Social Limits To Learning

by MERGNER, GOTTFRIED; Van Der Linden, Marcel; Templer, William

• ISBN13: 9781845450045
• ISBN10: 1845450043
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-15
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

At the heart of the historical and social sciences lies the remarkable gray area of learning processes. ?Learning? is usually perceived as individual childhood development at home and at school and has been written about extensively. However, little is known about learning processes outside primary and secondary socialization although insight into these learning processes appears indispensable for an understanding of social changes or the lack thereof. On the basis of historical and current case studies, philosophical reflections, and critical commentaries, Mergner (1941?1999) opened up this important area through his ?theory of social limits to learning,? designed to explain not only why people accept or reject structures of domination but also why people trying emancipate themselves nonetheless form and accept new structures of domination. This anthology presents Mergner?s seminal work to the non-German speaking world for the first time in order to give it the wider recognition it so clearly deserves.

Table of Contents

1 Gottfried Mergner	1	(19)
Marcel van der Linden
2 The Theory of Social Limits to Learning: On Social History as a Method	20	(12)
3 The "National Heritage" of German Colonialism	32	(14)
4 "Solidarity With the Savages?"	46	(17)
German Social Democracy and the African Resistance Struggle in the Former German Colonies
5 Death and Social Democracy	63	(25)
6 "Faithful Fatalism": On the Concept of "Total War" in the History of Mentality	88	(13)
7 Social Change Without Social Actors?	101	(12)
The Continuing Legacy of the Philosophy of History
8 Racism as a Distinctively European Species of Xenophobia	113	(10)
9 Inculcated Normality and Exclusion: Six Theses on the History of European Xenophobia	123	(8)
10 Solidarity in a World of Growing Interconnectivity	131	(8)
11 Compulsive and Coerced Identities: Once More on the Theory of Social Limits to Learning	139	(16)
Acknowledgements	155	(2)
Index	157