Pedagogy, Pessimism, and the Politics of Conformity: A Reply to Linda McNeil

Abstract

In her critique of my work, Linda McNeil performs the creditable service of pointing to a number of important issues that to be clarified and debated as part of the ongoing task of developing a theoretical foundation for both an emancipatory mode of citizenship education and a more general theory of critical pedagogy. Unfortunately, in this case, her ability to single out and identify such issues has not been matched by a willingness to deal with them either insightfully or constructively. Moreover, McNeil's analysis appears to be both confused and confusing. It appears confused because the analysis is caught in a theoretical quandary regarding its indifference to the internal contradiction that exists between its stated concerns and its underlying ideology. More specifically, there is an underlying ideological tension and structured silence in McNeil's review over her stated interest in teacher mobilization and radical pedagogy, on the one hand, and her overdeterministic, one-sided, pessimistic view of human agency on the other. The review appears confusing because of its theoretical regressions, its misreading of the theory/practice relationship, its simultaneous denial of human agency and call for an emancipatory pedagogy, and its apparent misunderstanding of some of the theorists used in the service of its own defense. One example of some of the latter can be found in McNeil's use of language to combine concepts that represent theoretical contradictions. For example, how can one take McNeil's reading of Paulo Freire's work (1973) seriously when she uses a term like technocratic praxis? Or even worse, when she argues that Freire is concerned with the need to situate the building of counterhegemonies. I suspect that Freire's work takes as its goal the elimination of all forms of hegemony. What I am arguing is that the use of