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Martin Buber’s Myth of Zion: National Education or Counter-Education?

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Abstract

If national education is, as Ilan Gur-Ze’ev thinks, inevitably a matter of agents for and victims of a national system, only a “counter-education” can correct it. Martin Buber shared many of Gur-Ze’ev’s concerns, but advocated a more positive view of national education. This essay examines Buber’s development of his pedagogical theory in its context, notes his influence on several educational models, investigates how his view of national education either continues or is ignored in the modern State of Israel, and shows that his positive view draws not only on his “I-Thou” dialogical insight but also on his advocacy of a myth of Zion, a myth that provides an alternative not just to the dominant myths in Israel today but also to Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education.

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Notes

  1. The flaws in Buber’s interpretation of Plato appear throughout his arguments. He misinterprets Plato’s understanding of the division of labor and attributes Aristophanes’ myth of original androgyny to Plato himself (Buber 1948, pp. 162–163). More significantly, he uses Plato’s seventh letter as a basis for his claim that Plato succumbed to a love of power. That literalist interpretation had already been questioned by Leo Strauss (Strauss 1946; Lampert 2013, p. 25). The seventh out of thirteen letters sets out Plato’s most central theme. As Strauss puts it, Plato indeed seeks to avoid the fate of his master. He wants to prove that he “was not corrupted by Socrates…(and is) absolutely harmless, absolutely normal” (cited in Lampert 2013, p. 25). More importantly, Strauss decodes the letter to show that Plato writes the letter “to give subtle hints to those for whom the hints would suffice” (Strauss 1946, p. 350). Those interested in a deeper view of Plato’s political philosophy than Buber’s should consult Strauss.

  2. This motto, often attributed to the Roman satirist Petronius, was often used to explain why people turn to religion. Augustine rejected this idea (City of God, 27), but Arthur Melzer cites Charles Blount who uses it to point to why the philosopher should “read between the lines” (Melzer 2014, p. 141).

  3. Gur-Ze’ev also recounts how the Palestinians struggle to put the Holocaust into context—a struggle not paralleled by an Israeli attempt to understand the Nakbah—or catastrophe of Israel’s appropriation of Palestinian land and its expulsion of its citizen during the “War of Independence.” While very significant for understanding Israeli-Palestinian relations, that discussion is not relevant to this present essay.

  4. This view resembles what Gur-Ze’ev calls the “new anti-Semitism” (see Gur-Ze’ev 2010).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Alexandre Guilherme for his reading of an earlier version of this essay and making useful suggestions. Don Breslauer’s comments on Buber’s reading of Plato were very helpful to me.

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  1. Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, University of Kansas, 165 West End Avenue, Apt 3H, New York, NY, 10023, USA

    S. Daniel Breslauer

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Correspondence to S. Daniel Breslauer.

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Breslauer, S.D. Martin Buber’s Myth of Zion: National Education or Counter-Education?. Stud Philos Educ 35, 493–511 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9494-z

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