When looking for an answer to the question why the mankind , despite general democratization and access to public education in developed countries and despite rapid scientific and technological development so far, has been still encountering the most basic human issues, the roles of authority and anti-authority in relation to school at unsuccessful confrontation and solving mankind's problems have been researched. For this purpose, historical foundations of authority in the forms of tradition, religion and reason (mind) have been researched first. Christianity broke ties with tradition, modern age with religion, and then the reason (mind, lat.ratio) took over the role of the basic and indisputable source of cognition. Reason and science have been treated as the main authority and new »religion« to this day. Parallel to the research of basic holders of authority, single forms of authority in the field of education, including certain concepts of educational styles, supposingly to be typical for a certain historical period, were also researched. Despite witnessing the change in forms and styles, simultaneously with the change of holders of authority, all of them taking place both inside families and schools, the set-up educational goals still pose a challenge even today, as trying to be shown in the executional part; the very goals which would result in a self-confident, eliberated, independent, own-intiative, autonomous, responsible, tolerant and unconformist individual, who would be reaching post-conventional degrees of moral judgment. Searching for the reasons why the set-up educational and social ideals have not been met, various authors have been resorted to who were describing general social processes unwinding in the background and impeding the achievement of set-up goals. The ascertainment has been made, with the help of selected authors, that capitalism causes social crisis which is manifested in the crisis of authority, loss of historical memory, increase of apoliticism and loss of mankind's hope for the better future. In the continuation, mechanism of decreasing teacher's authority in school through the diminishment of professional autonomy and bureaucratisation, feminisation, proletarisation, racionalisation and intensification of their work are monitored. Also permissively indoctrinated parents with unrealistic expectations give their share to this process. The existence of a state as such is endangered by multinational corporations, the former being the last bastion of authority in its political legitimacy. In the last part where looking for solution, authority is tried to be invited into the consciousness of human life and acts. The conclusion is that from the collision between the Old World, represented by enlightenment ideals, and the New World, personified by the profits made by of corporative capitalism, depends the very existence of Western European civilisation, together with its achievements from enlightment period and its ideals, including educational ones.
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