Apathy in post-democracy

Noam Chomsky (1999, 2016) has written extensively about how our democracies are falling victim to neoliberal forces. He reports that public acquiescence towards this takeover is largely achieved through the mainstream media producing propaganda on behalf of corporate giants who appear to be aligned with the intelligence agencies in both the USA and the UK. This is also acknowledged by other researchers within education who similarly identify this network of operations describing it as the “deep state” (Giroux, 2015), “the military-industrial complex” (Schostak & Goodson, 2020, p. 6), and even “the 'military-industrial-academia’ complex” (Peters & Besley, 2021, p. 1). It is primarily through the media that a population’s “thought and opinions” are controlled (Chomsky, 1999, p. 20) which prevents them from seriously challenging the neoliberal stranglehold in societies across the globe. The role of the media is to immerse the public in entertainment and superficial information because these divert “the public from politics and generates a political apathy that is helpful to preservation of the status quo” (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. xviii). Importantly, especially for educators, Chomsky does not place all of the blame upon these corporate giants, but he also holds people themselves as partly responsible. He concludes that “as long as the general population is passive, apathetic, and diverted to consumerism… then the powerful can do as they please” (Chomsky, 2016, p. 56). It is this latter aspect of being passive and apathetic that I will argue that democracy requires educational curricula to directly address. Democracy requires caring and critical individuals who are committed to pursuing the public good in open and transparent debates.

Crouch (2004, 2020), an emeritus professor in the UK, has coined the phrase “post-democracy” to explain our current pseudo-democratic societies which are being run by the neoliberal agenda. He identifies post-democracy as arising as per Chomsky’s observations, “when powerful minority interests have become far more active than the mass of ordinary people in making the political system work for them; where political elites have learned to manage and manipulate popular demands” (Crouch, 2004, p. 19). This is in contrast to genuine liberal democracy, which he claims “thrives when there are major opportunities for the mass of ordinary people to participate” (Crouch, 2020, p. 4). He identifies that what remains in our societies is a semblance of democratic structures—such as regulating bodies—but their functioning has now been compromised primarily by the corruption of monopoly capitalism which places its own people within these agencies to pursue its own agenda rather than seeking the public good. Crouch (2004, p. 42) observes that “the regulated became the customers of the regulators, and so the regulators were careful not to displease the regulated”. This has led to the tentacles of corporate interests coming to dominate other aspects of society in addition to the running of government itself (Grayling, 2017). As an example of post-democracy, Crouch (2004, p. 44) identifies that “there are clear problems if pharmaceutical firms become the main sponsors of medical research—but that is exactly what is happening”. Interestingly, this is now being reported more openly in some medical journals (e.g. Jureidini & McHenry, 2022).

The philosopher Rancière (1999, p. 11) also draws upon Crouch’s concept of post-democracy and reminds us that the demos of a democracy can never be a singular “whole” nor even a consensus because it is composed of both the rich—who want to retain their wealth, power and privileges—and the poor—who want to experience a more equitable sharing of these things. Consequently, he concludes that we ought to be able to observe at the very least a “struggle between the rich and the poor” and argues that “the class struggle is not the secret motor of politics or the hidden truth behind appearances. It is politics itself” (Rancière, 1999, pp. 11, 18) and ought to be made all the more evident in democratic contexts rather than made invisible by covering it up with an apparel of cosmopolitanism and consensus. So rather than politics and the media directing public discussions about attaining greater degrees of cosmopolitanism, the public should have an active and critical interest and determination to demand that discussions remain on the disparities between the wealthy and powerful on the one hand and the disempowered poor on the other. However, Rancière identifies the neoliberal strategy of deflecting attention away from this and to generate an illusion of consensus regarding cosmopolitan issues.

The aim of consensual practice is to produce an identity between law and fact, such that the former becomes identical with the natural life of society. In other words, consensus consists in the reduction of democracy to the way of life or ethos of a society—the dwelling and lifestyle of a specific group. Consensus is the process underlying today’s continual shrinkage of political space. (Rancière, 2015, p. 80)

Therefore, through the media, the elites promote a perception of common-sense public opinion as consisting of their own views, and that these views are so rational, dominant and central to the identity of the society as a whole, that any who dare to dissent against them are quickly labelled as not being worthy of citizenship with the rest of the in-crowd.

