Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This year – 2023 – marks the 50th anniversary of the 1973 coup d’état in Chile. This research paper examines the last sixty years of education in Chile from a Frommian perspective by proposing that the year 1973 emerges as a turning point in the educational history of our country wherefrom massification, mechanization, and standardization have become constitutive components of the educational system. By surveying the major milestones in the Chilean educational arena before and after the coup d’etat, this paper documents the progressively necrophilic movement in education, that was, in turn, a response to the neoliberal logic adopted by the dictatorship of the time. The study discusses the preponderance of epistemological views and policies aligned with the intricate systems of competition and measurement (the “supply” and “demand” of economics) that predominate in one way or another to this day and the need to achieve a balance between the biophilic and necrophilic orientations that will allow the opening of epistemological and ontological paths in education, which highlight the importance of timing, rhythm, and emotion.