The travails of criticality: Understanding Peter McLaren’s revolutionary vocation. An article review of Peter McLaren, Pedagogy of Insurrection (New York: Peter Lang, 2015)

Abstract

This is an article review of Peter McLaren’s Pedagogy of Insurrection (New York: Peter Lang, 2015). While it seeks to position McLaren’s work within the context of critical pedagogy, this paper also assesses McLaren from the wider discussion of Marxist–Hegelian discourse as it evolved within the Left. Engaging with McLaren critically, this article insists that the nuances that make his work are not simply essential to its study but more importantly they give it a unique radical edge. No serious reader or student of McLaren’s could simply take any radical stance as read—and more so when this emerges from decades of activism, teaching and writing. One cannot read McLaren alla prima. Moreover, the paper shows how at the core of McLaren’s work one finds complex questions that attest to the profound dedication by which he approaches the labors of criticality. Furthermore, this article seeks to draw a distinction between McLaren and critical pedagogy, arguing that his work occupies a very special place that has grown in its specificity and character. This needs to be strongly identified, uniquely appreciated, and further articulated in order to be understood. Here it is argued that while sustaining a huge share of what is now identified with critical pedagogy, McLaren’s work must be seen from beyond those confines as his work moves even beyond education itself. In this context, this article analyses Pedagogy of Insurrection against the work of, among other, Ernesto Laclau, Hannah Arendt, Ivan Illich, Antonio Negri, Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme and his 4th Thesis on Feuerbach.