Pauperization, Consumerism, Superstitions And Social Pedagogy

Abstract

This essay seeks to answer a threefold question: How can the social pedagogy react to 1) the growing “precariat” or pauperization threatening the workers of all the world, 2) to the consumerist alienation promoted by the powerful publicity paid by international capitalism, 3) to other forms of alienation such as pseudoscience and multiple superstitions, phenomena scattered all over the world in different forms? Supported by different writers (Standing, Marcuse, Bauman, Sagan, Popper) we propose that the school, the media and social organizations (linked to local official organizations or associations) should promote a fundamental reflection on the pauperization threatening mankind and on the atmosphere of consumerism promoted by the forces of the globalized market. But it is imperative these same agencies of social pedagogy promote the debate about pseudoscience and multiple forms of superstition so as to develop in our society a critical awareness of these forms of alienation and access to a scientifically based view on history of the mankind and of the universe.