If you’re connected to me via facebook you know I was updating furiously during the Obama speech. And I agreed with much of it. What he’s doing is nothing less than revolutionary–at least within the context of the last 10 plus years of American politics. The Great Society, the New Deal, Obama isn’t using a nice neat phrase to refer to his attempt to change the social contract, but this is what he’s doing. The GOP will attempt to maintain party discipline and serve as the party of obstruction–something the DNC should have done during the previous eight years–but i am not sure they’ll be able to hold up. States are coming close to the fiscal edge as we speak, and the numbers don’t even begin to tell the story.
Yet and still there was one element of Obama’s speech that I find troubling. He’s still holding on to the line about what parents need to do to ensure their kids educational success.
We’ve moved away from neoliberal policies. I’m expecting us to nationalize banks any day now. And whereas ten years ago we were gushing over CEO heroes, no one is looking to business or to MBA management practices to solve pressing social problems.
Neoliberalism is dead.
But yet and still we’re employing various rhetorical and institutional devices to frame issues in such a way that personal discipline and hustle remain central. We can have a kid write the President a letter telling him her school is basically crumbling around her….yet still emphasize “parental responsibility”, even as the kid sits next to the First Lady. This is neoliberal governmentality in a nutshell, creating a discourse in which people feel compelled to govern themselves, embedding neoliberal ideas about human capital deep within their souls.
I’ve never felt more connected to the country than I have this year. Seeing Obama handle the toughest crisis we’ve faced in the modern era with aplomb was powerful to see, particularly given his predecessor. But that’s part of the problem for me.
Neoliberalism is dead. Long live neoliberalism.
You have always been brilliantly succinct and current and I couldn't agree with you more.
I hear you. I think that one can make this argument not just about Obama's rhetoric here, but also about Obama's education plan as a whole from his choice of Arne Duncan to the vague plans outlined in his speech to Congress. Gary Orfield wrote about this a little here: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=v…
Also, I think one could apply your interpretation to Eric Holder's speech and the “nation of cowards” line. While some folks are asking what it means that the nation's top cop said this, I'm left wondering why it wasn't tied to something more programmatic that would dismantle racism like eradicating hate crimes, formulating a sane drug policy, or cracking down on discrimination… Instead responsibility was shifted from the institutional to the individual level.
Anyway, I am, as always, looking forward to more ruminations on race and neoliberalism, especially now in the Obama era.
I was surprised to hear Mr. Obama endorse charter schools as solution to K-12 education. It's Friedmanesque…sounds like the making of another unregulated market. Neoliberalism is dead. However, public K-12 schools are broken (NCLB Act certainly didn't help fix it…maybe stress to the point of failure, which, again, is Friedmanesque). Maybe charter schools could provide a real alternative. I envision 10 specialty math and science schools per state. Long live neoliberalism.
Who's responsibility is education?
Obama the populist,his administration is ready for a fight, and the country will pick sides,capitalist business model is on life support
I don't understand the connection you're making between Obama's bromide about parents' roles in education and neoliberalism, for I don't believe his point to be an ideological one. It's kind of a no-brainer; more parents should take a more active role in their children's education. And to be fair to him, he's been pretty clear about a gov't that better fulfills its role in education. I'm expecting Obama's victory represents an end to the dominance of neoliberalism in left-of-center American politics, but I'm not 100% sold our new president is a Progressive, either. Left-of-center comes in a lot of flavors.
I'm OK with Obama's politics defying traditional characterizations. Then again, I'm not much for trying to fit everything and everyone into a nice, neat little box.
“It's kind of a no-brainer; more parents should take a more active role in their children's education. “
You'd think this would be a simple answer, but I just spent the weekend tutoring kids in Math. I tutored sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grade math at the local community center. The kids weren't bad, but I get the sense that the parents had darn close to fifth grade Math educations. This doesn't mean that parents can't be more active in their child's education, but it does mean that we need a more sophisticated and practicable model of what active looks like.
Active means just that, active. Active means pushing a culture of education in the household from an early age. Looking back on our DA's comments about our nation being cowardly when talking about race we are also cowardly when talking about politics and where it has gotten us. Although I did vote for Obama and hope that we definitely can there is also a history of low expectations for Black people and the poor and some of that comes from the social work liberal side (whic is not an attack on social workers) of pitying and doing for, instead of teaching how. I don't know if that is classic liberalism or neo liberalism.
Oh and, replying to Tweet. Rush Limbaugh is the absolute worst, him and the dixietheocrats that have run the repugnant party for the past couple of decades.
Obama’s my president and all….but http://t.co/dVwaEZ9H
yes, yes and yes. I can’t think of a single parent who wants their child to fail, or not be educated. I see a lot of parents working multiple jobs just to keep a roof. Parents can’t give what they don’t have. And even if they are trifling, they want, their kids to do better than they did. Re: these neoliberal magic bullets like charters, I just don’t understand the logic. How does having LESS oversight and accountability over the way schools are run solve the problem of parents who can’t get it together, or teachers who can’t get it together for that matter? It’s essentially a hail Mary pass.
From the Archives: Obama’s my president and all….but http://t.co/dVw67p0x