Reclaiming Goodness: Education and the Spiritual Quest

Reclaiming Goodness: Education and the Spiritual Quest begins with the premise that sound models for achieving both spiritual fulfillment and the "good life" are lacking in contemporary culture. Arguing that contemporary education is responsible for having abandoned spirituality and the cultivation of goodness in people, Hanan A. Alexander advances a definition of spirituality which acknowledges an integral connection to education. For Alexander, spirituality requires that we seek to "discover our best selves in learning communities devoted to a higher good." He explores how spirituality provides an orientation toward a meaningful life and how, in our pursuit of that goal, it gives us a vision of the good life. For Alexander, this renewed vision of spirituality is necessary to provide the ethical framework so many of us seek; to achieve such a state of spiritual health, he proposes reenergizing liberal education. In their extreme responses to the spiritual crisis, both relativists and fundamentalists have misused education as a method for promoting narrow ideological goals and producing individuals ill-equipped to act autonomously.
Taking a cue from the golden mean of Aristotle and Maimonides, Alexander suggests situating education between the subjectivism and relativism of the left and the dogmatism and fundamentalism of the right. For Alexander, revitalizing education is a way to correct the misguided notion that extremism is an appropriate response to the spiritual crisis of modern society. Reclaiming Goodness charts a way to reintegrate ethical and spiritual values with the values of critical thought and reason. Written in accessible and non-technical prose, it will be of interest to professional educators as well as to a wider audience.