multicultural, multi- religious society while also condemning those who use religion to justify terrorist attacks, he points out.
Law argues that liberal moral education brings lasting, measurable educational benefits, including increased intelligence and emotional and social maturity. By encouraging young people to develop genuine core values, a liberal education actually works against relativism, he says. In any case, we can't do what authoritarians would have us do, which is to hand over difficult moral decisions to a higher authority, because such decisions have a boomerang-like quality - they always come back to you.
Law believes that every school, religious or not, should have periods of open philosophical discussion of important moral, cultural, political and religious questions, run by educators with some training in philosophical discussion. Pupils should be presented with a broad range of political, moral and religious views and beliefs. Something akin to brainwashing techniques were, until recently, used widely in religious schools: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and emotional manipulation.
Irish schools, as they have been taken over by secular staff, have become more philosophical in their approach to religion at second level. Many Catholic secondary schools have seen the presence of Muslim students as an opportunity to broaden their religious discussions.
In the US, by contrast, banning books from libraries and teaching Young Earth creationism - which dismisses Darwin - have become acceptable in certain religious schools.
In the Republic, our recent liberation from the dark days of oppressive religious dogma has made adults more questioning. It's hard to imagine us returning to a time when books were banned.
Rather than running back into the fold, many Irish parents have an ambiguous relationship with religion, not practising it themselves but only too delighted to send their children to religious schools. Ireland is at a different stage from both the UK (which has been secularised for a long time) and the US (which has reacted against secularism by becoming increasingly religious). But, as Law points out, the evolution of philosophical belief is a more volatile process than we like to think.
Liberalism, he believes, must be protected if it is to survive the worldwide trend towards authoritarianism.
• The War for Children's Minds, by Stephen Law, is published by Routledge, £14.99. Law's website is www.thinking-big.co.uk
