TheUnited States is Becoming an Inverted Totalitarian Culture “The PremierDemand upon all Education is that Auschwitz not happen again.” TheodorAdorno, Education after Auschwitz(1951)
We live in a “Managed Democracy”argues political theorist Sheldon Wolin. Our democracy is in tatters. “Far frombeing exhausted by its twentieth-century versions, would be totalitarianism nowhave available technologies of control, intimidation and mass manipulation farsurpassing those of that earlier time” of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. Unlikeclassic totalitarianism with its strong central control and rigid citizenmobilization, our times represent the political coming of age of corporatepower and the political demobilization of the citizenry. With the constantdownsizing, privatization, outsourcing and the dismantling of the welfare statethe resulting state of insecurity makes the public feel so helpless that it is lesslikely to become politically active (Wolin 2008, Bauman 2010). Pacification andquiescence are paramount forms of social control in the U.S., both in theworkplace and outside of it. It’s not democracy, even though the culture stillretains important democratic features. Henry Giroux, the most importantheir of Freire, argues that the incessant repetition of the untruths associatedwith market fundamentalism amounts to a return of the Big Lie (Giroux 2012). “Oneof the major consequences of the current education deficit and the pervasiveculture of illiteracy that sustains it is what I call the ideology of the biglie -- which propagates the myth that the free market system is the onlymechanism to ensure human freedom and safeguard democracy” (Giroux 2012). Theassertion of a “big lie,” has echoes of a totalitarian claim. Can a society like theUnited States legitimately be said to be on the path to totalitarianism? Wolinposits that the United States is nearly there. He argues that the alternateregimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin demonstrate that it is possible fortotalitarianism to assume different forms in different historical times andplaces. “Where classic totalitarianism. . . . aimed at fashioning followersrather than citizens, inverted totalitarianism can achieve the same end byfurnishing substitutes such as ‘consumer sovereignty’ and ‘shareholderdemocracy’ that give a sense of participation. An inverted regime prefers acitizenry that is uncritically complicit rather than involved. A central refuge forcritique, the university, is under siege. Most intellectuals are renderedpassive and frightened by the tsunami around them. Too many are trappedin the rituals of specialization, the warp and woof of their professionalselves, refusing to abandon the safety of thinking conventional thoughts.Nearly half are Adjunct Professors living at near poverty wages and fearful ofsaying anything that might jeopardize their jobs. Self-censorship hasbecome the coin of the realm. The pillars of society are crumbling inwhat Zygmunt Bauman calls our "liquid world," evaporating into theair. Paulo Freire deeplyunderstood this. In Pedagogy of theOppressed, Freire spoke at length of the authoritarianism of the work placewhere workers must passively act as “wage slaves” or risk “losing their jobsand finding their names on a ‘black list’ signifying closed doors to otherjobs” (Freire 1970, 141). He argued that this is the least that can happen.“[Workers’] basic insecurity is. . . directly linked to the enslavement oftheir labor (which really implies the enslavement as a person . . .)” (Freire1970, 141). He quoted tellingly Bishop Franic Split on this issue, “If theworkers do not become in some way the owners of their labor, all structuralreforms will be ineffective. [This is true] even if the workers receive ahigher salary in an economic system but are not content with these raises. Theywant to be owners, not sellers, of their labor. . . . At present the workersare increasingly aware that labor represents a part of the human person. Aperson, however cannot be bought; neither can he sell himself. Any purchase orsale of labor is a type of slavery” (Freire 1970, 139). At the currenthistorical conjuncture any discussion of “wage slavery,” is openly mocked andso is rarely uttered. In the dominant discourse workers and professionalsshould be grateful to the “job creators” for letting them work! “The PremierDemand upon all Education is that Auschwitz not happen again.” TheodorAdorno, Education after Auschwitz(1951) We live in a “Managed Democracy”argues political theorist Sheldon Wolin. Our democracy is in tatters. “Far frombeing exhausted by its twentieth-century versions, would be totalitarianism nowhave available technologies of control, intimidation and mass manipulation farsurpassing those of that earlier time” of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. Unlikeclassic totalitarianism with its strong central control and rigid citizenmobilization, our times represent the political coming of age of corporatepower and the political demobilization of the citizenry. With the constantdownsizing, privatization, outsourcing and the dismantling of the welfare statethe resulting state of insecurity makes the public feel so helpless that it is lesslikely to become politically active (Wolin 2008, Bauman 2010). Pacification andquiescence are paramount forms of social control in the U.S., both in theworkplace and outside of it. It’s not democracy, even though the culture stillretains important democratic features. Henry Giroux, the most importantheir of Freire, argues that the incessant repetition of the untruths associatedwith market fundamentalism amounts to a return of the Big Lie (Giroux 2012). “Oneof the major consequences of the current education deficit and the pervasiveculture of illiteracy that sustains it is what I call the ideology of the biglie -- which propagates the myth that the free market system is the onlymechanism to ensure human freedom and safeguard democracy” (Giroux 2012). Theassertion of a “big lie,” has echoes of a totalitarian claim. Can a society like theUnited States legitimately be said to be on the path to totalitarianism? Wolinposits that the United States is nearly there. He argues that the alternateregimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin demonstrate that it is possible fortotalitarianism to assume different forms in different historical times andplaces. “Where classic totalitarianism. . . . aimed at fashioning followersrather than citizens, inverted totalitarianism can achieve the same end byfurnishing substitutes such as ‘consumer sovereignty’ and ‘shareholderdemocracy’ that give a sense of participation. An inverted regime prefers acitizenry that is uncritically complicit rather than involved. A central refuge forcritique, the university, is under siege. Most intellectuals are renderedpassive and frightened by the tsunami around them. Too many are trappedin the rituals of specialization, the warp and woof of their professionalselves, refusing to abandon the safety of thinking conventional thoughts.Nearly half are Adjunct Professors living at near poverty wages and fearful ofsaying anything that might jeopardize their jobs. Self-censorship hasbecome the coin of the realm. The pillars of society are crumbling inwhat Zygmunt Bauman calls our "liquid world," evaporating into theair. Paulo Freire deeplyunderstood this. In Pedagogy of theOppressed, Freire spoke at length of the authoritarianism of the work placewhere workers must passively act as “wage slaves” or risk “losing their jobsand finding their names on a ‘black list’ signifying closed doors to otherjobs” (Freire 1970, 141). He argued that this is the least that can happen.“[Workers’] basic insecurity is. . . directly linked to the enslavement oftheir labor (which really implies the enslavement as a person . . .)” (Freire1970, 141). He quoted tellingly Bishop Franic Split on this issue, “If theworkers do not become in some way the owners of their labor, all structuralreforms will be ineffective. [This is true] even if the workers receive ahigher salary in an economic system but are not content with these raises. Theywant to be owners, not sellers, of their labor. . . . At present the workersare increasingly aware that labor represents a part of the human person. Aperson, however cannot be bought; neither can he sell himself. Any purchase orsale of labor is a type of slavery” (Freire 1970, 139). At the currenthistorical conjuncture any discussion of “wage slavery,” is openly mocked andso is rarely uttered. In the dominant discourse workers and professionalsshould be grateful to the “job creators” for letting them work!
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