Difference, Power, and the Limits of Openness

Abstract

In her provocative address, Barbara Stengel provides a compelling account of how current sociopolitical and economic conditions combine with dominant social imaginaries to produce a landscape of uncertainty and anxiety. She perceptively portrays an environment in which " a rhythm of human life lived communally " does not translate into a deep sense of safety or comfort, and rather, leads to a proliferation of " the social condition of fear " and technologies of security and surveillance as its cure. Despite attempts to manufacture hysterical fear out of dynamics of uncertainty, Stengel implores us, as philosophers of education, to remain " so open it hurts. " She asks, " Where are the openings, the places where we ourselves stay open to narratives and possibilities that are confusing? " Momentarily, I will provide a sketch of a few of the particular places, spaces and narratives from which I gain inspiration, and, invite others to consider as alternative possibilities for education. First, allow me to offer a few words on my embodied (and quite visceral) response to the concept of " openness. " I absolutely agree with Stengel that the contradictory conditions of contempo-rary life create a constant state of embodied excitation that gets mobilized into fear (and that as philosophers of education we might offer alternate possibilities). I especially appreciate the interest in an ethics of vulnerability that makes use of, and responds to the messy complexity of everyday life. In this way, I am a little cautious about the metaphor of openness in theorizing pedagogical relations given the classic and contemporary deployment of this discourse in political, financial, and social reform. A brief discussion of the historicity of the concept reveals a disjunction between openness as an ethical stance and the material effects and asymmetrical consequences for particular persons and groups. Specifically, an imperial logic of openness legitimate(d) Euro-American expansion, regulation and/or destruction of indigenous and/or local ways of being, living and learning. From the legacy of eighteenth-century frontier logic to the contemporary emphasis on " open/ing markets " as the neoliberal ticket for participation in transnational capitalism, one thing is certain: the price of " global development " is increasing disparities (eco-nomic, social, and political) between and among groups, communities, nation-states, and regions within Global North/South divisions. As many transnational, postcolonial, and indigenous scholars have argued, new technologies of " bioengi-neering " (a mix of discourses of social engineering and biopolitics) have rapidly developed for the expansion of corporate capital at the expense and destruction of multiple forms of life in particular places and spaces. (Put differently, some lives and experiences are granted worth if they are objectified, commodified, and made 21 Lisa Weems P H I L O S O P H Y O F E D U C A T I O N 2 0 1 3 available to those who are imagined to be leaders of tomorrow.) Caribbean scholar Sylvia Wynter aptly condenses the situation: there is a Colonial and Color line that divides between " life considered worth protecting " against that which is either undeserving or even necessary to be destroyed in the name of progress and Civilization. And the future. And Civilization's future, even in the wake of insecurity and uncertainty. Racialized colonial frameworks, embedded in centuries-long social institutions (including schooling) have transfigured the logic of openness into policies and practices of assimilation, surveillance, and regulation. Thus, schools (may) not only serve as sites of physical, emotional, and linguistic violence, they also function as an imaginary space where " some bodies become understood as the rightful occu-pants " through institutionalized practices of " stranger-making. " 1 As Tuhiwai Smith writes, " [I]mperialism still hurts, still destroys and is reforming itself constantly. " How might these insights inform an analysis of fear, the power of " difference as spectacle " and the possibilities of openness in pedagogical encounters?