Educating Political Adversaries - Reviving an understanding of the 'Political

8 important questions on Educating Political Adversaries - Reviving an understanding of the 'Political

Mouffe's makes another distinction: between "moral anger" and "political anger", what does she mean?

Moral anger could be the anger of indignation one feels after seeing moral values one cherishes violated.

Political anger […] is the anger or indignation one feels when decisions are made and actions are taken that violate the interpretation and implementation of the ethio-political values of equality and liberty that, one believes, would support a just society. In other words, politica langer is aimaed at particular configurations of hegemonic social relations that exceed procedural considerations and are necessarily rooted in one’s deeper, philosophical convictions.

In the case of political emotions, the object is political in which sense?

It is necessarily bound up with the power relations in a society and with a substantive vision of a just society.

What does the educating of political emotions require?

Educating students about the power relations that structure societies as an object of emotions, for example through historical cases of political resistance to particular hegemonic arrangements. (p.277)

Students need to be able to distinguish the political from the moral. This requires that the concept of power, and the role of power in constituting any social order, must be explicitly addressed in the curriculum.
> teachers who believe in the neutrality of education are likely to be uncomfortable with such an explicit discussion of the hegemonic social relations that form the context of their students' education.
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What does Freire say about teachers who want to be neutral, and not too political?

There is no extra-hegemonic or extra-political place for education.
Education has politicity, the quality of being political.
Because education is politicity, it is never neutral.
When we try to be neutral we support the dominant ideology.

What do students need to understand about political adversaries?

A political adversary is different form a moral enemy and a competitor.

What is a "political debate" for Mouffe?

For Mouffe a debate is not about competitive rethoric in a "political debate" in many secondary schools;
It is a confrontation of serious commitments to conflicting views of hegemonic social relations. 

A democratic society requires a debate about possible alternatives. > confrontation in the public sphere of arguments for clearly differentiated democratic positions.

What is the goal of a political debate for Mouffe?

Not the personal satisfaction of gain over a competitor, but the articulation of political differences in such a way that the "transformation of existing power relations and the establishment of a new hegemony" has been brought one step closer.

Why should the economic paradigm that pervades politics and education be made explicit?

For many liberals an adversary is simply a competitor. The field of politics for them is a neutral terrain in which deifferent groups compete to occupy positions of power; their objective is merely to dislodge others in order to occupy their place.

The supposed neutrality of the terrain in which different groups fight for their view of a just society should be contested.

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