Educating for radical hope in face of rising fascism

Abstract

In recent years right-extremist ideologies, parties and regimes are gaining popularity and power all over the globe, and as days go by, hope for equality, freedom and peace seems more and more unrealistic, delusionary, perhaps even dangerous. To what goals and in which ways should one educate in a reality that offers no end in sight to oppression? And should educators be satisfied with the hope to merely slow down or temporarily pause what seems to be inevitable? In this essay, I show that educators and their students might get caught up in state of stuckedness (Hage, 2009), to which fascist hope and fascist unique temporalities offer relief. I argue that from this situation, a particular and strong kind of hope can arise – radical hope that is immanently transcendent and whose objectives are incomprehensible and cannot be imagined at present. Paradoxically and while difficult to attain, this almost desperate hope can free educators from the discursive and temporal constraints set by both fascist ideologies and by the feeling of historical blockage, and instead infuse education with an emancipatory horizon. First, interested in both the experience of limited future, I draw insights from ethnographies that depict such historical periods and their relationship to fascism. Then, I present an analysis of fascist temporalities and draw principles for the fascist hope extracted from them. I also analyze the temptation of fascist hope through reading in the work of German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch, and follow his transcendent approach to the future which I bring into discussion with the concept of radical hope and with a call for learning observance. To conclude, I draw preliminary directions for an antifascist education.