Enlightenment, art, and education, becoming fully human

grantor: University of TorontoIn this thesis I argue that modern Western society has changed the practice of art and in so doing has thwarted its role as an important contributing element to the development of fully human beings; that is, persons with equally balanced faculties of thinking and feeling and all that these imply. Prior to the Renaissance, the practice of art was an integral feature in the life of the majority of the people in the West; an experience that allowed its participants to access their feelings and by bringing them into consciousness provided the opportunity for self-actualization. Subsequent to the Renaissance, art became subserviant to the causes of instrumental reason, a particular mindset likened to Weber's notion of 'Zweckrationalität'. An emphasis on developing such a limiting form of thinking reduced the role of the arts on many levels, stultifying in the process an aspect of natural human growth for those who ceased to "engage" in art. Such is the role of art that is reflected in our schools and communities. This thesis attempts to substantiate such claims by presenting a personal understanding of what it is that makes us fully human and, within that context, examine the role art played in the past and plays today in the West. My suggestion is that the reintegration of the practice of "authentic" art in the life of individuals and the community will help humanize our societies, its continuing absence dehumanize; and that the artistic experience, whatever form it takes, is a valid form of inquiry and perhaps the only way that may enable humans to illumine the self and educate the feelings. Towards the end of the dissertation, an argument is presented that suggests the role of art be rethought, reworked and reconsidered in the public school system; deliberations that are specifically located within my greatest sphere of teaching experience, the Early Total Immersion Program.Ph.D