Against the Illusion of Justice: Existentialism and the Future of Democratic Education

Abstract

This philosophical essay draws into question the justification for common approaches to democratic education, arguing that the pervasive belief that justice and democracy will necessarily prevail underlies educational theory and practice within liberal democracies. Drawing on existentialist thought from Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, I argue for a more radical relational-based approach to democratic education that, informed by existential authenticity, may strengthen democratic practice in schools while also providing students with the tools needed to make meaning in the eventuality of democratic collapse.

Introduction

We find ourselves in a moment of political uncertainty. Globally, trust in the institutions of democratic governance has withered, with fear and insecurity predictably becoming tools by which political leaders build coalitions of support. In the United States, decades-long chipping away at the foundation of democracy and its concomitant values has led to the election of authoritarians to carry out a supposed mandate by voters to “reestablish” a bygone era of individual and thus collective prosperity rooted in fervent nationalism. As historian John Rury (2016, p. 3) notes, education is “both a causal agent and an activity . . . transformed by other social forces,” and while our history reveals the potential for education to promote social change, it also dissuades us from utopian visions of its possibilities. For those concerned with the future of democracy, what should we ask of our education in response to these concerns?

Where many may reasonably argue that the answer to this question lies in developing student dispositions and competencies toward more fruitful deliberation or responding to increasing political polarization through tactful handling of controversial topics in the classroom, this essay calls into question the justification for such approaches given our political moment. Rather than criticizing specific approaches to democratic pedagogy as more or less effective, this essay aims to challenge the pervasive teleological beliefs that largely underlie liberal democratic thought and, consequently, educational theory and practice. In the first section, I draw on existentialist thought to argue that common democratic approaches are at particular risk of being rooted in a form of what Jean-Paul Sartre (1956) calls bad faith—in this case the belief that democracy (and justice) will ultimately prevail. I contend that this self-deception practiced by democratic educators does little to prepare students (and teachers themselves) to navigate the tumultuous times ahead, to make meaning in an unjust world, and to live authentically even as our institutions crumble around us. I further argue that the abandonment of a mindset based in an assured just future compels educators to recommit to a relational-based teaching focused on aiding students to develop meaningful relationships within and without educational spaces.

After briefly surveying existentialist contributions to education in the second section, I set out to begin envisioning an existentialist democratic education. Although the development of democratic competencies may be a worthwhile pursuit, sought authentically by students and teachers alike, an illusion of the “just society” at the foundation of democratic approaches undermines its very aims. While an existential perspective may not be a direct remedy to the burgeoning crisis at hand, it provokes us to consider, as Van Cleve Morris (1966) writes, “what is at stake in the task of being human” (p. 3). Engaging in such an approach thus may be doubly beneficial: Pragmatically, it has the potential to spark processes of building authentic democratic coalitions based in a shared struggle for justice while also providing some path forward when democracy fails.

Some may be troubled by the implications of this essay, choosing to see its call to action as permission to give up on the pursuit of justice, resorting to moral quietism. I argue, however, that an education focused on aiding students to find authentic meaning in their actions and relationships is an ultimately ethical approach. As such, democratic educators would do well to dispense with the hope that justice will prevail if they are to prepare students for the eventuality in which it does not.

