Why Paulo Freire is a threat for right-wing populism: Lessons for communication of hope

2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
pp. 440-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Waisbord
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Participatory Communication ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Public Criticism

Right-wing populism advances a brand of communicative politics that are antithetical to Paulo Freire’s vision of liberating, critical, and participatory communication. This essential opposition helps to understand why the Bolsonaro government has turned Freire into a target of criticisms, as part of its ambitious, furious attempt to remove progressive politics and human rights advances from Brazilian society. Considering the current situation, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of Freire’s ideas for the analysis of the politics of hope against populism. His principles of public criticism, dialogue, autonomous participation, humanism, and hope are antithetical to populism’s vision. The unfolding of both dialogic and expressive politics against populism in Brazil and elsewhere illustrate the significance of Freire’s arguments, and raise questions about the limitations of purely dialogic strategies to confront authoritarianism.

Populism, liberalism, and democracy

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Sandel
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Social Esteem ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

The right-wing populism ascendant today is a symptom of the failure of progressive politics. Central to this failure is the uncritical embrace of a neo-liberal version of globalization that benefits those at the top but leaves ordinary citizens feeling disempowered. Progressive parties are unlikely to win back public support unless they learn from the populist protest that has displaced them —not by replicating its xenophobia and strident nationalism, but by taking seriously the legitimate grievances with which these ugly sentiments are entangled. These grievances are not only economic but also moral and cultural; they are not only about wages and jobs but also about social esteem.

Living Through It: Anger, Laughter, and Internet Memes in Dark Times

2020 ◽  
pp. 136787792096599
Author(s):  
Hollis Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Historical Moment

In this article, the author examines online political discourse as it is made manifest in internet memes in order to illuminate the lived, felt dimensions of progressive politics at a historical moment when those politics seem especially imperiled. The author argues for an understanding of online engagements with politics as being borne of oscillation as users move between platforms as well as affective states. The goal: to underscore how anger and laughter provide progressives with different opportunities to weather, make fun of, and combat the ascendancy of right-wing populism. Rooted in literature on affect and scholarship on internet memes, especially feminist internet memes, the article examines several different memes that circulated between 2016 and 2020, including #pussygrabsback, #neverthelessshepersisted, Prankster Joe Biden memes, and Creepy Joe Biden memes.

Questioning Consensuses: Right-Wing Populism, Anti-Populism, and the Threat of ‘Gender Ideology’

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 528-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Kováts
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Systemic Crisis ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Since 2012, several European countries (among others Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia or Slovakia) have seen the rise of conservative and, in part, fundamentalist social movements against the perceived threat of what they call (depending on the context) ‘gender ideology’, ‘gender theory’, or ‘genderism’. The movements mobilizing against ‘gender ideology’ are frequently understood as a conservative backlash against achieved levels of equality between women and men and/or LGBTQ rights. This perspective of ‘the patriarchy/heteronormativity fighting back’ seems as tempting as it is simplifying. I discuss the transnational movements against ‘gender ideology’ in the context of the rise of right-wing populism and on the basis of considerations seeking to explain their demand side. On one hand, I argue that the study of this phenomenon provides important clues for understanding the reasons behind the rise of populist forces in Europe and beyond. On the other hand, I propose that ‘gender’ is not the final target for these movements and that they should not be understood primarily as mobilizations against equality. Rather, I see the emergence of these movements as a symptom of a larger systemic crisis. ‘Gender ideology’ in this sense embodies numerous deficits of the so-called progressive actors, and the movements or parties that mobilize against the perceived threat of ‘gender ideology’ react to these deficits by re-politicizing certain issues in a polarized language. Based on Chantal Mouffe’s critique of the established hegemonic idea of consensus in liberal democracy, I discuss two consensuses that are characteristic of the so-called progressive actors (including the feminist and LGBTQ actors), namely, the neoliberal consensus and the human rights consensus, and their contribution to the rise of the movements against ‘gender ideology’.

scholarly journals Universal Alienation

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 424-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Almost Everywhere ◽  
State Finance ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Occupy Movements

This article is part of a debate between David Harvey, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri. It takes Marx’s bicentenary as occasion for an update of his concept of alienation. The paper asks: how are we to interpret universal alienation and from whence does it come? Marx radically reformulated the concept of alienation in the Grundrisse. The humanism of the early Marx can be re-rooted and reconceptualised in the scientific mode proposed in the Grundrisse. In the Grundrisse, the universality of alienation is specific to capitalism’s historical evolution. Today, alienation exists almost everywhere. It exists at work in production, at home in consumption, and it dominates much of politics and daily life. Such trends intensify through the application of information technologies and artificial intelligence. Widespread alienation has resulted in Occupy movements as well as right-wing populism and bigoted nationalist and racist movements. Donald Trump is the President of alienation. The circulation of capital as totality consists of the three key moments of production, circulation and distribution. A lot of contemporary economic struggles are now occurring at the point of realisation rather than at the point of production. Protests are therefore today often expressions of broad-based discontent. Our future is dictated by the need to redeem our debts. Under such conditions democracy becomes a sham. The big question is what forms of social movement can help us get out of the state-finance nexus. The theory of objective alienation along with an understanding of its subjective consequences is one vital key to unlock the door of a progressive politics for the future.

Brexit Dreams

2018 ◽  
pp. 454-469
Author(s):  
Bridget Escolme
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Right Wing Populism

This essay considers some of the cultural and political drives underpinning the production of Shakespeare’s comedies, particularly Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. With a focus on configurations of the nostalgic and the critical in performance, I consider the purpose of performing 400-year-old comedies now, at a time when British and American Shakespeare production companies continue to be optimistic about the role of Shakespeare in culture and education, but when these cultures—at least as they feature in the mainstream media—appear never more divided. What kind of comedy is needed at this fraught or divisive time, in the second decade of the twenty-first century? As media-styled ‘liberal elites’ mourn for progressive politics whilst right-wing ‘populism’ indulges its nostalgia for an imagined migrant-free nationhood, Escolme examines the part that Shakespeare production plays in reflecting and constructing cultural nostalgia.

Politische Bildung in Zeiten des Rechtspopulismus

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Michael Görtler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Peace Education ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Politische Bildung ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
A Current

Abstract Political Education in Times of right-wing Populism. Pedagogical and Didactical Approaches to Deal with a current Threat to Peace Right-wing populism challenges the societies in Europe. The rise of such movements and parties are a threat to peace and democracy in Germany. This article focuses the possibilities as well as the boundaries of political education under the current circumstances. To this end, it discusses theoretical explanations based on approaches in peace education, political didactics and social sciences to deal with right-wing populism in practice.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet O'Shea
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Competitive Sports ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Play ◽  
The World ◽  
Right Wing Populism

This section contends with a central irony: Americans are among the most competitive people in the world, and yet we are among the least likely to play competitive sports in adulthood. This exercise gap is usually treated as a public health problem; the goal of this section is to treat it as a social and cultural concern. The conclusion therefore investigates the social and political implications of an American tendency to outsource physical play to experts: higher levels of fear, increased preoccupation with success at all costs, decreased creativity, and increasing rigidity of perspective and position. Specifically, the conclusion maintains that a neglect of fair play has dire consequences for democracy, a suggestion born out by the recent swing toward right-wing populism in politics.

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