There's No Democratic Culture in America -- We Live in an Era of Imposed Amnesia

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




TruthOut.org / By Henry A. Giroux

There's No Democratic Culture in America -- We Live in an Era of Imposed Amnesia
Getting to the bottom of the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power.


November 16, 2010 | We live in an age in which punitive justice and a theater of cruelty have become the defining elements of a mainstream cultural apparatus that trades in historical and social amnesia.

How else to explain the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?

These are the people who gave us Katrina, made torture a state policy, promoted racial McCarthyism, celebrated immigrant bashing, pushed the country into two disastrous wars, built more prisons than schools, bankrupted the public treasury, celebrated ignorance over scientific evidence ("half of new Congressmen do not believe in global warming" )(1) and promoted the merging of corporate and political power. For the public to forget so quickly the legacy of the injustices, widespread corruption and moral abyss created by this group (along with a select number of conservative democrats) points to serious issues with the pedagogical conditions and cultural apparatuses that made the return of the living dead possible. The moral, political and memory void that enabled this vengeful and punishing historical moment reached its shameful apogee by allowing the pathetic George W. Bush to reappear with a 44 percent popularity rating and a book tour touting his memoirs - the ultimate purpose of which is to erase any vestige of historical consciousness and make truth yet another casualty of the social amnesia that has come to characterize the American century.

Imposed amnesia is the modus operandi of the current moment. Not only is historical memory now sacrificed to the spectacles of consumerism, celebrity culture, hyped-up violence and a market-driven obsession with the self, but the very formative culture that makes compassion, justice and an engaged citizenry foundational to democracy has been erased from the language of mainstream politics and the diverse cultural apparatuses that support it. Unbridled individualism along with the gospel of profit and unchecked competition undermine both the importance of democratic public spheres and the necessity for a language that talks about shared responsibilities, the public good and the meaning of a just society. Politics is now defined through a language that divorces the ethical imagination from any sense of our ethical responsibilities. Consequently, it becomes increasingly more difficult to connect politics with the importance of what Tony Judt and Zygmunt Bauman have called the social question - with its emphasis on defining society in terms of public values, the common good, spiritual well-being and "an imagined totality woven of reciprocal dependence, commitment and solidarity." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/148887/there%27s_no_democratic_culture_in_america_--_we_live_in_an_era_of_imposed_amnesia/

[ixion]

1. Yeah, except for those of us who are paying attention...

for us, it's an endless and living nightmare.

[get the red out]

2. Sometimes I wonder if we are better off for it or not?

I feel like I'm the stupid one for seeing through this crap because it causes me to appear insane to so many of my fellow citizens and makes me feel like I am beating my head against the wall. But I can't undo what I know, so maybe I'm doomed to see the naked emperor while others around me admire his fancy outfit.

I remember the feeling when I found DU and some other sites, it was amazing to know I wasn't alone.

[ixion]

3. yep, that feeling was what brought me to DU in the first place...

That was in 2002, and I've been here ever since. :toast:

While there are moments that I wish I was a happy idiot, for the most part, despite the pain, I'm glad I'm awake.

[yurbud]

4. my conservative dad said the other day, ''forget Bush, you can't blame him anymore...Obama's been

president for TWO YEARS!''

In one sense, he is partly right. The problem isn't just Bush but decades of corruption that accelerated under Reagan and burst like a giant zit under Bush, coating all of us in so much pus we could no longer ignore it.