Theorizing Bad Faith in Democratic Education

Overlapping, though sometimes competing conceptions of democratic education have been thoroughly discussed in the educational and political philosophical literature. The contestation of the term provides obstacles to its implementation in policy and practice but also ensures open possibilities for the future of the democratic project (Sant, 2019). Multicultural, deliberative, and participatory renderings of democracy invite educationists to consider how to best prepare students, academically and civically, for engaged citizenship. Joining decades of theoretical literature, more recent work by scholars of democratic education has shown promise in providing theoretical as well as practicable ideas for strengthening democratic practice in schools, particularly in the face of antidemocratic forces. Fraser-Burgess and Higgins (2024), for example, argued that the narrative around homogeneity as necessary for democratic stability is a false dichotomy and that “deep pluralism” may be the unifying factor in a healthy democratic society, suggesting that classrooms impart in students a common interest in facing up to our deep-seated differences (p. 638). Other scholars have focused on direct civic character education, promoting service-learning programming (Jover & Gozálvez, 2024), cognitive-emotional skill development (Read, 2021), and the cultivation of honesty in students (Stitzlein, 2023), to name only a few. Still others have focused on equipping students with the information and skills necessary to navigate 21st century issues such as evaluating mis- and disinformation through enhanced digital media literacy (see Gordon, 2018; Kaufman, 2021; Perez-Mugg, 2025). In a similar vein, and perhaps most directly situated within the current state of polarized politics aimed at developing student dispositions for democratic practice, several educational theorists have discussed the fraught nature of teaching controversial issues. Michael Hand (2008) argues that we do an educational disservice to students when we teach “epistemically controversial” topics directively, that is, as settled knowledge with the intention to persuade students (p. 228). Where Warnick and Smith (2014) advocate for a “soft” directiveness that accounts for students’ rational development as part of the educational process (p. 240), Tillson (2017) argues that in the case of certain “momentous propositions,” in which the moral stakes are high enough, teachers are justified in directive teaching (p. 175).

Whether concerned with the acquisition of discrete skill sets or the development of broader dispositions for deliberative and participatory practice, theorists of democratic education continue to offer nuanced approaches to responding to the particularities of contemporary democracy. Still, without exploration of the conditions and motivations that underlie democratic practice in education, such approaches may prove counterproductive or even harmful to the broader democratic project. Thus, this essay does not evaluate the theoretical viability or efficacy of democratic approaches but rather draws into question the background conditions that inform their implementation in practice by well-intentioned educators. To do so, I rely on central concepts of existentialism to consider how educators think about justice and democratic society broadly, arguing that it is not enough to adopt approaches set out by theorists without deep personal reflection on wider ontological commitments and the human condition. By exploring these underlying conditions in existing democratic education scholarship, I suggest that individual engagement in existentialist reflection may be a moral obligation of teachers faced with democratic backsliding and otherwise a precondition to any fruitful democratic outcomes in practice.

Despite the varied implications that follow from their philosophies, thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre are generally held together within an existentialist school of thought by the primary unifying principle that “existence precedes essence” (Kneller, 1958, p. 1), a view that emphasizes existential abandonment—the condition of humans as alone in the world with no external sense-making mechanism (e.g., God or human nature). For existentialists, the fact of abandonment leaves us with overwhelming existential anxiety or what Sartre (1977) describes as anguish—the realization of one’s full responsibility for one’s actions. In other words, if we are unable to base our choices on confidence in the existence of a higher power or in some foundational human quality, we come to realize the overwhelming import of our actions and choices. Simone de Beauvoir (1975) describes anguish as the realization that one “bears the responsibility for a world which is not the work of a strange power, but of himself, where his defeats are inscribed, and his victories as well” (p. 16). Thus, the profound sense of responsibility on all of us is that in acting, we continually redefine human essence. To live authentically, then, for the existentialists, is to live in anguish, bearing full responsibility for our choices and their consequences. Conversely, to escape the inevitable anguish of the human condition is to be existentially inauthentic and characteristic of living in bad faith (Sartre, 1977). Here an important distinction should be made between existential bad faith and bad faith as we colloquially use the term in everyday political circumstances. Where we may commonly refer to bad-faith actors in the political sphere as those who act out of a sense of purposeful deception toward others, for existentialists, bad faith is characterized instead by an individual’s attempt (typically nonpurposefully) to escape the fundamental anguish of the human condition. While bad-faith actors, in the colloquial sense, do pose a threat to the pursuit of democratic ends, existential bad faith is particularly pernicious in the background conditions of otherwise “good faith” actors and actions. But to act in existential good faith is more than to avoid deceiving others but to avoid self-deception by authentically claiming responsibility for one’s actions and their consequences. To this end, de Beauvoir (1975) provides a typology for understanding the various ways in which one may attempt to escape their existential responsibility, each manifesting in a different form of bad faith.

The Sub-man → Denies their agency

The Serious man → Relies on external values

The Nihilist → Passively accepts

The Adventurer → Driven by self-interest

The Passionate Man → Lost in the cause

The sub-man denies their agency and thereby refuses to engage with the world because of their sense of powerlessness; the serious man displaces their responsibility on external values; the nihilist is passive, claiming that there is no meaning to life; the adventurer accepts choice but acts only out of self-interest; finally, the passionate man dedicates himself to a cause but loses himself in it rather than fully self-actualizing.

