The Fall of Critical Pedagogy: Draft 1 (The Uncut, Overwritten Version)

While there is much to hold onto within the typical formation of critical pedagogy -- viewing education as means for social change, encouraging teachers to become public intellectuals, creating curriculums driven by students' interests and experiences, and supporting diversity and multiplicity -- the dialectical approach driven by a counterhegemonic sociopolitical vision against capitalism has become problematic. Criticisms emerged and grew as critical pedagogy moved from theory into practice. Educators struggled to manipulate a model based on the informal education of Brazilian adults to fit the institutionalized classroom setting where work is required for credit and graded. In 1988 Elizabeth Ellsworth claimed in "Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy" that critical pedagogy does not go far enough in problematizing the role of the instructor and the limitations of dialogue. No matter what the sociopolitical vision of the instructor may be, classroom equality is an illusion as critical pedagogy practices leave the "authoritarian nature of the teacher/student relationship intact" (306). In addition, the instructor's personal stake and relation to their sociopolitical vision is often left unexamined. Ellsworth suggests shedding the goal  of "utopian moments of 'democracy,' 'equality,' 'justice,' or 'emancipated' teachers -- moments that are unattainable (and ultimately undesirable, because they are always predicated on the interests of those who are in the position to define utopian projects)" (308).

One of the most common utopian moment critical pedagogues aspire to is a moment where capitalism is rejected. A central claim in much critical pedagogy scholarship is that schools are a reproduction of capitalistic corporate society (Giroux, Shor, Mclaren, Apple). During the 1980s, the parallels between the factory line and the classroom were easy to make -- they were both housed in centralized institutions, employed standardized forms of labor, etc. However, today such comparisons are much more difficult to make as scholars from various fields have begun researching the increasingly dominant status of "post-fordist" or "post-factory" categories of labor: affective labor (Hardt and Negri), immaterial labor (Lazzarrato), knowledge labor (Drucker), virtuous labor (Virno), linguistic labor (Marrazi), symbolitic analytic labor (Reich), ludolabor (Dibbell), info-labor (Berardi), spectacular labor (Bellar), cognitive labor (Yann Moulier Boutang), etc. What all of these formulations have in common is a recognition that the classic Marxian “labor theory of value” that drove critical pedagogue’s conceptions of labor and capitalism (as well as much work in critical and cultural studies work of the 70s and 80s) no longer makes much sense (even as many turn to another conception of Marx’s—his references to “General Intellect”—for contemporary inspiration).

Lazzarato divides immaterial labor into two parts: "informational content" and "cultural content." The informational content is comprised of communication within computerized and cybernetic systems, whereas the cultural content involves consumer and lifestyle choices that can be tracked and monitored. Taken together, the two result in what Mario Tronti calls a "social factory" in which labor in increasingly less defined by time and location (as in the traditional factory), creative and “intellectual” work takes precedence over physical labor, and products tend to be created for smaller groups of consumers and more flexibly attuned to shifting consumer demand (Thoburn).

The large encompassment of immaterial labor supports Antonio Hardt and Michael Negri's claim in Empire that there is no longer an outside when it comes to capitalism:  "There is nothing, no 'naked life,' no external standpoint, that can be posed outside this  field permeated by money; nothing escapes money [...] The great industrial and financial powers thus produce not only commodities but also subjectivities. They produce agentic   subjectivities within the  biopolitical context: they produce needs, social relations, bodies, and   minds-which is to say, they produce producers" (22).

Traditionally, critical pedagogues applied tools of postmodern critical theory—foregrounding the contingency or ‘constructed’ nature of societal norms, recovering marginalized identities or subjectivities—to resist the corporatization of schools. However, based on their analysis of contemporary shifts in the flows of capitalism, which feed off of the fragmentation of social identities, Hardt and Negri map contemporary capitalistic power as a system that is “not only resistant to the old weapons [of resistance] but actually thrives on them, and thus joins it would-be antagonists in applying them to the fullest. Long Live Difference! Down with essentialist binaries!” (138). Thomas Frank, to give just one more example, has echoed this analysis more eloquently, and with more of a focus on the cultural politics of American Leftism; he writes in his essay, "Why Johnny Can't Dissent," (an allusion to Rudolf Flesch's famous 1955 essay on literacy, "Why Johnny Can't Read"):  “Corporate America is not an oppressor but a sponsor of fun, provider of lifestyle accoutrements, facilitator of carnival, our slang-speaking partner in the quest for that ever more-more apocalyptic organism…Consumerism is no longer about ‘conformity’ but about ‘difference’” (34). Such a change complicates critical pedagogy's identity as a resistance pedagogy fueled by counterhegemonic practices. Resistance to norms only creates new niche markets on which capitalism can feed; simply put, in contemporary 'late' capitalism, resistance becomes surplus labor.