As these political spaces are closing the role of dissent—or what Rancière refers to as “dissensus”—it, nevertheless, becomes all the more valuable if democracies are to function. Rancière (2015, p. 77) explains that a dissensus is “a division inserted in ‘common sense’: a dispute over what is given and about the frame within which we see something as given.” Dissensus, therefore, offers a means by which individuals are able to break through a hegemonic culture of consensus which is imposed by authorities, in order to pursue contesting ideas regarding how “a good” might be best understood and pursued. If active criticism of monopoly capitalism and authoritarianism is prevented, primarily via an appeal to a consensus view which claims that there are no other alternatives, then there is little chance of challenging neoliberalism’s hegemony.

This is precisely the argument made by the political theorist Chantal Mouffe (2000, 2005, 2013), who claims that the hegemonic neoliberal practices and ideology which dominate modern societies largely escape criticisms and dissent from the public at large. This is because our democracies have come to reject a diversity of views, especially those which dissent against the dominating ideals of cosmopolitanism. She refers to this as “consensus democracy” and claims that this is not democracy at all because it lacks healthy debate and actively wards off criticisms aimed against it. This is also reflected in the argument put forward by Mattei (2022) that neoliberalism is presented as a hyper-rational model of economics, so much so that the public is often unaware of the inherent values and political nature of monopoly capitalism and how it necessarily works against the public good. She explains that this rationality of neoliberal economics is harnessed along with both consensus and coercive politics to greatly discourage the public from entertaining any challenge to authoritative narratives.

The strategy of promoting the illusion of a consensus narrative, especially through the media, works to undermine the democratic necessity for exercising agonistic dispositions by censoring opponents. As Mouffe (2005, p. 11) recognises, “every consensus is based on acts of exclusion”, and when it comes to propaganda, censorship of alternate views is an essential accompaniment. A typical tactic for censorship as reported by Mouffe is to try to delegitimize opponents through “othering” them with labels such as extremists or conspiracy theorists (and hence avoiding their actual concerns and arguments which disrupt neoliberal hegemony). Interestingly, these commonly used labels tend to target the political right which has led Mouffe (2005, p. 49) to ironically point out that it “is very revealing that the only type of radical opponent which such a model [democratic cosmopolitanism] can envisage is the ‘traditionalist’ or the ‘fundamentalist’”. This is of great concern as Mouffe (2005, p. 60) appreciates that “social democracy has always been to confront the systematic problems of inequality and instability generated by capitalism” and thus any society which prevents airing such dissenting views cannot be regarded to be democratic.

As a consequence of our “consensus democracy”, as Mouffe describes, our societies are experiencing the illusion of an underlying hegemonic rationality and common sense which appears to lie beneath such consensus views, thereby lulling the public into being passive and apathetic, as Chomsky laments. Giroux (2015, p. 114) recognises this too and warns that “the greatest threat posed by authoritarian politics is that it makes power invisible and hence defines itself in universal and commonsense terms, as if it is beyond critique and dissent”. Consequently, we witness various government-driven agendas that publically receive very little dissent or even debate. This has become so ubiquitous that it is even practiced in universities as reported by Peters and Besley (2021), where Giroux (2015, p. 111) reports that “academics who speak out against corruption and injustice are often censored and sometimes lose their jobs, proving that dissent has become a dangerous activity”. He identifies that this growing anti-democratic authoritarianism can be traced to the corporate state or “deep state” where “politics becomes the domain of the super-rich” which wages “an aggressive pedagogical assault on reason, thoughtfulness, critical dialogue, and all vestiges of the public good” (Giroux, 2015, pp. 85, 89).

Dewey’s perspective of democracy and education

In order to address the sort of curricula that democracy requires of education to overcome the apathy and passivity that is encouraged through the cosmopolitan democratic practices of manufacturing consensus, I shall adopt Dewey’s reconstructionism as my theoretical approach for both democracy and education. Rivero (2007) has identified that for Dewey, both democracy and education are “two faces of the same process of growth”. While many of Dewey’s writings are now over a century old, according to Peters and Jandrić (2017, pp. 205, 206), Dewey remains “the foremost philosopher of education in the twentieth century” and “perhaps the foremost theorist and advocate of participatory democracy”. I especially am drawing from Dewey’s book Democracy and Education (1985) which was originally published in 1916 and remains a “living classic” as described by Waks (2016) because it offers fresh and confronting ideas even for our own time.

