Tag Archives: Trump

Spiritual and Material Antisemitism, Julius Evola and the Threat of Contemporary Fascism

Kaushik Jayaram has written a cautionary essay on why fascism is on the rise the world over that should provoke angry remonstrances from the public but will likely be met with a withering indifference if not insipient and callous antipathy. Much has been written about fascism and the proliferation of fascist governments – including their connection […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). Spiritual and Material Antisemitism, Julius Evola and the Threat of Contemporary Fascism. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/spiritual-and-material-antisemitism-julius-evola-and-the-threat-of-contemporary-fascism/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

The Cosmic Mountain

A Modern-Day Parable Marking the Day the Supreme Court of the United States Outlawed Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Cosmic mountains are places where human beings can retreat in order to face the ghosts of the past and ask for forgiveness. In France, there exists a cosmic mountain where the ghosts of the victims of the Deutsches Ahnenerbe-Studiengesellschaft fur Geistesurgeschichte in Natzweiler Struthoff (a Nazi camp where inmates were subjected to obscene medical experiments […]

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

By Our Acts, Ye Shall Know Us

We’ll play a melody and turn the lights down low so that none can see. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. And there’ll be no one else alive’ cept you and me. – George Fame and the Blue Flames Caught Between the Tectonic Plates of […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). By Our Acts, Ye Shall Know Us. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/by-our-acts-ye-shall-know-us/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

The Torment of Capitalism

The Hidden and Not-So-Hidden Causes of the War in Ukraine

Napoleon Putin (image created using Craiyon AI) They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them […]

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

The War in Ukraine, Marxism, Education and the Decay in American Politics

Luis Huerta-Charles interviews Peter McLaren

Sergio Quiroz Miranda, Director of Instituto McLaren, and Peter McLaren in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, protesting the disappearance of forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero. Peter McLaren is one of the educators who has worked on the development and consolidation of critical pedagogy […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P., & Huerta-Charles, L. (2023). The War in Ukraine, Marxism, Education and the Decay in American Politics: Luis Huerta-Charles interviews Peter McLaren. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-war-in-ukraine-marxism-education-and-the-decay-in-american-politics/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Luis Huerta-Charles

Luis Huerta-Charles is an associate professor of critical pedagogies and multicultural education in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership in the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: Sergio Quiroz Miranda, Director of Instituto McLaren, and Peter McLaren in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, protesting the disappearance of forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero.

How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beast Inside

How is it possible for a wide swath of the (white) American public to literally ignore its country’s founding original sin – the extermination of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African Americans while celebrating brutal leaders such as Donald Trump? Slavoj Žižek helps us to answer questions such as this by recalling the story about the […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beast Inside. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/how-we-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-beast-inside/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: (Washington, DC - EUA 19/03/2019) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro responde perguntas da imprensa durante o encontro..Foto: Isac Nóbrega/PR

Fascism on trial

Rethinking education in an age of conspiracy theories and election deniers

Reprinted from Educational Philosophy & Theory (https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2151895) In the current political landscape, fascism is on the rise and the threat to democracy is imperilled both as an ideal and a promise. A number of Republican politicians who ran for a variety of political offices in the US embrace elements of white supremacy, support white Christian […]

Full Citation Information:
Giroux, H. A. (2022). Fascism on trial: Rethinking education in an age of conspiracy theories and election deniers. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/fascism-on-trial/

Henry A. Giroux

Henry A. Giroux is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Canada. Henry is one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, and has written extensively on public pedagogycultural studiesyouth studieshigher educationmedia studies, and critical theory, winning many awards. His interviews on neoliberalism appear in Truthout.  Henry is past co-Editor-in-chief of the Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies.  In 2002 Routledge named him as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.

