Bruno Latour - Against general culture
на канале: CRAL - Centre de Recherches sur les arts et le langage
"General Culture in Question"
March 7, 2014
"General culture" is a notion with unstable, dubious, even suspicious contours. In a state of permanent crisis, this specifically French subject is more often at the heart of controversies than at the center of reflection. The almost ritualistic oppositions between its supporters and detractors leave no room for the questions we will pose during this study day: What is "general culture" the name of? What is its history? Does it have any content?
The suspicion stems partly from the oxymoronic nature of the expression: isn't a culture always particular? General culture would then be that of the dominant classes, a class culture, a privileged relationship to knowledge imposed on everyone under the guise of "generality." This reason was given to justify the abolition, in 2013, of the emblematic general culture essay for the Sciences Po Paris entrance exam. During the highly publicized controversy that followed, debates oscillated between prescription (how to reform general knowledge?) and denunciation (why abolish it?), with no one agreeing on the meaning of the expression.
To overcome the immediate fear that an attempt to reflect on such an open-ended concept arouses, some clarification is necessary. In its common meaning, general knowledge refers to an individual's personal knowledge on a wide variety of subjects; popular television game shows and board games claim to measure it. Furthermore, general knowledge refers to a subject taught in certain institutions and a competitive examination, which appears on the syllabus of many grandes écoles and civil service exams. The fact that the meanings may overlap (individual general knowledge will be valued in general knowledge tests) does not mean that they refer to the same subject. Similarly, general knowledge should not be confused with "culture" in general, nor with "common culture" or the idea of a "common core." It should be remembered that the expression first gained its prestige in Jules Ferry's school curricula, where it was seen as the cement of the Republic; this project was ratified by the "Humanities Reform" of 1902. But during the 20th century, it occupied an increasingly uncertain place, torn between egalitarian aims and elitist educational policies, between the best-selling "General Culture for Dummies" and the ENA's oral exam.
Does the idea of a general culture program make sense? Are there truly things that "one cannot not know"? What could the desire to teach and assess students in a subject whose contours are vague and the methodological constraints purely formal correspond to? It will be a matter of understanding, analyzing, and questioning this curious pedagogical project that consists of transmitting and teaching "general culture."