Although it is easy to imagine educators falling into any combination of these categories, democratic educators are at particular risk of becoming what we might conceptualize as “serious teachers” who put their faith in external values such as a belief in the eventual and inevitable prevailment of democracy and justice. This underlying ethos is more present in Western society than we may first admit, potentially in the background of not only the action of democratic educators but also the scholarship of democratic and educational theorists themselves. Western society, deeply influenced by Enlightenment-style thinking, emphasizes the primacy of rationality, and many Enlightenment thinkers rely on teleological reasoning to argue for the inevitability of human progress through reason (see Kant & Wood, 2009; Paine, 1820). Liberal democratic rhetoric, too, as developed from this tradition, is often rooted in an inevitable march toward justice, perhaps not better illustrated than in the familiar words of Martin Luther King Jr. (1968): “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I suspect that many educators and theorists would be quick to respond that, on the contrary, the lack of certainty that democracy will win may be the exact reason why they urgently employ democratic methods, but with much Western thought rooted in such certainty, an ethos conditioned into us, democratic education is at risk of being existentially inauthentic as teachers and theorists lean on the sense that justice must and surely will prevail.

The inauthenticity of democratic education rooted in bad faith of this kind is problematic for two reasons. First, adhering to a belief in the inevitable prevailment of justice has the potential to prevent teachers from taking enough action—they may, in essence, feel off the hook for earnestly pursuing democratic aims. In this way, meaningful democratic education is replaced with its performative counterpart such that even when policy considers democratic aims as more than potential add-on curriculum or enrichment, educators perform democratic education only to a certain point. Perhaps this suggests only a further reason for doubling down on democratic and civic learning in schools, but what if justice and democracy do not, in fact, prevail? The second problem with bad-faith pursuits of democratic education are that they leave students ill-prepared for making meaning in their lives outside of our fragile institutions. To question democratic education as rooted in bad faith is to ask what are we giving up by doubling down on such approaches?

Still, from the existentialist perspective, it may be possible for one to pursue democratic aims and justice authentically, that is, in good faith. It is not that working toward justice is wrong, invaluable, and inherently inauthentic but that pursuing democratic education while maintaining the comforting, albeit socially conditioned, belief that justice ultimately will prevail constitutes bad faith and thus relieves educators and students from the moral weight of their actions. To contend with these problems of potential inauthenticity in democratic education and envision a meaningful education for a precarious future, in the next section I will begin by examining other applications of existentialism to educational spaces, revealing what existentialism may have to offer as I explore the beginnings of an existentialist democratic education.

Existentialism and Education

Existentialist philosophy does not immediately lend itself well to practical application to the field of education for several reasons. First, education is often taken, among other things, to be the means by which a society inculcates its young in the values and knowledge necessary for adult participation. If existentialism calls for individual meaning making, this collectivist aim of education may be undermined by the insistence that value is individualistically determined. Second, existential questions are not light. Although education is generally viewed as a hopeful project, a good that will aid children in their lifelong pursuits, an existentialist education asks us to contemplate somber questions in seeking authenticity. It is, in essence, according to George Kneller (1958), “education with death in view” (p. 111). Despite this difficult contradiction, thinkers such as Kneller (1958), Maxine Greene (1973, 1988), and Van Cleve Morris (1966) have applied existentialist frameworks to the practice of education, producing a body of scholarship to provoke deep reflection on the part of students and teachers alike.

