Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle

by Brad Evans, Brad Evans

"This is a must-read book for anyone ready to transcend fear and imagine a new reality."-- Tikkun Disposable Futures makes the case that we have not just become desensitized to violence, but rather, that we are being taught to desire it. From movies and other commercial entertainment to "extreme" weather and acts of terror, authors Brad Evans and Henry Giroux examine how a contemporary politics of spectacle--and disposability--curates what is seen and what is not, what is represented and what is ignored, and ultimately, whose lives matter and whose do not. Disposable Futures explores the connections between a range of contemporary mass surveillance, the militarization of police, the impact of violence in film and video games, increasing disparities in wealth, and representations of ISIS and the ongoing terror wars. Throughout, Evans and Giroux champion the significance of public education, social movements and ideas that rebel against the status quo in order render violence intolerable. " Disposable Futures poses, and answers, the pressing question of our How is it that in this post-Fascist, post-Cold War era of peace and prosperity we are saddled with more war, violence, inequality and poverty than ever? The neoliberal era, Evans and Giroux brilliantly reveal, is defined by violence, by drone strikes, 'smart' bombs, militarized police, Black lives taken, prison expansion, corporatized education, surveillance, the raw violence of racism, patriarchy, starvation and want. The authors show how the neoliberal regime normalizes violence, renders its victims disposable, commodifies the spectacle of relentless violence and sells it to us as entertainment, and tries to contain cultures of resistance. If you're not afraid of the truth in these dark times, then read this book. It is a beacon of light."--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom The Black Radical Imagination " Disposable Futures confronts a key conundrum of our How is it that, given the capacity and abundance of resources to address the critical needs of all, so many are having their futures radically discounted while the privileged few dramatically increase their wealth and power? Brad Evans and Henry Giroux have written a trenchant analysis of the logic of late capitalism that has rendered it normal to dispose of any who do not service the powerful. A searing indictment of the socio-technics of destruction and the decisions of their deployability. Anyone concerned with trying to comprehend these driving dynamics of our time would be well served by taking up this compelling book."--David Theo Goldberg, author of The Threat of Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism " Disposable Futures is an utterly spellbinding analysis of violence in the later 20th and early 21st centuries. It strikes me as a new breed of street-smart intellectualism moving through broad ranging theoretical influences of Adorno, Arendt, Bauman, Deleuze, Foucault, Zizek, Marcuse, and Reich. I especially appreciated a number of things, the discussion of representation and how it functions within a broader logics of power; the descriptions and analyses of violence mediating the social field and fracturing it through paralyzing fear and anxiety; the colonization of bodies and pleasures; and the nuanced discussion of how state violence, surveillance, and disposability connect. Big ideas explained using a fresh straightforward voice."--Adrian Parr, author of The Wrath of Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux are internationally renowned educators, authors, and intellectuals. Together, they curate a forum for Truthout.com that explores the theme of "Disposable Futures." Evans is director of histories of violence project at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Giroux holds McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

Reviews

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took five months to finish this one because it required a patient microreading and some mulling-over time and not because it was not interesting or anything.

The subject of DISPOSABLE FUTURE is violence in neoliberal society. Giroux and Evans explore how it turned into a spectacle that we've been taught to desire. Another review of this book pointed out Giroux and Evans' use a multidimensional lens in order to explore their subject which is true and while they get sometimes carried away with it (they sometimes have a hard time staying on point), it highlights the hybrid and amorphous nature of the problem.

I've greatly enjoyed this book. Thought it was a little too militant at times. I would've loved if it explored the issues with a more clinical approach, but it's the best account of the problems that have been eating away at our world in the 21st century that I've read yet.

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

"With this in mind, our decision to write this book was driven by a fundamental need to rethink the concept of the political itself. Just as neoliberalism has made a bonfire of the sovereign principle of the social contract, so too has it exhausted its claims to progress and reduced politics to a blind science in ways that eviscerate those irreducible qualities that distinguish humans from other predatory animals—namely love, cooperation, community, solidarity, creative wonderment, and the drive to imagine and explore more just and egalitarian worlds than the one we have created for ourselves. Neoliberalism is violence against the cultural conditions and civic agency that make democracy possible. Its relentless mechanisms of privatization, commodification, deregulation, and militarization cannot acknowledge or tolerate a formative culture and social order in which non-market values as solidarity, civic education, community building, equality, and justice are prioritized" (p.xiv)

[Tariqul Ponir · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has a very good idea. But it is so repetitive that it becomes monotonous at times. The book could've been half the size and have the same impact....
Nonetheless, the book has some striking and thoughtful critique of the neoliberalism; at least for a first time reader.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incisive critique of neoliberalism, there is lots of striking analysis here which illuminates the contemporary situation. The most interesting idea for me was the notion that neoliberalism is invested in conveying a notion of the world as intrinsically dystopian, beset by inexplicable and inexorable crises which the individual can do little to change. This works to ensure that people remain in a disempowered and apathetic state, reduced to mere survivalism and abandoning the notion of an improved social and political arrangement as impossible.

