The crisis of capitalism, the ascendency of a post-truth politics, the expansive reach of an increasingly militarized surveillance state and the rampant consolidation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by a fusion of technologies have blurred the lines between the physical, digital, ideological and biological spheres. The historically generated social relations that have legitimized racism, homophobia, misogyny, misanthropy and misology have spawned a new generation of white supremacist, neo-Nazi militias and have led to a murderous assault on Black men by police and a generalized assault on people of color. The information ecosphere and the current infodemic which is promulgating the conspiracy theories that are both prolonging and intensifying the damage done by the pandemic and climate change by suggesting that the pandemic and climate change are not real, that they were created by the deep state solely for the purpose of providing cover for a further consolidation and intensification of the surveillance state, has led to a massive attack on progressive and critical educators. Bills are being created to ban the teaching of divisive concepts in public schools such as those related to race and gender. The teaching of the history of slavery is deemed an act of racism against white people. QAnon mythology that fabricates lies about a stolen 2020 election, and that Satan-worshipping pedaophiles are in control of the government, media and financial institutions, is fast becoming normalized within the US Republican Party and spreading to other countries. The world's masses are increasingly being transformed into 21st century compliant and self-censoring human beings who appear defenseless in the face of nationalist calls for military solutions to global problems, of white supremacist chauvinistic attacks on people of color and of narratives championing nationalism, isolationism, and fascism. For four decades Peter McLaren has been writing about these world-historical developments and urging educators to seek a socialist alternative. In the performative style that has been the signature of McLaren's work, The Critic Pedagogy Manifesto is meant to remind readers what is at stake in these precarious and dangerous times and to offer armed hope in the struggle ahead.
This is vintage McLaren making use of his creative talents with humor and irony. We need more of this alternative literary presentation of ideas to make the arguments that bland statements in articles present with a straight face. McLaren leads the way.
--Michael A Peters
Distinguished Professor of Education
Beijing Normal University, PR China
For years, Professor Peter McLaren has followed his radical cosmopolitan path and invented an original language of critical theory and pedagogical critique, which, fundamentally, culminates in his artistic expression.....capturing the absurd days of chaos in the world's leading rogue state.
- Juha Suoranta, Professor of Adult Education, Tampere University, Finland
'The poet laureate of the left' writes with characteristic aplomb to expose the realities of Trump and the very real danger of the consolidation of fascism in the US.
--Mike Cole, author of Trump, the Alt-Right and Public Pedagogies of Hate and for Fascism: What Is To Be Done?
From the moment the first shots were fired by Russian soldiers in their invasion of Ukraine, Peter McLaren began writing about what has turned out to be the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II. Putin's invasion caused McLaren to think about his father, a World War II veteran who served in the Royal Canadian Engineers, and his uncle, a World War II hero who served in the Royal Navy and played a leading role in sinking the battleship Bismarck. Fearing the conflict would escalate beyond Ukraine, McLaren furiously put pen to page and published 25 articles in the New Zealand journal, Pesa Agora, and wrestled with some of the moral dilemmas surrounding the conflict, including the possibility of a World War III nuclear catastrophe. McLaren made the decision to support Ukraine during the first few weeks of the conflict. In writing about the war in his signature literary style, which inspired the late Joe Kincheloe to name McLaren the poet laureate of the educational left,
McLaren was also closely following political events in the United States. Years before, McLaren had predicted that his adopted country would soon be treading towards fascism, as he watched with increasing alarm Trump operatives such as Steve Bannon put into effect propaganda efforts redolent of those crafted by the Third Reich leading up to World War II. McLaren's voice has often been described as prophetic, in consonance with the prophetic tradition of theology, and his approach in this work can be likened to the 'problem-posing' approach of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, in that his writings are meant to raise provocative questions for discussion, with solutions to follow after intense and extended dialogue. It is in this sense that the book attempts to make the political more pedagogical and the pedagogical more political--and theological. Most disturbing for McLaren in writing about the war in Ukraine were the number of supporters for Putin's bloody war, typically among Trump supporters but also including some factions of the ultra-left. McLaren's own approach is dialectical, passionately supporting Ukraine while at the same time scathingly critical of Putin and United States foreign policy.
This book offers educational leaders another tool that, if they are courageous enough to use, transcends the tried-and-true processes and procedures that have typically grounded the educational leader's performance. This book offers educational leaders the opportunity to use critical spirituality as a practice to wage war against the miseducation of so many of the nation's children and youth. The book demands attention be paid to the societal issues that impact what happens in schools and argues that the intellectual work in the schoolhouse must prepare students to create strategies to combat these issues and challenges.
The book can be used in advanced courses in educational leadership from multiple perspectives, including contemporary issues, social foundations, social justice, spirituality, and ethics
Peter McLaren, l'enfant terrible of the educational establishment has continued to be a highly visible and much valued international firebrand whose work is characterized by an exquisite militancy and eloquence. McLaren's newest work is a clarion call for challenging religious fundamentalism and its unholy alliance with Trump's neo-fascist government. McLaren has emerged as a revolutionary and that cannot be ignored. This new compilation of his latest writings is destined to spark deep-seated inquiry among educators, scholars and others interested in radical scholarship and activism.
Sheila Macrine, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
He walks Among Us: this is Peter McLaren at his best - witty, cutting, caustic, savage, penetrating, observant, entertaining - just what is required for these new barbaric dark ages!
Michael Peters, Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University
Here again, as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, Professor McLaren has made one of the most enlightening contributions of the period, weaving together brilliant theoretical generalizations, incisive critical insights, and acute personal observations with his customary elegance and clarity. After all these years, he has come to literally define what we mean by critical public intellectual -- a role never more indispensable as we seek to maneuver through unprecedented global crisis.
Professor Carl Boggs, Author of Facing Catastrophe: Food, Politics, and the Ecological Crisis.
Peter McLaren has created restlessness in our souls: Disruptive, rowdy, troublesome, out-of-line, unsettling, ruthless, unvarnished restlessness. We will read and we will be renewed.
Shirley R Steinberg, Editor, from the foreword of He Walks Among Us
Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology and Information Technology presents a series of dialogues between Peter McLaren, a founding figure of critical pedagogy, and Petar Jandric, a transdisciplinary scholar working at the intersections between critical pedagogy and information technology. The authors debate the postdigital condition, its wide social impacts, and its relationship to critical pedagogy and liberation theology, as part of a transdisciplinary effort to develop a new postdigital revolutionary consciousness in the service of humanity. Throughout the dialogues we see how McLaren's thinking on critical pedagogy and liberation theology have developed since the publication of Pedagogy of Insurrection, and how these developments play out in Jandric's theory of the postdigital condition.
The book includes a foreword by Peter Hudis and an afterword by Michael A. Peters.D. Michael Rivage-Seul's new book, The Magic Glasses of Critical Thinking: Seeing through Alternative Fact & Fake News, invites readers to try out Baba Dick Gregory's magic glasses of critical thinking and apply it to our current reality.