ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I will trace the origins, manifestations, and objectives of the civilizing aspect that runs through Recabarren’s political and educational vision. The civilizing discourse of the state and of the liberal sectors [Partido Liberal] was similar to Recabarren’s civilizing discourse of an enlightened nature. The different sectors used the same language and shared similar immediate objectives, such as regeneration and redemption of the people, the instilling of good habits, the moralizing of conduct, as well as proposed literacy programs and cultural enhancement. But, unlike the other sectors, the ultimate objectives that Recabarren pursued had to do with the benefits that the civilizing effort would imply for the working class as a class. Furthermore, Recabarren (1912/1976a) believed that the civilizing efforts should emanate not from the outside but from the class itself in its process of becoming the force that would civilize society. While the state and the liberal sectors pursued the schooling of workers as a form of domestication to make them more useful to a modern and capitalist nation, Recabarren proposed the implementation of an altogether new society.