Recognizing these changes is key to addressing the conservative critique of critical pedagogy. Jeff Smith contends in "Students' Goals, Gatekeeping, and Some Questions of Ethics" that as college instructors we have an ethical obligation to help students fulfill their goals, even if those goals are to gain social mobility by joining, rather than critiquing, the dominant class. Similarly, Russel Durst argues for instructors to acknowledge that students are taking composition to gain skills for their future careers. However, he does not suggest that instructors shy away from critical examination of power structures and ideologies, as long as they acknowledge and accept those students who wish to hold onto their conservative beliefs and faith in meritocracy. Sullivan and Porter argue that there is a false dichotomy between students' future professional lives and their civic lives: "[W]e feel that many people in computers and composition have not paid                sufficient attention to workplace studies in professional writing, and to some extent have even exhibited hostility to the workplace, or at least reluctance  to see the workplace as a potential site for change.  However, by dismissing workplace practice, computers and composition fails to engage the key site  students will inhabit. The field ends up separating the workplace agenda  from the social change agenda in the composition classroom, thereby  reinforcing an old binary (classroom v. workplace), that, we contend, is  ultimately harmful to students" (xiii).

What is lost in this dichotomy is the middle ground and the belief that individuals can make a difference through their career. Engineers can incorporate more environmentally friendly approaches. Medical professionals can treat their diverse patients with better understanding and sensitivity. Scientists and innovators can question the patent system.

Ellsworth also asks us to reconsider our expectations of students and the results of classroom dialogues. If as Ellsworth and others (Elbow, Wright) assert, the critical class retains the unequal relationship between teacher and student, it is not a safe zone where students feel free to say anything without repercussion. As Ellsworth notes in her own class examining race through literature : "Things were not being said for a number of reasons. These included fear of being misunderstood and/or disclosing too much and becoming too vulnerable; memories of bad experiences in other contexts of speaking out; resentment that other oppressions (sexism, heterosexism, fat oppression, classism, anti-Semitism) were being marginalized in the name of addressing  racism-- and guilt for feeling such resentment; confusion about the levels of                trust and commitment surrounding those who were allies to another group's struggle; resentment by some students of color for feeling that they were  expected to disclose 'more' and once again take the burden of doing the pedagogic work of educating White students/professor about the consequences of White middle-class privilege; and resentment by White students for feeling they had to prove they were not the                enemy" (316).

None of these possible road blocks are acknowledged in the abstract theoretical vision of critical pedagogy. Though Ellsworth doesn't used the terminology, issues related to affect are also noted in her classroom discussions of race, which are, to use Jennifer Seibel Trainor's term, "emotioned." The term "emotioned" is used to describe how "beliefs become persuasive through mediating and mediated processes of emotional regulation, individually experienced feelings, and dynamics of persuasion and rhetoric." Emotioned is not the same as emotional, as it points to the "related dynamics of lived affective experiences, emotional regulation taking place through institutional and cultural practices, and language." Race is a lived experience, not a property held by individuals.

Affect theory explains the limitations of rational discourse. Students cannot fully articulate the reasoning behind their subject positions or beliefs because of the pre-cognitive elements that shape them. Furthermore, when individuals are presented with facts that irrefutably challenge their beliefs, their beliefs become further entrenched, a phenomenon psychologists call belief preservance . As reported by Scientific American, "Everyone does it, but we are especially vulnerable when invalidated beliefs form a key part of how we narrate our lives. Researchers have found that stereotypes, religious faiths and even our self-concept are especially vulnerable to belief perseverance." Interesting, the beliefs they we are most reluctant to scrutinize and change are the ones most often touched about in a critical classroom. No wonder the pragmatism of critical pedagogy is being called into question.

                To address the pragmatism of critical pedagogy in the composition classroom, one must address the key tool which much of the curriculum hinges upon, literacy. Two key considerations much be made here -- one acknowledging the role of affect and the other acknowledging that we have moved from a print-based to multimodal networked world of communication. In "Experiential Knowledge: How Literacy Practices Seek to Mediate Personal and Systemic Change," Gwen Gorzelsky argues experiential knowledge is necessary to address "the disjuncture between students' experiences and the conceptual and procedural knowledge of social critique" (404). She defines experiential knowledge as "the combination of procedural memory and the subjective, emotionally grounded nature of perceptions and cognition" (401). As an alternative to critique, Gorzelsky proposes a guided meditation, which allows students to embody a perspective and gain empathy. Essentially, we need a literacy that allows us to communicate with and elicit response from the nonrational body.