Once this point has been made, it is endlessly reiterated, and I wanted more sustained examples to flesh out and justify this core observation. Nonetheless, I found much of the analysis here strikingly relevant to current situations. The observations of 'zones of exclusion' in which poverty and absurd wealth rub against each other, and in which vast swathes of the populace, typically those marginalised by race and class, are dismissed as human waste, was redolent of the recent incendiary tragedy at Grenfell Tower. One of the most convincing examples provided to convey the notion that neoliberal regimes are increasingly violent and repressive was the weaponisation of police forces. Again, this seemed terribly prescient given the shocking scenes seen in Catalonia only a week ago, in which riot police assaulted pensioners in full view of the cameras. And yet, it is this 'full view' which perhaps most troubles Giroux, who claims that the spectacle of violence is now often divorced from explicatory context, and is deployed to depoliticise and desensitise.

The book brilliantly outlines how the denial of racism as a structural force works to ensure its continuation, and racism is insistently centred as a a core aspect of neoliberal ideology. Nonetheless, I felt that the continual references to communities of colour as being treated like 'human waste' left to live in hopeless situations sacrificed nuance in favour rhetorical force. Although careful to clarify that such descriptions are an attempt to define the dehumanising callousness underlying racist police brutality and corrosive social policies, it still succumbs to the same over-generalising underpinnig these repressive factors.

None of this is particularly innovative in its conclusions or analysis, but if you want to think more about the contemporary state of politics and the media, this is a great primer.

[Sam Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times difficult to get through both due to the nature of the book and complex language used, and some aspects are repeated throughout the book unnecessarily. That aside, it's incredibly insightful; painting a bleak picture of the utilisation of, and obsession with, violence throughout all of Western culture and government, but ending on a utopian note of change and hope for better things to come.
*P.S. if you're struggling with this book, take a shot every pedagogy or neoliberalism are mentioned; you'll have a great time*

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux present an unblinking look at what lies at the heart of much of today's problems. While this work is as theoretically grounded as any by either writer it is presented in clear prose that can, as it well should, make the reader uncomfortable.

The real key in this work is the way current events are examined through a multifaceted lens. I hesitate to say multiple lenses because those would imply one looks through one and comes to a conclusion then looks through another. Evans and Giroux do a remarkable job of integrating their perspectives, to look at how various factors play into what is happening.

By highlighting the ways in which we have been trained to accept some things (militarized police forces, disposability of certain populations) they show us that governmental force is simply the enforcement arm of failed neoliberalism in an attempt to shore up its foundation. It is up to us to not let it happen and knowledge is among the first and most important weapons. Yet the very instrument through which knowledge could be transmitted, the internet, is bogged down with so much clutter, both naturally and as a weapon against us, that we fall into complacency and pretend that simply "knowing" something is wrong is a defense. All the while people are still being disposed of and the gulf becomes an ocean between the haves and the have-nots.

I highly recommend this work for everyone. If you think it is over the top, then you owe it to yourself to read this accessible book and make sure you are right. If you're not sure what is going on, this book might help you to put some of your abstract concerns into concrete form. And if you already agree with Evans and Giroux in their previous work, this one will take you a bit further and help bring the many pieces together.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like other of Giroux's works, this examines the everyday violence of the neoliberal world in which we live. He does, however, remain hopeful about the future and our collective ability to imagine a better world.

[Mlg · Rating 2 out of 5]

A poorly written book on an interesting an important topic. The book chronicles how violence is increasing in our society and how it is being used to desensitize us. The prose was so wordy and full of unnecessary jargon that much of the impact was lost.

[John Grochalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be required reading....though I needed a dictionary to do it. :)

[Gary Itano]

Pen.fm: 15c29 ##%# PCH_Henry A. Giroux America's Addiction to Terrorism.mp3

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really dense book. A bit more academic than I expected, but still good. Had to look up the definitions of multiple words.