Neoliberalism and the weaponising of language and education

This forceful piece by a leading educational theorist, examines the ways in which democracy is under attack in the US by a combination of neoliberalism and white supremacist Trumpism. What we are witnessing is a mode of governing fuelled by fantasies of exclusion accompanied by a full-scale attack on morality, thoughtful reasoning and collective resistance rooted in democratic forms of struggles. As more people revolt against this dystopian project, neoliberal ideology and elements of a fascist politics merge to contain, distract and misdirect the anger that has materialised out of legitimate grievances against the government, controlling privileged elites and the hardships caused by neoliberal capitalism. The current crisis of agency, representation, values and language demands a discursive shift that can call into question and defeat the formative culture and ideological scaffolding through which a savage neoliberal capitalism reproduces itself