               Experiential knowledge gives us a new means of understanding subjectivity, beyond ideological construction. As Brian Massumi explains, "Affect holds a key to rethinking postmodern power after ideology. For although ideology is still very much with us, often in the most virulent forms, it is no longer encompassing. It no longer defines the global mode of functioning of power. It is now one mode of power in a larger field that is not defined, overall, by ideology. This makes it all the more pressing to connect ideology to its real conditions of emergence" (104). This complicates the idea that literacies are ideological, which is the foundational premise underlying critical literacy. We need to reconsider and expand our conception of the "relational manner in which meaning is produced" (Lankshear and McLaren 10)

               This expanded notion of literacy as a political formation that has both affective and ideological dimensions needs to be applied to the multimodal, networked world of the Internet. Here we are not bound by institutions but by access, infrastructures, software, and site design. The strength of one's voice is determined by the ability to network, draw "hits," and construct texts in various formats (websites, blogs, videos, etc.).  Critical literacy means understanding how websites work and how the varying elements change perceptions, privilege certain information, create boundaries, and shape identities.

               Due to the interactive nature of the web and new media, critical literacy needs to involve not only the control of information, but the control of experience. The newest form of persuasion online is video games. Dartmouth and NYU have designed a whole current around the concept called Values at Play. Instead of reading about oppressed populations, such as Darfur refugees, you can inhabit their lives through game play. Through embodying these characters, players gain experiential knowledge and develop empathy. Empathy, of course, leads to prosocial behavior such as volunteerism and minimizes negative behaviors such as racial stereotyping.

                While many critical pedagogues recognize the need to revamp approaches of the past to address globalization and advances in information technology, they don't address the cultural shift that resulted as we moved from a factory society to a control society. This shakes the foundation of critical pedagogy, which was designed as a pedagogy of resistance against the hegemony created by the institutions of the factory society. Furthermore, critical pedagogues fail to address the limitations of ideological critique and rationality, leaving the affective dimensions of identity, politics, and education unexamined. These issues need to be considered when addressing the common criticisms of critical pedagogy and creating a path with which to move forward.

Experiential Knowledge and Video Games

Much of my recent reading has talked about the importance of experiences when it comes to understanding or reacting to a particular demographic, social issue, or political action. In "Experiential Knowledge: How Literacy Practices Seek to Mediate Personal and Systemic Change," Gwen Gorzelsky looks at how a guided Zen Buddhist meditation (particularly the work of Thich Nhat Hanh) can help individuals gain experiential knowledge that can increase their empathy. She defines experiential knowledge as "the combination of procedural memory and the subjective, emotionally grounded nature of perceptions and cognition" (401). This type of knowledge is overlooked in early critical pedagogy practice causing "the disjuncture between students' experiences and the conceptual and procedural knowledge of social critique" (404). Instead of approaching social critique through dialogue, Gorzelsky suggests undertaking a guided meditation where suffering is visualized. This visualization creates an emotional response which affects the individual's perception of the situation. Neurological changes in brain structure and activity due to meditation have been recorded.

Gorlzelsky's call for more experiential approaches to literacy reminds me of the recent boom of "empathy games." Dartmouth and NYU have designed a whole current around the concept called Values at Play. Instead of reading about people, such as Darfur refugees, you can inhabit their lives through game play. Essentially, empathy can be taught through video games and empathy leads to many prosocial behaviors, such as volunteerism, and reduces negative behaviors such as prejudice. It would appear video games work much like mediation, creating experiential knowledge that affects people's perceptions and makes them more apt to take social action.

One of the most recent of these games is the Half the SkyMovement, which can be played through Facebook. It explores issues facing women globally, such as poverty and domestic violence. To play you inhabit the role of one of these oppressed women and go through her daily life (i.e. walk in her shoes). The characters face the tough issues of their community and work to creat change. Since its debut six months ago, over a million people have played the game (myself included). The game has so far raised over $400,000 dollars in donations.

Gorzelsky, Gwen. Experiential Knowledge: How Literacy Practices Seek to Mediate Personal and Systemic Change." College English 75.4. March 2013. Print.

Belman, Jonathan and Mary Flanagan. "Designing Games to Foster Empathy." COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY 14.2. Print.

