Literature and the challenges of democratic education, digitalisation and sustainable development.

This article draws on the political and moral philosophy of (democratic) education, taking as it does so a practical approach to the cultural, technological and ecological changes happening in today’s western societies. First, it examines the widespread proposal that, in our technical and hypermodern society, books – and with them literature as such – should be abolished (1). Next, we discuss how far it is possible for institutionalised western educational systems to insist upon a particular sustainability model in our pluralistic society (2). There are inherent contradictions in this, and we are therefore invited to turn to educating ourselves in a more informal setting rather than at educational institutions. Adopting this stance, we take up the call in this issue of leseforum.ch to see ‘[t]exts – both literary and non-literary – as intellectual and ethical resources which enable children, young people and adults to develop a common culture in questions of sustainable development and to reflect upon essential values so they can play an active role in contemporary society.’ To this end, we have developed the idea of an ‘education 2.0’ for the 21st century.