Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame

Blacker, David J.

ISBN 10: 1780995784 / ISBN 13: 9781780995786

Published by Zer0 Books, 2013

Seller Inventory # 20173094-n

Synopsis:

The current neoliberal mutation of capitalism has evolved beyond the days when the wholesale exploitation of labor underwrote the world systems expansion. While normal business profits plummet and theft-by-finance rises, capitalism now shifts into a mode of elimination that targets most of usalong with our environmentas waste products awaiting managed disposal. The education system is caught in the throes of this eliminationism across a number of fronts: crushing student debt, impatience with student expression, the looting of vestigial public institutions and, finally, as coup de grâce, an abandonment of the historic ideal of universal education. Education reform is powerless against eliminationism and is at best a mirage that diverts oppositional energies. The very idea of education activism becomes a comforting fiction. Educational institutions are strapped into the eliminationist projectthe neoliberal endgamein a way that admits no escape, even despite the heroic gestures of a few. The school systems that capitalism has built and directed over the last two centuries are fated to go down with the ship. It is rational therefore for educators to cultivate a certain pessimism. Should we despair? Why, yes, we shouldbut cheerfully, as confronting elimination, mortality, is after all our common fate. There is nothing and everything to do in order to prepare.

About the Author: David Blacker is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Legal Studies at the University of Delaware.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal ...
Publisher: Zer0 Books
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: New