Affect vs. Ideology

One of the cornerstones of critical pedagogy is practicing counterhegemonic movements. The concept of hegemony as a component of political power emerged in the work of Antonio Gramsci. He believed it was the ruling classes promotion of cultural norms, behaviors, and desires that led to working classes' acquiescence of their oppression. For him, it answered why they supported the rise of fascism in Italy. His theory inspired the Birmingham School and the burgeoning field of cultural studies, which looked at how messages were decimated to the masses and reified norms and practices. For them it answered the question of why the British working class supported Margaret Thatcher. Later, American academics would apply the same causality to the election of Ronald Reagan.

Deleuze explains the acceptance and participation in fascism as related to Spinoza's concept of  "conatus, this being an innate tendency towards self-preservation which involves a determination to act on affectations however they are experienced or conceived through body or mind, through superstition or reason (E II, P9, S; E III, def.) but in which, 'self-preservation' can become mobilized in all manner of distinct experiences of self, inaddictions, perversions and transformations" (Ruddick 35). Essentially, their desire of self-preservation primed their acceptance for the political perversion that was fascism. Conatus is one component of the larger field of affect theory, which builds upon the work of Baroch Spinoza.

Affect theory moves us beyond ideology. As Brian Massumi explains, "Affect holds a key to rethinking postmodern power after ideology. For although ideology is still very much with us, often in the most virulent forms, it is no longer encompassing. It no longer defines the global mode of functioning of power. It is now one mode of power in a larger field that is not defined, overall, by ideology. This makes it all the more pressing to connect ideology to its real conditions of emergence" (104). Massumi returns to the election of Ronald Reagan, but instead looking at hegemonic practices and messages, he looked at the affective appeal of Ronald Reagan the man.

Logically, Ronald Reagan was not the best candidate. He often fumbled in his speeches, which were at times incoherent. He's physical presentation was jerky and unpoised. However, as Massumi explains, "The two levels of interruption, those of linear movement and conventional progressions of meaning, were held together by the one Reagan feature that did, I think, hold positive appeal--the timbre of his voice, that beautifully vibratory voice" (102). Somehow, because he presented no coherent ideologies, he became an inscribable presence. Voters fill in the blanks of his disruptions and place them in their local context. "That is why Reagan could be so many things to so many people; that is why the majority of the electorate could disagree with him on every major issue, but still vote for him" (103). Also, people felt he projected an air of confidence.

The concept of confidence became a key factor in the Kerry/Bush election as noted by Lauren Berlant. It was an election arguably one by affect. Affect is, according to Spinoza, 'affections of the body by which the body's power of acting is increased or diminished, helped or hindered, and at the same time, the ideas of these affections' (E III, Def. 3). As Berlant explains, "The Republican right paired an economic and imperial project with what Jameson calls a 'fantasy bribe'⁹: in this case the bribe was fantasy itself, the opportunity to keep fantasizing about the normative good life, authorized by the right-wing promise to maintain a vague scene and sense of normalcy (sharpened at one end by homophobia and, at the other, by the fear of economic and terrorist disaster)." More so, Kerry portrayed himself as a waffler who was unsure. The perception diminished people's desire to vote for him. Whereas those voters for whom Bush keyed in one key components of their values felt positive voting for him, even if they disagreed with some of his policies and actions. In these cases, affect seems more concrete, an impression that encounters individuals' affections, most of which are not consciously perceived or fully understood, and limits or encourages certain behaviors/reactions.

As explained by Massumi, the addition of affect doesn't dismiss ideology; however, it shows that ideology is just one component of a much larger picture.

Berlant, Lauren. "Unfeeling Kerry." Theory & Event 8.2. 2005. Web.

Massumi, Brian. "The Autonomy of Affect." Cultural Critique 31. Autumn 1995. 83-109. Print.

Ruddick, Susan. "The Politics of Affect: Spinoza in the Work of Negri and Deleuze." Theory Culture Society 27. 2010. Print.

Critique Critical Pedagogy Pt. 1

At this point in my dissertation, I'm looking at breaking down the critiques of critical pedagogy and tying them to the epochal shifts from the factory society to the control society, from disciplinary power to biopower, and from rationality to affect theory.

I went back today to look at one of the earliest critiques of critical pedagogy, where an instructor struggled to take the theory and put it into practice. I'm not sure if these paragraphs will make the cut.

