Page 107 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 107
m. sardoč ■ an interviw with henry giroux
The culture of manufactured illiteracy is also reproduced through
a media apparatus that trades in illusions and the spectacle of violence.
Under these circumstances, illiteracy becomes the norm and education
becomes central to a version of neoliberal zombie politics that functions
largely to remove democratic values, social relations, and compassion
from the ideology, policies and commanding institutions that now con-
trol American society. In the age of manufactured illiteracy, there is more
at work than simply an absence of learning, ideas or knowledge. Nor can
the reign of manufactured illiteracy be solely attributed to the rise of the
new social media, a culture of immediacy, and a society that thrives on in-
stant gratification. On the contrary, manufactured illiteracy is political
and educational project central to a right-wing corporatist ideology and
set of policies that work aggressively to depoliticize people and make them
complicitous with the neoliberal and racist political and economic forces
that impose misery and suffering upon their lives. There is more at work
here than what Ariel Dorfman calls a “felonious stupidity,” there is also
the workings of a deeply malicious form of 21st century neoliberal fascism
and a culture of cruelty in which language is forced into the service of vi-
olence while waging a relentless attack on the ethical imagination and the
notion of the common good. In the current historical moment illiteracy
and ignorance offer the pretense of a community in doing so has under-
mined the importance of civic literacy both in higher education and the
larger society.
Is there any shortcoming in the analysis of such a complex (and
controversial) social phenomenon as neoliberalism and its educa-
tional agenda? Put differently: is there any aspect of the neoliber-
al educational agenda that its critics have failed to address?
Any analysis of an ideology such as neoliberalism will always be incom-
plete. And the literature on neoliberalism in its different forms and di-
verse contexts is quite abundant. What is often underplayed in my mind
are three things. First, too little is said about how neoliberalism func-
tions not simply as an economic model for finance capital but as a public
pedagogy that operates through a diverse number of sites and platforms.
Second, not enough has been written about its war on a democratic no-
tion of sociality and the concept of the social. Third, at a time in which
echoes of a past fascism are on the rise not enough is being said about
the relationship between neoliberalism and fascism, or what I call neo-
liberal fascism, especially the relationship between the widespread suffer-
ing and misery caused by neoliberalism and the rise of white supremacy. I
105
The culture of manufactured illiteracy is also reproduced through
a media apparatus that trades in illusions and the spectacle of violence.
Under these circumstances, illiteracy becomes the norm and education
becomes central to a version of neoliberal zombie politics that functions
largely to remove democratic values, social relations, and compassion
from the ideology, policies and commanding institutions that now con-
trol American society. In the age of manufactured illiteracy, there is more
at work than simply an absence of learning, ideas or knowledge. Nor can
the reign of manufactured illiteracy be solely attributed to the rise of the
new social media, a culture of immediacy, and a society that thrives on in-
stant gratification. On the contrary, manufactured illiteracy is political
and educational project central to a right-wing corporatist ideology and
set of policies that work aggressively to depoliticize people and make them
complicitous with the neoliberal and racist political and economic forces
that impose misery and suffering upon their lives. There is more at work
here than what Ariel Dorfman calls a “felonious stupidity,” there is also
the workings of a deeply malicious form of 21st century neoliberal fascism
and a culture of cruelty in which language is forced into the service of vi-
olence while waging a relentless attack on the ethical imagination and the
notion of the common good. In the current historical moment illiteracy
and ignorance offer the pretense of a community in doing so has under-
mined the importance of civic literacy both in higher education and the
larger society.
Is there any shortcoming in the analysis of such a complex (and
controversial) social phenomenon as neoliberalism and its educa-
tional agenda? Put differently: is there any aspect of the neoliber-
al educational agenda that its critics have failed to address?
Any analysis of an ideology such as neoliberalism will always be incom-
plete. And the literature on neoliberalism in its different forms and di-
verse contexts is quite abundant. What is often underplayed in my mind
are three things. First, too little is said about how neoliberalism func-
tions not simply as an economic model for finance capital but as a public
pedagogy that operates through a diverse number of sites and platforms.
Second, not enough has been written about its war on a democratic no-
tion of sociality and the concept of the social. Third, at a time in which
echoes of a past fascism are on the rise not enough is being said about
the relationship between neoliberalism and fascism, or what I call neo-
liberal fascism, especially the relationship between the widespread suffer-
ing and misery caused by neoliberalism and the rise of white supremacy. I
105
