Philosophy,Social Hope and Democratic Criticism: Critical Theory for a Global Age

Abstract

The attempt to connect philosophy and social hope has been one of the key distinguishing features of critical theory as a tradition of enquiry. This connection has been questioned forcefully from the perspective of a post-philosophical pragmatism, as articulated by Rorty. In this article I consider two strategies that have been adopted by critical theorists in seeking to reject Rorty's suggestion that we should abandon the attempt to ground social hope in philosophical reason. We consider argumentative strategies of the philosophical anthropologist and of the rational proceduralist. Once the exchanges between Rorty and these two strands of critical theory have been reconstructed and assessed, an alternative perspective emerges. It is argued that philosophical reasoning best helps to sustain social hope in a rapidly changing world when we consider it in terms of the practice of democratic criticism.     

Cultivating Youth Engagement: Race & the Behavioral Effects of Critical Pedagogy

Political Behavior - Political scientists attribute gaps in participation between whites and people of color to unequal access to political resources, political efficacy, and weak affiliations to...     

Reflections on Critical Thinking: Lessons from a Quasi-Experimental Study

In a pre/post quasi-experimental study assessing the impact of a specific curriculum on critical thinking, the authors employed a critical thinking curriculum in two sections of a U.S. foreign policy class. The authors found that the interactive and scaffolded critical thinking curriculum yielded statistically significant critical thinking increases for students scoring below average on the pretest. Within a discussion of the overall need for strengthening critical thinking in higher education, the authors demonstrate that the study’s findings support the developmental process of acquiring critical thinking, and illustrate that early jumps in critical thinking can be achieved within one semester. Additionally, the results point to the need for more long-term approaches to assess larger increases for those scoring above average.     

Correction: Cultivating Youth Engagement: Race & the Behavioral Effects of Critical Pedagogy

Political Behavior - The original version of this article unfortunately contains the following errors. In the heading “Political Participation and Civic Education”, the text...     

Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Reflections on the 2015 York University Strike through a Marcusean Lens

Abstract

In this article, we see the month-long graduate student and contract faculty strike at York University (Toronto, 2015) through a lens informed by Herbert Marcuse’s thought. In the context of widespread student protests across North America against neoliberal austerity, we draw on our picket line experiences to argue that Marcuse’s work provides insights into how students and faculty can engage in critical praxis within the neoliberal university. We argue that CUPE 3903, the union of TAs and contract faculty at York, is a kind of counter-institution that Marcuse argued was necessary for liberation. Marcuse strategically urged students to take advantage of gaps or cracks in a disintegrating system. Our analysis revolves around the complex experience of the graduate student picket lines – a “gap” – as a site of rupture for the liberation of aesthetic experience, “organized spontaneity,” open, democratic organization, as well as conflict.     

Between Psychoanalysis and Political Philosophy: Towards a Critical Theory of Political Myth

Abstract

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of political imaginaries: political myth. What are political myths? What role do they play within today's commoditized political imaginaries? What are the conditions for setting up a critique of them? We will address these questions, by putting forward a theory of political myth which situates itself between psycho analysis and political philosophy, in line with the tradition of critical theory that many still associate with the name of the Frankfurt School. We will first discuss the notion of political myth by illustrating the contribution of both disciplines to its understanding and then, through a discussion of the notion of social unconscious, we will apply this analysis to a contemporary example of political myth, that of a clash of civilizations.     

Mexico Under Salinas: Towards a New Record for One Party's Domination?

Nowadays, the Mexican political regime is one of the oldest regimes in the world. Established in 1929, in a few years it could break the USSR record for a party in power. After an important crisis in 1988, president Salinas managed to get the ship out of the storm with an effective set of macroeconomic policies. In fact, he has been seen internationally as a very effective leader, who achieved what Gorbachev could not: a deep economic reform without a political crisis. He proposed and succeeded in starting a North American Free Trade Agreement and reformed the state structure along the lines of what he calls "social liberalism." The prospects for the regime and the party in power look good for the presidential elections of 2994. Nothing however assures that the current policies will really help to solve Mexico's unemployment and inequality problems. The vertical political and administrative structures are not well suited for that purpose and are a source of political instability. It may be the case that the social-liberal model brings economic growth but does not help in bringing about a better distribution of income and more democracy. In this case, either in 2994 or later, the regime may face dificulties and it may not allow for a pacific political transition. To avoid this, the country will need active social, small business, regional and educational policies, handled by a professional administrative apparatus. It will also need more democratic electoral and policymaking systems plus a working division of powers and federalism. In a country with long authoritarian traditions these are difficult to attain, yet possible objectives.     