In what might be considered the first major attempt at linking existentialist thought with education, Kneller (1958) discussed three primary goals of existentialist educators: (a) educational content that allows students to discover meaning independently; (b) achievement of autonomous functioning minds; and (c) “evidence that students hold something to be true because they have convinced themselves that it is such” (p. 116). Others have viewed existentialism as less a remedy and more a warning against traditional assumptions and practices within schools. For example, Greene (1973) casts a skeptical light on traditional approaches to categorizing and sorting students, arguing that learning cannot be forced but instead must come from a student’s own desire. In Dialectic of Freedom, she directly states that schools should be where students develop and share meanings rather than spaces that narrowly focus on achievement and proficiency (Greene, 1988). In this way, for existentialists, subject matter is secondary to meaning, where curricular content exists only as a vehicle through which students learn to determine value. It is the work of teachers, then, to help students become “implicated in [their] subject matter” rather than simply passive recipients of it (Morris, 1966, p. 119). Of course, concern about the possibility of inert subject matter has occupied liberal democratic scholars as well; Dewey’s (1938) work is an obvious example that challenges the traditional notion of teacher authority, calling for a version of education that implicates students in the content of schools through carefully crafted experiences. In this way, generational knowledge through the learned disciplines plays an important role in equipping students with the means for navigating and ultimately learning from experiences in the classroom. R. S. Peters (2015) goes further in defense of the curriculum, pushing back on progressive notions of child-centered learning, arguing for the important role that the teacher plays in initiating students in disciplinary inquiry. On Peters’ account, individual meaning making and the disciplinary content of schools must be balanced to interact to foster critical thinking—the teacher, as such, inherits some authority in presenting the content of learning, whereas the content itself plays a role in serving as the grounds from which a student develops meaning. He writes:

To conceive of “education” as imposing a pattern on another person or as fixing the environment so that an individual “grows” fails to do justice to the shared impersonality both of the content that is handed on and of the criteria by reference to which it is criticized and developed. It ignores the cardinal fact that education consists essentially in the initiation of others into a public world picked out by the language and concepts of a people and in encouraging others to join in exploring realms marked out by more differentiated forms of awareness. (Peters, 2015, p. 52)

For the existentialist, though, to be implicated in subject matter is less about an epistemic concern for how and what students learn but rather the promotion of the individual’s capabilities to recognize and strive toward that which matters in their lives, a goal that may or may not be linked to the disciplinary knowledge taught and learned in schools. Existentialism does not dismiss the importance of content in schools but rather warns that the myopic focus on disciplinary knowledge may interfere with other (more) important educational outcomes. Thus, explicit in the work of existentialist educators is a desire for individual self-realization of one’s subjectivity. For Morris (1966), success in this regard means the discovery of responsibility, where a student “becomes fully aware of himself as the shaper of his own life, aware of the fact that he must take charge of that life and make it his own statement of what a human being ought to be” (p. 111). ¹

In terms of content, however, existentialists often rely heavily on the arts and humanities to promote in students the development of the radical imagination necessary to begin pursuing authentic freedom because of the potential of these subjects to “draw the mind to what lies beyond the accustomed boundaries and often to what is not yet” (Greene, 1988, p. 128). Both in the receptive sense implied by Greene, in which the aesthetic experience stirs the imagination, and in the creation of art, one is able to express authentic meaning as interpreted and lived out in the student’s own world (Morris, 1966). Yet, the more important aspect of existentialist education less thoroughly explored in the literature is the role of the teacher–student relationship. Despite nuanced disagreement on other educational topics such as curricula and school structure, existentialists share broad consensus that the relationship between teacher and student needs to be approached with greater intimacy than in the present moment (Kneller, 1958). Morris (1966), for example, questions the extent to which we engage in true “person-to-person relations” in education, using Buber’s “I–Thou” analysis to argue for recognition of the subjectivity in others that we encounter (p. 70). ² Greene (1973) suggests that when teachers hide their true selves from their students, they undermine the existential educational process, writing that “[they are] not a missionary, not a museum guard. . . . [They] can only be present to [their] students as a human being engaged in searching and choosing.” (p. 297). Here, then, we have two different but related conceptions of the relationship that should exist between teachers and students. On the one hand, teachers should be engaged in closer, attentive relationships with their students perhaps akin to Nel Noddings’ (1984) approach to “care” (see also Noddings, 2007). On the other hand, in line with Greene’s (1973) view, teachers should present under no pretense the idea that they themselves are not human beings identically engaged in creating meaning in ambiguity. Both aspects of deepening educational relationships seem paramount, and they are also mutually reinforcing such that to truly be engaged in existential meaning making is to seek out more authentic understanding and connection both as a student and as a teacher.

