Anali Hrvatskog Politološkog Društva (Jan 2011)
One World – One Fight
Abstract
In this paper, the author analyses the theoretical-ideological substance of the “Joint Statement” of the International Student Movement, and argues that it is basically an overt return of egalitarian universalism which the modern theory has called the Enlightenment project. The request for emancipatory education in the context of a fight against the commercialisation of higher education returns, as a result of the influence of Konrad Paul Liessmann, to the liberal Bildung individualism, and the latter, in combination with the insistence on education as a human right, forms a foundation for “emancipatory education”. The author uses Popper's idea of piecemeal social engineering in order to link Liessmann's request for the rejection of radical reforms in higher education to Brian Barry's request for the extension of the liberal principles of justice to the global level. Barry advocates revolutionary changes in the redistribution of rights, opportunities and resources, but he deems that they should be carried out in the form of global social engineering. The author claims that the student demand is in its fundamental elements consistent with the egalitarian-liberal argument for global social justice.
