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09/15/2005 Archived Entry: "Just political issues?"
Just political issues?
Bradley asks: "Just political issues?" after my last post. Good question. For now, I keep getting drawn back into this area I resist being sucked into. I avoid the political - but, of course, can we avoid the political? I don't want to engage in a binary of yes/no, right/left/, pro/against, etc. In terms of perspective, the majority of political positions (mine as well no doubt, though that, too, I try to resist) can be too fixed. Less search-oriented, more fixated. So just political? No, but the political dominates in the academic sphere, particularly when we take causes close to our hearts, think of ourselves as supporters of some "just" position, emerge "liberal," or whatever. “We must consider the BLANK first!” Is neo-liberalism in fact no-liberalism? Probably. Some of the best racists are liberals.
In a desire to not be conservative, academic positions become themselves conservative, tropes of celebrated causes. At its worst, we hear the triumph of "always historicize" by the theorist who himself may not historicize enough. Or the Said blanket declaration of colonialism/occupation which somehow becomes a Western phenomenon rather than the human phenomenon it is (Said forgets the Ottomans? or the Arabian conquest? Or 20th century Arab imperialism? America is hardly the only imperialist on the block). So take it to the right then? No, of course not. Mirror politics? No answer there.
English academics struggle enough to understand their place in the world. They venture quickly into a political arena which has little resemblance to the theories of textual analysis. The World is a Text? Only when that text is marked by contradictions, affect, hypocrisy, overlap, etc. Meaning? I found no meaning when I stood in an occupied territory overlooking a trade show among countries with no diplomatic relations who were at war with one another. A trade show? If there are "what the..." moments here was one. Logic? Where? Politics are not about logic. When I see listserv or academic discussion reduce geo-conflict to logic, I am quite confused. The players in the conflicts don't use logic. Should we?
Enough rant. More blog.
Replies: 1 Comment
This is a good time for me to think about this, because this weekend we had a few folks here talking about critical pedagogy (Donaldo Macedo, and by video Henry Giroux). And obviously, for a lot of critical pedagogy, politics and political action are central. There's an obvious need for engagement in terms of the state legislatures who are attacking public education. But a lot of other things aren't so easy to figure out.
For example, representation: why do so many people think that creating "representative" committees or whatever ensures an even distribution of power and resources? Why, also, are representation and experience so inextricably tied? "You can't *really* understand that until you experience it." That doesn't fly.
Whatever we do politically, and I'm still figuring out how and when it's appropriate for that to occur in curricula, it would be silly to motivate "critical pedagogy" at one moment while parroting the either/or, us/them, red/blue that marks politics so deeply. Too much of that going on already.
Posted by cbd @ 09/18/2005 09:30 PM EST