Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Separation, Judgment, and Laments of Civic Criticism
- 2 Civility and Crisis in the Slovak Public Sphere
- 3 Sentimental Kritika
- 4 Love, L'udskost', and Education for Democracy
- 5 Young Literary Critics
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Separation, Judgment, and Laments of Civic Criticism
- 2 Civility and Crisis in the Slovak Public Sphere
- 3 Sentimental Kritika
- 4 Love, L'udskost', and Education for Democracy
- 5 Young Literary Critics
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For democratic societies to flourish, citizens, in their daily lives, must engage in behaviors which support and promote democratic ideals. The symbolic acts of democratic life; voting, declaring political affiliations … do not, by themselves, support democratic societies. What is essential for sustaining democracy is a citizenry capable of expressing through their ongoing social discourse, a complex set of behaviors which includes, among other behaviors: self-reflection, tolerance, power sharing, critical thinking, decision making, responsibility for self, leadership, opinion formation, and social responsibility and social connectedness.
—Office of Education for Democracy, University of Northern IowaThis book has explored discourses on critical thinking through practices that Slovaks and Westerners expected critical thinking to inhabit in Slovak society after the collapse of Communist rule. These interlocutors pointed to ways in which they saw criticism being practiced in the public sphere and the nation's classrooms and found it deficient for the post-Communist, democratic, or capitalist order that they wished to emerge. I have used this commentary as the basis for exploring how veritably we could speak of a whole society as exhibiting or lacking critical thought. I have sought to situate the laments that I heard of deficient civic criticism within Slovakia's history of liberal and revolutionary leftist politics, as well as the context of postsocialist modernity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Critical Thinking in Slovakia after Socialism , pp. 179 - 186Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013