56 Chapter 1 critique (p. 68) and adopted the predicate fragmented several times, although he opted to characterise Western society as post-traditional: The modern individual is threatened by fragmentation and is of necessity in search of some degree of coherence of one's personality. Fragmentation arises because post-traditional society offers a vast array of experiences, choices and a diversity of (often changing) roles. It follows that we must learn to deal with all kinds of ambivalence. If we don’t succeed, we are threatened by chaos, confusion and psychological tension. (p. 103) (3) Like Taylor (1989), Dohmen (2023) perceived pathological effects manifesting due to this personal fragmentation in society. The specific complaints he identified were anorexia, autism, burnout, compulsions, exhaustion and ‘what masquerades as schizophrenia’ (Dohmen, 2023, p. 103). Moreover, he recognised that fragmentation leads, especially in Western countries, to a call to invest in good citizenship education. Dohmen (2023) constructed a wide argument around his central thesis that answers need to be sought with a focus on broad formation. He described ‘a holistic, integral event’ in which ‘the goal of one's formation (that for which you live) is closely related to the method (how do you achieve that goal) and the context: what personal and social latitude do you have to shape your life?’ (Dohmen, 2023, p. 1131). In this broad formation, philosophy needs to take the lead, but not in the MacIntyrean sense of a revival or virtue ethics. This notion aligns more with Taylor’s (1989) metaphor of life as a journey in which strong evaluations help the ‘homo viator’—as Dohmen (2023, pp. 1167, 1170) termed it—to make meaningful choices. As Dohmen (2023) expressly added, this ‘homo viator’ is both liberal and social, which underlines the need to do justice to both individuality and communal responsibility. A comparable voice came from the United States, from the famous educator Parker Palmer (2017), who referred to the ‘pain of disconnection’ (p. 92). This disconnection, from colleagues, from students and from their own hearts, was ascribed by Palmer (2017) to a series of ‘broken paradoxes’ (p. 68): the separation of head from heart, of facts from feelings, of theory from practice and of teaching from learning. Teaching, concluded Palmer (2017), should aim at creating a space where a ‘community of truth’ is practiced to renew ‘the capacity for connectedness’ (p. 92). In another book, under the revealing title A Hidden Wholeness. The Journey Toward An Undivided Life (2004), he depicted the Western world and education as filled with the forces of fragmentation and advocates a journey toward living ‘divided no more’ (introduction). ‘Dividedness 3 As Dohmen (2023) wrote this in Dutch, the translations are mine.
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