Critical Pedagogy and Class Struggle in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization: Notes from History's Underside1

Within the North American progressive education tradition, critical pedagogy has been a widely discussed project of educational reform that challenges students to become politically literate so that they might better understand and transform how power and privilege works on a daily basis in contemporary social contexts. As a project of social transformation, critical pedagogy is touted as an important protagonist in the struggle for social and economic justice, yet it has rarely ever challenged the fundamental basis of capitalist social relations. Among the many and varied proponents of critical pedagogy in the USA, Marxist analysis has been virtually absent; in fact, over the last decade, its conceptual orientation has been more closely aligned with postmodernism and poststructuralism. This paper argues that unless class analysis and class struggle play a central role in critical pedagogy, it is fated to go the way of most liberal reform movements of the past, melding into calls for fairer resource distribution and allocation, and support for racial diversity, without fundamentally challenging the social universe of capital in which such calls are made.     

关于父母对子女婚恋心理影响的哲学思辨

父母在子女婚恋过程中扮演相当重要的角色,会不同程度地对子女的婚姻产生影响。父母的婚姻模式、对子女的教养方式以及干预均会对子女的婚恋心理产生影响;由于自身人格不独立,父母往往对子女婚恋过分干预而不顾虑对方的独立性。因此,在解决子女婚恋问题时,父母和子女应充分运用哲学思辨的思考方式,尊重子女人格的独立性,将其观点结合现实情况加以思考,在此基础上给出合理的建议;而子女则应将父母的观点加以思考并进行融合改造,最终达到共同的目的——拥有幸福美满的生活。     

Social Character: Erich Fromm and the Ideological Glue of Neoliberalism

Several thinkers have expressed the view that the central nostrums of neoliberalism, including self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual risk, have become part of the “common sense” fabric of everyday life. My paper argues that Erich Fromm’s idea of social character offers a comprehensive and persuasive answer to this question. While some have sought the answer to this conundrum in Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I argue that, by itself, this answer is not sufficient. What is significant about the notion of social character, I claim, is that it manages to unify “top-down” approaches like governmentality focused on ideas and policy, with “bottom-up” approaches focused on how the insights of day to day experience are mediated through culture. Adapting this theory to neoliberalism, I argue, means that the “common sense” nature of neoliberalism, and the lack of a reckoning for its massive economic failure (as evidenced by the 2007 Great Recession), are explicable through the formation of a neoliberal social character, by means of which experiential processes align with cultural meanings and, subsequently, fuse with social expectations.     

Statistics as a Democratic Pedagogy: Quantitative Measures and the Civic Imagination

Quantitative measures have become a cornerstone in social knowledge formation and policy-making. They have also been criticized as forms of epistemic authority that close off debate, serve elite interests, and empower states and markets over the people. Such concerns are well-founded. This article, however, argues that a participatory and epistemically chastened approach to measurement development and dissemination can make the world legible without falling into depoliticizing assertions of undemocratic authority. Through a critical reading of the history, theory, and methodology of the indicator and indexing movement, the article argues that statistics can serve as a democratic pedagogy that empowers citizens to understand and transform large and complex political realities.     

“省直管县”改革的冷思考

近年来,"省直管县"改革在全国范围内得到了广泛推行.这一改革既有浙江省的成功经验作范例,又得到了中央的肯定,并且得到了广大基层政府的大力支持,似乎势在必行.但是我们也不能忽视改革中存在的问题和困难,并非所有的省份都具备改革的条件,如果一味照搬其他省份的经验,将会违背行政法上的比例原则和行政管理学的一般原理,造成不必要的改革代价.从行政法学和行政管理学的角度来看,在划小省区的基础上进行"省直管县"改革应该是最佳路径.     

The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm

Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for ‘regime bias’. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.