Another critically important article from Henry Giroux. - Molly
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| Protesters display signs at the National Day of Public Education demonstration against rising tuition costs at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 24, 2014. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue) |
At the
core of thinking dangerously is the recognition that education is central to
politics and that a democracy cannot survive without informed citizens.
What happens to democracy when the president of the United
States labels critical media outlets as "enemies of the people" and
disparages the search for truth with the blanket term "fake news"?
What happens to democracy when individuals and groups are demonized on the
basis of their religion? What happens to a society when critical thinking
becomes an object of contempt? What happens to a social order ruled by an
economics of contempt that blames the poor for their condition and subjects
them to a culture of shaming? What happens to a polity when it retreats into
private silos and becomes indifferent to the use of language deployed in the
service of a panicked rage -- language that stokes anger but ignores issues
that matter? What happens to a social order when it treats millions of
undocumented immigrants as disposable, potential terrorists and
"criminals"? What happens to a country when the presiding principles
of its society are violence and ignorance?
What happens is that democracy withers and dies, both as an
ideal and as a reality.
In the present moment, it becomes particularly important for
educators and concerned citizens all over the world to protect and enlarge the
critical formative educational cultures and public spheres that make democracy
possible. Alternative newspapers, progressive media, screen culture, online
media and other educational sites and spaces in which public pedagogies are
produced constitute the political and educational elements of a vibrant,
critical formative culture within a wide range of public spheres. Critical
formative cultures are crucial in producing the knowledge, values, social
relations and visions that help nurture and sustain the possibility to think
critically, engage in political dissent, organize collectively and inhabit
public spaces in which alternative and critical theories can be developed.
Authoritarian societies do more than censor;
they punish those who engage in what might be called dangerous
thinking. At the core of thinking dangerously is the recognition that
education is central to politics and that a democracy cannot survive without
informed citizens. Critical and dangerous thinking is the precondition for
nurturing the ethical imagination that enables engaged citizens to learn how to
govern rather than be governed. Thinking with courage is fundamental to a
notion of civic literacy that views knowledge as central to the pursuit of
economic and political justice. Such thinking incorporates a set of values that
enables a polity to deal critically with the use and effects of power,
particularly through a developed sense of compassion for others and the planet.
Thinking dangerously is the basis for a formative and educational culture of
questioning that takes seriously how imagination is key to the practice of
freedom. Thinking dangerously is not only the cornerstone of critical agency
and engaged citizenship, it's also the foundation for a working democracy.
Please go here to continue this article: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41058-thinking-dangerously-the-role-of-higher-education-in-authoritarian-times
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