Democracies to Come: Rhetorical Action, Neoliberalism, and Communities of Resistance

by Rachel Riedner, Kevin Mahoney

Democracies to Come draws upon a variety of contemporary sites and moments (e.g. IMF/World Bank protests, writing emerging from social movements in struggle against neoliberalism, classroom praxis, postcolonial literature, student activism) to explore new relationships―pedagogical, emotional, affective, and social―that can be the basis of political and social organizing. Approaching pedagogy as a space of learning, Democracies to Come argues that pedagogy becomes a cultural force for democracy in its own right, a cultural literacy, which intervenes in a multiplicity of systems, institutions, cultural formations, and constituencies.
Each chapter of the book answers these How can pedagogy be conceptualized as a site in which to intervene in culture and to act politically? How can pedagogy help cultivate the kairotic act of opening spaces for inquiring into the social relations that education helps shape? How can we re-imagine practices capable of contextualizing education within larger educational and market forces? How do we develop the desire and habit to recognize moments when we move beyond norms and develop new ways of seeing, acting, and relating? How do we see pedagogical activism not as an end in itself but as an integral process of revitalizing democracy? How can we create moments to process new arguments, respond to particular conjunctures, and create languages that articulate the contingencies and affinities of the particular moment?

142 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2008

Reviews

[Vic · Rating 1 out of 5]

No worse than most of the other academic activist books out there, and if you are even considering reading it you are probably part of a captive audience anyway. (Only captive audiences would still be paying $50 for this thin book, or ever would have!). It is not about rhetorical action, except as a function of pedagogues. The authors do try to hitch onto the Zapatistas for a ride, as if institutionally supported composition teachers somehow constitute a similarly brave bunch. And indeed, this book is mainly about approaches to critical pedagogy. Which you will notice, is not exactly evident from the title.

For example, the book is not particularly about neoliberalism either, as the authors admit: "This is not a book that is 'about' neoliberalism in the sense that we map its rhetorical, cultural and political formations"(xiii). Well hey, surely there is more to neoliberalism than just its rhetoric, culture and politics. It's no reason to not include the word in the book title.

No "Democracies to Come" emerge either. - but that's-a-coming after we're done "reworking emotional master narratives," "rearticulating," and "disrupting settled meanings." Actually, I suspect that these projects are more likely to prove perfectly institution-friendly, unceasingly careerist, and utterly inconsequential to the vitality of democracy. If someone would like to show me how the rise and prevalence of critical pedagogy-influenced composition classes and cultural studies approaches have contributed positively to the fortunes of the political left during the same period in the United States, I am all ears.

Still, I wouldn't bother to attack this book except that there is a section called "Neoliberal Despair" in which the authors realize that in their classrooms, "rational deliberation" on the question of sweatshop labor merely "produces despair" because, for some reason, "rational" as opposed to "emotional" debate automatically favors the powers that be. The authors don't share any examples from these classroom debates, but come on - we have to choose "emotional" over "rational" thinking because rational thinking automatically favors power? There are no good rational arguments against sweatshop labor? Perhaps the authors just weren't very good at rational argument. That would explain quite a bit about this book, and the pedagogical movement it represents.

[Todd Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book by and for academics interested in social justice—of which I am one. It’s fairly theory heavy, coming from a Marxist/materialist perspective. The authors begin by arguing that neoliberalism—essentially, our current form of global capitalism—causes us to envision democracy as something that has already occurred, thus closing off alternatives. Instead, the authors provide the useful metaphor of democracy as an ever evolving process. They bring in the concept of “pedagogical moments,” which may occur outside of the classroom. It’s not clear how teachers are supposed to use these moments within the classroom. Are they rare events or are they things will be ever available for us to draw on during any given semester? In the final chapter, the authors suggest that “we” (teachers? citizens?) create these moments (in the classroom? out of it?). The book moves on to discuss the role of the university within, and as accomplice to, neoliberalism. While the university is not immune to the influence of neoliberalism, it does, however, provide a “space” from which to resist it. Clearly we should resist it, but little is provided about how such resistance could be cultivated in the classroom. The strategy used by the authors seems to be to make students aware of issues through selected readings and aware of their emotional/cognitive responses to them through discussion. I would like to have seen more details about how this occurs and what the results are in students’ writing. Chapters 4 and 5 were the most interesting to me, dealing with benevolence and despair, respectively. I appreciate that these chapters reflect some on classroom practice, and that they also deal with issues of emotion and identity, not just reason, allowing us to understand how people are lead to respond so ineffectively to economic injustice. For me, the insights and analysis in these chapters (5 in particular) made this a worthwhile read. Benevolence is a common response of those who hear about suffering and injustice. Acts of charity and the like make us feel better, but fail to address the underlying, structural problem (i.e. the market that creates the conditions). The authors also notice, as has anyone who has tried to engage students in issues of social injustice, that students tend to respond in ways that foreclose taking positive social actions. The initial outrage one experiences is quickly turned to despair in the face of the dominant, neoliberal ideology that permeates our culture. Despair, the authors tell us, is a way of coping with the overwhelming odds; it is the sibling of apathy and cynicism. Of course, this assumes that students will feel any initial outrage. I suspect that apathy just as often arises from a genuine lack of empathy in people living a comfortable, middle-class existence, or, as the authors suggest, who have identity investments in the status quo. The issue of despair as coping, however, does beg the question: how do we cope with the despair so we can maintain hope and act for positive change? This issue could have been addressed more. In the final chapter, the authors’ return to the recurring metaphor of “disrupting” the hegemony. I would’ve liked to see the authors turn to classroom practice here, perhaps even using some student writings produced within an ideal classroom space cultivated for promoting social justice. Instead, the authors present other academic cultural materialist scholars and the Zapatistas as models. I’d be more interested in how the authors reach their students, surely one of their central practical concerns. I suppose I can’t fault the authors for not writing the exact book I wanted, but I would’ve loved for all of this to lead to some insights into classroom practice that I could use in the future since I share so many of the authors’ concerns. Hi Kevin.