On the Importance of Gratitude for Humanistic Education in the Anthropocene

The present ecological crises that mark the Anthropocene make it clear that our exploitative way of relating to the world undermines humans' and many other beings' potential to flourish on Earth. Therefore, education should be concerned with fostering awareness and understanding of the value and vulnerability of (the conditions for life on) our planet, and our dependency in relation to this good. Gratitude experiences are characterized by and can contribute to such forms of awareness, types of understanding, and corresponding motivation to cherish the good these take as their object. Moreover, experiences of existential gratitude can reshape our relation to the natural world, making us perceive its objects as beautiful, intrinsically valuable entities that we feel profoundly connected with rather than as instrumentally valuable benefits. In particularly profound cases, people’s sense of self alters as they come to experience and understand themselves as an interdependent part of a larger whole such as Earth . Such experiences not only enrich our relationships with the natural world, but also provide us with meaning by deepening our sense of identity, and by infusing our lives with a sense of moral responsibility to care for the ecosystems we are part of. Thus, gratitude experiences not only have the potential to enhance flourishing, but may also have a bearing on how we approach the ontological-ethical question of what it means to be and flourish as a human being. Therefore, the potential educational value of gratitude seems to be particularly relevant for humanistic education in the Anthropocene. However, there seems to be a tension between existential gratitude and central elements of the modern western worldview; whereas the former is marked by an acknowledgement of our dependency and the uncontrollability of some aspects of the world, the latter is characterized by the humanistic values of freedom, autonomy and self-fulfilment, and by a belief in progress through the exercise of control over the natural environment. We discuss how humanism can disentangle itself from these problematic aspects of the modern worldview, and explore possibilities to foster existential gratitude within the framework of humanistic education.