By Adam Fletcher
Every person who works
with young people should know that politics is more than
the Democrats or who you are voting for in the next
election. Much more. Dozens of people have spent hundreds
of hours speaking and thousands of pages writing to
explain how politics underscores everything that we–as
individuals and as a society–do every moment of every day
of our lives. This kind of politics helps us make up our
minds about what clothes to wear to work; what job to work
at; who we work for; and, most importantly to youth
workers and educators, what work we actually do.
A new book illustrates
how a hellacious political reality is actually altering
the society we live in right now. In The Terror of
Neoliberalism: Authoritarianism and the Eclipse of
Democracy, scholar/author Henry Giroux outlines how
neoliberalism–the belief that the private sector
should be wholly responsible for the public good–is about
more than money. Throughout this book, Giroux explains how
neoliberalism is actually a set of values, ideologies, and
practices that is actively recreating America today–for
the worse. Of course, CNN, the presidential elections, and
the never-ending war in Iraq have proven that the
political and economic reality of democracy in the US has
changed. But Giroux exposes a more terrifying plot.
Neoliberalism is
changing the very meaning of democracy today.
Where democracy once depended on people
becoming socially and politically involved throughout
their communities, today that is an option. The schools,
youth programs, community centers, and agencies where many
young people spend the majority of their days have lost
their place at the table of democratic importance. Do you
want to understand the onslaught of high-stakes testing in
schools? The defunding of programs for children and youth?
The ongoing newspaper stories about so-called youth
apathy? The seeming disregard for children and youth that
fills our communities today?
Giroux cites the
resistance against neoliberalism in all of its forms
around the world today. The work of The Freechild Project,
the mass movement against globalization, and the struggle
for social justice in education each epitomize the
struggle; but individually none summarizes the whole
effort. Giroux writes, “…[Activism is] not limited to
identity politics focused on particularized rights and
interests.” Instead, the interests of young people and
their communities, as well as those of the
anti-globalization movement and many others are put into
the larger context of building democracy. As Giroux
explains,
“Democracy in this view is not limited to
the struggle over economic resources and power; indeed, it
includes the creation of public [places] where individuals
can be educated as political agents equipped with the
skills, capacities, and knowledge they need…”
With that premise
established early in the book, Giroux proceeds to dissect
and examine the realities of neoliberalism. He details the
ability of the government to extinguish the capacity of
society to make significant change in society by examining
the effects of September 11, 2001, and the militarization
of America. Giroux also outlines how neoliberalism has
created a “new racism,” evidenced by the corporate powers
that control law enforcement, education systems, and
increasingly, community governments.
However, with his
emphasis of the effects of neoliberalism across the
spectrum, Giroux pulls a coup by reintroducing his ongoing
analysis of youth in the US today with a chapter entitled,
“Class Casualties: Disappearing Youth in the Age of Market
Fundamentalism. What the chapter essentially proposes is
that children and youth are subject to the whims of
society, despite (or because of) the reality that young
people “embody the project dreams, desires, and commitment
of a society’s obligations to the future.” With this
premise, Giroux sketches out how the American War Against
Youth continues, as the programs and services which once
benefited children and youth are slashed across the board,
and as popular culture increasingly erases any optimistic
expectations society may have of young people. Giroux
explains,
“Rather than being cherished as a symbol of
the future, youth are now seen as a threat to be feared
and a problem to be contained… Youth are currently being
framed as both a generation of suspects and a threat to
public life.”
Giroux details how
“the ongoing war against justice, freedom, citizenship,
and democracy” is focused at young people today. He
thoroughly explores how curfews, physical searches,
profiling, and drug testing are heaved upon schools, youth
programs, and communities as solutions to the “youth
problem.” Poverty, childcare, healthcare, and education
are all challenges that must be meant by an ever-growing
private sector. Meanwhile, the number of children and
youth who struggle to survive in low-income communities
and communities of color grows, while federal policies
increasingly legitimize “tough love” policies for all of
America’s youth. Giroux also examines how juvenile
detention for youth and lock-up rooms for 8-year-olds
typify the norm, not the exception. This is neoliberalism
at work in the lives of young people today.
Neoliberalism is
seeping “into every aspect of American life... It thrives
on a culture of cynicism, insecurity, and despair.” But
the solution is as complex as the problem. “Democracy is
too weak,” Giroux quotes Benjamin Barber as saying. When
culture combines with politics to become entertainment
(Giroux says think of the California governor), and when
corporate powers– instead of the democracy– control the
media, we’ve got a serious problem. And it is not an issue
of whether education (and youth programs, or community
organizations) has “become contaminated with politics; it
is more importantly about recognizing that education is
already a space of politics, power, and authority.”
Giroux proposes that
we, as young people, youth workers, and educators
“appropriate, invent, direct, and control” the politics
within our efforts. Whether you facilitate after school
activities, work with youth-led community organizing
programs, or teach in a middle school classroom, you have
the opportunity– or more appropriately, the
responsibility– to “work against a politics of certainty,
a pedagogy of censorship, and an institutional formation
that closes down rather than opens up democratic
relations.”
The one of his most
directive moments yet, Giroux implores educators to “teach
students to be skilled citizens… learn how to use the
Freedom of Information Act, know constitutional rights,
build coalitions, write policy papers, learn the tools of
democracy, analyze social problems, or learn how to make a
difference in one’s life through individual and social
engagements.”
In the final chapter
of this book Giroux deeply explores the implications of
the work of Edward Said, renowned a renowned theorist,
activist, and author. Giroux explores the implications of
Said’s work on neoliberalism, sighting his recognition
that “the war on terror has become a rationale for a war
on democracy… against any movement that fights for
justice, liberty, and equality…” Giroux offers Said’s life
and work as a “model and inspiration for what it means to
take back politics, social agency, collective struggle,
and the ability to define the future.” He repeats Said’s
call for “academics, students, and other cultural workers”
to activate, mobilize, organize, and agitate society by
“educating the public to think and act as active citizens
in an inclusive democracy.”
But the conclusion the
book holds the gauntlet over our heads, collectively, as
people who are committed to young people, social change,
and justice. Giroux cites Said’s call for groups to “put
aside their petty squabbling over identities and
differences and to join together collectively… [as a]
coalition against those forces of totalitarianism lite,
without anyone much noticing, or for that matter
complaining.” This call for awakeness resonates with Dr.
Martin Luther King’s message in his final book, Where
Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, where he
wrote:
“One of the great liabilities of history is
that all too many people fail to remain awake through
great periods of social change. Every society has its
protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the
indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through
revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our
ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain
vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”
In The Terror of
Neoliberalism Henry Giroux reissues this call,
reemphasizes Said’s mission, and issues a new demand for
all of us to become active, engaged, and effective allies
in our collective struggles against neoliberalism, and for
democracy. It is up to you to hear this call.
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