Education, longing, and the art of keeping life going

This article offers a critical appraisal of the term degrowth by troubling some of its basic epistemological and ontological assumptions. Rather provocatively, we suggest that both education and degrowth are chained to a logic of progressive development and enshrine an enduring faith in science, technology and economics. We strip the term degrowth back to its roots and champion the role of the aesthetic, in both the form and substance of the article. In the concluding vignettes, we open up a space for longing and belonging—namely, the desire for the transcendent and a sense of rootedness in the present—in the educational realm.