The Living and the Dead in Education: Commentary on Julian Williams

Jean Lave and Ray McDermott (2002) did us a service with their powerful reading of Marx’s 1844 essay on “Estranged Labour” (Marx, 1964). In reworking Marx’s critique of “alienated labour” in terms of “alienated learning,” they reminded us of Marx’s own impassioned revolt against the inhumanity of the capitalist order and found a novel way of illuminating Marx’s standpoint through an exploration of formal schooling. We also owe a debt to Julian Williams (this issue), who, responding to Lave and McDermott’s initiative, offers us a subtle and sensitive discussion of the problems and contradictions in formal education generally, and maths education in particular, in relation to capitalist society. Although Lave and McDermott emphasised the striking congruences between what passes for “work” and what passes for “education” in a society built on alienated labour, Williams attempts to throw further light on “alienated learning” by tracing the inner connections between school activity and capitalist production, seeing formal education in terms of its role in the production of labour power as a commodity. The two publications complement one another and should stimulate further discussion about the relevance of Marx’s work to the educational sphere (cf. Green, Rikowski, & Raduntz, 2007) as well as to other forms of activity (cf. Jones, 2009). Their work also connects to more general discussions of the import of Marx’s notion of alienation in such classic texts as Ollman (1976) and Mészáros (1978). At the same time, their work echoes the theme of the necessity for radical transformation of educational practice and educational institutions as part of a general programme of socioeconomic and political transformation (Freire, 1969). For the cultural-historical and activity theory traditions specifically, the deadening and unrewarding nature of formal schooling is a familiar, if not central, theme. Much scholarship, research

让·莱夫和雷·麦克德莫特（2002年）对马克思1844年关于“异化劳动”的论文（马克思，1964年）进行了有力解读，这对我们很有帮助。他们从“异化学习”的角度重新阐述了马克思对“异化劳动”的批判，这使我们想起马克思本人对资本主义秩序的非人道性的强烈反抗，并且通过对正规学校教育的探究找到了一种阐明马克思立场的新方法。我们还得益于朱利安·威廉姆斯（本期），他响应莱夫和麦克德莫特的倡议，就正规教育，特别是数学教育相对于资本主义社会而言所存在的问题和矛盾，为我们提供了细致而敏锐的讨论。尽管莱夫和麦克德莫特强调了在一个建立在异化劳动基础上的社会中，所谓的“工作”和所谓的“教育”之间惊人的一致性，但威廉姆斯试图通过追溯学校活动与资本主义生产之间的内在联系，从正规教育在将劳动力作为商品进行生产方面所起的作用这一角度，进一步阐明“异化学习”。这两份出版物相互补充，应该会激发关于马克思的著作对教育领域（参见格林、里科夫斯基和拉邓茨，2007年）以及其他活动形式（参见琼斯，2009年）的相关性的进一步讨论。他们的工作还与对马克思的异化概念在诸如奥尔曼（1976年）和梅扎罗斯（1978年）等经典文献中的重要性的更一般性讨论相关联。同时，他们的工作呼应了作为社会经济和政治变革总体方案一部分的对教育实践和教育机构进行彻底变革的必要性这一主题（弗莱雷，1969年）。对于文化历史和活动理论传统来说，正规学校教育的沉闷和无回报性质即使不是核心主题，也是一个常见主题。大量的学术研究……