Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, is an American and Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory. In 2002 Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth18 September 1943
CountryUnited States of America
chooses evident partly
America's addiction to violence is partly evident in the heroes it chooses to glorify.
areas concerning crucial defense health host job largely lobbyists longer mega policies policy public represent written
Policy is no longer being written by politicians accountable to the American public. Instead, policies concerning the defense budget, deregulation, health care, public transportation, job training programs, and a host of other crucial areas are now largely written by lobbyists who represent mega corporations.
critical equally message shape society
In order for critical pedagogy, dialogue, and thought to have real effects, they must advocate the message that all citizens, old and young, are equally entitled, if not equally empowered, to shape the society in which they live.
benefits capitalism compatible democratic equitable order shared version
Democracy is not compatible with capitalism but is congruent with a version of democratic socialism in which the wealth, resources, and benefits of a social order are shared in an equitable and just manner.
bear citizens collective critical critically developing dialogue engage engaged ethics producing witness work
Universities should be about more than developing work skills. They must also be about producing civic-minded and critically engaged citizens - citizens who can engage in debate, dialogue and bear witness to a different and critical sense of remembering, agency, ethics and collective resistance.
power
Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.
celebrate cheap demonize largely mainstream power stories veneer
The mainstream media spins stories that are largely racist, violent, and irresponsible - stories that celebrate power and demonize victims, all the while camouflaging its pedagogical influence under the cheap veneer of entertainment.
agent citizen fact hope others responsibility shared
A citizen is a political and moral agent who in fact has a shared sense of hope and responsibility to others and not just to him or herself.
considers dangerous discourse either equality life public turned
Neoliberalism considers the discourse of equality, justice, and democracy quaint, if not dangerous and must be either trivialized, turned into its Orwellian opposite, or eviscerated from public life.
benefits pensions point poor seems taken worked
To see poor people, their benefits being cut, to see pensions of Americans who have worked like my father, all their lives, and taken away, to see the rich just accumulating more and more wealth. I mean, it seems to me that there has to be a point where you have to say, 'No, this has to stop.'
biggest capitalism freedom market outside understanding
The biggest lie of all is that capitalism is democracy. We have no way of understanding democracy outside of the market, just as we have no understanding of how to understand freedom outside of market values.
becomes clear death electoral life money political process republic system wounded
What has become clear to many Americans is that the electoral system is bankrupt. As the political process becomes more privatized, outsourced, and overrun with money from corporations and billionaires, a wounded republic is on its death bed, gasping for life.
aftermath cheap history home mental problems return war
'American Sniper' is a film that erases history, spectacularizes violence, and reduces war and its aftermath to cheap entertainment, with an underexplained referent to the mental problems many vets live with when they return home from the war.
community decisions enable lives means members preserved promise shape society struggles
Democracy as a promise means that society can never be just enough and that the self-reflection and struggles that enable all members of the community to participate in the decisions and institutions that shape their lives must be continually debated, safeguarded, and preserved at all costs.