Given the existentialist commitments to authentic freedom, emphasizing choice in the curriculum and shifting attention to what have, in recent years, become increasingly discounted subjects, as well as its fundamental views of individuality in meaning making, there are many contradictions between pursuing existential and democratic aims of education simultaneously. Individualistic aims pursued in earnest by existentialists appear prima facie to be antithetical to collectivist visions of democratic deliberation, concern for the interests of others, and fundamental group decision making. In fact, existentialists widely disagree on whether existentialism and democracy are even reconcilable concepts (Kneller, 1958). For example, where some see collective decision making as inherently at odds with radical individualism, others are more concerned that while group decisions could preserve individuality, there is also a clear potential for majority rule to promote, establish, and maintain tyranny, greatly restricting an individual’s ability to be free in every sense of the word (Kneller, 1958). Sartre (2004) suggests that groups can actually be strengthened by the interplay between individual subjectivities such that collective struggles for or against a common cause can be authentically pursued as individualized interests; however, he also acknowledges that the very existence of other individuals limits one’s subjectivity and liberties (Sartre, 1956). Thus, while existentialist and democratic aims are not necessarily mutually exclusive, pragmatically speaking, groups should allow for the greatest degree of individual choice possible while requiring the least degree of conformity to allow for authentic pursuits of justice (Kneller, 1958).

Because democratic approaches to education involve certain required curricular content with the potential to be pursued in bad faith, they may both fail to prepare students for authentically pursuing justice and neglect to equip them with the tools needed to make meaning when democracy does not prevail. I suggest, then, that democratic educators draw on the existentialist perspective, especially as it pertains to educational relationships, to recommit to a more intimate relational-based teaching to aid students in developing relationships with those around them in order to make meaning within and without assured democracy, peace, stability, and justice. Others have taken similar interest in a view of teaching that prioritizes the relational aspects of education—most notably perhaps, Nel Noddings (1984), who, taking as a starting point that “the student is infinitely more important than the subject,” laid out a deeply humane vision of education based on an ethic of care (p. 20). An existentialist commitment to relational-based teaching differs, however, in its more radical commitment to educational relationships for one primary purpose—individual meaning making. An existential relational teaching, then, is noninstrumental because the relationship is the good and meaning itself. Although care ethics applied to education claims to prioritize the student over educational content, some degree of instrumentality of the caring relationship seems to be present, with Noddings (1984), for example, presenting the caring relationship as being productive for “building an educational strategy” (p. 63). While this is not necessarily problematic, and even while most educational aims are at least partly instrumental, an existentialist relation necessitates a more open possibility for students.

Toward an Existentialist Democratic Education

Because existentialism is not a philosophy that is able to provide ready-made solutions to ongoing dilemmas, the precise nature of what an existentialist democratic education may look like is not clear (Morris, 1966). Considering the finitude of human life is necessary for the deep reflection that sparks authentic choosing and living but also cannot be approached from the typical power dynamic that positions the teacher as the epistemic authority, because the teacher is, like us all, simultaneously navigating these questions. Thus, a recommitment to a more intimate relational-based teaching must involve being genuine in our humanity to students, sharing our own vulnerabilities and approaches to searching for meaning while simultaneously encouraging students to think about the relationships in their lives, inspiring them to consider what they find important or meaningful and how they might pursue those ends. The ultimate aim of such an approach is to embrace what Morris (1966) considers the overpowering theme of existentialism, “the project of living one’s life in such a way as to be deserving of something better than nothingness and obliteration . . . to confront nothingness, to deny nothingness, by filling it up with a life that ought never to be lost or annihilated” (p. 29). It is understandable that educators would be wary of engaging in this work with students, particularly given that at the present moment they may feel that they lack the proper training, but to shy away from this project with students is to yet again live in bad faith.