By engaging with Dewey, we can appreciate that post-democracy, as described by Crouch, is not a recent development but has progressively emerged as globalisation and international organisations have become more powerful. However, it is the individuals who comprise the public at large who have allowed this continued development without enough substantive resistance, due to being too passive, accepting and apathetic. Dewey (1988a, p. 96) argues that “political apathy” was encouraged by the political parties of his time who were “eager accomplices in maintaining” the conditions which led to this. At the dawn of the Second World War, Dewey (2008a, p. 98), therefore, gave a warning to the USA that the.

serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions… the battlefield is also accordingly here—within ourselves and our institutions.

The reason he came to this insight is that he was becoming quite aware as to how the big corporations of his day were harnessing the role of public institutions and even politicians to serve their agenda rather than serving the public good. He referred to the “technique of the politicians” and the “powerful and unremitting propaganda” as working together to modify “the dispositions of the mass of the population” which has “enabled mass opinion to become like physical goods a matter of mass production” (Dewey, 2008a, pp. 89–90). This is why he championed a new kind of individualism in order to push back and resist this “mass mindset” based upon individual weaknesses (Dewey, 1988a).

Dewey (1985, p. 105) reminds us that because “education is a social process”, it must be founded upon “a particular social ideal” (original emphasis). This is because the various understandings of education as a “good” can only be justified in terms of the larger context within which it operates. This is why he encouraged each generation to renew the philosophical work for determining what education curricula ought to be like. For Dewey (1985, p. 107), the social ideal “means a democratic society” largely because he understood it as the best means in his day which offers individual liberties for all community members to assist them with growing towards the “good”. One of the key characteristics of democracy is equality for everyone, therefore “breaking down [the] barriers of class, race, and national territory” (Dewey, 1985, p. 93), making all forms of authoritarianism to be inappropriate. On this, Dewey (2008a, p. 43; 1985, p. 90) references Plato’s definition of a slave which is “the person who executes the purpose of another” or more specifically the “one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct” (my emphasis). Consequently, democratic social life is characterised by individuals freely choosing to conduct themselves in the manner which they negotiate to be most appropriate for the common good. This is why Dewey (2008a, p. 46) was so critical of traditional approaches to education because “it tended to ignore the importance of personal impulse and desire as moving springs”. Even when it comes to learning, or for Dewey’s (1985, p. 47) “growth”, he outlined that this “is not something done to them; it is something they do.” Clearly, for Dewey, as with all who aspire to democracy, education is essential for the enablement of individuals to employ their freedom in order to choose well and harness their personal initiatives to be oriented towards the common good.

Dewey’s concept of democracy, while acknowledging the sorts of structures and functions of government, is more important about the sorts of people who actually comprise the community than the actual structures and processes which are made available. Dewey (1985, p. 93) states that “a democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living… so that each [individual] has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own” (my emphases). This is remarkably similar with Mouffe (2000, p. 18) who more recently has repeated that liberal democracy “is much more than a mere ‘form of government’ but it also refers to “a specific form of organising politically human coexistence”. Elsewhere, Dewey (2008a, p. 155) specifically describes democracy as “a way of life” and as providing “a moral standard for personal conduct”. It is this ontological aspect of how people conduct themselves and live their lives, and what sorts of habits, attitudes and dispositions they create, which identifies democracy as a moral way of living and which has far greater importance for curricula than any particular domain of subject matter—even citizenship education.

This point is emphasised through Dewey’s (2008a, p. 29) concept of “collateral learning” which he described as the “formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes” which he concluded “is much more important that the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned… [because] these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future.” So rather than just having or acquiring information about what democratic agencies and processes citizens of a democracy can access, what is of greater importance is being democratic as a way of life. Dewey (1985, p. 367) described being democratic as our “personal disposition”, which he appreciates that for democratic society, “so much depends”.

Dewey was focussed upon the larger aspiration of pursuing a peaceful, productive and meaningful coexistence for all of humanity globally. As such, he was a strong advocate of diversity amongst people because not only was this beneficial for advancing knowledge but it is also valuable for enabling individuals to grow by accessing different perspectives and points of view from which to critique, understand and evaluate. This is why he argued for unity through plurality rather than through singularity or consensus, because differences of perspectives are crucial for progressing knowledge and societal life. This led him to describe the democratic community as being similar to the scientific community because everyone, equally, is able to offer their views (hypotheses) and have these tested by others. In his book, Reconstruction in Philosophy (1988b), Dewey discusses the important contribution made by Francis Bacon who emphasised a commitment to active experimentation. Dewey (1988b, pp. 96–97) appreciated Bacon’s warning that if established facts and logic become predominant in a community, then “teaching meant indoctrination, disciplining… [where] only that which was already known could be learned. …[However] in contrast …Bacon eloquently proclaimed the superiority of discovery of new facts and truths to demonstration of the old”, and therefore, drawing upon this, Dewey argued that education ought to be one that encourages inquiry and testing rather than direct instruction and memorization.

