Against Capitalist Education: What is Education for?

by Nadim Bakhshov

Out there in the so-called real world the education system is being crushed by the demands of capitalism and, in turn, is crushing those who pass through it, reducing them, diminishing them. The dream of the economic functioning unit. How do we break this? We need alternatives but not just one or two. We need the freedom and education to generate a trillion possibilities. An education system that is as broad as it is deep, that brings back a different type of thinking and a new use of fiction. This book signals the return of the dialogue and the conversation as the ground out of which new realities are born, the root out of which new alternatives are nurtured and explored.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Politics

136 pages, Paperback

First published December 11, 2015

Reviews

[Kuu · Rating 4 out of 5]

i feel like i didn't necessarily understand the implications and ideas in their entirety but it's a very good read. the dialogue format makes it even better

[Vinny Corsaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.

This book, like many others, talks about the dangers of capitalism on education, imagination, and thinking in general. However, it differs by (very successfully) showing the reader how to imagine new paradigms, ideas, and even worlds. Not quite a guidebook, more of a generative exercise in imagining a better world and worldview.

Plus, a semi-nonfiction book written in the style of a play/conversation? Hell-fuckin-yeah.

Cool book, cool ideas, and cool implications.

[Erika Jost · Rating 3 out of 5]

The criticism of education is thoughtful and accessible. Some of the details of the imagined ideal university were difficult to understand.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think the problem with education is the paradox of ideology. It’s more along the lines of humans suck at explaining, and so they over- analyze it.

[KKDDBB · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Academics say imaginative often the imagination part is like a slab of dry bread. As is the case with this one. It doesn't feel like there was much 'imagination' used within this dialog. Throwing in different scene numbers without taking the effort to have anything change or introduce something new, just comes of as lazy. Just two dudes yapping away. Quite like a stoner conversation with very uninteresting people.
Most points about the ways in which capitalism threatens education are obvious, obvious, obvious and the whole thing didn't benefit from the dialogue format. Felt like a way to fill pages.