For democratic educators, recommitting to relational-based teaching may counterintuitively be the exact strategy necessary for inspiring the kinds of dispositions and ultimately collective action desired. Because existentialism focuses on individual meaning making, some have criticized its basic premise as leading to moral quietism (Sartre, 1977). How, then, can democratic educators embrace a philosophy that is, according to critics, void of any specific moral direction? Sartre (1977) and de Beauvoir (1975) both responded to this criticism, the former arguing that existentialism is perhaps the ultimate humanistic approach and the latter arguing that this fundamental ambiguity is the essence of human existence and should be embraced rather than criticized. Both views begin to reveal why democratic educators should consider the existentialist perspective. Sartre’s (1977) existential anguish burdens us with the responsibility of choosing for ourselves that which thereafter becomes the essence of all humankind. But, given that there is no fundamental conception of the good, how should one act? He writes (pp. 40–41):

Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First I ought to commit myself and then act my commitment, according to the time-honoured formula that “one needs not hope in order to undertake one’s work.” Nor does this mean that I should not belong to a party, but only that I should be without illusion and that I should do what I can. For instance, if I ask myself “will the social ideal as such, ever become a reality?” I cannot tell, I only know that whatever may be in my power to make it so, I shall do; beyond that, I can count upon nothing.

In recommitting to relational-based teaching and aiding students to develop meaningful relationships with those they encounter, the existentialist democratic educator provides students with the foundation necessary to authentically develop their own commitments, relying not on external suggestion but deriving directly from the relationships in which they take part. Because we cannot rely on objective external moral doctrine to tell us how to act, it is only through our relationships with others that we will form and be prepared to act on our moral commitments. Sartre further illustrates this point through a story about a young soldier who must choose between staying with his grieving mother after the death of his older brother at the hands of the Germans or choosing to join the Free French Forces to fight for a larger moral cause and avenge his brother’s death. The “soldier’s dilemma” illustrates that no objective moral doctrine can respond to the intricacies of his situation and thus cannot tell the soldier how to act. He must decide for himself, owning the decision that he makes as the right decision. For Simone de Beauvoir (1975), this dilemma illustrates the fundamental ambiguity of the human condition. She writes: “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting” (p. 9). For de Beauvoir, life is ambiguous rather than absurd, because absurdity implies that it can never be given specific meaning, whereas ambiguity acknowledges that meaning must be continuously remade. It is in relation to others that we learn to navigate and remake this fundamental human ambiguity. For the democratic educator, then, existentialism offers a more genuine possibility for establishing the individual moral commitments necessary for collective decision making. And, by reengaging in relational-based teaching, an existentialist approach incidentally may lead to the very outcomes for which democratic educators aim. Whereas the pursuit of democratic education with the illusion of a future just society is in bad faith, a recommitment to educational (and all) relationships for their own sake enables teachers and students to authentically and freely choose how to live. Otherwise, what can current approaches to democratic education without this existential perspective offer students if democracy fails, institutions crumble, and external meaning is fundamentally lost?

To distinguish between existential bad faith and authenticity is an individual engagement in which educators must determine for themselves the correct course of action in nurturing relationships with students while navigating existential reflection and discussion. Because an existentialist democratic education is, in this way, specific to the situations of individual actors, there is no single exemplar for how to engage in the practice. Rather than offer direct pedagogic moves, I instead suggest that educators and theorists alike reflect on their own existential authenticity to avoid bad-faith pursuits and learn to live and teach through questioning our faith in democracy; to do so might very well save it—although I would not be so sure. Where we surely lack archetypal models from which to build our own existential approaches to democratic education, seeing others in action may serve as inspiration even when the specifics of their method are no replacement for our own imaginations. To this end, I present an example of radical relationship-focused teaching in the lifework of Janusz Korczak, Polish-Jewish orphanage director and pedagogue, murdered alongside his charges in the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. Korczak is widely considered to be a pedagogical progressive who implemented student-centered approaches to experiential learning and teaching in his orphanage for Jewish children (Lifton, 1988). More radically, however, his educational writings, including How to love a child and A child’s right to respect, emphasize an approach to pedagogical love that centers on the relationship between child and caregiver (Korczak, 2017, 2018). Because Korczak was at once an orphanage director, pediatrician, educational theorist, and pedagogue, his approach to educational relationships transcended the typical view of the teacher–student relationship—indeed, he cared for his students as more than an imparter of academic knowledge. In How to love a child, he writes of the deeply attentive caregiver:

Only under these conditions will this work be neither monotonous, nor hopeless. Each day will bring him something new, unexpected, unusual, every day will be a new monograph richer. An unusual or rare complaint, lie, argument, request, offense, a manifestation of disobedience, insincerity, or heroism, will be valuable to him as a rare coin, fossil, plant, or arrangement of the stars in the sky is to a collector. It is only then that he will love each child with a judicious love, take interest in his spiritual content, his needs, his fate. (Korczak, 2018, pp. 156–157).

