| Abstract [eng] |
The society decentration analysed in the article is related to society democratisation, which started in the West in the 20th century. One of the main features of democratisation is criticism of hegemonic discourses and emphasis on possibility of pluralistic thinking. The potential of coexistence of different world-views arises from perception that all the great narratives of reality cognition that had existed historically and pretended to be a truth, as J. F. Lyotard noticed, were just the symbolic structures supported by power, which were subjectively made objective. Hence, the democratic society, unlike societies controlled by autocratic, authoritarian or totalitarian power, is always concerned with decentralisation of governmental power by giving a right of speaking not only to representatives of government, but also to members of society. It shows that individual members of society or their groups have a right to assess governmental decisions taken or being taken in a critical perspective and suggest variants of world perception different from those of the government. Structurally, the article is divided into two parts: a) we discuss the preconditions for formation of society democratisation, b) we analyse course-books on the fundamentals of public-spirit education, which are intended for Lithuanian comprehensive schools in pursuance of ascertainment of how the content of the course-books is actually oriented towards development of a free, critically thinking person accepting a variety of views, which is typical of a democratic society. |
