List One
A non-exhaustive list of books I vividly remember from childhood:
Anne of Green Gables. Bridge to Terabithia. Little Women. The Narnia Chronicles. The Secret Garden. The Lorax. A Wrinkle in Time. The Lord of the Rings. A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Where the Red Fern Grows. A Little Princess. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Yearling. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. Little House on the Prairie.
List Two
The ones out of those I haven't ever reread as an adult because even thinking about them makes me sniffle quietly to myself and need a bowl of ice cream as cold but yummy comfort:
Bridge to Terabithia. Where the Red Fern Grows. The Yearling.
List Three
The ones that I reread as an adult and didn't get angry at:
The Lorax. A Wrinkle in Time.
As you can see, that's a short list. Especially when you consider that if I made List One longer, List Three wouldn't change much. It's sort of mind-boggling that as a mixed-race kid living in a suburb of Pittsburgh and going to inner-city schools, I managed to identify with Anne and Jo and Alice and Lucy and Sara and Laura, but somehow I did it.
In "Problematizing 'Public Pedagogy' in Educational Research," Glenn C. Savage critiques the way that others, particularly Henry Giroux, theorize in what Savage labels an "enveloping negativity," where they perceive popular culture/public pedagogy as an overwhelming, universalizing, all-encompassing force that act to maintain and perpetuate dominant ideological discourses (109). Savage argues that this stance ignores the existence of resistance to those discourses and posits power as an above-down force which must be opposed, rather than something possessed in varying measures by many that ebbs and flows.
Although Savage does not directly reference Freire at any point, some of the critique he levels against Giroux is similar to part of my contention with Freire: There is an implication that within formal education lies the potential for bringing its students to the "right" way of thinking so that they can resist the dominant discourse.
The primary thrust of Savage's piece seems to be that both literally the term "public pedagogy" and the concepts that some theorists have tied to that term are not helpful for authentic analysis, nor are ideas of emancipating "individuals from the repressive pangs of 'public pedagogy' and everyday life" (113). This argument is taken up and expanded by Carmen Luke in "Introduction: Feminisms and Pedagogies of Everyday Life," as well as by Robin Redmon Wright in "Unmasking Hegemony with The Avengers." Both Luke and Wright emphasize the importance of avoiding the search for a unifying principle, an idea that Elisabeth Hayes and James Paul Gee also address in their discussion of "Public Pedagogy Through Video Games," where they consider what critical thinking really means. Hayes and Gee go on to define it as "gaining the tools to analyze what they are learning in terms of 'interests' and the distribution of 'social goods" (191). My attempt here is to try to mediate between these views, and that attempt is still in progress.
While the idea that there is a "right way" of thinking that I am to disseminate unto my students so that they may see the light and thereby become free is one I withdraw from, I'm not sure that I can fully agree with these critiques, either. Savage's argument seems to be one of semantics, to a significant degree; "public pedagogy," as indicated by this very volume, has been defined in a number of ways by a number of people, and not all of those definitions presume the existence of the powerful oppressor and the impotent oppressed. What terms he would prefer to use is not made entirely apparent by his essay, and it would have benefited from a clearer distinction between his objection to terms versus his objection to concepts.
Luke, Wright, and Hayes/Gee all seem to posit the presence of fundamentally resistant texts within popular culture and resistive acts by people with regard to such texts, however, and this I think is questionable in much the same way that Savage problematizes Giroux. Just as the idea of mass culture as a monolithic entity experienced by all in the same coercive way is too simplistic, so too is the presumption that it is possible for something created within and as part of popular culture to be wholly free from dominant ideology. For example, Wright notes in passing "the indisputable fact that Honor Blackman," who played Cathy Gale on The Avengers, "is a very beautiful woman," and seems to feel that this relates to the impact of presenting a character who refused to conform to gender roles (140). However, Wright never goes on to explore what it means if these shows that are texts of resistance nonetheless maintain a demand for feminine beauty.
On a related note, if we consider Hayes and Gee's definition, that seems to leave very open the possibility that critical thinking may well lead to the continued-but-now-deliberate support of hegemony. To clarify what I mean by this: I absolutely believe that it is in the best interests of nearly all members of society to oppose oppression and destroy hegemony. However, if this were an easy conclusion to come to, then more people would come to it. What makes it difficult is that our entire social structure and society is built around maintaining hegemonic dominance, so it requires significant effort for people to see such dominance as anything other than normal and acceptable. Thus, while Hayes and Gee may be correct in that becoming a producer puts a person in a position to consider the distribution of social goods, if being a producer necessarily led to a critical consciousness, capitalism would make resistance to domination less likely, in contrast to most theories of social justice.
Perhaps the real issue is with our desire to find the answer. According to Savage, Giroux paints all corporate activity and mass culture as the wrong, while Wright and others are very willing to see any resistance as wholly opposed to hegemonic dominance, and both views seem to be questing for a solid answer as to how we can define dominance versus resistance, as though they are two mutually exclusive items and cannot exist in the same places—an odd approach for any work in a volume titled The Handbook of Public Pedagogy, which implies a number of contradictions and consistently-debated territories in its very premise.
