Rorty, post-critical pedagogy and hope: a response

ABSTRACT

The paper is a response to the articles published in the current issue analysing Rorty’s philosophy of hope. In these articles, Bianca Thoilliez, Stefano Oliverio and Kai Wortmann highlight the pragmatist characteristics of post-critical pedagogy. Taking a poststructuralist perspective, I propose to examine some limits of the association between Rorty’s philosophy of hope and post-critical pedagogy. I will discuss, in turn, their take on the definition of hope, on the place of critique in post-critical pedagogy and on the affirmative ethos of post-critical pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-critical pedagogy
• post-structuralism
• Richard Rorty
• hope
• critique

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In their respective articles in the current issue.

2. As mentioned by the proponents of PCP, the notion of cruel optimism is developed in Lauren Berlant’s work: Berlant (2011) Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press).

3. This view is also supported by postcolonial scholars. For example, in The Damned of the World, Fanon (2002) exposes his ideas on counter-violence. According to him, the violence that is exercised against parts of the population (in his work, it was the colonized, but this can be broadened), should be used as the point of departure for the critic, or artist, to fight it. Also, denunciation and conscientisation do not suffice, they are only the initial stages of a struggle. The most important phase of a struggle is the one where critics, artists, aim to surpass a given state, it should be opening actively the way to change. In other words, struggle is highly creative, experimental, effervescent.

4. For more on the notion of pedagogical kitsch, see Reichenbach, R & Maxwell, B. 2005. The power and ambivalence of pedagogical kitsch. Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University College Dublin, 7–10 September .