After the annexation of Poland in 1939 and increasing danger for the Jewish community in Warsaw, culminating in the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto and eventual deportation to Treblinka, Korczak’s writings and actions began to take the tone of one committed solely to preserving relationships with his students and his own coming to terms with injustice. In one poignant reminiscence, in the final months leading up to their death, Korczak insisted on procuring flowers and plants for the children from Christian emissaries to take care of in a garden, feeling that it would help them “forget their troubles” (Lifton, 1988, p. 311). For Korczak, existential concerns may or may not have always been at the center of his relational-based pedagogy, but his final writings point to his own confrontation with such questions and reveal a man deeply concerned with, if not his children’s physical freedom, their authentic existential freedom. In his Ghetto diary, published posthumously in 1956, less than a month before he and the children of the orphanage were deported, he writes: “I don’t know what I should say to the children by way of farewell. I should want to make clear to them only this—that the road is theirs to choose, freely” (Korczak, 2003, p. 101). For the existentialist democratic educator, perhaps there is much to learn from Korczak’s relationships with his children, especially when in the end, despite being given the option of escape, he chose to stay by their sides. We are left only to assume his continued pedagogical commitments in their final days.

In an essay on education in undemocratic times, it is important to strike a balance between raising alarm about the future of democratic institutions and being realistic about an approach to democratic education that prepares students to both strengthen democratic practice and to create meaning in the eventuality in which democratic institutions do not prevail. It also should be noted that even as we consider what successful democratic practices look like, we should recognize the extent to which collective governance has continually failed many groups of people, even while leading to greater justice for some. Among the myriad problems with various iterations of liberal democracy is its propensity to mask the oppression of groups such that even within “successful” democratic practice, there has been ongoing suffering and death for marginalized members of democratic society (Cunningham, 2002). Indeed, trust in democratic institutions has withered as newer generations of voting-age citizens have become skeptical of the narratives advanced by earlier generations, which continue to defend democratic institutions in the face of what many are beginning to view as perennial failure. Skepticism of this kind toward democratic educational theory and practice is sure to follow; thus, an existential commitment to relational-based teaching is not simply a safeguard for meaningful living in the worst of circumstances, including the future downfall of democracy, but for now and always. To pursue justice authentically without being in bad faith, we must relinquish any semblance of assurance in a current, past, or future “just society”—not because this is not a noble and important cause but because we must each be prepared to make our own choices and live with their consequences regardless of our future political circumstances. This is an existentialist democratic education.

Conclusion

In this essay I have argued that common approaches to democratic education, and rhetoric in broader liberal Western society in general are often rooted in Sartrean bad faith, which relieves us of authentically engaging with the inherent ambiguities of being human. To authentically pursue the ends of democratic education while also preparing students to make meaning in an unjust world and to possibly live without our taken-for-granted institutions, I suggest an existentialist perspective on democratic education that emphasizes a recommitment to radical relational-based teaching. I suggest that by abandoning the illusion of a “future just society” and applying a deeper relational-based approach to teaching, democratic educators can better prepare students to confront the most fundamental questions of existence and, in so doing, empower them to authentically choose and act. Although I provide very little in the way of direct ideas for how to best implement such an approach, I invite readers to engage in this work for themselves to consider practicable possibilities for their given circumstances. Thus, I echo George Kneller’s (1958) sentiment that existentialism is not understandable if one takes the position of spectator, a comfortable position for many philosophers. Instead, to understand it, one must live it, which means philosophizing not only from a place of wonder but also from a place of dread (p. 147). Ultimately, in calling for democratic educators to abandon a belief in a just future, I hope only to initiate a conversation in which existentialist thought may serve as a warning if not also the beginning of a guide for future meaningful and authentic action on the part of teachers and students.