The Nordic Secret. It looks like the title of an exciting Scandinavian thriller - how beautiful can a book about Bildung be. Subtitle: a European Story of Beauty and Freedom. The authors are Lene Rachel Andersen & Tomas Björkman [1]. They wonder how societies endure major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully. They explain in detail how the Scandinavian countries have invented a new kind of education, have developed the potential of the distant descendants of the predatory Vikings and have changed their fate. The Scandinavians were inspired by many other countries and the transition process started in a farmhouse what we will see later on.

Lene and Tomas take us back 350 years in history when the concept Bildung did not exist and they wonder what we can learn from the past. How should we re-shape the idea of human development and meaning making in times of great change, now that new technologies and globalization are shaking up our societies again?

Their main starting point is that this new form of education, folkbildning (popular development, “volksontwikkeling”, a term that was also common in the Netherlands in the 20th century), has played an important role in the development of the Scandinavian states in the 19th century, and that these countries owe their success to a conscious cultural, intellectual, moral and emotional cultivation of the least educated part of the population. They also think that there is an universal lesson to learn about how to develop a democratic and stable society. It is not a blissful hymn on Scandinavian learning culture, but rather an attempt to deconstruct and to show how complex it actually is.

It is a meaningful analysis in this era of far-reaching globalization, technologization and individualization. Ulrich Beck calls it in his latest posthumously published book [2] "a life in the metamorphosis of the world", because we are in a radical transformation (think of climate change and robotisation). In particular, individualization is a continuing focus of attention for adult education. In the do-it-yourself society, the individual is personally held responsible for the design and meaning of his existence. The integration of the contradictory and uneven moments of ongoing modernization in personal life, living situations and ways of life hasbecome a major individual task. One can often no longer rely on the mediating role traditionally fulfilled by social classes, classes and environments.

The authors of The Nordic Secret establish a clear link between the social individualization process, the accompanying ego-development and the concept of Bildung. Stronger than we are used to in the Netherlands, they state that developmental psychology has played here an important role. Actually, this started in the 17th century with the Czech Comenius (1592-1670), teacher, preacher and philosopher, who like an educational consultant went everywhere advising governments to reform their education system and to introduce educational types for different ages. A true revolution at that time.

Central issue within individualism is the right to self-determination. Every individual has the right to fill in his own life, without being pushed by others how he or she should lead his or her life. The Flemish philosopher Dirk Verhofstadt [3] even considers it as a condition for real solidarity. Individualism plays an important role in the concept of Bildung.

Lene and Tomas also emphasize the role that beauty and happiness play in the story on Bildung. I was fascinated reading this. They discuss in their book the essay [4] from Anthony Shaftesbury (1671-1713), a student of the well-known British philosopher John Locke. Shaftesbury states that it is good to pursue happiness, but one has to ask oneself whether happiness comes from satisfying one's own needs or serving life itself. His conclusion is that someone must be truly "selfish" and must be able to keep oneself in control. Bildung (formation) implies, according to him, that an individual can only be formed by managing his or her self-denying (!). Shaftesbury also wrote about beauty and defined formation (Bildung) as an inner development of three types of beauty. For him, true beauty consisted of thoughts and behaviours that an individual develops based upon his or her own considerations.

After Shaftesburt the authors are guiding us to German philosopher Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1851), who was very influenced by him. Shocked by the massacre of the French Revolution, he investigated in a series of letters [5] how people can develop further, beyond their animal instincts and their rational inclination, to become moral beings capable of political freedom. He distinguished three stages of humanity that are transformed  respectively by "calming beauty" and "invigorating beauty". The writings of Schiller were very popular in Danish elite circles and stood at the cradle of what would become later folkbildning.

Here the farm appears on the scene for the first time. The authors bring us to the Swiss Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827), known for the well-known Head, Hand and Heart concept. He was strongly socially moved by the deep poverty that he saw all around him. He decided studying law to change society, but he did not complete his studies. He married and together with his wife he wanted to build their own farm, Newland, and train there poor people and teach them how to improve their farming methods. Due to lack of money, however, that plan failed. His wife, Anna, gave birth to their only son, Jean-Jacques, who tried to educate him according to the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but that went also wrong.  However, he learned from those experiences (Bildung as experiential learning). And so he also distinguished three stages of human development [6].

Deze gedachten uit Engeland, Duitsland en Zwitserland zouden samen de basis vormen voor de Scandinavische folkbildning, die oorspronkelijk sterk verbonden was met het boerenleven op het platteland.

All these thoughts from England, Germany and Switerserland would form together the basis for the Scandinavian folkbildning, which was originally strong connected to the life of the farmers on the countrysite.

The Nordic Secret tells how these Bildung ideas finally reached Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia and reinterpreted finally to result into the Scandinavian learning culture (folkbildning) which is often seen as a shing example of good practice. The story in the book goes further about how it changed and developed in time from folkbildning 1.0 to folkbildning 2.0, but we will write more about this another time. Namely, the Nordic Secret is no secret that can be easily revealed. It is a thorough study of a complex matter.

Anyone who want to know more about this, should certainly read this book. It is reconstructing and problematizing. Ultimately it raises the necessary questions that are important for further developing the concept of lifelong learning. Also about this  I hope to write another blog another time.

[1]Lene Rachel Andersen & Tomas Björkman, The Nordic Secret, a European story of beauty and freedom, 2017

[2]Ulrich Beck, The Metamorphosis of the World, 2016

[3]Dick Verhofstadt, Plea for individualism, 2004

[4]A. Shaftesbury, Sensus Communis, Freedom of Wit and Humour, 1709

[5]Friedrich von Schiller, Über aesthetische Erziehung der Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen, 1794-1795

[6]Meine Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Johan Pestalozzi