Mirror Sites:
CSUDH Habermas UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 6, 2001
Latest update: October 18, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

Transforming Discourse Readings
Week of October 15, 2001: Week 8

• Online Readings:

  • Mobilising the Masses Che Guevara. Text online.
  • Reactions to Terrorist/Victim Portraits. Includes jeanne's comments on conceptual linking.
  • More Reactions to Terrorist/Victim Portraits. Includes poster Erika found of Bin Laden/Sikh portrait making the rounds of the Internet.

• Hardcopy Readings:

  Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution, by Peter McLaren:

  • "Introduction" pp. xix - xxxvii.
  • "Che's image", passim on p.7.

• Some Suggested Measures of Learning:

  Comment on one of the following topics, or do something of your own choosing.

  1. McLaren speaks of Che's passion for social justice and for love. How does that fit in with his connection to communism, which the US has interpreted as inimical to democracy?

     Consider the connection between democracy and capitalism, and the concept of venture capital as the best means to capitalist growth. Consider also the communist (or perhaps more appropriately) Marxist concern for preventing a huge gap in wealth.

  2. Look again at the double portrait, and recall that we have a tendency to think in stereotypes, to think that if you look like me, you must be like me. But we tend to categorize on many different status characteristics. In the US, being a communist is one of those status characteristics. Che proclaimed his belief in communism. Therefore if we take that proclamation to mean that Che was a communist, and if we "know" that Communists are not like us, and we know that they are not pleased by the inequities of capitalism, then we extrapolate that "knowledge" to indicate that they don't like democracy and freedom either.

  3. Che says in Mobilising the Masses: "That is why we must move forward, striking out tirelessly against imperialism. From all over the world we have to learn the lessons which events afford. Lumumba's murder should be a lesson for all of us." Who was Lumumba? What does the reference suggest to you? Does Che's position relate to postcolonialism? What does that tell us for transforming discourse?

     Consider rhetoric which avoids rational consideration of validity claims, and detailed argumentation. See if Edward Said's discussion of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park will help you understand this issue.

• Theoretical Concepts You Should Know:

  dominant discourse

  1. How is dominant discourse related to reactions to the attack on the US?
     • Consider patriotism and nation-state solidarity.
     • Consider spiritual unease and intolerance for "other religions" or "no religion."
     • Consider the comments of some of our students from Soka University Japan that perhaps there is much they must learn about the Middle East.

  2. Can we alter dominant discourse or must we learn to just tolerate it when we disagree with it?
     • Consider that dominant discourse is derived from our normative expectations, and consider the ways in which we altered the dominant discourse until it accepted rock and roll and rap and other styles that were rejected by the dominant discourse in their early existence.

  3. How does "political correctness" or its earlier cognate, "socially acceptable behavior" fit into dominant discourse?
     • Consider one of the approaches of critical race theory - that one must NOT be complicit by denial. One reason for that is that "naming" makes the thing named more "real." And naming was about bringing to awareness. About declaring what was NOT acceptable. We named the non-acceptability "political correctness."

       Want to think a little more on this? Why did "politically incorrect" crop up to trivialize "political correctness?" Consider that when power is threatened trivialization and disinformation are ways to best the Other who has less power. At the very least they introduce chaos and confusion into the structural context, making the disciplinary power that harms harder to combat.