On the Fascism of Doing, Pt. 1

Fascism desires an active man, one engaged in activity with all his energies: it desires a man virilely conscious of the difficulties that exist in action and ready to face them.

--Benito Mussolini,
The Doctrine of Fascism

A discourse implies at least two people talking about something, so for the time being Mr. Stickfigure’s “discourse on radical education” is a misnomer. I am not referring to this website’s abysmal hit-count alone, I am referring to almost every linguistic interaction I have on the subject of radical education. It has troubled me for some time that my musings seem so esoteric to my colleagues and interlocutors—amusing utterances perhaps, but not evocative of response. Some might suggest that a howling match with a shit-throwing baboon would be preferable to discoursing with Mr. Stickfigure, but I prefer to blame fascism.

The one thing that teachers want from a meeting with their colleagues is something that they can take back and use in the classroom. The logic of this desire could not be more well-founded, since the classroom is where we actually teach. It is up to the community of teachers to decide what is considered useful enough to make their meetings valuable. Surely, the definition of usefulness varies from community to community, just as the needs of teachers and students vary. In a resource-deprived school, however, the desire for something useful to take back to the classroom tends to become a materials fetish. The lack of physical materials is like hunger, and the desire to be fed something tangible banishes all taste and any future beyond the next meal. Mr. Stickfigure is a fool for wondering why these starving souls have no time to discuss his silly discourse.

Because I’m not giving you much to take back to the classroom, am I, teacher? Not, at least, without a hyperbolic conception of usefulness—beyond Mr. Miyagi, but along that trajectory. I want you to see that the most important things you take into the classroom are your brains and your spirit, but I haven’t, apparently, explained how to do that. Indeed, I have not even tried, and I will not now. Now, all I will say is that what goes on in your head always comes back to the classroom with you, and it will outlast anything you can carry in your hands.

But what occurs in our heads is never as satisfyingly solid as a physical resource. No, our heads can be filled with irresolvable contradictions and warring paradoxes. Worse, the sewing of such dissonance is the only unifying objective of Mr. Stickfigure’s discourse on radical education. When he discourses, Mr. Stickfigure wants to shatter the world around you and send you home with shards to tuck under your pillow and dream on. Eventually, the crystal will be reconfigured to show the world more clearly, both how it is and how it should be.

When we see our ghetto schools spit our kids back out into the ghetto, we know there is something we must do, and we know that we cannot do it too soon. Doing, in a failing school, comes only second to having—we need things to do with the students, things to do for the students, things to do to make us useful on a sinking ship. Our devotion to material action, along with our institutionalized aversion to critical observation and discussion, has made us fascists. We are not party leaders, however, we are petty officers of the state. Thus, we know about the “difficulties that exist in action,” we live them daily. And we resort to explaining these difficulties to our students in lieu of the classroom resources we cannot provide them and the instruction that does not enchant them.

A civilian, stuck neck-deep in Mr. Stickfigure’s discourse on radical education, asked with exasperation: “So what’s the solution?”

I’m sure I don’t know.

But I do know there is no cure without proper diagnosis. Until then, we will continue to treat our students as though we are casting out demons. Civilians and soldiers alike must come to see what is happening to our students in a new way before we find any solutions or bring anything useful back to the classroom. Civilians and soldiers alike must be able to balance the call to action between impossible extremes. These extremes, however, are vantage points: places from which to observe how our actions are used by those who have plans that extend beyond their next meal. From there, we can see ourselves, also, when we are full and lazy and bored: When we think ahead of our hunger and take part in the universal plunder of collective action.

So let the discourse on radical education begin by infusing action with uncertainty and satiety with dissatisfaction. Teachers, unless the classroom is where you find satisfaction, you have some things to think about before you walk back through the door. Civilians, unless you are happy that your schools carefully destroy innocent children according to lines as clear as black and white, you have some things to think about before you cast another vote or contribute to another cause.

If it helps you think, Mr. Stickfigure is ready to discourse.