6: Conclusion: Self-Helping Society vs. Learning Society

The previous chapters illuminate how the three international organizations have shaped the policy discourses of lifelong learning through conceived ideologies in their policy texts and discursive interactions among themselves. This chapter further discusses how the policy discourses of lifelong learning by the international bodies have substantially impacted our understanding of what lifelong learning should (or should not) be. Specifically, given that learning is not just a concept but a fact of people's lives, the chapter aims to illuminate how neoliberal policy discourses of lifelong learning can risk distorting the free, just, lived experience that is humanity's right, instead of promoting a truly democratic and possible future, such as UNESCO's utopian model of the learning society. To this end, this chapter aims to demonstrate that pursuing lifelong learning for “self-fulfillment,” which was the key part of UNESCO's humanistic view of the learning society, becomes voluntary “self-exploitation,” as the individual's desire to learn unwittingly becomes a response to the need to survive and thrive in neoliberal environments. Subsequently, to conclude the chapter, I emphasize the importance of critical adult learning and introduce the concept of the “aesthetic-democratic being” as an alternative mode of existence and action to neoliberal subjectivity, aiming to advance toward the learning society.