THE RISE OF DIGITAL DISTANCE LEARNING AND THE ANESTHETIZATION OF YOUTH.

DIGITIZATION AND THE CAPACITY FOR REJUVENATING A COMMON WORLD

Abstrakt

In this article I deal with an important contemporary issue that should concern all involved in education: the impact of digital technologies on what it means to be young. As I will detail here below, it has become increasingly difficulty for youngsters in our world to act together as a new generation and to counter the ways in which the generations that preceded them have given shape to this world. In the first section I offer a particular interpretation of Hannah Arendt’s (1961) ideas on education, which is also based on the early writings of Walter Benjamin (2011). Here I regard ‘Youth’ as an ontological force that is invariably present and that defines us as humans and as educable beings. Youth is the power to add new beginnings to the world – as evidenced by the many revolutions carried by the young generation during history. In a second part I turn to the recent Pandemic, and more exactly to the unexpected lack of resistance youngsters showed against the harsh restrictions on their lives, at least in some contexts. I explore this phenomenon further in the third section, by analyzing how digitization substantially trans- mogrifies how we relate to ourselves, others and the world. I make the case, then, that the digitization of school life during the Pandemic has very undesirable effects, which might explain for the inertia the young massively displayed. In a fourth and last section I delve deeper into two different cases where the young actually do revolt against the status quo, so as to flesh out what makes protest into a genuinely Youthful protest. My conclusion is that, for good pedagogical reasons, we would be better most cautious in regard with (further) digitizing education.