Critical review: Neoliberalism’s war on higher education by Henry A Giroux

Introduction

Henry A Giroux is a highly regarded American scholar, cultural critic, one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy, and often viewed as the voice of the youth. This is a serious account of the direct attack on higher education in America and its devastating consequences. Enraged through his personal experiences and social injustices in an all-to-common class war inside his own faculty, Giroux succinctly provides many harrowing examples of direct attacks to what he claims to be our last frontier for truly democratic public spheres and public and critical pedagogy. Giroux succeeds in raising awareness of the radical transformation of postsecondary institutions that are being overrun by neoliberalism policies and practices as well as the material and symbolic violence which is creating an increasing plight for youth. Never before has America seen a generation of students polluted with debt, a compromise of the institutional public values of higher education due to an ideological focus on market-driven education policy and students entering not a brave new world, but a debt and job hopelessness new world. Amidst the tyranny of neoliberalism, Giroux argues that there is a way out, and he provides an inspirational vision using the hope of fallen public intellectuals, his own intellect united by collaborative academic rigour and a new era of youths. They believe and have actively fought for vested integrity embedded in higher education and its importance in creating hopeful democratic environments free of delusional corporate influence. Albeit repetitive at times, and what could be perceived as a doomsday theory where civilizations will fall at the hands of neoliberalism, Giroux and his army of intellectuals and youth appear to be the public symbol of David versus the private symbol of Goliath. There has never been a greater calling for a globally assembled front to bring down the great wall of neoliberalism and Giroux’s book could truly be the enlightenment that will inspire countless youths, intellectuals and interested stakeholders to march against their perceived oppressors.

The tyranny of neoliberalism and democracy

Giroux has a profound distaste for neoliberalism and argues its tendency to blame the world’s problems on marginalised individuals. This is the core of neoliberalism practices – blaming individuals and degrading their public identity and social rights due to their perceived degenerating contribution to a socially conditioned force known as the market. An eloquent quote expresses the violence of neoliberalism entrenched in democracy, ‘It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have – James Baldwin’ (Giroux, 2014). Giroux’s recent literature contributions provide us with an insight into his strong belief of an unjust neoliberal order which focuses heavily on the Age of Disposability and cultures of cruelty, especially the youth struggle. He is adamant at disseminating the great heist of neoliberalism [four decades old] and the terror it bestows on its citizens which is repeatedly propagated. Giroux’s genuine concern for youth, democracy and the higher education institutions that he vehemently stands to defend, wounds the honest pedagogical heart. It would take a staunch ignorant mind to dispel Giroux’s message of persistent injustice as a result of neoliberalism, especially when he superlatively encapsulates it, ‘[Neoliberalism] privileges personal responsibility over larger social forces, reinforces the gap between the rich and poor by redistributing wealth to the most powerful and wealthy individuals and groups, and it fosters a mode of public pedagogy that privileges the entrepreneurial subject while encouraging a value system that promotes self-interest, if not an unchecked selfishness’ (Giroux, 2014: 1). Giroux fundamentally believes there is a predatory global phenomena which ‘drives the practices and principles of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and World Trade Organization, trans-national institutions which largely determine the economic policies of developing countries and the rules of international trade’ (Giroux, 2014: 1). Who is to argue with one of the great intellectuals of our time? Giroux was voted one of the top 50 educational thinkers of the modern period by Routledge in 2002. How can anyone not feel incensed, but the well-off themselves, when the very institutions that genuine citizens have worked so hard to build and prosper, have so easily crumbled into financial warlords.

The attitude of Giroux’s own war with neoliberalism is inspirational, especially if you believe in social, political and economic injustice. His vindication feels lonesome and his words have the potential to only be perceived as emotional heuristics whilst honest and truthful power feels completely out of reach to the commoner. The very backbone of the system appears to have been exonerated in the eye of neoliberalism as a favour to society. Giroux (2014) violently disagrees as he argues that the welfare state has been ‘dismantled and spending is cut to the point where government becomes unrecognizable – except to promote policies that benefit the rich, corporations, and the defense industry [which results in] social problems [becoming] increasingly criminalised while social protections are either eliminated or fatally weakened’ (p. 2). In Giroux’s eyes there is no room for any positive correlations with neoliberalism, the ruthless freedom of the market has enslaved society in every aspect and its ravaging policies, cultural apparatuses, brutal demands, and threats to our existence has a tendency to fill your soul with rage. The early focus on neoliberalism appeals mostly to a civically engaged individual or public intellectual who yearns to know what is being done to stop this tyranny. The emotional hook is successful and the mind conjures the harsh possibility of the end of true democracy and higher education as we know it.