A diversity of views and ideas, as well as their testing, is not only clearly beneficial for advancing scientific understandings but it also provides benefit to the common good by the continual re-evaluation and improvements of ideas and practices. In contrast, authoritarian approaches discourage and even prohibit the masses from questioning, challenging or testing official knowledge and policies. This is why Dewey presented his philosophical approach of reconstructionism as being most apt for democratic life because it meant that all of our knowledge, understandings and “truths” ought to be continually open for re-evaluation and improvement rather than being accepted as “settled” and simply transmitted to younger generations. It is more valuable because it enables the “continuous readjustment” of social habits which is a characteristic of a democratic community (Dewey, 1985, p. 92). It is also why he preferred the notion of “warranted assertions” rather than “knowledge” because it makes the validity of particular knowledge claims transparent rather than being kept hidden by authoritative expertise.

Dewey (1985, p. 82) offered his “technical definition” for education which is the “reconstruction or reorganisation of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience” which reflects his political view for democratic society which is to experience continuous improvement. Education, unlike the teaching of doctrine, is to enable the continuum of experience for each individual to be one which continuously opens up new possibilities and different ways for making meanings. Rather than simply demonstrating what is already known in a manner which confirms the status quo of particular bodies of knowledge, an educative experience ought to enable individuals to give various and better meanings to subsequent experiences as well as to re-evaluate the meanings assigned to past experiences. While this leads to better informed statements of belief—or “knowledge”, warranted assertions also encourage individuals to develop critical dispositions so that they do not simply comply with knowing “what” and “how”, but they also demand to know “why” and “what else is possible” and to have access to testing the validations of others. Consequently, education for Dewey could never be reduced to the transmission of bodies of knowledge. Instead, educative curricular experiences contribute to the ability to critically test the claims being made by others and to become a moral social being who continually wants to improve one’s social intelligence as one freely chooses and is committed to pursue the public good.

The experience of agonistic thinking

Drawing upon Dewey’s view of democracy which embraces plurality (e.g. the rich and poor), I am arguing that in order for people to be educated, they must have the disposition of being agonistic. That is, democracy, with its given inescapable variety of interests and values, requires its members to be critically thoughtful in the sense that they do not readily conform to a presumed objective, singular or consensus view but instead are in the habit of mulling things over, deliberately seeking out evidence, questioning and challenging different perspectives and having an openness for examining and evaluating various competing claims. Mouffe (2000, p. 18) similarly recognises that pluralism is a key characteristic of modern democracy, demonstrated by a “dissolution of the markers of certainty” leading to the requirement that individuals must be able to negotiate and live well with competing differences. She is, much like Dewey, a postmodernist and references Derrida’s deconstructionism to highlight “the antagonism inherent in all [presumed] objectivity” (Mouffe, 2000, p. 12).

Mouffe explains that antagonism, like war, is found to exist between enemies. In contrast, however, a healthy sort of agonism should exist between political opponents of democracies which allows them to engage with one another without becoming enemies. Democracy needs “agonism” where differing parties acknowledge that there is no universal objective or rational solution to their conflicts and therefore members of the community accept and uphold the value and legitimacy of multiple views. Mouffe (2005, p. 20), as with Dewey’s Common Faith (2008b), identifies that legitimate conflicts require “some kind of common bond [that] must exist between the parties in conflict, so that they will not treat their opponents as if they were enemies to be eradicated, seeing their demands as illegitimate.” Hence, she concludes that “the task of democracy… [is] to transform antagonism into agonism” (Mouffe, 2005, p. 20). Clearly, this is a task that democracy requires of education.

