Where is the promised land of education? The context of academic education

Abstract

The article, referring to the texts of the modern humanities, reflects on academic education. The thesis of the decline in the quality of academic education, especially in connection with its massification, was taken as a starting point. Using the metaphor of the promised land, indicated was the need to search for values and goals that will give meaning to the activities of the main actors of the educational scene and deeply involved in them, to stop an “educational disaster”. Reference was made to the idea of utopian thinking and its importance in culture was pointed out. It was framed as an act of value affirmation necessary for society to exist. This is because inherent to human nature is the need to direct towards the future and create bold projections of it. In this context, assisting humans in the development of hope was proposed as a source for deriving the goals of academic education. Hope was framed as one of the basic components of the nature of human existence, and its intervening character was highlighted. Hope integrates what is from thisworld with that which belongs to the otherworld. A person goes beyond the horizon of everyday life, beyond what is certain, known, safe, and opens up to non-temporality, to the infinite, to transcendence. Hope was also put in the perspective of the road to the promised land. In this context, courses of action were proposed to support a person in building hope for himself/herself and for those with whom they share a fate. Presumably, at the same time, they inhibit the transformation of universities into educational enterprises. The traps of hope, false hopes that is, are also pointed out. Creating the illusion of freedom, of omnipotence, they anesthetise anxiety and despair, taking away opportunities to go beyond the familiar and discover new possibilities. The role of the desert in the journey to the promised land was also emphasised.