Education Commons^™

On The Freedom To Be Opaque Monsters: Communist Pedagogy, Aesthetics, And The Sublime, Derek Ford

Education Studies Faculty publications

As social movements amplify across the globe, activists and researchers are increasingly interested in the pedagogies of revolutionary transformation. To provide a rich resource for political educators and organizers, this paper formulates what we call an (un)communicative communist pedagogy that is oriented against communicative capitalism. We show that there is a taut connection between capitalism and democracy that consists of a shared logic, pedagogy, and aesthetic that revolves around communication, inclusion, and transparency. Without grasping this aesthetic connection, anti-capitalist struggles are reduced to liberal reforms that end up reinforcing and deepening capitalist production relations. To break out of this trap, …