While Mouffe (2005, p. 120) acknowledges that some, like Hannah Arendt, prefer to understand “the political” as “a space of freedom and public deliberation”, she sees the political as a space of power and conflict. When addressing “the political” she, as with Dewey (see Livingston, 2017), focusses upon ontology and in particular “the ontological dimension” of being agonistic and militant (Mouffe, 2013, p. 79). Consequently, this is not just a cognitive affair but involves our emotions and desires. So the appeal that both Mouffe and Dewey make to a common bond is internalised and manifested as desire. Hence, this sort of democratic way of being is often described as aspirational in the sense that community members have a passionate commitment to pursuing the public good and are not distracted by becoming passive conformists, as Chomsky warns against, but who are instead in the habit of actively engaging with public life.

Dewey promoted a holistic view of the individual, including their emotional and aspirational aspects, but made clear that with regards to education, he usually emphasised the intellectual and rational aspects of thinking which might be harnessed and exercised for the express purpose of enhancing one’s critical disposition. He argued that for any curricular experience to be genuinely educative and which contributes to democratic living, it must involve “thinking” (Dewey, 1985, p. 170). Such an experience allows the individual to view things from different perspectives.

Dewey (1989, p. 156) emphasised that “thinking is not a separate mental process” but rather is an expression of “the way” or simply being educated for democratic life. He explained that this involves “development of curiosity, suggestion, and habits of exploring and testing, which increases sensitiveness to questions and love of inquiry into the puzzling and unknown” so that this leads the individual to habits of demanding “from himself careful examination, consecutiveness, and some sort of summary and formulation of his conclusions, together with a statement of the reasons for them” (Dewey, 1989, pp. 156, 182).

For Dewey, there are two important aspects related to the experience of thinking. Firstly, thinking originates when individuals encounter a given difficulty, and then, secondly they must then be actively involved in searching and inquiring in order to resolve the difficulty. This is because thinking, as per dialectics, must experience movement between positions and/or views. Consequently, when a teacher attempts to teach knowledge to students, then, according to Dewey, students are not genuinely thinking unless there is an engagement with a problem or a difficulty of sorts which needs to be addressed and that this can be provided either through problem-based inquiries or through engaging with contesting views.

Dewey (1989, p. 200) breaks thinking into five specific phases which all relate to attributes of the learner herself. The first of these phases is the ability to be able to generate or create suggestions as potential solutions to problems and challenges. He explains that it is best if the suggestions which are generated have a range and variety to them as well as depth or profundity. To maximise the range of possible suggestions, there is obviously value for engaging in a variety of dissenting views rather than merely keeping to any presumed conclusive view because this would be too narrow for encouraging dialectical thought. With regard to the profundity of suggestions, Dewey (1989, pp. 147–8) explains that “one man’s thought is profound, while another’s is superficial; one goes to the roots of the matter, and another touches lightly its most external aspects.” He even suggests that this initial phase of thinking, of getting some “depth” to an understanding “is perhaps the most untaught of all” (Dewey, 1989, p. 148). In addition to the generation of suggestions, the other phases of thinking which Dewey presents include being involved with a perplexity which is: “felt (directly experienced)… [forming a] hypothesis… reasoning …and …testing the hypothesis”. Dewey emphasised the importance of validating hypotheses through various means of testing in contrast to simply accepting them as uncontested givens or absolutes.

For education, and in particular, an education for democracy, we can appreciate how school curricula can and do condition the minds of students to be quite limited in scope—even although teachers may believe they are initiating students into important “truths”. A limited mindset, which may indeed know certain “truths”, is nevertheless an obstacle and potential danger to democratic life, because it leads people to become quite intolerant of views which they regard as dissenting from the norm. Such undemocratic intolerance can lead to a disposition of being dismissive of the views of others who have different understandings. From an educational concern, this is partly due to a failure for not having the appreciation for the tentative nature of all knowledge claims. The philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend (1993, p. 39), reminds us that “no single theory ever agrees with all of the known facts in its domain” and so while he was specifically referring to theories in the physical and natural sciences, we can certainly appreciate the applicability of his claim to all other domains of knowledge too. Consequently, as educators, we might like to warn our students against accepting that knowledge is rarely ever “settled”.

The curriculum as experience

The holistic phenomenon of experience itself is inclusive of students and the knowledge itself that they are inquiring into. Subject matter is to be actively used, thought about and evaluated rather than simply delivered, believed and memorised. Dewey (1985, p. 165) warns against this latter approach claiming that such an inert view of knowledge treats it as an end in itself and therefore “swamps thinking” and leads students to become quite passive and uncritical. Consequently, there ought to be a sense of individual responsibility regarding what one comes to understand and to believe through first-hand experiences of thinking and learning. As an extension of this, individuals should also have the scepticism and disposition for confronting their own beliefs and those of society more generally (Webster, 2022).

