A Time for Hope in Dark Times

Henry Giroux,Ourania Filippakou

doi:10.3390/rel11030113

Abstract

This article explores the political importance of embracing a notion of hope in a time of growing authoritarianism across the globe. It defines hope as the ability to both mobilize what might be called a democratic imaginary and a notion of hope rooted in a realistic assessment of what it means to engage in forms of struggle for economic and social justice, both pedagogically and politically. We argue that hope is the bases for agency and that without hope, there is no agency of possibility of civic engagement and struggle.

Highlights

The dark times that haunt the current age are epitomized by the barbarians who echo the politics of a fascist past and have come to rule the United States, Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, and elsewhere
If fascism is to be defeated, there is a need to make education an organizing principle of politics and, in part, this can be done with a language that exposes and unravels falsehoods, systems of oppression, and corrupt relations of power while making it clear that an alternative future is possible
In an age of rising right-wing populist movements and authoritarian governments, it is more and more difficult to think beyond an era of foreclosed hope, or to take up the notion that there is a different future beyond the dark times marked by the current resurgence of a global fascist politics

Summary

Introduction

The dark times that haunt the current age are epitomized by the barbarians who echo the politics of a fascist past and have come to rule the United States, Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Does this mean teaching students to understand the world in an imaginative way, it means keeping alive the hope of democracy and the institutions that make it possible.

Results

Conclusion