Intellectuals at war

It is widely accepted that higher education institutions were erected in America to promote the critical minds of curious youth. Giroux attacks this notion with revelations of well-respected institutions being turned into wild sports fields and enveloped in sexual and violent scandals. He believes this is a result of two intellectual extremes, the gated and the public (the latter he desperately yearns for). Giroux’s arguments are largely fuelled by his own experiences growing up in inequality and racial prejudice and then entering the world of academia. There he discovered the internal culture that reeked of corrupted minds which frowned upon critique. Genuine American citizens have consequently become victimised, which is supported by Giroux (2014) who states there is a ‘rising concern among many Americans that political democracy and the institution and values that support it are in jeopardy [and there is a wide spread derailment] of the academic mission that has historically defined the enterprise of higher education and [a compromise of] the moral leadership and integrity of many postsecondary institutions’ (p. 104). There is strong reason to believe that Giroux has a public duty to bring this crisis to the battlefront for all American citizens to witness. The academic mission has spread to his personal mission to restore academia to its rightful ownership and pedagogical prowess, a noble pursuit. There is a sense that the power has shifted too much to corporate values inside academic institutions and that even intellectuals themselves are hopping on the financial bandwagon as they are incentivised by casino capitalists. This is evidenced by university Deans and Presidents seducing corporations for donations to keep their institutions alive and competitive in the branded world of American higher education. Giroux does not believe that higher education will ultimately crumble to the market-driven pedagogy, rather that one day there will be a new social awakening.

Giroux provides slim evidence to suggest what students really want from higher education and perhaps we have to ultimately conclude that students think markets are their only way out of poverty and to a better life despite the burden of debt repayments, depoliticization and degradation of critical thinking. What other choice do they have of the American dream which is so wealth oriented in their primed minds? One can’t help but wonder if the majority of students’ existence in higher education is because it leads to a higher paying job and a better life, and they will naturally choose the best postsecondary institution for this self-interested goal. Giroux holds true to himself that the academic mission is the priority here, and anything done to compromise this is at a cost too great to society, and through his elaborate knowledge of higher education and what it truly stands for, you are hard-pressed to disagree. He argues that young people are suffering everywhere and are saddled with debt and critical illiteracy before they even enter the workforce. With the mounting evidence of financial distraught in America, cuts to every imaginable social safety net, and the attitudes of the youth, hope looks bleaker as each day passes and each student is forced into financial slavery. Giroux could balance his argument here by expressing the contributions youth have made to society such as Mark Zuckerberg's invention of Facebook and an analysis of post-higher education life in the 21st century, but that would not fuel the mood of his pitchfork endeavours. One could argue that life in America is great, innovation is thriving, and debt has become a way of life, and higher education is what it is. To take such a stand would be ignorant and Giroux is in no way accepting the sit back and hope for the best approach. Giroux’s (2014) views are warranted amidst the Penn State University scandal which unveiled a startling financial truth, ‘Money from big sports programs also has an enormous influence on shaping agendas within the university that play to their advantage, from the neoliberalized, corporatized commitments of an increasingly ideologically incestuous central administration to the allocation of university funds to support the athletic complex and the transfer of scholarship money to athletes rather than academically qualified but financially disadvantaged students’ (p. 111). The role of money in higher institutions is central to Giroux's arguments as the American government invests substantially more in its military; however, America has committed itself to a worldwide military agenda which is unfortunately capital intensive. An ideal environment for higher education seems unlikely due to the large variances of the human mind and thus there will always be a disparity between critical literacy and those students who are there just for the experience, fuelling the Jock vs Geek stereotype. Rather than erring on the side of anecdotal instead of critical, Giroux believes the bigger picture is what needs to be firmly focused on. Giroux strongly believes the university is foremost an academic institution and its public values need to be maintained above any corporate influence. He favours heavily with the plight of the youth and ensures that their safety and priority is of utmost concern, which is explicit in his scathing view of Penn State University’s focus of protecting its brand instead of its students. He sees students as being ‘reduced to revenue-producing entities rather than seen as young people to whom [Penn State] has the responsibility intellectually and ethically to shape and inspire’ (Giroux, 2014: 114).