Whilst experiential education has been promoted through progressivism, Dewey (2008a, p. 11), who was quite critical of some of these progressive approaches, clarified that while “the belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.” Some learning experiences, while involving learning, nevertheless, can be understood to be mis-educative because they do not contribute towards the continuing growth of curiosity and thoughtfulness of students. Dewey (2008a, 2008b, p. 59) argues that “in order to be educative (an experience) must lead out into an expanding world of subject-matter” and is hence understood to be just one part of “a continuous process of reconstruction of experience.” Otherwise, the experience of inquiring and investigating produces an “end” which discourages any further thought on the matter. He placed a great deal of value upon student’s attitudes and interests and claimed that it might be “better to have fewer facts and truths… if a smaller number of situations could be intellectually worked out to the point where conviction means something real” (Dewey, 1985, p. 186). He referred to this sort of educative engagement in experience as intellectual thoroughness, where an issue or inquiry is followed through in the context of an overarching purpose and understanding of “why”. So for Dewey (2008a), in order for an experience to be educative, it should contribute to the continuity of one’s overall experiences in life by re-evaluating and expanding upon the sense and meanings one makes, as it enhances one’s interests, initiative, critical curiosity and purposes.

Educators who work with a curriculum for enhancing the democratic being of students must prioritise the sort of attitudes, interests and appreciation that are being developed. Dewey (1989, p. 158) argued that teachers, while being masters of subject matter, ought to nevertheless focus on the “general conditions that influence the creation of permanent attitudes, especially the traits of character, open mindedness, whole-heartedness, and responsibility”. Pring (2004, p. 87), who is very sympathetic to Dewey’s perspective, identifies that the interests of students are a key priority, so much so that the “interests of the child are not motivational aids, but the very ‘things’ which ought to be educated” (original emphasis).

Clearly, in educative experiences, it is not all up to the teacher to ensure that a way of being thoughtfully rigorous is developed as students themselves have a role of responsibility too, ensuring that they have their own justifications for their beliefs. An experience which involves one’s own being and judgement, which when seen through a protracted inquiry is described by Dewey (1985, p. 186) as “intellectual thoroughness” leading to the development of a greater sense of personal “conviction”. This is only possible if the students are immersed in a sense and unity of purpose which they consider as personally meaningful. They must appreciate the relevance of the curriculum experiences. Any “learning intentions” which are pursued in particular lessons must be the learning that they themselves intend to attain.

Educating through confrontations

The purpose of education cannot be equated to the mere transmission of knowledge. To be educated there must be the growth of individuals into moral, caring, curious, critically thoughtful and committed members of a democratic community. While the gaining of knowledge is certainly an important aspect of educational experiences, students must also develop a critical and caring disposition. This is partly reflected in the Latin roots of the curriculum which consists of both curro, which refers to the course or the content, and currere, which refers to the manner of participating and hence the character of students (Webster & Ryan, 2019). Regarding this latter aspect, as Dewey (1985, p. 77) surmises, “all education forms character, mental and moral”. It encompasses the cultivation of critical thinking, morality and an interest in civic engagement, all of which are essential for being agonistic and therefore being democratic. This is where a curriculum of confrontations becomes so valuable because it reflects this important characteristic of democracy. As Dewey (1991, p. 56) clarifies, "the method of democracy …is to bring these conflicts out into the open” so that citizens can openly and transparently test their validity. In contrast, current societal life, what Mouffe refers to as “consensus democracy”, encourages conformity and passivity, leading to a lack of willingness to challenge and dissent against perceived dominant narratives. Consequently, it has been argued that educative curricula should be designed to be agonistic and confrontational, valuing dissent as vital components in order to enable students to become more democratic as a way of being. Indeed, Crouch (2020, p. xiv) argues that “confrontation is necessary” if we are to recover from post-democracy.

One powerful way to encourage agonistics through caring confrontations in curriculum experiences is to generate null hypotheses for taken-for-granted understandings. Science relies and thrives on confrontations and dissent, particularly through the testing of null hypotheses, and this approach can also be adopted in the social sciences. Dewey (1988a, p. 115) argues for “the general adoption of the scientific attitude in human affairs” which he then claims would offer “a revolutionary change in morals, religion, politics and industry.” In particular, he was attracted to the experimental and testing aspect of the scientific attitude as offering a means to defend oneself against the pacifying tendencies of the techniques of propaganda such as the manufacturing of consent (as per Herman & Chomsky, 2002) or consensus (as per Mouffe, 2005, 2013).

