Vasile Bănescu, on the state of Education in Romania: We are living in “an era of the wicked throwing overboard of everything that can keep a ship on a meaningful sailing direction”

Vasile Bănescu, the former spokesperson of BOR, marked the World Education Day with a deep reflection on the current state of education.

In a message posted on Facebook, Vasile Bănescu highlighted that, although education should be a celebration, few people see it that way.

“October 5 – World Education Day. Does anyone really celebrate it anymore, though? There are almost certainly extraordinary people who reflect nostalgically today on what Education meant, what it still means and what it could mean if the current times did not portend possibly hellish times. These people are not only teachers, the best of them, but they are above all people. Some who care about the truth, the good of others and the community they belong to, today as almost tragic witnesses. People who see Education itself as a celebration. Fewer and fewer, of course, in an age of -post, -trans or -hyper prefixes. An era of viciously throwing overboard everything that can keep a ship on a meaningful sailing course. An era that calls the storm in many ways, an era of excess that leaves behind the norm, normality, decency, discernment, virtue (moderation). Human and humanity. Mankind. What words! What old-fashioned “nonsense” that confuses us!”, wrote the former spokesman of the Romanian Orthodox Church on the social network.

Vasile Bănescu emphasized the importance of truth, moderation and discernment in a society dominated by relativism and excess. He pointed out that, in the current era, education should be a “therapy of blindness”, a form of eye-opening and orientation.

“What remains to be educated? Not trainable. The man, of course. But which man? The one marked against his will by relativism, nihilism, indifferent to truth, to meaning, to the distinction between “possible” and “permitted”, to what is and is not to be said or done. “Recent man”, man “sapiens sapiens” irritated by the invocation of wisdom. Education today, more than ever, is opening eyes, orienting and educating the gaze, therapy for blindness.”, continued Vasile Bănescu.

He also wonders what to celebrate.

“The ideal above. The impossible that summons us, that raises the unresigned gaze of those who do not abdicate yet or will never abdicate. Because to educate is to light a fire“, Bănescu concluded.