The Crisis of Meaning: In Culture and Education

1 The Crisis of Meaning in Culture and Education

THE CRISIS OF MEANING IN CULTURE AND EDUCATION Cultural identity ... is a matter of"becoming" as well as "being." It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is notsomething which alreadyexists, transcending place,time,historyand culture. Cultural identitiescomefrom somewhere, have histo ries. But,likeeverythingwhich is historical,they undergo con stant transformation. Far from beingeternallyfixedin someessentialized past, they are subject to the continuous "play"of history, culture, and power. —Stuart Hall1 Pick up any newspaper and it is clear that the United States is facing a democratic crisis. Conventional definitions of citizenship and national identity have been thrown into question by ruptures in the global political landscape, changing postindustrial economic relations, shifting racial demographics, and new attitudes toward sexuality and religion. In a post-cold war era lacking in superpower conflicts, old fears offoreign insurgency have been supplanted by anxieties about trade deficits, declining educational standards, and a loss of common purpose. As social inequities continue to increase, citizens are losing faith in the government and in the master narratives supporting it. Few could have predicted the speed with which Europe would be reconfigured by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Yet rather than easing international tensions, these events have triggered new forms ofnational chauvinism and regional antagonism . Complicating matters further is the so-called post-Fordist restructuring of global capitalism. Because the world is evolving into a transnational marketplace and the production of goods and services is becoming more fluid and decentralized , the distance between rich and poor nations has continued to widen. Meanwhile , in the United States, the white majority's historical dominance is quicklydiminishing as communities of color claim a greater role. Factor in the growing influence offeminism, challenges to the traditional nuclear family, and more recent activism supporting the rights oflesbians and gay men, and it becomes clear that a i ONE massive movement—indeed, a majority movement—is rising to confront the reigning order. Not surprisingly, these shifts have produced considerable public tension, along with a disturbing tendency to reach for quick and easy ways to settle disputes. Witness recent social unrest in cities from LosAngeles toAtlanta,the broad-based hostility toward legislative and judicialfigures, and the remarkable popularity of such fringe personae as Rush Limbaugh and Ross Perot. Claimingto appeal to populist sentiments, this new breed of would-be demagogues has emerged to push for stricter laws, more difficult tests, and an ever more puritanical set of cultural standards . More disturbingly, this reactionary climate creates a desire to find people to blame for the nation's problems. In foreign policy,this translates into the construction of an endless chain offoreign conflictsinto which the United States must intervene in its new role as global peacekeeper. In each instance the U.S. military portrays itself as the force of reason in a world overrun by savage tribes and insane dictators. Even as the efficacy of old legal conventions and bureaucratic structures is thrown further into doubt, new justifications are advanced for consolidated power and political control on a global scale. For a growing number of conservative ideologues, these new international dynamics call for a simple and familiar strategy : the return ofcolonialism.2 At home the process ofnational identityformation is less obvious,particularly as the country continues through the Clinton era. Lacking the threat ofthe RedMenace , neoliberals and conservatives find common ground in assaulting the very underclass that the dominantculture exploits most. In a post-civil rights era, bigotry is executed in new and sometimes subtle ways. Rather than being viewed as victims of discrimination and inequality,the poor and disadvantaged are cast as the source of a decaying national infrastructure.Too sophisticated to name specificgroups directly , this new rhetoric frames its objects by allusion and exclusion. Within this discourse, policy makers even appropriate the vocabulary of "empowerment" and "free choice" once thought to be the province ofradical activists. These rhetorical strategies fall into two interrelated categories, involving presumptions about national strength and unity. In the first category, the nation's declining prowess is attributed to a weakening of will and standards as evidenced in such expressions as "welfare dependence," "school truancy,""drug addiction,"and "gang warfare."This thinlyveiled vocabulary of racism has become a defining element in the negative identification ofthe modern citizen.3 Its coded terminologydefers blame for structural inequalities while simultaneously discrediting both foreign nationals and recent immigrants (or their descendants) in a single gesture. The second category—the threat ofdisunity—derives from the presumed divisiveness of such practices as "affirmative...