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"I absolutely believe that it is in the best interests of nearly all members of society to oppose oppression and destroy hegemony."
ReplyDeleteI agree with opposing oppression. However, I'm not sure I can take the leap to destroying hegemony. Now, I'm not saying that we should continue with the status quo of cultural hegemony. But, I believe that society requires that some people be rulers and others followers.
The discussion should be more about how to classify persons as leaders or followers - examine the playing field and always continue to attempt to level it, rather than simply destroying the game.
Now, perhaps you have a different view of the purpose of life as I do, one which would support a society without leadership. And it is a difficult conceptual leap to consider a society without hegemony. But, in my opinion, hegemony of some sort is what helps society direct its efforts - scientific advancement, production, and the general betterment of the quality of life.
Opposing oppression and constantly questioning the current hegemony and the forces that shape and perpetuate it, resisting and destroying those forces which result in oppression and marginalization of persons otherwise worthy of being exalted to a position of leadership - that should be our goal.
Often, we are too narrow in our discussion of these forces - focusing solely on race, or gender, or merit. Examining the forces that create the prevailing hegemony allows us to improve the so-called ruling class. And in so doing, providing for the betterment of society.
But to oppose it entirely, in my opinion, would be to oppose the advancement of society.
I'm not sure whether we fundamentally disagree here or not. We may just have a difference of opinion on what constitutes leadership and/or what constitutes hegemony.
ReplyDeleteTo me, hegemony is the consistent precedence of one group over another, so leadership, in and of itself, is not necessarily hegemony. If we look at a smaller-scale example, like the classroom, we generally have a teacher and students. The teacher is the *leader*, but that leadership should not be authoritarian, because authoritarian leadership is inherently less effective; it doesn't allow the students to contribute, to take ownership of their learning, or to build a community, and additionally, it prevents the teacher from learning from her students.
So in theory, leadership can be healthy and productive. But what actually happens in the US is that we have a number of different hierarchical structures that create hegemony, i.e., certain groups are consistently privileged over other groups.
Put another way: We need hotel janitors and we need senators. But when almost all the janitors are black or Latina women from backgrounds of poverty and almost all the senators are white and male from wealthy backgrounds, we have a problem and that problem is hegemony. Not because being a janitor is inherently bad, but because: 1.) It is viewed as a low-quality job (since pretty much all caretaking positions are); and 2.) It pays very little comparatively and does not provide an opportunity to wield much political power.
Additionally, while some people may be better suited to being janitors and some people may be better suited to being senators, part of our cultural definitions for both rely on stereotypes of what a janitor is and what a senator is that are created by and support hegemony. We think of senators as people who are comfortable at formal events, because senators have historically been wealthy men who are comfortable at formal events; we don't think of senators as people who should know what it's like to take care of a baby (even though they often make decisions that impact the availability of childcare) because senators have not historically been mothers. You see what I mean?
Do we disagree definitionally or ideologically?
Definitionally.
ReplyDeleteIt sounded to me from your note that you wanted to dismantle the very existence of a ruling class of people. It sounds like you agree with me that we need people to lead, and to populate those positions of leadership, and that what we need to do is break down the perpetuation of those social structures that create the imbalances that you refer to.
Ideally, I think we probably both want a social system which creates opportunities for a diverse group of people to populate the ruling class, where that class is chosen based upon their inherent skills, abilities and work ethic, such that such positions are earned for the "right" reasons.
To call it a merit based system is probably closest, but that leads to systems that tend to still perpetuate the existing cultural hegemony as the tools for determining merit are flawed by the simple fact that people in those classes (white males from wealthy backgrounds) are the ones creating the selection tools.
And so, the tools of selection that currently perpetuate the system (comfort at formal events, to use your example) tend to select people from that privileged background.
Of course, I'm not sure we are in perfect agreement ideologically (we rarely are), but I don't think we are as far apart as it initially appeared.
So the question becomes, how do we attack the current system to create the opportunities necessary for people from a diverse background to gain access to such positions of power, without destroying the existing organizations? Or are you in fact advocating a tear down of our current system and starting over from scratch?
I personally believe that the increase in access to telecommunications will gradually tear down the current cultural hegemony over time. However, we should not stand idly by. We ought to focus our efforts on lifting those people that we believe would be assets to positions of power, and attacking those systems that perpetuate the inherent biases in the system. But I also feel that it is best to work in the existing system, rather than trying to tear it down and rebuild.
Also, I think it is important to identify those qualities that may be permissible selection criteria (morality or intelligence?) and those which are not (race, gender, etc.). Some of these are fairly easy to gain consensus on (race) but others are far more difficult - like wealth or education.
I'd be curious to hear what you feel is a permissible set of selection criteria, which is more difficult to define than simply to point out those impermissible ones.