I did not attend the giroux talk. i know that henry giroux writes much about critical pedagogy, and i noticed from the blog postings his talk was a lot about the corporatization of higher education. BUT BUT but .... i am a bit curious how he can accept a position at McMasters titled the Global Television Network Chair in Communication Studies. WANTED: 1 tablespoon of critical analysis.
kat the anti-blogger
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Giroux and Global Television Network!?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
An interesting, if reactionary, question. And i admit to having a similar reaction. Global TV ain't exactly a progressive force in Canadian media which, at the very least, makes it ironic that Giroux holds an endowed position in Global TV's name. I wonder what Giroux has to say about it, though he might feel a tad constrained. He does have a number of interviews listed on his website , one of which includes the following:
"You don't fight their influence as much as you re-educate them about what the purpose of the university is and how corporations can contribute," Giroux explains. "Corpora-tions can be enormously helpful by virtue of providing financial resources to universities in ways that expand the public face of the university, rather than control its curriculum, rather than set limits as to what kind of research can be done. These are grants that should be given in the spirit of public good, so that we can recognize that corporations can be good citizens and not merely always and boldly engines of profit. "I think this is something we have to take seriously, as opposed to saying that they can't do anything, there's nothing that they can contribute, they're always poisonous. That's purely reductionistic to me. At one level I don't want to under- emphasize how powerful and how pernicious corporate influence can be, but at the same time I'm not willing to define corporate influence only in those terms. It's not an either-or question."
I am beginning to believe that everything, at its base, relates to mode-of-production. In the case of current industrialized information-era North America and Europe, it seems that all people are dependent on the money-making, externalizing machines that are corporations, whether they admit it to themselves or not. Is it better to accept a position as chair financed directly by corporations or to accept a chair that is financed inadvertently by corporations through taxes and student fees? Basically, most seemingly critical/altruistic organizations or individuals are making a living through some avenue of the economy that relates back to an exploitative process. Even organic farmers that are partially self-sustaining need to rely on customers that can afford to buy their goods. So, what is the answer? Do we just accept that everything be branded in the names of those at the heart of global exploitation, current colonialism, or do we demand that those forces be dissipated through a Welfare State? Either way, the critics are as dependent as the CEOs. Is it possible to fight injustice while depending on the very institutions that cause it?
An important difference between direct corporate funding and indirect through taxation is the role of democratic control. There is virtually no democratic control over corporate giving - they can spend their money where they will and they are not shy about doing just that. And thus the influence of corporations on public policy, political and cultural life and the economy. Taxes, for all that they get lambasted, are the way we take care of each other in society. Though the neo-liberal mindset insists on taxes as either being seen as "fees-for-service" or simply as unfair burdens that undermine free-market rationalities.
I, for one, favour taxation and would sooner increase corporate taxes than laud corporate generosity. Mind you, i acknowledge that neo-liberal governments (are there any other kind now?) are unlikely to spend the money in ways that i want them to. Also, neo-liberal globalization has made it spectacularly difficult to challenge corporate power - raise their taxes and they simply step up production in Panama while laying off workers in Ontario. This truly sucks.
So, Giroux's take on it is both pragmatic and, likely, self-protective and i believe we gotta take every opportunity offered to advance critical thinking, social justice and the like - no matter how contradictory those opportunities might be. BUT, i think we gotta be very careful about EVER thinking that corporations can be our friends. They are inhuman constructs that have been granted legal personhood (a huge post-War mistake that contradicts the very basis of the Nuremberg convictions of the Nazis) granting the individuals who own/lead them "limited liability" meaning that the burden of proving that the individuals are responsible for wrongdoing is impossibly high - thus basically letting them do what they want.
Corporations who resist taxation and then seek thanks for their "generosity" in corporate giving are actually being magnanimous or "falsely generous" in Freire-speak.
I guess the most important role of the critic/activist/alternative lifestyle advocate that depends on neoliberal money-generation is that we are, hopefully, preparing ourselves and others for the day when neoliberal globalization can no longer function in a world with limits. When the system collapses, as I expect it to, than we have to have another option. It is for this reason that I believe that system-dependent critics must also be skill-builders and alternative world planners in order for their work to be important, relevant and , ultimately, survivalist. Without this thinking we may all be as easily suppressed and "managed" as our school system plans for us to be (because we do not know how to function outside of the globalized market economy).
Carolyn
Carolyn's point is key: we should be "preparing ourselves and others for the day when neoliberal globalization can no longer function." And the nature of this preparation is mighty tricky. For, despite our opposition (not that i'm assuming we're all similarly opposed nor all of us opposed), our desires have been shaped by the same world that has shaped neoliberalism. And such is the hegemonic trick, if our desires (and our largely unconscious common sense) have been shaped by neoliberal forces (even if in opposition) then we may find ourselves betrayed by those desires. One thing i loved about the film V for Vendetta is the way it handled V's death (something that the comic didn't do as well). V is essentially an anarchist - albeit a superhero of an anarchist - and he takes on destroying the people (banal and flamboyant alike) who criminally created both the reigning fascist state and V himself. His "vendetta' is a complex affair with at least three targets: the architects/engineers of the fascist state, the state and V himself. That he dies in the end is not so much a tragedy as a necessity. For he realizes that he is a creature of the old order, even though hs is that order's perfect nemesis. He has one job and one thing to delegate: destroy the old order and inspire the populace to take up the responsibility to create a new order. V realizes that he cannot survive in the new order - he would have no place. And such is the challenge for all of us: as we struggle to bring into existence a new order, and if we are successful, will we want to live in it? Alice Walker in a recent issue of the Shambhala Sun says that this is the best time to be alive, because there has never been so much that needs to be done. For so many of us, our desires are shaped by struggle (against injustice). What becomes of us in a world where we prevail? Do we retire? Catch up on the perpetually unfinished reading list? Watch all three seasons of Gilligan's Island again? In a very real way i would say that in a new world order we would cease to exist. Being prepared for that, i would say, means understanding what Amilcar Cabral and Paulo Freire meant by the provocative phrase "class suicide" and what Foucault means by an "ethic of discomfort" and "ethical self-transformation".
chris
Post a Comment