From the Pedagogy of Care to the Duty to Feel Right

How emotion replaces thought—and what we’ve forgotten is that thinking is a dissident act

In a previous article, “Why we no longer know how to educate for freedom—and why we must rethink education in the digital age,” we laid out a simple truth:
We have forgotten how to educate for freedom.

Because we continue to believe that children construct themselves naturally, through contact with an open world—when that world now captures their attention, steers their desires, and short-circuits reflective thinking.
This outer world no longer produces what we wish for in them.

But there is another trap—less visible, more seductive, and therefore even more damaging:

The trap of mandatory benevolence, of universal emotional self-management, and of personal development as an implicit educational norm toward a perfected self.

The new educational ideal: gentle, empathetic... and deeply prescriptive

In today’s climate of development-minded moralism—spanning families, schools, and even corporate management—we no longer speak of educating people to think.

We talk about “welcoming” feelings, “listening to oneself,” “working on yourself,” “taking care,” “aligning with your emotions,”
and a whole collection of hollow concepts that most people believe they understand—though they rarely do.

This drift into a maternalist posture, centered on emotional safety, softness, and affect regulation, is not without consequence.

It rests on gentle, yet powerful injunctions:

– “Express what you feel”
– “Listen to your needs”
– “Embrace your wounded parts”
– “Be kind to yourself (and the world)”

In other words:

You must feel the “right” thing. And if you don’t, you’re not ready yet. Not healed enough. Not developed enough.

The double injunction: be free—but within the right emotional range

This maternalist discourse, seemingly protective, in fact prescribes a way of being while pretending to “accompany.”

It valorizes:
– openness, but not confrontation
– sincerity, but not dissonance
– vulnerability, but not lucid anger
– regulation, but never revolt

It manufactures emotional conformity, disguised as inner freedom.

And in a system where algorithms manipulate feelings constantly,
where apps dictate our routines,
and where notifications shape our moods,

it is a strategic mistake to believe that “listening to your emotions” is enough.

Emotions are constructed, hijacked, and recycled—and we’ve become dependent on them

Emotions are neither pure, nor internal, nor inherently authentic.

They are shaped, validated, mimicked, amplified by technical, social, and economic systems.

TikTok’s algorithm knows exactly what will move you, irritate you, make you feel seen—or excluded—based on the category of person it has learned to assign you to.

And it knows this better than you do.

Meanwhile, coaching discourse invites you to “feel mindfully,”
but never explains how what you feel is already pre-shaped, pre-filtered, and socially constructed—long before it reaches your awareness.

The dominant model: emotional maternalism that avoids critique

The prevailing approach to support today—whether in schools or in the world of personal development—is steeped in emotional maternalism.

It claims to empower, but it actively avoids the uncomfortable:
systemic contradictions, power dynamics, emotional manipulation.

It’s a form of managed appeasement.
A kind of critical disarmament, disguised as emotional autonomy.

You’re no longer told: “Think against yourself.”
You’re told: “Embrace what you feel. That’s enough.”

But no, it’s not enough.

What education must become again: a critical counter-fire

Educating for freedom today doesn’t mean reinforcing self-awareness.
It means equipping individuals to question the very construction of that self—and even that “awareness.”

It means cultivating a lucidity about:

– which emotions are socially accepted and which are not
– how emotional comfort became the supreme value
– how self-regulation replaced all forms of healthy conflict

It is not “working on yourself” that liberates.

It is understanding why that work is expected of you—and who benefits from it.

To think is now almost to betray what you’ve been told to feel

We live in a time where emotional injunctions have replaced moral ones.

But they serve the same function: to preserve social harmony,
at the cost of critical thought.

It’s time to reopen the space for doubt, for refusal, for inner conflict.
Not to suffer more—
but to be less easily guided under the guise of benevolence,
or by the latest norms of what it means to be “on track,” “authentic,” or “developed.”

Often without even knowing what those norms are made of—
and that’s the most ironic part.
As I write this line, I laugh so hard I can’t breathe.

Because today, power no longer needs to impose.
It suggests,
it soothes,
it mothers.

And in the meantime,
it captures,
it steers,
it decides.

What truly matters is not aligning with what is prescribed as “good for you.”

It is knowing deeply what is good for us—and why.