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Lifelong learning is an ambiguous, incoherent, not decisively defined, scattered, controversial phenomenon. Still, it is not indifferent to contemporary pedagogues, psychologists, sociologists, economists, political science experts, who keep reconstructing and deconstructing it from the perspective of their disciplines and theories of interest. The discussion resounds with a multitude of voices, hence the association with musical polyphony and/or cacophony, used here to organize the summarized text. When referring to the development of lifelong learning in the 20th century I have identified four phases:
− birth and development of the political-educational idea after World War I,
− lifelong learning as a principle of reforming education: the 1960s and 1970s,
− moratorium: the 1980s,
− political consensus – pedagogical ambiguity: nowadays
The analyzed period saw the development of the concept of lifelong learning. Having evolved from the form of a simple canon, it went through the stage of multi-voiced polyphony to eventually transform into a cacophony of meanings. This process, on the one hand, indicates the richness of that idea and practice, but, on the other hand, leads to terminological chaos and blurring of the subject of research. The earlier objections to the concept of lifelong learning hold also today in relation to learning as a lifelong process: the lack of precise definition makes it more difficult to differentiate between educational practices, whereas the lack of criteria for selection of lifelong learning practices and theories results in eclecticism. These drawbacks are accepted today in the name of postmodernism, but the questions whether they serve the theory still remains.