Challenging the plague of indifference: COVID-19 and posthumanistic education for sustainability

Abstract

Reflective of this COVID-19 era, Maxine Greene’s analysis of Albert Camus’ great novel, The Plague, reminds us “that the plague can be understood as a metaphor for people’s indifference or distancing or thoughtlessness” where we “organize people into sanitary squads to fight the plague…because everyone carries the microbe for the plague of the body, the potential for the plague of indifference”. As our species and planet respond to current unprecedented times, opportunities emerge that encourage educational shifts toward ecological sustainability. We argue that education must not be accepting of the plague of indifference because that is to be complicitous with it. As such, this paper explores opportunities to destabilize the enduring assumptions of indifference towards ecological sustainability within humanistic education, while building capacities to see beyond these assumptions. Since human subjectivity is shaped by educational agendas, we advocate for a provocative posthumanistic discourse where caring and kindness shape the future of teaching and learning within this deeply interconnected, beautiful world.