The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine

by Henry A. Giroux

Overview

"Giroux refuses to give in or give up. The Violence of Organized Forgetting is a clarion call to imagine a different America—just, fair, and caring—and then to struggle for it."—Bill Moyers

"Henry Giroux has accomplished an exciting, brilliant intellectual dissection of America's somnambulent voyage into anti-democratic political depravity. His analysis of the plight of America's youth is particularly heartbreaking. If we have a shred of moral fibre left in our beings, Henry Giroux sounds the trumpet to awaken it to action to restore to the nation a civic soul."—Dennis J. Kucinich, former US Congressman and Presidential candidate

"Giroux lays out a blistering critique of an America governed by the tenets of a market economy. . . . He cites French philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman's concept of the 'disimagination machine' to describe a culture and pedagogical philosophy that short-circuits citizens' ability to think critically, leaving the generation now reaching adulthood unprepared for an 'inhospitable' world. Picking apart the current malaise of 21st-century digital disorder, Giroux describes a world in which citizenship is replaced by consumerism and the functions of engaged governance are explicitly beholden to corporations."—Publishers Weekly

In a series of essays that explore the intersections of politics, popular culture, and new forms of social control in American society, Henry A. Giroux explores how state and corporate interests have coalesced to restrict civil rights, privatize what's left of public institutions, and diminish our collective capacity to participate as engaged citizens of a democracy.

From the normalization of mass surveillance, lockdown drills, and a state of constant war, to corporate bailouts paired with public austerity programs that further impoverish struggling families and communities, Giroux looks to flashpoints in current events to reveal how the forces of government and business are at work to generate a culture of mass forgetfulness, obedience and conformity. In The Violence of Organized Forgetting, Giroux deconstructs the stories created to control us while championing the indomitable power of education, democracy, and hope.

Henry A. Giroux is a world-renowned educator, author and public intellectual. He currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster Universityin the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University. The Toronto Star has named Henry Giroux “one of the twelve Canadians changing the way we think."

More Praise for Henry A. Giroux's The Violence of Organized Forgetting:

"I can think of no book in the last ten years as essential as this. I can think of no other writer who has so clinically dissected the crisis of modern life and so courageously offered a possibility for real material change."—John Steppling, playwright, and author of The Shaper, Dogmouth, and Sea of Cortez

"A timely study if there ever was one, The Violence of Organized Forgetting is a milestone in the struggle to repossess the common sense expropriated by the American power elite to be redeployed in its plot to foil the popular resistance against rising social injustice and decay of political democracy."—Zygmunt Bauman, author of Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All? among other works

Prophetic and eloquent, Giroux gives us, in this hard-hitting and compelling book, the dark scenario of Western crisis where ignorance has become a virtue and wealth and power the means of ruthless abuse of workers, of the minorities and of immigrants. However, he remains optimistic in his affirmation of radical humanity, determined as he is to relate himself to a fair and caring world unblemished by anti-democratic political depravity."—Shelley Walia, Frontline

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780872866195
Publisher:	City Lights Books
Publication date:	08/12/2014
Series:	City Lights Open Media
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Henry A. Giroux is a world renowned educator, author and public intellectual. He currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster Universityin the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University. His most recent books include: Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism (Peter Lang, 2011); On Critical Pedagogy (Continuum, 2011); Education and the Crisis of Public Values (Peter Lang 2012); Twilight of the Social: Resurgent Publics in an Age of Disposability (Paradigm Publishers, 2012); Disposable Youth (Routledge 2012); Youth in Revolt (Paradigm, 2013); America's Education Deficit and the War on Youth (Monthly Review Press, 2013) A prolific writer and political commentator, he writes regularly for Truthout and serves on their board of directors.

He currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with his wife, Dr. Susan Searls Giroux.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS


Introduction: Violence in the Age of Organized Forgetting


Chapter 1: The New Authoritarianism

Chapter 2: America's Disimagination Machine

Chapter 3: Climate Change and the Politics of Disposability

Chapter 4: The Vanishing Point of Democracy

Chapter 5: Stories that Kill

Chapter 6: Lockdown, USA: Lessons from the Boston Marathon Manhunt

Chapter 7: Resisting Neoliberalism at Home

Conclusion

Index

Editorial Reviews

06/09/2014
In this essay collection, McMaster University professor Giroux (Disposable Youth) lays out a blistering critique of an America governed by the tenets of a market economy. The author doesn’t pull punches in his excoriation of the “vapid culture of celebrity” and the neoliberal narrative that defies the “public’s desire for rigorous accountability, critical interrogation, and openness.” However, this takedown is mostly confined to targets inside the ivory tower; Giroux steeps himself in the work of other academics, particularly American sociologist C. Wright Mills. He cites French philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman’s concept of the “disimagination machine” to describe a culture and pedagogical philosophy that short-circuits citizens’ ability to think critically, leaving the generation now reaching adulthood unprepared for an “inhospitable” world. Picking apart the current malaise of 21st-century digital disorder, Giroux describes a world in which citizenship is replaced by consumerism and the functions of engaged governance are explicitly beholden to corporations. Unfortunately, his remedy is not especially convincing. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly