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Title: Education as Revolution
Author: Wu Zhihui
Date: September 1908
Language: en
Topics: Chinese Anarchism, education, revolution, China
Source: From Robert Graham (Ed.), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas; Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939). https://libcom.org/library/anarchism-documentary-history-libertarian-ideas-volume-1-2

Wu Zhihui

Education as Revolution

THE GOAL OF POLITICAL REVOLUTION is the struggle for rights. It equates

public morality with national sovereignty. Therefore, when political

revolution occurs, it easily turns into mob action by the revolutionary

party. At first, they grab power from the monarchs. Then they fight

against and indiscriminately slaughter and coerce each other. The only

thing they dare not openly transgress is the motherland and national

sovereignty.

... Those who advocate political revolution use rights as a catalyst to

arouse emotions. In this case, rights are opposed to public morality.

Here, revolution and education are viewed as two separate things. So bad

effects are inevitable. The call for constitutionalism in political

revolution is especially contemptible ... even if they captured

political power, the coercive imperial house would remain in existence

...

Anarchist revolution is totally different. Anarchists aim at arousing

public morality, are concerned with the mutual interaction between the

individual and the society, and are willing to abnegate all personal

rights in order to pursue collective happiness. This actually emphasizes

education, not revolution. When education is popularized, everyone

abandons old habits and starts a new life. Revolution, thus, is just a

certain effect of this transformation. In terms of these effects, there

is nothing wrong with a revolutionary advocacy that seeks before the

revolution to institute a revolutionary education that paves the way for

revolution.

So the anarchists’ revolution is not political revolution; it is

education ... education is revolution. Daily education is daily

revolution. The smaller effects of education are small changes in social

customs. This is called the small revolution ... When the effect of

education is to suddenly transform old customs in the entire society,

this is called the grand revolution ... There is actually no completion

to the true revolution. Truth and justice progress everyday. So long as

education does not stop, neither does revolution ...

Anarchist education consists of the morality included in truth and

public morality, such as philanthropy, liberty and freedom, etc., and

the knowledge included in truth and public morality, such as the

experimental sciences. Besides these, there is no education.

Some injudicious people think education and revolution are separate.

Their revolution aims at arousing emotions for rebellion. The education

they have in mind is the one carried out by the pedagogues in schools

where inferior methods and slave education prevail. To cultivate public

morality, they advocate the reform of consciousness. However, the more

they cultivate, the more they stray away. Thus, the cultivation of

public morality finally fails, and the ephemeral revolution ends up with

unthinking rebellion. This is because they never recognize that

education is revolution, and revolution the revelation of public

morality. Only progressive anarchist-educationalists have a full view of

public morality as revolution.