Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (Critical Interventions: Politics, Culture, and the Promise of Democracy)

Giroux probes the depth and range of forces pushing the United States into a new form of authoritarianism, one that connects the Orwellian surveillance state with the forms of ideological control made famous by Aldous Huxley. Addressing how neoliberalism, or the new market fundamentalism, is shaping a range of registers from language and memory to youth and higher education, Giroux explores how education in a variety of spheres is transformed into a type of miseducation perpetuated through what he calls a "disimagination machine"-one that reproduces the present by either distorting or erasing the past. But Giroux is not content to focus on how matters of politics, subjectivity, power, and desire are colonized through forms of miseducation; he is also concerned with the educative nature of politics as the practice of freedom and how the emphasis on critique must be matched by a politics and discourse of resistance, hope, and possibility. This becomes particularly evident in his chapters on Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. Thinking Dangerously makes clear that at the heart of the struggle for a radical democracy is the reviving of the radical imagination as the basis for new forms of political and collective struggle. Probing these issues through a series of interrelated essays and important interviews, Giroux provides an accessible, layered, and sustained example of how thinking dangerously is central to and connected with the struggle over the radical imagination and the fight to fulfill the promise of a radical democracy. Giroux probes the depth and range of forces pushing the United States into a new form of authoritarianism, one that connects the Orwellian surveillance state with the forms of ideological control made famous by Aldous Huxley. Addressing how neoliberalism, or the new market fundamentalism, is shaping arrange of registers from language and memory to youth and higher education, Giroux exploited how education in a variety of spheres is transformed into a type of miseducation perpetuated through what he calls a "disimagination machine"-one that reproduces the present by either distorting or erasing the past. But Giroux is not content to focus on how matters of politics, subjectivity, power, and desire are colonized through forms of miseducation; he is also concerned with the educative nature of politics as the practice of freedom and how the emphasis on critique must be matched by a politics and discourse of resistance, hope, and possibility. This becomes particularly evident in his chapters on Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. Dangerous Thinking makes clear that at the heart of the struggle for a radical democracy is the revivification of the radical imagination as the basis for new forms of political and collective struggle. Probing these issues through a Series of interrelated essays and important interviews, Giroux provides an accessible, layered, and sustained example of how thinking dangerously is central to and connected with the struggle over the radical imagination and the fight to fulfill the promise of a radical democracy Orwell And Huxley's America: Between Orwell And Huxley : America's Plunge Into Dystopia ; Thinking Dangerously In An Age Of Political Betrayal ; Data Storms And The Tyranny Of Manufactured Forgetting ; Militarism's Killing Fields : From Afghanistan To Ferguson ; Isis And The Spectacle Of Terrorism : Resisting Mainstream Workstations Of Fear ; Interview: Organized Forgetting ; Memory And The Politics Of Hope -- The Savagry Of Neoliberalism: Beyond Orwellian Nightmares And The Politics Of The Deep State ; Neoliberalism And The Machinery Of Disposability -- Higher Education And The New Brutalism -- The Poison Of Neoliberal Miseducation : Higher Education As Dead Zones Of The Imagination -- Interview: Predatory Neoliberalism As A Global Force -- Reclaim The Radical Imagination : Politics Beyond Hope: The Responsibility Of Intellectuals In The Shadow Of The Atomic Plague : Fighting Back Against The Neoliberal Disimagination Machine -- Neoliberalism's War Against The Radical Imagination -- Protesting Youth In An Age Of Neoliberal Savagery -- Noam Chomsky And The Public Intellectual In Dark Times : From Hope To Confrontation -- Interview: The Specter Of Authoritarianism And The Future Of The Left. Henry A. Giroux. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Between Orwell and Huxley : America's plunge into dystopia -- Thinking dangerously in the age of political betrayal -- Data storms and the tyranny of manufactured forgetting -- Militarism's killing fields : from Afghanistan to Ferguson -- ISIS and the spectacle of terrorism : resisting mainstream workstations of fear -- Interview : organized forgetting. memory, and hope beyond authoritarianism -- The specter of neoliberal authoritarianism and the politics of the deep state -- Neoliberalism and the machinery of disposability -- Chapter 9-higher education and the new brutalism -- The poison of neoliberal miseducation--higher education as a dead zone of the imagination -- Interview : predatory neoliberalism as a global force -- Reclaim the radical imagination : politics beyond hope -- The responsibility of intellectuals in the shadow of the atomic plague -- Neoliberalism's war against the radical imagination -- Protesting youth in an age of neoliberal savagery -- Noam Chomsky and the courage of public intellectuals in dark times -- Interview : the specter of authoritarianism and the future of the left Section 1. Orwell and Huxley's America -- Section 2. The savagery of neoliberalism -- Section 3. Reclaim the radical imagination : politics beyond hope