 

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: US Capitol - Washington, DC https://www.flickr.com/photos/ep_jhu/32477423791

Catholic Integralism, Pervasive Putinism and the Assault on Democracy

The unholy marriage between postliberal theology and legal conservatism accounts for one reason that the animating spirit of today’s ‘integralism’ has been so resilient. Its exponents have shown Americans that they will not let something as insignificant as democracy stand in their way of transforming America, even if it means belabouring the political theology of the Middle Ages […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). Catholic Integralism, Pervasive Putinism and the Assault on Democracy. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/catholic-integralism-pervasive-putinism-and-the-assault-on-democracy/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

It’s the end of the World as we know it

Racism as a global killer of Black people and their emancipatory freedoms

From Arday, J. (2021). It’s the end of the world as we know it: Racism as a global killer of Black people and their emancipatory freedoms. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 53(14), 1418-1420. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1782722 That’s great, it starts with an earthquake… are the famous opening tenets to REM’s anthemic stream of political consciousness, ‘It’s the End of […]

Full Citation Information:
Arday, J. (2022). It’s the end of the World as we know it: Racism as a global killer of Black people and their emancipatory freedoms. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/epat/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-2/

Jason Arday

Jason Arday is a British sociologist, writer and fundraiser best known for his research on race and racism. He is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Glasgow in the School of Education, College of Social Sciences. His research focuses on race inequalities within the education sector with a specific focus racial and intersectional inequality in higher education.

Post-Digital Fascism and the Escape from Freedom

Critical Pedagogy and the Struggle for an Anti-Fascist Counterpublic Sphere

When Fox News and other news organisations on the US far right accuse public school teachers of ‘woke’ attempts at ‘grooming’ or ‘sexualising’ children by allegedly prompting them to consider changing their gender, or turning themselves into ‘furries’ and defecating in litter boxes provided by the school administration, or serving as surrogates for the LGBTQI+ […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). Post-Digital Fascism and the Escape from Freedom: Critical Pedagogy and the Struggle for an Anti-Fascist Counterpublic Sphere. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/post-digital-fascism-and-the-escape-from-freedom/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: Mark Dixon, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/9602574@N02/32298826522

Critical Pedagogy and the Future

Overcoming Fascism’s God Complex and the Attack on Reason

Columns by David Badash and Tom Boggioni were published recently in RawStory. One was about Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, and the other about the Arizona Republican Party’s nominee for governor, Kari Lake. Both were frightening. Yes, frightening in the sense that they reveal the extent to which Christian nationalism has poisoned America’s bloodstream. I’ve […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). Critical Pedagogy and the Future: Overcoming Fascism’s God Complex and the Attack on Reason. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/critical-pedagogy-and-the-future/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

The Death of History and the Struggle to Remember

The Fight for Critical Pedagogy in the Age of Trump

On April 22, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill H.B.7 to, in his words, ‘give businesses, employees, children and families tools to stand up against discrimination and woke indoctrination.’ Jessica L. Adler, in an important article for the History News Network, has done us all a considerable service in challenging this 30 pages-long list of that […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). The Death of History and the Struggle to Remember: The Fight for Critical Pedagogy in the Age of Trump. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-death-of-history-and-the-struggle-to-remember/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Obsessing About the Unthinkable

There Will Be No Reckoning for Trump, only the Possibility of Civil War

It is important these days to remember that Donald Trump wasn’t created in a mindless void or a bottomless pit (although it is tempting to see a reference to Trump in Revelation 9:1-12, which speaks of a bottomless pit that holds a unique type of demon, but there is no mention of whether the demon is […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). Obsessing About the Unthinkable: There Will Be No Reckoning for Trump, only the Possibility of Civil War. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/obsessing-about-the-unthinkable/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Steve Bannon’s War on Ukraine and Democracy

Steve Bannon is a towering figure among his audience, some of whom are earnestly seeking the truth surrounding issues of the day, and many others who are axe-grinding nincompoops and conspiracy nuts. But Bannon himself is neither stupid nor foolish – nor, for that matter, earnest. He exercises his charm through cultspeak, by pretending to be […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). Steve Bannon’s War on Ukraine and Democracy. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/steve-bannons-war-on-ukraine-and-democracy/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/51594416470

QAnon and the Attack of the Crafty Crazies

Standing firm at the fore of conspiracy theorists, QAnon adherents have made a name for themselves in this vile and desolate era of Trumpism. And, while that name is ‘C-R-A-Z-Y,’ there is no denying that QAnon has had a direct and measurable impact on American politics. In the alienation of everyday life, opportunities for passion […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2022). QAnon and the Attack of the Crafty Crazies. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/qanon-and-the-attack-of-the-crafty-crazies/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.