Education and Bildung in the Anthropocene: Responding to COVID-19

COVID-19 has been declared “the disease of the Anthropocene”; in this light, this chapter considers a general educational response to the Anthropocene in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It begins by describing how our relationship to nature, traditionally conceived, has been quite suddenly inverted: nature is no longer the sustaining backdrop for the human drama, but increasingly, the protagonist that drives human affairs. Nature no longer places us in a position to preserve the ideal of a “‘complete human being’, free, accomplished, fully realised, rational yet real” that has arguably been projected by Western philosophy for over 2000 years. Focusing in particular on Humboldt’s canonical formulation of Bildung in his 1794 Fragment, this chapter argues that human development can no longer be understood in terms of man “grasp[ing] as much world as possible … to strengthen his own innate power” – and appease “the inner unrest that consumes him”. Instead, referencing Günther Anders pronouncements at the advent of the nuclear bomb – widely perceived as ushering in the Anthropocene – it considers how complementary inversions might be imagined in the domain of Bildung, education, and anthropology. In doing so, it also addresses the question of our apparent helplessness in facing the implications of empirical facts and projections regarding climate change and the Anthropocene more broadly.