conditions of possibility

To all, Betsy shared the following (part of the "Salt of the Earth" discussion):

I watched SALT OF THE EARTH and looked at the web page on Reverend Billy's Church of Stop Shopping and noticed some commonalities in the two social movements depicted. First, people who take a stand are ridiculed and belittled. Second, those in power or speaking for the powerful try to intimidate and undermine the leaders of the movement, questioning their education and/or literacy. Third, the most outspoken ones in the movements have some sort of legal or police action brought against them like being arrested and taken to jail. (Esperanza was jailed along with other female leaders and children for maintaining the picket line after the miners were order by the courts to stop and Rev. Billy was arrested, handcuffed, and taken away in a police car for leading a demonstration against Starbuck's.) The mining union's persistence met with success after much hardship and persecution due to the workers' and their families' organization and solidarity. It is yet to be seen if a state of organization and solidarity can be formed around bringing the public into an awareness of uncontrolled capitalism as an inhuman and evil entity which must be stopped before all of us perish.

In response, I shared the following, and I hope Betsy will share her response to this:

It reminds me of something about which I was reflecting on the plane back from Philly. I have not yet worked it through carefully, but the general outline was around a few notions: conditions of meaningfulness, conditions of value, conditions of urgency and conditions of possibility. These are, of course, not always aligned. I am thinking here about critical literacy operating in the real world as it is. In my own view, critical literacy always has high levels of meaningfulness and value, and as time passes the urgency increases (especially without the implementation of critical literacy theories and practices inside and outside formal education), but others could argue that sometimes it has lower levels of meaningfulness (that could be related to how well developed one's concept is of critical literacy, or how well one is able to communicate its meaning). I think it would be very difficult to argue that it has low value or low urgency, but recognizing that would require a fairly well-developed notion of the meaningfulness of critical literacy.

Conditions of possibility for implementing critical literacy is another matter, and this is the key dilemma we face when we are conscious of the meaningfulness, value and urgency of critical literacy. Conditions of possibility for the implementation of critical literacy can be high (rarely) or low (the norm), even while conditions of urgency are constantly increasing thus making the value of critical literacy all the more meaningful and necessary. In some sense, critical literacy is always operating in a cage, and the forces of power (sometimes local and sometimes beyond the local) are working to make the cage smaller and more repressive and the forces of CL are working to expand the bars of the cage. Why the disconnect between urgency and possibility?

In general, the problem is again one of power relationships and indoctrination, as well as a general absence of civic literacy accompanied by fairly widespread levels of "illiteracy" across a wide array of crucial social spheres (more on this later).

Then there is the question of struggling to keep alive the possibility of critical literacy when the conditions might be so contaminated that it is extremely difficult to appropriate critical literacy in the immediate. It is not unusual for institutions to create conditions that not only discourage practitioners but marginalize the ideas.

So, one of the tasks of critical literacy is to create modes of communication that express the meaningfulness, value and urgency in ways that increase the conditions of possibility for implementation, and do so in ways that do not land us in jail like Billy and some of the folks in "Salt of the Earth;" or, without a job.

Side note: The woman who played Esperanza in the film was kicked out of the US before filming was completed (part of the Blacklist repression in the US in the 1950s -- though we should know that HUAC really started in the late 1930s under Senator Dies). The producers had to send a film crew to Mexico (under the guise of making a documentary) in order to film some of the scenes. Goon squads were hired to harass the film crews when they were filming in Silver City, NM. Violence erupted on several occasions to try to prevent the film from being made. There is some good material online about the struggles to make the film.

critical literacy

to all, this blog can function as a site to share critical literacy ideas, projects and information. thanks, d

boatmen and philosophers

a doctor of philosophy required a boatman to transport him across a large river. While traversing the tides the philosopher asked the boatman if he knew philosphy. The boatman said ¨no.¨ The philosopher said, ¨ah, too bad for you, for you have lost half your life.¨ The boatman continued to row. The philosopher asked the boatman if he knew math and the boatman said ¨no.¨ The philosopher said, ¨ah, too bad for you, for you have lost half your life.¨ A tumultuous storm began to rage above the river and soon there was a deluge that rocked the boat. The boatman asked the philosopher if he knew how to swim and the philosopher, shaking uncontrollably, said, ¨no.¨ The boatman said, ¨ah, too bad for you, for you will now lose all of your life.¨ The research in Cuba has ended for now, and after meeting with many philosophers and social scientists, one sees in cuba much work between theory and practice. Philosophers here are often engaged in daily struggles with farmers and factory workers in attempts to construct more human friendly and efficient modes of work and production in order to meet the goals of the socialist project. A comment by the director of the Latin American School of Medicine comes to mind. He said, roughly, ¨what distinguishes the Cuban approach to medical education is that we not only teach and learn about the science of medicine but we teach and learn about the science of political consciousness rooted in solidarity, social justice, and human well being.