With regard to the testing of hypotheses, Popper (2002) has advanced the value of falsification. One of Popper’s most significant contributions to the philosophy of science has been his argument that experimentation ought to be specifically designed to falsify hypotheses. That is, rather than seeking to confirm, demonstrate or verify one’s reasoned prediction, one ought to instead actively seek to falsify the hypothesis, to try and find an exception to the reasoned prediction. If this serious effort makes some headway to falsifying, then the hypothesis can be improved through adjustments and refinements, and if it can be clearly falsified then it can be rejected. Popper argued that scientific hypotheses could therefore not be “proven” but rather they could resist falsification. As such, scientific theories were never “final” or settled but are to be understood as constantly being open for further challenges.

As Feyerabend (1993, p. 22) identifies, “we cannot discover it [evidence] from the inside. We need an external standard of criticism, we need a set of alterative assumptions”. This is not only valuable for individuals but also for communities. This is why he argues that null hypotheses which contradict established theories give us potential new paradigms and evidence. Feyerabend (1993, pp. 31–2) is critical of consensus views warning that,

Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a rigid church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is compatible with a humanitarian outlook.

This open and dynamic approach towards scientific knowledge as advanced by philosophers of science, such as Feyerabend and Popper, has richly rewarded the various fields within science. Many taken-for-granted theories which have dominated mainstream understandings of various phenomena have been challenged, revised and even replaced by more rigorous understandings which can account for a broader range of data.

This has been well documented by Kuhn (1970, p. 11) who explains that scientists who share a common belief system as to what constitutes “normal science” “are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice” which he refers to as a paradigm. For Kuhn (1970, pp. 84–5),

The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one… is far from a cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field’s most elementary theoretical generalisations…

Here, we can appreciate that rather than a slow and gradual evolution of small changes added cumulatively, a paradigm shift involves a radical and revolutionary leap to quite a different system of beliefs. A similar “leap” towards an improved conceptual understanding is described by Vygotsky (1986, p. 109) who explains that,

The process of concept formation, like any other higher form of intellectual activity, is not a quantitative overgrowth of the lower associated activity, but a qualitatively new type… The quantitative growth of the associative connections would never lead to higher intellectual activity… the way from the lower to the higher forms of intelligence, far from being a simple quantitative growth, involves radical changes.

Kuhn (1970, p. 193) recognised that “the route from stimulus to sensation is in part conditioned by education” indicating, along with Popper, that people operate by deductive thinking and once they are firmly entrenched in their particular belief system or paradigm, they tend to interpret subsequent encounters according to this one established view. That is, the intellectual capability of students can be narrowed into uncritically accepting a particular “normal” paradigm—scientific or otherwise—of understandings, through presuming them to be absolutely true and beyond further challenge. If there is a paradigm into which one has been embedded and from which one sees the world, then one can fail to understand the importance of competing paradigms. This is why it is so educationally and democratically valuable to be able to move between paradigms and to be able to understand a variety of perspectives. Indeed, we cannot critically evaluate our own understandings effectively if we remain within the same paradigm which we accept as a framework for truth.

From this, we can conclude that just as science relies and thrives on confrontations and dissent, particularly through the testing of null hypotheses, so too democracy is similar in this respect in that it relies on individuals who are willing to challenge and dissent against a presumed consensus of public and political opinion. Consequently, it is argued that democratic societies must have its citizens be agonistic by being educated through experiences of confrontational educational curricula. In order to promote conceptual growth (Vygotsky), a paradigm shift (Kuhn) or leap (Dewey), curriculum experiences can initiate students into the contestation and controversies associated with key issues. Teachers can even enhance these through provocative approaches such as playing devil’s advocate in order to enhance students’ appreciation for the importance of evidence and justification.

I have harnessed the role the null hypothesis has in science for challenging and confronting my own students (see Webster, 2022). As examples, I have invited my junior secondary science students to seriously consider ideas such as the world is indeed flat and that astrology can actually predict one’s future. By also providing some dubious but nevertheless challenging evidence to support these claims, students have been thoroughly engaged and interested in conducting their inquiries. Students find this approach to my curriculum experiences, somewhat like playing devil’s advocate, to offer personally felt problems that stimulate their interests and curiosity. Similarly, I confront my adult students by asking them to explore the evidence for null hypotheses to some of society’s “consensus narratives” in the field of education and more broadly.

