The Distortion of Discussion David Backer Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 ©2014 David Backer All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Distortion of Discussion David Backer This dissertation addresses a common, but troubling, educational interaction: when a facilitator (whether teacher, professor, or organizer) announces that a discussion will take place about some subject or question, but proceeds to speak at length and field questions regarding that subject. In this case, a controlled and unequal form of interaction known as recitation has occurred, though the interaction was called a “discussion” at the outset. Since discussion, as a form of interaction, connotes democracy, equality, and freedom, this interaction (where recitation passes for discussion) is distorted. After a survey of discussion’s many pedagogical meanings, a Marxist theoretical approach—primarily drawing from Louis Althusser and Valentin Voloshinov—is used to critique the distortion of discussion. From the Voloshinovian perspective, the aforementioned distortion composes and iterates the social formation known as neoliberal capitalism. A psychoanalytic theoretical approach is then used to propose a new concept of discussion that works against this neoliberal distortion, one founded on Jacques Lacan’s early concept of dehiscence. The dissertation concludes with suggestions for dehiscent facilitation practices, calling for greater emphasis on the form of interaction (as opposed to content) when working for social and political change. Table of Contents Introduction 1 The Doctoral Student Discussion 1 Distortion 5 Discussion and Neoliberalism 11 Chapter Outline 19 Chapter 1: What is Discussion? 21 Definitions 22 Gaps 24 Ways to Close the Definitional Gap: Etymology and Theory 25 Transition to Contemporary Philosophy of Discussion: Categorizing the Aims, Roles, and Purposes of Discussion 32 Discussion as Exchange of Ideas, and Other Economic Language 40 Chapter 2: The Reified View, or The First Distortion 46 Questions 48 The House and The Theater: Fundamental Terms in Marxism i According to Cohen and Althusser 51 Reification 59 Schmidt and Taylor 64 Ideologemic Analysis 70 Chapter 3: Recitation, or The Second Distortion 75 Recitation 76 “The Persistence of the Recitation” 81 Voloshinov and the Peculiar Case of the Pedagogical Ideologeme 86 Neoliberalism 96 Chapter 4: The Dehisced View 102 From Voloshinov to Lacan: Dehiscence, Part I, The Eye 104 Dehiscence, Part 2: Freud and The Lifting 112 Dehiscence, Part 2.1: Church and Army 115 Dehiscence, Part 2.2: Introjection 117 Dehiscence, Part 2.3: Hypnosis 122 Dehiscence, Part 2.4: The Mass 124 Dehiscence, Part 3: The Group and The Mass 126 Tactics 130 Harkness Pedagogy 131 Horizontal Pedagogy 135 ii Conclusion 146 Premises, Conclusion, and the Pebble Metaphor 146 Objections and Responses 153 Standing up: Anecdotes of Dehiscence 160 References 165 iii Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of thinking done in public spaces, classrooms, board rooms, and subways. I am grateful for all the interactions woven into its arguments. In particular I would like to thank my parents, Erica Rosen, and the Horizontal Pedagogy Workshop of the Occupy University, New York City. Chris (Winter) Casuccio, Joe North, and Jason Wozniak were constant companions in this research. The dissertation is largely a response to the pedagogical and political questions with which we have struggled during the last three years. Elon Shore, Patrick Livingstone, and Allison Moseley generously opened their classrooms to my observations, facilitations, and questions during the 2011-2012 school year. The interactions I observed in these spaces formed a situated foundation for the dissertation’s arguments. David Johnston provided much needed clarity when I began studying Marxist political theory, and in the later stages of my thinking Tyson Lewis’s suggestions were essential, as were those given by the other members of my dissertation committee: Daniel Friedrich, David Hansen, and Sophie Harotounian-Gordon. Throughout the entire process, Megan Laverty’s support and advice constituted the dissertation’s lifeline. She was responsible for ensuring the continuity of its pulse, and I thank her immensely. Thanks also to Yoshiaki Nakazawa and Patrick Comstock, and the other members of the Dissertation Proposal Workshop, whose critiques propelled my thinking forward. Finally, the chapters of this dissertation are revised transcripts of lecture-discussion sessions held at Teachers College between December 2013 and March 2014. I would like to thank the regular attendees of these chapter sessions, whose time, energy, and thinking iv were integral to the final draft: Stefan Dorosz, Jessica Lussier, Rachel Longa, Paula Davis, Matt Hastings, and Carlos Burgos. v Introduction The Doctoral Student Discussion On September 25th, 2013, Teachers College, Columbia University, held a “doctoral student discussion.” A flyer for the event told its audience to “come grab a coffee and hear President Fuhrman and Provost James share their reflections on education…” 1 The second floor of the library had been set up for the occasion. Two plush chairs were placed at the front with a marble table in between them. Two bottles of water stood on the table, along with microphones within reach. Facing the two plush chairs were rows of plastic chairs. Participants took their seats and waited for the event to begin. Two speakers were introduced. They sat in the two chairs at the front, each speaking into his or her respective microphone for a time. After their presentations they took questions from the crowd, to which the presenters responded, and followed up with other comments. After an hour the event was more or less over. At that time there were other doctoral student discussions occurring throughout the building. A student movement had emerged in the months preceding the aforementioned event. This movement began with conversations in hallways, stairwells, and classrooms throughout TC’s complicated architecture, from which questions and critiques of the institution’s internal budget policies and external influence in society emerged. The conversations spread, blossoming into a larger series of meetings and actions. By September 25th, the student movement had organized two direct actions, distributed several communiques, and enacted various other forms of critique which confronted these troubling policies. One of those policies, an issue that galvanized the student movement, was President Susan Fuhrman’s relationship with a company called Pearson PLC. Pearson PLC is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that, in the last ten years, has become responsible for New York State’s standardized testing and teacher certification, as well as Texas’s, and has become similarly involved in education systems around the world. 2 President Fuhrman was on the Board of Directors of Pearson PLC from 2004 until 2013. Not only was she a member of the Board but she was also compensated handsomely for her work with the company through a salary and stock benefits, which she may still hold. Many students—and increasingly staff, alumni, and faculty—thought this relationship was a conflict of interest. In the movement itself, students understood this state of affairs not as an isolated incident, but rather a manifestation of a widespread social and political phenomenon. In letters to the President1, students associated her personal gain from the privatization of public education with neoliberalism, a social- political arrangement in which freedom is defined by freedom of the market and the privatization of public goods (more on this below). This dissertation’s central question about discussion derives from an interest in the pedagogy and the politics of events such as the aforementioned doctoral student discussion and its attendant political phenomena. Pedagogically, the seating arrangement of the event is significant: there were rows of seats facing forward; the presenters, seated at the front and facing the "audience," presented in a lecture-style, speaking at length into microphones, while participants faced them rather than facing each other; after the presenters presented they fielded questions from the participants, listening to and then answering these questions one at a time. In addition, the event was called a discussion where a select few would “share” their ideas about education. Politically, the contentious social-political arrangements and ideologies at play within the institutional milieu of Teachers College are also significant, specifically the neoliberal critiques coming from the student movement coinciding with the doctoral student discussion event in 1 Reyes, C. (2013, June 12) “In Letter, Teachers College Students Slam TC President Susan Fuhrman,” Columbia Spectator, retrieved from http://www.columbiaspectator.com. 3 September. This dissertation’s question derives from the possibility of a relationship between pedagogy and politics in cases such as this, particularly with respect to the word “discussion” and the verbal form of interaction to which it refers. There are two options when thinking through the possibility of such a relationship between pedagogy and politics. The first option is that there is no relationship. It might be the case that there was an event called a “doctoral student discussion” which was structured in a certain