This brief reflection comes from reading an article by Miriam Reynoldson published on Substack (gainst AI literacy: have we actually found a way to reverse learning?)). I found her exposition on the use of generative AI to be exemplary.
Reynoldson argues against 'embedding "AI literacy" in education and workforce development', correctly pointing out that generative AI supports not literacy, but illiteracy. Reynoldson writes:
'Using AI is not about communicating. It’s about avoiding communicating. It’s about not reading, not writing, not drawing, not seeing. It’s about ceding our powers of expression and comprehension to digital apps that will cushion us from fully participating in our own lives.'
It is in this sentence where we can locate what is said by Reynoldson when she talks about (neo)liberal education. The liberalist believes that there is a homunculi inside each human being, which little man is acting on and reacting to the force of (mental) states that are supposedly competing to take control over the human being. This conception of man as an agent choosing between state-options is thoroughly confused. Such a conception is a result of misunderstanding the use of language.
Like philosopher Henri Bergson said, language (and communication) performs a symbolic abstraction of what belongs to the living being. This symbolic abstraction does not capture the specificity of the living being. Bergson writes:
'(E)ach of us has his own way of loving and hating; and this love or hatred reflects his whole personality. Language, however, denotes these states by the same words in every case: so that it has been able to fix only the objective and impersonal aspect of love, hate'. (in Time & Free Will)
It is precisely this objective and impersonal take-over of the self by language which oppresses us by acting as a barrier (a "crust", as described by Bergson, or a "cushion" as described by Reynoldson) to our expressing ourselves. Unfortunately, as Bergson says, this barrier or crust is often strong enough that we do not challenge it but simply slavishly follow, like automatons, the objective and impersonal directive of language given to us, rather than use language to express our true selves.
Liberalism wants us to surrender to its objective and impersonal use of language. This use of language is what liberalists call "reason". They want everyone to provide a reason for why they have made their mind up in this or that way, so as to attribute to each the merit they "deserve".
But this liberal conception of "freedom", where everyone is reduced to being a choosing agent, is a brutal attack on real freedom. It begins by forcing people to understand themselves through impersonal abstraction, and then follows this by claiming that this abstraction represents their natural abilities, which abilities are to determine their share.
Liberal education is designed for us to cede our own power to elites. It’s about not reading, not writing, not drawing, not seeing for ourselves, but doing all this in accordance with the worldview of liberalism.
You are invited to read Miriam Reynoldson here: Against AI literacy: have we actually found a way to reverse learning?)