Confronting and agonistic: what democracy requires of curricula

Abstract

Abstract This paper draws upon the philosophical reconstruction of John Dewey to examine the demise of democracy by neoliberal elites as described by the likes of Noam Chomsky, who like Dewey, identifies that a key weakness of democracy is that the ontology or being of people has become largely apathetic. We consequently find ourselves living in a period of “post-democracy” as theorised by Crouch, Mouffe, and Rancière, who identify that imposed consensus by politicians and the media discourages people from dissenting and being agonistic. A major consequence of this is that the masses are diverted from challenging the hegemony of neoliberalism and instead focus upon much lesser issues related to cosmopolitanism. From this analysis, it is identified that what democracy requires of curricula—if they are to offer educational experiences—is that students should embody agonism as a way of thinking. According to Dewey, the method of democracy is to bring conflicts into the open rather than pretend they do not exist, and that the most important conflict is between the super wealthy and the working poor. Therefore, curricula ought to be designed to habituate students to grow in an agonistic way of being in order to challenge the presumed “consensus democracy” that is being used to marginalise the very real conflict the public has with neoliberal hegemony.