Issues emerged as critical pedagogy moved from theory into practice. In 1988 Elizabeth Ellsworth claims in "Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy" that critical pedagogy does not go far enough in problematizing the role of the instructor and the limitations of dialogue. No matter what the sociopolitical vision of the instructor may be, in college credit classes classroom equality is an illusion as critical pedagogy practices leave the "authoritarian nature of the teacher/student relationship intact" (306). In addition, the instructor's personal stake and relation to their sociopolitical vision is often left unexamined. Ellsworth suggests shedding the goal  of "utopian moments of 'democracy,' 'equality,' 'justice,' or 'emancipated' teachers -- moments that are unattainable (and ultimately undesirable, because they are always predicated on the interests of those who are in the position to define utopian projects)" (308).

So should educators have a sociopolitical vision for their classroom? One of the main distinctions between Freire and Dewey was Freire's radical agenda. This radical agenda is a response to capitalism and the cultural institutions that reinforce its exploitative nature. Because capitalism is pitted as the evil we are trying to extract ourselves from, critical pedagogy became divorced from the careerist or vocational aspect of education. As Ellsworth notes, this conscious movement away from the professional goals of the students is fueled by the interests of the instructor. A students' vision of utopia usually contains  a well-paying job.

Complicating this vision of helping students dismantle the system of capitalism is the emergent argument that there is no longer any social, political, or personal element outside the realm of capitalism. If, as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue in Empire, there is no place outside the system of capitalism, then critical pedagogy needs to assess its counterhegemonic practices that are not only oppositional to the students desires, but ineffectual at keeping students from feeding the system.

In addition to the role and vision of the instructor, Ellsworth also asks us to reconsider our expectations of students and the results of classroom dialogues. If as Ellworth and others (Elbow, Wright) asserts, the critical class retains the unequal relationship between teacher and student, it is not a free zone where students feel free to say anything without reprecussion.

"Things were not being said for a number of reasons. These included fear of being   misunderstood and/or disclosing too much and becoming too vulnerable; memories of bad experiences in other contexts of speaking out; resentment that other oppressions (sexism, heterosexism, fat oppression, classism, anti-Semitism) were being marginalized in the name of addressing racism-- and guilt for feeling such resentment; confusion about the levels of trust and commitment surrounding those   who were allies to another group's struggle; resentment by some students of color for feeling that they were expected to disclose 'more' and once again take the burden of doing the pedagogic work of educating White students/professor about   the consequences of White middle-class privilege; and resentment by White students for feeling they had to prove they were not the enemy (316)"

None of these possible road blocks are acknowledged in the abstract theoretical vision of critical pedagogy. Though Ellsworth doesn't used the terminology, issues related to affect are also noted in her classroom where realized "all knowings are partial, that there are fundamental things each of us cannot know" (310).

Affect theory explains the limitations of rational discourse. Students cannot fully articulate the reasoning behind their subject positions or beliefs because of the pre-cognitive elements that shape them. Furthermore, when individuals are presented with facts that irrefutably challenge their beliefs, their beliefs become further entrenched, a phenomenon psychologists call belief preservance . As reported by Scientific American, " Everyone does it, but we are especially vulnerable when invalidated beliefs form a key part of how we narrate our lives. Researchers have found that stereotypes, religious faiths and even our self-concept are especially vulnerable to belief perseverance." Interesting, the beliefs they we are most reluctant to scrutinize and change are the ones most often touched about in a critical classroom. No wonder the pragmatism of critical pedagogy is being called into question.

---

The New Radical: Working with Capitalism?

“Aid is just a stopgap,” he said. “Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse.”

In a thought provoking speech, Bono asks his audience to consider what this past global recession would have looked like if it weren't for the rise of the middle class in India and China buying goods from the United States and Europe. Granted this is very much a self-interested position. However, he also considers the quality of life change for those now able to participate in market commerce. Though I hope philanthropic endeavors continue, I agree that "aid is just a stop gap." Aid without opportunity denies people of the ability to self-determine and participate as equals. It is why my favorite type of aid is microfinancing. 

I've been thinking about Bono's speech as I work to develop my own reimagining of critical pedagogy, which has long considered itself a pedagogy of resistance, particularly against capitalism. The radical critique of critical pedagogy, particularly by Peter McLaren, is that it doesn't go far enough in its critique of capitalism and promotion of socialist values. However, at this point, I believe the much more radical idea is to work with capitalism rather than dream of a communal, market-less utopia. Is this possible? I will be exploring this concept more through the Erik Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias. He argues that we should work to redirect capitalism with a "socialist compass" and gives examples of hybrid economies that function with both elements of capitalism and socialism. Essentially what he offers is a pragmatic argument for incremental change and compromise. While it may seem to some that this is compromising too much, it is a feasible plan that can start with everyday actions rather than a dreamed about revolution.