Mass media exaggerated progressive pedagogy’s reach while actual change stayed minimal.

Evidence

Most ironic in this context, however, is the very success of their failure: the representation — the model of this complex spatial dialectic — triumphantly survives in the form of a film and a book, but in the process of becoming an image and a spectacle, the referent seems to have disappeared, as so many people from Debord to Baudrillard always warned us it would. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 888 (#expands, via linked claim)

From 2020 onward, millions marched against police violence, COVID policy, and climate inaction, making strident demands of their governments. In terms of turnout, these new movements could be impressive, and many of them effected remarkable changes in public opinion. Racial attitudes, for instance, have altered strikingly over the past decade, and genuflections to climate action are ubiquitous. A return to class themes is visible in productions such as the novels of Eribon’s protégé Edouard Louis, Piketty’s wildly popular economic history, and the Western enthusiasm for the Korean film Parasite, albeit in an individualistic, culturalist register. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 221 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Many of our colleagues were initially reluctant participants in this change. Many folks found that as they tried to respect “cultural diversity” they had to con front the limitations of their training and knowledge, as well as a possible loss of “authority.” Indeed, exposing certain truths and biases in the classroom often created chaos and confusion. The idea that the classroom should always be a “safe,” harmonious place was challenged. It was hard for individuals to fully grasp the idea that recognition of difference might also require of us a willingness to see the classroom change, to allow for shifts in relations between students. A lot of people panicked. What they saw happening was not the comforting “melting pot” idea of cultural diversity, the rainbow coalition where we would all be grouped together in our difference, but everyone wearing the same have-a-nice-day smile. This was the stuff of colonizing fantasy, a perversion of the progressive vision of cultural diversity. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 73 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Progressive change is resisted when it unsettles classroom authority and safe harmony — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 73; Political movements that become media spectacles lose their real-world referent — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 888; Post-2020 mass movements shifted opinion but expressed class themes only culturalistically — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 221

Broader Connections

• Political movements that become media spectacles lose their real-world referent #expands (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 888
• Post-2020 mass movements shifted opinion but expressed class themes only culturalistically #corroborates (0.74) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 221
• Progressive change is resisted when it unsettles classroom authority and safe harmony #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 73