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Chapter 4 55 a similar way. 22 The fact that Erziehung sometimes fails to do what it had intended to do is explained as something that, unfortunately, happens every now and then, but could have been avoided if only the parent would have recognised the faults in ‘the material’ in time, and if only the Erziehung would have been better and more clever. 23 However, in reality Erziehung is not analogous to a type of craftsmanship. According to Bollnow, in reality the inherent risk of Erziehung is due to the fact that it is a process between two ‘unpredictable’ – because free – beings (adult and child), and therefore it must lead us to an understanding of Erziehung that goes beyond the idea of craftsmanship. 24 The risk that is inherent in Erziehung is not the same as the risk of failure in the forms mentioned above (material, skills or fate). 25 Rather, it is a risk of the type of a Wagnis . The existential nature of das Wagnis lies in the fact that the parent is personally committed to (has risked herself) raising a child who is always free to not do what the parent had intended with her Erziehung . So, in a different sense than with craftsmanship, Erziehung can fail too. According to Bollnow, existential risk always comes with the possibility of existential failure ( das Scheitern ). Not the failure, but rather the possibility of failure is what should be incorporated in Erziehung . ‘Failure (luckily) is the exception, but it is an exception which is not a stroke of (external) fate but – as an ever-present possibility – an internal part of what Erziehung is’. 26 Bollnow argues that if the parent were to deny that fact of life, she would necessarily degrade the other human being (the child) to mere material to work with. In that way she would also infringe upon the dignity of this other human being and at the same time of Erziehung itself. 27 It does not become altogether clear from Bollnow’s text what falls under the category of existential failure and what not. Conceptually, his definition allows for all crises in which the child does not do what the parent has intended (because the child is free). Yet, when we look at his examples, existential failure only seems to refer to situations in which things are really going wrong, i.e. that the child does not flourish in any reasonable conception of the term (which ‘luckily’ is the exception). However, these two do not necessarily follow from each other. ‘Failure’ as in becoming a ‘happy single’ accountant who lives in the city instead of a farmer with a traditional family life which 22 Ibid., p. 133. 23 Ibid., p. 132. 24 ‘ In Wirklichkeit gehört aber der Wagnischaracter zum innersten Wesen der Erziehung selbst, sofern diese als Umgang mit freien und in ihrer Freiheit grundsätzlich unberechenbaren Wesen über ein bloß handwerkliches Tun hinausgeht’ , Bollnow 1959, p. 133. 25 Idem. 26 ‘ Nicht das Scheitern, sondern nur die Möglichkeit des Scheiterns ist es, was in jeden Augenblick wagenden Vertrauens in das Erziehend Verhalten einbezogen werden muss. Das Scheitern bleibt (glücklicherweise) die Ausnahme, die nicht durch einen äußeren Zufall gelegentlich hereinbricht, sondern schon im Wesen der Erziehung von vorn herein angelegt ist’ , ibid., p. 150. 27 ‘ Der Versuch aber, den dadurch bedingten Wagnischaracter zu beseitigen und so die Gefahr des Scheiterns zu vermeiden, degradiert notwendig den andern Menschen zum blossen Material meiner Bearbeitung, verletzt also die Würde dieses andern Menschen und damit zugleich die Würde der Erziehung selbst’ , ibid., p. 134.