Mark Webb | Graduate Center of the City University of New York (original) (raw)
Publications by Mark Webb
In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 137 Volume 2 Number 1 (20... more In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 137 Volume 2 Number 1 (2008): 137-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ Dear Naomi Klein, I recently finished reading your latest book, The Shock Doctrine. 1 Your detailed account of the connections between neoliberal economic policy and the use of violent repression, the decline of welfare states, and the rise of corporatized war and disaster capitalism is compelling. You thread together the recent histories of military brutality in the Southern Cone of South America, union busting in Margaret Thatcher's England, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. Through these histories you make explicit that acts of violent political repression against leftist organizers were not chance occurrences during periods of economic transition. On the contrary, you show that they were deliberate acts of "shock therapy" used by governments to numb and eliminate those opposed to the implementation of neoliberal policies such as the privatization of public services, the elimination of spending on social programs, and the deregulation of industry wage, safety and environmental standards. In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 138 You demonstrate the "constricted freedom" of post cold-war governments in Poland, Russia, and South Africa, who, in spite of initial aspirations to build social democratic welfare states, ended up implementing neoliberal economic reforms with disastrous consequences for the majority of their people. You then bring your analysis of neoliberalism to the United States, describing the rise of the privatized war machine and the parallel emergence of the occupation of Iraq as a profitable market for investments in military technology, homeland security, and the rebuilding of basic infrastructure destroyed by the aforementioned military technology. Finally, you tie it all together by concluding that the neoliberal economic model, in its thirst for new markets, is now preying upon areas struck by natural disasters to accumulate the profits it desires.
A major characteristic of the pedagogy of peace education as I have practiced it, is positing, as... more A major characteristic of the pedagogy of peace education as I have practiced it, is positing, assessing, and strategizing alternatives to the current world order, i.e. transforming reality. The pedagogy of alternatives derives from a basic assertion about the world order and the suffering that is integral to it. The assertion can be summed up in a phrase I've used trying to break through the sense of the inevitability of violence and injustice that so profoundly affects the thinking of citizens and is an ever present shadow over class discussions, the specter of realism. It is that specter that lies at the heart of Mark Webb's critique of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and her theory of disaster In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 123-136 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 132 capitalism, which per se neither he nor I would refute. 1 It is the core of the policies we who inquire into ways of learning to build peace decry. It is the essence of the thinking that must be confronted by any pedagogy of peace education.
Papers by Mark Webb
A somewhat fictional tale about how Paulo Freire (in a surprise visit from the future) helps Ludw... more A somewhat fictional tale about how Paulo Freire (in a surprise visit from the future) helps Ludwig Wittgenstein become a better teacher and, in doing so, move from his earlier philosophical ideas to his later ones Ludwig clenched his fist tightly, snapping the piece of chalk held within cleanly in two. He paced around the classroom agitatedly, weaving in and out of the desks that had been left by his students scattered haphazardly just moments before when the class had abruptly ended with the ringing of the afternoon church bell in the small town below. Basic algebra problems littered the chalkboard, scribbled in fairly neat, but far too small handwriting to hold the attention of the pre-adolescent eyes, peering out from the small, pre-adolescent bodies that would sit in the back of his class, whispering secrets back and forth incessantly. He had been teaching for close to six years, and it was a little over a year now since he had started working at this particular school in the isolated hamlet of Otterthal in the Wechsel mountains of Eastern Austria. To put it bluntly: he was miserable. With every passing day he realized more and more just how much he absolutely hated teaching (Monk 1990:193-233).
Conference Presentations by Mark Webb
In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 137 Volume 2 Number 1 (20... more In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 137 Volume 2 Number 1 (2008): 137-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ Dear Naomi Klein, I recently finished reading your latest book, The Shock Doctrine. 1 Your detailed account of the connections between neoliberal economic policy and the use of violent repression, the decline of welfare states, and the rise of corporatized war and disaster capitalism is compelling. You thread together the recent histories of military brutality in the Southern Cone of South America, union busting in Margaret Thatcher's England, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. Through these histories you make explicit that acts of violent political repression against leftist organizers were not chance occurrences during periods of economic transition. On the contrary, you show that they were deliberate acts of "shock therapy" used by governments to numb and eliminate those opposed to the implementation of neoliberal policies such as the privatization of public services, the elimination of spending on social programs, and the deregulation of industry wage, safety and environmental standards. In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 129-159 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 138 You demonstrate the "constricted freedom" of post cold-war governments in Poland, Russia, and South Africa, who, in spite of initial aspirations to build social democratic welfare states, ended up implementing neoliberal economic reforms with disastrous consequences for the majority of their people. You then bring your analysis of neoliberalism to the United States, describing the rise of the privatized war machine and the parallel emergence of the occupation of Iraq as a profitable market for investments in military technology, homeland security, and the rebuilding of basic infrastructure destroyed by the aforementioned military technology. Finally, you tie it all together by concluding that the neoliberal economic model, in its thirst for new markets, is now preying upon areas struck by natural disasters to accumulate the profits it desires.
A major characteristic of the pedagogy of peace education as I have practiced it, is positing, as... more A major characteristic of the pedagogy of peace education as I have practiced it, is positing, assessing, and strategizing alternatives to the current world order, i.e. transforming reality. The pedagogy of alternatives derives from a basic assertion about the world order and the suffering that is integral to it. The assertion can be summed up in a phrase I've used trying to break through the sense of the inevitability of violence and injustice that so profoundly affects the thinking of citizens and is an ever present shadow over class discussions, the specter of realism. It is that specter that lies at the heart of Mark Webb's critique of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and her theory of disaster In Factis Pax 2 (1) (2008): 123-136 http://www.infactispax.org/journal/ 132 capitalism, which per se neither he nor I would refute. 1 It is the core of the policies we who inquire into ways of learning to build peace decry. It is the essence of the thinking that must be confronted by any pedagogy of peace education.
A somewhat fictional tale about how Paulo Freire (in a surprise visit from the future) helps Ludw... more A somewhat fictional tale about how Paulo Freire (in a surprise visit from the future) helps Ludwig Wittgenstein become a better teacher and, in doing so, move from his earlier philosophical ideas to his later ones Ludwig clenched his fist tightly, snapping the piece of chalk held within cleanly in two. He paced around the classroom agitatedly, weaving in and out of the desks that had been left by his students scattered haphazardly just moments before when the class had abruptly ended with the ringing of the afternoon church bell in the small town below. Basic algebra problems littered the chalkboard, scribbled in fairly neat, but far too small handwriting to hold the attention of the pre-adolescent eyes, peering out from the small, pre-adolescent bodies that would sit in the back of his class, whispering secrets back and forth incessantly. He had been teaching for close to six years, and it was a little over a year now since he had started working at this particular school in the isolated hamlet of Otterthal in the Wechsel mountains of Eastern Austria. To put it bluntly: he was miserable. With every passing day he realized more and more just how much he absolutely hated teaching (Monk 1990:193-233).