Aldous Huxley: darkness and light
Aldous Huxley: darkness and light (a documentary) Continue reading Aldous Huxley: darkness and light
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Tag: authoritarianism
Taking notes 59: radical politics in the age of American authoritarianism
by Henry A. Giroux
Struggles will only succeed if more progressives embrace an expansive understanding of politics, not fixating singularly on elections or any other issue but rather emphasizing the connections among diverse social movements. Continue reading Taking notes 59: radical politics in the age of American authoritarianism
Henry A. Giroux: Youth, authoritarianism, and challenging neoliberalism’s politics of disposability
Henry A. Giroux is McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and the Paulo Freire Chair in Critical Pedagogy at The McMaster Institute for Innovation & Excellence in Teaching & Learning. Continue reading Henry A. Giroux: Youth, authoritarianism, and challenging neoliberalism’s politics of disposability
Donald Trump and the ghost of totalitarianism
by Henry A. Giroux
In the current historical moment in the United States, the emptying out of language is nourished by the assault on the civic imagination. One example of this can be found in the rise of Donald Trump on the political scene. Donald Trump’s popular appeal speaks to not just the boldness of what he says and the shock it provokes, but the inability to respond to shock with informed judgement rather than titillation Continue reading Donald Trump and the ghost of totalitarianism
Orwell, Huxley and America’s plunge into Authoritarianism
by Henry A. Giroux In spite of their differing perceptions of the architecture of the totalitarian superstate and how it exercised power and control over its residents, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley shared a fundamental conviction. They both argued that … Continue reading Orwell, Huxley and America’s plunge into Authoritarianism
Barbarians at the gates: authoritarianism and the assault on public education
by Henry A. Giroux In 2015 both the US Senate and House of Representatives will be controlled by the Republican Party, one of the most extremist political parties in US history.[1] Coupled with the empty centrism of the Democratic … Continue reading Barbarians at the gates: authoritarianism and the assault on public education
Beyond Orwellian nightmares and neoliberal authoritarianism
Central to George Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a totalitarian society was a government so powerful that it not only dominated all of the major institutions in a society, but it also was quite adept at making invisible its inner workings of power. This is what some have called a shadow government, deep state, dual state or corporate state.[1] In the deep state, politics becomes the domain of the ultra-wealthy, the powerful few who run powerful financial services, Continue reading Beyond Orwellian nightmares and neoliberal authoritarianism
Totalitarian Paranoia in the Post-Orwellian Surveillance State
by Henry A. Giroux Surveillance, in any land where it is ubiquitous and inescapable, generates distrust and divisions among its citizens, curbs their readiness to speak freely to each other, and diminishes their willingness to even dare to think freely. — Ariel Dorfman The revelations of whistle-blowers such as Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden about government lawlessness and corporate spying provide a new meaning if not a revitalized urgency and relevance to George Orwell’s dystopian fable 1984. Orwell offered his readers an image of the modern state that had become dystopian — one in which privacy as a civil … Continue reading Totalitarian Paranoia in the Post-Orwellian Surveillance State
Radical democracy against cultures of violence
by Henry A. Giroux Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. –– Nelson Mandela Guy Debord once argued that the spectacle suggests society’s desire for sleep.[1] He was enormously prescient, and his words and work are more important today than when they were first written. The spectacle has been energized and reworked under the forces of neoliberalism and now promotes a mix of infantilism, brutality, disposability and lawlessness. As the visibility of extreme violence is endlessly reproduced in various cultural apparatuses and screen cultures, it functions increasingly, alongside a range of other economic and political … Continue reading Radical democracy against cultures of violence
Hope in the age of looming authoritarianism
by Henry A. Giroux I can understand pessimism, but I don’t believe in it. It’s not simply a matter of faith, but of historical evidence. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give hope, because for hope we don’t need certainty, only possibility. — Howard Zinn In the current historical moment, the line between fate and destiny is difficult to draw. Dominant power works relentlessly through its major cultural apparatuses to hide, mischaracterize, or lampoon resistance, dissent, and critically engaged social movements. This is done, in part, by sanitizing public memory and erasing critical knowledge and oppositional struggles from newspapers, radio, … Continue reading Hope in the age of looming authoritarianism
