Violence interrogates Adult Education today. A radical and critical reflection

The author wants to reflect on the relationship between violence and education. In the nineteenth century, after two cruel World Wars, European society converged its energies and hopes also in education, but this turned out to be a great illusion. Atrocities and violence have not decreased at all. My reflections draw on some theoretical models from psychoanalysis, psycho-history, hermeneutics, pedagogy and critical sociology, post feminist thought, theory of complexity, Group relations Method and methods of qualitative research, as models enabling us to critically and not unilaterally address the events. The method is based on the analysis and the review of my experience as a researcher, adult trainer, supervisor, psychotherapist and university teacher. The project of development of the world of education in the second half of the twentieth century, including adult education, was often based on an individual and collective unconscious split. After the two World Wars and the student revolution in the 1960’s, we tried to leave the wounds and the tragedies behind. But many debris were not worked through: anger, anxiety, revenge, grudge. Adult education has the historical and political task to inquire into this serious issue of violence, looking for new models and methods