Giroux (2014) also provides incredible insight into what is known as gated intellectualism, which are intellectuals who ‘pose a dire threat to public spheres that provide the minimal conditions for citizens who can think critically and act responsibly’ (p. 90) and ‘believe in societies that stop questioning themselves, engage in a history of forgetting, and celebrate the progressive deposition and crumbling of social bonds and communal cohesion’ (p. 89). To the average citizen this can be seen as completely disheartening and it reinforces Giroux’s view that we are literally at war with the neoliberalism agenda of higher education, the very intellectuals we entrust to educate our next generation are being seduced and corrupted by privately funded institutions and marketed forms of finance. Through the conviction in his words it is hard to not want to embroil oneself in a social uprising where neoliberalism is completely overrun by the 99% of the American populous who are essentially its victims. It would do well for Giroux’s words to be supplemented with a meta-analysis of the extent of neoliberalism in higher education in a social media info graphic to add the often craved for easy to understand scientific data in the public sphere, especially since human’s brains are thousands more times responsive to images than text alone. Giroux’s vision for an overthrow of neoliberalism is the culmination of a war cry that unites public intellectuals, the global youth resistance and ultimately creates a new social awakening. This could be led by Giroux’s (2014: 129) use of a prominent quote of a public intellectual he admires, ‘The University is a critical institution or it is nothing at all – Stuart Hall’.

Global youth resistance and the new social awakening

Giroux is witnessing the plight of youth first hand as he tries his best to not only educate them but to stand by them side-by-side and use his best assets – his words and his mind – to bring their voice to the forefront of public debate. Giroux (2014: 155) argues young people are ‘protesting to create a future inclusive of their dreams in which the principles of justice and equality become key elements of a radicalized democratic and social project’. This protest can no longer be ignored, and Giroux argues that the example in Quebec (the longest and largest student strike in the history of North America in 2012) is just the beginning of a global youth resistance and a new social awakening. Some would question his use of the word ‘revolutionary’ as overly ambitious and trouble making (Giroux would label these citizens as victims of depoliticization), others would view it as a worthy cause given the severity of 21^st-century Wall Street financial crimes and a trillion dollar student loan bill. The evidence speaks for itself and Giroux (2014) fears for the citizen who has become ‘driven by self-interest and eschews any responsibility for the other’ (p. 156). Giroux (2014) argues the youth are well versed on the ‘fraud and corruption [which is running] rampant through the financial sectors of many advanced industrial countries, burning everything in [its] path’ (p. 157) and even Citigroup, one of the world’s largest banks, is warning of the devastating effects of plutonomy which will eventually culminate in a global social uprising. Giroux (2014) argues that we are now living in a growing punishing state and instead of youth being viewed as crucial social investments they are ‘removed from the discourses of community and collective freedom, pushed to the margins of society, and forced to inhabit zones of terminal uncertainty, despair, and exclusion’ (p. 160). Giroux (2014) argues that social investments are ranked lower in terms of Government investment compared to shipping billions to fund violence and a ‘permanent war machine’ (p. 167) which further enrages the youth. The extent to which the neoliberals are wanting to go to suppress the youth is worrying as they are increasingly being portrayed as criminals when protesting and new laws are being written to remove their even basic legal rights, which police, our public servants, think are too extreme to enforce. Giroux argues that despite what has happened over time due to neoliberalism there is a possibility of a just and inclusive society.

Giroux (2014: 180) states this is deeply rooted in

developing a language and a politics that both integrate a meaningful consideration of public life and public values … movements will [need] to continue to circulate and advance their views in the public sphere through forms of political organization that are as coordinated as they are flexible and open to new ideas … develop sustainable educational institutions and enlarge publics spaces in which matters of knowledge, desire, identity, and social responsibility become central to creating a democratic formative culture … [which is understood to be] the very precondition for the modes of agency and engaged citizenship necessary for any just and inclusive society … this formative culture must make pedagogy central to its understanding of politics and work diligently to provide alternative narratives, stories, subjects, power relations, and values that point to a future when young people and all those others excluded from the savage politics of casino capitalism will create a society in which justice and dignity mutually inform each other.

Giroux, whilst strong and believable in his opinion, doesn't submerge his mind into the world of social media uprisings. This could be the one revolutionary tool that is already so widely used and accessible as a means to unite millions upon millions as evidenced in the Arab Spring. Given the rise of social networks this could be the core focus of his future academic work as the evil truth of neoliberalism starts to disseminate exponentially and more and more citizens start to feel aggrieved.

Conclusion

Henry Giroux’s book Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education provides significant disturbing insights into the American higher education system. We have all felt the effects of neoliberalism and can see that it creates an unjust society in the livelihoods of its victims. Giroux goes to great lengths to clearly demonstrate the violence and destruction, but also provides a clear path to restoration. The American people are no doubt grateful for his literary contribution and Giroux’s views are supported by known critical agents, but if neoliberalism is a foreign understanding to the local citizen, what hope does it provide for the world? We must understand that this is a gift to the American people as well as a challenge, on one hand we are left wondering if the American citizens will rise up to the power atrocities and realise Giroux’s vision of a new social awakening or, on the other hand, will they be forever enslaved in the tyranny of neoliberalism.