The internet is slow today so comments must be brief. Returning to the Bahamas tomorrow and to the US the following day. viva socialismo, in peace and solidarity, d

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leisurely stroll

a leisurely stroll along the Malecon...the main street along the ocean...down to old havana allowed an experience of excessively ¨liberating¨humidity. A number of conversations with people in the street and in the ¨artist´s market¨revealed the complexity of opinion one finds in Cuba...there is not the subservience to the ¨party line¨often caricatured in the US as though Cubans are somehow robots rather than human beings working through personal, interpersonal, local, national and international conflicts and contradictions across a complex array of social forces, cultural productions, economic unpredictabilities, ideological interrogations, institutional structures, power relations and the strong influence of the organization of social relations of production, distribution and consumption. There are plenty of frustrations around numerous issues...Cuba IS a poor country...and various forms of poverty are evident... struggling heroically to maintain an experiment in alternative politics and economics in the face of an outside world that is not very sympathetic to that struggle, to say the least. It does seem that Cuba´s remarkable ability to survive and to some extent even flourish, in the face of so many struggles, attacks of various sorts, and deprivations, along with the Cuban´s ability to maintain a high level of human development as measured by education, health and health care, sustainable agriculture, scientific advancements, cultural programs, etc., might suggest that Cuba offers a model that should be studied carefully by the rest of the world as we face increasing problems around economic collapse, global climate calamities, military aggressions, and other threats. the struggle continues...viva la revolucion! d

correction

there was a small but important error in a previous post about education, the phrase ¨not without criticism and reflection¨ came across as ¨not with criticism and reflection.¨ There is much and ongoing criticism and reflection in Cuba on education.
So, it should read -

a long conversation on education revealed the important link between knowledge and experience. the commitment...not without criticism and reflection...

morality and food, etc.

today there was much discussion of morality and what Marx may have meant by ¨species being.¨ In the end, to reduce hours of discussion to a phrase, one could say, it is not so much that individuals should be of secondary importance or absolutely subservient to the social, but that the individual will only fully develop under social conditions that encourage and nourish the development of our multiple individualities. At a very basic level, without social structures and commitments to providing food to citizens individuals will remain underdeveloped.

The question arose, around food and agriculture, ¨can Cuba offer an alternative to corporate control over the global food system, a form of control that is creating increasing food crises?¨ The answer was yes, and added was that if the world continues along the current path we will face the choice between, to quote Mezsaros, ¨socialism or barbarism...if we are lucky!¨ Cuba is committed to sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty and is operating in a world in which the food crisis is producing a ¨silent Tsunami¨in the words of the World Food Program...100 million more people are now going hungry, added to the 850 million already chronically hungry. Cuba´s program, in brief, is rooted in ecological farming, diversification into small and local farms, redistribution of land to farmers in order to operate on small scales conducive to ecological farming, state support for small farmers, democratic participation in planning and governance of farms as well as in research, paying a fair price to farmers, organic urban gardens, all operating within a very highly educated population with a high human development index, free health care and education operating more and more in a decentralized manner. Still, Cuba must import a considerable amount of food, $1.5 billion last year, including about $500 million from the US. Cuba has a long struggle to attain food self'sufficiency and sovereignty, but the struggle continues. viva socialismo! d

education and the struggle

internet access has been very limited and slow...the US blockade prevents important updates such as laying fiber optic lines, etc. a long conversation on education revealed the important link between knowledge and experience. the commitment...not without criticism and reflection...to the socialist experiment is not simply a result of wanting to ¨be like Che¨ but rooted in an overall experience of support, cooperation, concern and solidarity around education that extends from the student to the teacher to the classroom to the family to the neighborhood to local groups to national federations such as the committees for the defense of the revolution the national federation of women, etc, etc. one other point...their is a rising tide of neoliberalism-capitalism on a global scale and of course Cuba is an island...one serious question revolves around how Cuba will defense itself against the rising tide...the pressures are great because Cuba is forced to interface with global capitalism across a number of industries, in agriculture, etc. in order to survive...the creeping capitalism can be very insidious, so in Cuba the battle of ideas to protect the process of the socialist experiment rages on and Cuba walks on a razor´s edge while the rest of the world stands on the edge of a precipice...let us hope that we do not step in to the abyss...the struggle continues...viva la revolucion...venceremos...d