Page 56 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 56
šolsko polje, letnik xxxi, številka 5–6
sexual minorities, and paramilitary groups. The academic sphere, which
is considered autonomous, has evidently been tackled by these processes.
In autumn and winter 2020, the degradation of democracy was na-
tionally accelerated by the government’s abuse of the anti-Covid-19 efforts
with an autocratic discourse and measures directly and unnecessarily vi-
olating human rights and democratic fundaments. Public uncertainties
and critiques in the media of the arguments used in support of such meas-
ures are based on the inconsistency of the measures and their insufficient
effect. One of the most rigid measures is elementary school children’s seri-
ous deprivation of in-situ school and free-time activities with their peers.
The governmental promotion of such anxiety and tension through
the transparent production of uncertainty, ignorance and unintelligibili-
ty is reminiscent of Hannah Arendt’s intellectual perception of the lead-
ing feature of governmentality in a totalitarian regime (Arendt, 1973, pp.
34–35). Paradoxically, the government’s promotion of ignorance, and gen-
erally even the heyday of induced stupidity and the manipulative nature
of the public discourses, is not corrupting students to any detectable ex-
tent. It seems that they are sensitised to social disadvantages because of
their own poverty, primary-family problems related to substantial living
uncertainties and the lack of future prospects in times of an economic
and environmental crisis. During certain lectures at the Faculty of Social
Work, most students could identify themselves as poor with regard to liv-
ing conditions while we were discussing poverty. It was like the unexpect-
ed and the numerous coming out of the closet. When working on a meth-
odology to ascertain how the discussion in a focus group should be carried
out, two 20-year-old women students out of seven talked of tiredness and
exhaustion. Their mothers had been unable to sustain their usual func-
tions, and from time to time they had sought advice and lent complete-
ly on their daughters. Both students believed that the “daughter-mother
roles are changed for periods of time, and it is tiresome to switch on and
on from the daughter’s role to mothering one’s own mothers, and then be
a daughter again.” I told the two students that I was sad for them aware of
the contradictory emotions, because that was the case. I tried to empow-
er them to take a more autonomous position within their families. Before
we parted company, I felt that I had given power and also received it. The
feeling of gain was based on the idea that I had elaborated the skill of un-
derstanding and emotionally perceiving something psychical which has
been going on between mothers and daughters forever. In the psychoana-
lytical framework, it is about an intimate and contradictory gender-iden-
tification process with daughters. With mothers, it is the socio-psycholog-
ical framework which offers an interpretation related to the challenging
54
sexual minorities, and paramilitary groups. The academic sphere, which
is considered autonomous, has evidently been tackled by these processes.
In autumn and winter 2020, the degradation of democracy was na-
tionally accelerated by the government’s abuse of the anti-Covid-19 efforts
with an autocratic discourse and measures directly and unnecessarily vi-
olating human rights and democratic fundaments. Public uncertainties
and critiques in the media of the arguments used in support of such meas-
ures are based on the inconsistency of the measures and their insufficient
effect. One of the most rigid measures is elementary school children’s seri-
ous deprivation of in-situ school and free-time activities with their peers.
The governmental promotion of such anxiety and tension through
the transparent production of uncertainty, ignorance and unintelligibili-
ty is reminiscent of Hannah Arendt’s intellectual perception of the lead-
ing feature of governmentality in a totalitarian regime (Arendt, 1973, pp.
34–35). Paradoxically, the government’s promotion of ignorance, and gen-
erally even the heyday of induced stupidity and the manipulative nature
of the public discourses, is not corrupting students to any detectable ex-
tent. It seems that they are sensitised to social disadvantages because of
their own poverty, primary-family problems related to substantial living
uncertainties and the lack of future prospects in times of an economic
and environmental crisis. During certain lectures at the Faculty of Social
Work, most students could identify themselves as poor with regard to liv-
ing conditions while we were discussing poverty. It was like the unexpect-
ed and the numerous coming out of the closet. When working on a meth-
odology to ascertain how the discussion in a focus group should be carried
out, two 20-year-old women students out of seven talked of tiredness and
exhaustion. Their mothers had been unable to sustain their usual func-
tions, and from time to time they had sought advice and lent complete-
ly on their daughters. Both students believed that the “daughter-mother
roles are changed for periods of time, and it is tiresome to switch on and
on from the daughter’s role to mothering one’s own mothers, and then be
a daughter again.” I told the two students that I was sad for them aware of
the contradictory emotions, because that was the case. I tried to empow-
er them to take a more autonomous position within their families. Before
we parted company, I felt that I had given power and also received it. The
feeling of gain was based on the idea that I had elaborated the skill of un-
derstanding and emotionally perceiving something psychical which has
been going on between mothers and daughters forever. In the psychoana-
lytical framework, it is about an intimate and contradictory gender-iden-
tification process with daughters. With mothers, it is the socio-psycholog-
ical framework which offers an interpretation related to the challenging
54
