Play, Bildung and Democracy: Aesthetic Matters in Education

A principal objective of (Danish) schools is education for democracy through Bildung processes. Our thesis is that this objective can be fulfilled by means of play processes. Play, democracy and Bildung are closely connected as our several examples will make clear. In addition to play theories our arguments for this thesis are inspired by three philosophers: Nietzsche and his focus on (orderly) Apollonian and (disorderly) Dionysian aesthetic stylizing processes, which we interpret as vital regarding both play and human growth, Rancière and his understanding of and insight in the relation between democracy and aesthetics, which both relate to the ways in which divisions and subdivisions in the social realm take place; and Agamben and his critique of the way in which contemporary individuals are ascribed definite identities, thereby losing their freedom to play in not be pre-determined ways within the immediate social and symbolic (educational) order.