This curricular approach of caring confrontations does not lend itself to particular subject matter, but instead, it involves experiences of agonistic situations in all curricular experiences, where students are sharing and testing each other’s ideas. Educating through confrontations enables students to be exposed to multiple viewpoints and to be able to deliberate and negotiate through these differences by exploring and testing evidence and ideas in a respectful way. We need to encourage students to be comfortable with having their views challenged. This is vitally important for both democracy and education, as Crouch (2020, p. 64) acknowledges, “only democracy can sustain a public arena in which contending bodies of knowledge can be examined”.

This agonistic character of educational experiences is also picked up by advocates for critical pedagogy. For example, Giroux (2015, p. 167) explains that critical pedagogy “questions everything and complicates one’s relationship to oneself, others, and the larger world”. He goes on to reference Kristen Case who asserts that,

there is difficulty, discomfort, even fear in such moments, which involve confrontations with what we thought we knew, like why people have mortgages and what ‘things’ are… We cannot be a democracy if this power to reimagine doubt, and think critically is allowed to become a luxury commodity (cited by Giroux, 2015, p. 167).

While confronting ourselves, each other, our government and our world can be uncomfortable, it is nevertheless necessary if we are to be democratic and flourish as individuals in relation with one another. Learning and knowing are active undertakings with which the student is intimately present, confronting what she already thinks she believes and how her ideas are tested in experience. Importantly, and this remains a challenge for educators, students are to engage in their inquiries because they are genuinely interested and care about the issues at hand.

Being able to publically give an account as to the reasons for why we hold certain views becomes an important dimension of our being. Consequently, there is an emphasis upon each individual student having a presence with the actual content or subject matter, which ought to be reflectively thought about, judged and valued in a way that they come to be different in terms of growing in understandings and appreciation. This is why Dewey (1985, p. 191) emphasised that while being knowledgeable about subject matter the teacher’s “attention should be upon the attitude and response of the pupil. To understand the latter in its interplay with subject matter is his task”. Hence, for an educative curriculum, the emphasis ought to be on the experience of the students as they engage with confronting and agonistic experiences and how they are actively thinking about, valuing and judging the materials and ideas at hand.

Confrontation, when harnessed constructively, encourages students to critically engage with diverse perspectives, challenge existing norms, and broaden their horizons. By introducing contentious topics and encouraging dialogue, educators create opportunities for students to become more willingly agonistic. Confrontation within educational curricula prompts students to critically examine social, economic, and political systems to challenge inequities associated with neoliberalism and envision a more just society. By challenging students to critically engage with diverse perspectives and power structures, education becomes a tool for re-reinvigorating democracy.

Conclusion

To pursue a curriculum for democratic life, for being a democratic person, which promotes genuine critical thinking of the sort that is able to challenge the consensus narratives of authorities, can be very challenging. Indeed, Giroux (2015) even describes such practices as “dangerous” because they challenge authorities and power. Dissent is actively condemned in the mainstream media and by politicians, so experiencing it in the curricula can sometimes feel daunting. Quoting an article by Terry Eagleton, Giroux (2015, p. 113) reports that because academics are too often unwilling or unable to offer experiences of dissent in their courses, we consequently observe the “death of universities as centres of critique”. If however, students are to be habituated into carefully examining the appearances of a “consensus democracy” and to challenge it when necessary, then the curriculum must offer exposure to dissenting views and ideas and not simply myopically focus upon the preferred or government-sanctioned perspective on matters.

The case has been made that democracy is on a serious decline, partly through political entities and agencies being sold out to the agenda of neoliberal elites, and partly because democratic citizens themselves are too apathetic and are not participating in public life critically and agonistically. In order to protect themselves, the elites, through the structures of the state and particularly the mainstream media, discourage, censor and imprison those who oppose them. The case of Julian Assange is a clear example, and from this sort of tactic used against those who challenge the abuse of power by authorities, Hedges (2015, p. 134) identifies that the “message the state delivered was clear; Do not dissent” (original emphasis). However, immersing students into experiences of dissent, challenge and critical thinking is exactly what ought to be happening in education, especially where educators value democratic living, because students in a democracy ought to graduate from schools and universities as adversary intellectuals.