Tyson E. Lewis - Walter Benjamins Antifascist Education

WALTER BENJAMINS
ANTIFASCIST EDUCATION

WALTER BENJAMINS
ANTIFASCIST EDUCATION

From Riddles to Radio

Tyson E. Lewis

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2020 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lewis, Tyson E., author.

Title: Walter Benjamins antifascist education : from riddles to radio / Tyson E. Lewis.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019036255 | ISBN 9781438477510 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438477534 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Benjamin, Walter, 18921940. | EducationPhilosophy. | Educational sociology. | Fascism and education. | Democracy and education.

Classification: LCC LB775.B322 L48 2020 | DDC 370.1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036255

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Contents

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Matthew Charles for his careful reading of an early version of this book and his copious suggestions. The result is, without a doubt, indebted to his interest and expertise in the educational potentialities of Benjamins work. Igor Jasinski was generous enough to help ensure the accuracy of German translations and give feedback on the form and content of the book throughout its evolution.

INTRODUCTION

A Constellation of Educational Forms

In the summer of 2018 amid mounting scandals in the Donald Trump presidency, the disturbing separation of undocumented families at the United StatesMexico border, and a rather pathetic yet highly visible Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, DC, organized by neo-Nazi activists, a book chapter I had recently written on the topic of white privilege and education suddenly and for a brief and intense moment became a lightning rod of controversy. It started with a request for an interview from the online journal Campus Reform (CR). The website was founded by the Leadership Institute, which has an explicit agenda to increase the number of conservatives in government and the media. According to Media Bias/Fact Check, CR rates as strongly biased toward conservative views, is prone to using loaded words to characterize liberal or leftist professors, and publishes misleading reports. CR actively polices higher education, openly shaming and mocking individual professors deemed liberal or leftist (and thereby a threat to American values). In my own case, a staff writer contacted me via email, perhaps to discuss the chapter with me, or to obtain a comment, or at the very least, to be able to say (at the end of the eleventh-hour window she had given me to reply) that the author could not be reached for comment before going live; I declined to participate (by not responding). Giving CR and its reporter any response seemed to me to merely legitimate the source as a serious new outlet, and while they went through the motions of reaching out to me, this was an exchange in which I did not want any part. Without my response, CR published a critique of my chapter that was absolutely ridiculous. They clearly did not understand its discipline-specific content, and rather than researching further, they doubled-down on their misreading. The interpretation CR settled on was so far from the actual argument of the text that at first I laughed it off; I never could have imagined what happened next. Within hours, the CR story had gone viral, appearing in alt-right twitter feeds, blogs, and a host of other fake news sites across the internet that cater to extremist, fringe elements associated to various degrees with white nationalism and/or right-wing reactionaries. I started receiving dozens and dozens of hate emails, each clearly using CRs initial misreading as a jumping off point for their own wildly imaginative interpretations.

Still in its first days on CRs website, activity surrounding the essay did not abate, and kept amplifying to the point that by that afternoon, my chapter (or, at least, what my chapter had been interpreted as symbolizing for the alt-right in this moment) was featured on Rush Limbaughs radio program. Like CR, Limbaugh had no idea what my essay was actually about, and his staff never reached out to do any fact-checking. Limbaugh himself was simply scrolling through a feed of whichever alt-right posts were getting lots of action in that moment, and there was the mention of my article, trending near the top, stirring up lots of angry responses that he simply magnified by bashing the article, my own education, my looks, my purported intellectual elitism, and so on, all the while using the air time as an opportunity to repeat my name and current university position as many times as possible. This caused another round of hate mail, which flooded into my university email account and escalated to alt-right watchdog groups that called the dean of my college demanding that I be fired. My Academia.edu page received over 500 hits within a matter of hours, and became another outlet for people to post derogatory messages (I ended up shutting down my site, as the flow of hate mail became absolutely overwhelming). While I had read the first few hate messages in a state of bemused detachment, I was increasingly appalled and distressed by the threats, intimidation, and bigotry. As the escalation continued, university leadership published a statement in support of independent scholarship and, in the end, campus police had been brought in to investigate those messages that threatened bodily harm and made me fear for my and my familys personal safety.

The tone and focus of these hate emails varied: some were nearly unintelligible verballysimply strings of curses all piling up to produce a very clear affective message of hate; others critiqued me as both product and perpetuator of the liberal university; and a large number were overtly racist and, at times, homophobic. As a white, heteronormative, male professor, the emails I received from (white) hate groups simultaneously wanted to identify with my whiteness while distancing themselves from me as a race traitor. Here is one verbatim quote out of dozens I received: Why dont you move down here to New Orleans and enjoy the diversity of black savage behavior. A little cock sucker like you would really enjoy these thick lipped savages on a daily basis and they like commie philosophy, you know-taking from the productive and giving it to them. But I know you snowflake fags stay inside your college walls with the rest of you clowns. The implication of such assaultive speech is that the United States is predominantly white, and that blacks, homosexuals, and communists are unwanted invaders who threaten to destabilize the real America. Here is another verbatim version of this theme: Why dont you turn your illegitimate white degree in. Step down from your illegitimate white job and make room for a minority. You leave this white created world, turn off your white created electricity, get in your white invented car and drive down one of those white engineered roads. Maybe come to georgia and let stick my white foot up your ass. I would recommend Africa, yea go there, very few white people. In this email, the world and all technical achievements are deemed the result of whites. Blacks are effectively written out of the history of the United States in one fell swoop. Because only whiteness is associated with technical progress and civilization, any critical reflection on whiteness as privilege or power is equated with becoming a race traitor, and transitively, a traitor to the United States, which is a white country. The strange irony here is that while whiteness is deemed to be so powerful, noble, and strong, it also appears utterly fragile, vulnerable, and constantly under siege. As a race traitor, I am subsequently instructed to deport myself to Africa. In short, nationalism is mixed with vitriolic racism and xenophobia toward difference, which is inherently viewed with suspicion as a harbinger of potential intellectual degeneration.