Bildung und radikale Gewalt

Essay über politische Radikalisierungsprozesse als bildungstheoretisches Themenfeld

English version

If, for example, preliminary investigations reveal that such terrorists and violent radicals, who are held responsible for drastic hate crimes, are at the same time formally highly educated and qualified people, the public often reacts with particular irritation. This could easily be attributed to a widespread perception that education and violence are mutually exclusive. This essay, however, is based on a different thesis. This thesis states that radicalization processes can also be described in terms of „Bildung“ – and individual radicalization processes can thus be better understood at some points than if one tried to explain them through ideologies, group structures or toxic socialization. It is true that only very few radicals resort to violent means to achieve their goals. But even in such cases, the essay argues, where the use of violence occurs, this not necessarily contradicts the thesis advocated here. The assumption that individual radicalization processes can be more accurately reconstructed as forms of transformative learning could not only provide an explanation for the untapped attraction that radicalism itself has at its disposal in societies that are not primarily marked by violent conflict or material need. It can also be taken up as a productive contribution to a fundamental theoretical debate in research on extremism and political violence, in which the concept of radicalization is fundamentally challenged because of its violence-bound, remote and security agenda. But above all, the essay aims to encourage a more intensive engagement with educational theory approaches to the phenomenon of radicalization, especially when these approaches themselves include violent forms. In this way, new and further explanatory approaches to the genesis of radical violence could possibly be developed.