21 NOTES FROM THE MARGINS We’re living in a period when, in order to endure its legitimacy, the Left has had to abandon the notion of revolution. So what’s left after the possibility of a radical transformation of society has been written off? What’s left, for the Left, are practices of resistance, practices of critique and of civil disobedience. In other words, it’s a strictly negative vocation…. [moreover] there’s a great dignity in criticizing things and that you’re kind of stupid if you actually propose something … If you propose something on the Left today … you get critiqued by everybody because they are great at critiquing things. (Michael Hardt, 2009:135) There is no great thought, opinion, or theory that has not at its initial reveal risked the vulnerability of dismissal, incredulity, and deep criticism. Freire said: Intellectuals who memorize everything, reading for hours on end, slaves to the text, fearful of taking a risk, speaking as if they were reciting from memory, fail to make any concrete connections with the world, the country, or the local community. They repeat what has been read with precision but rarely teaching anything of personal value. (2001: 34) As an academic theorist and philosopher, I am always confronted with a ‘tradition’ where I am expected to follow certain disci- plinary traditions, theses, and so forth (Cusset, 2008:194; Deleuze and Parnet, 2002:13–14; Giroux, 1988:146). There is a deep value placed on using the most radical and resistance oriented language and framing to appear as a champion for the oppressed, marginalized, and dispossessed of society. To consider a philosopher that would propose a viewpoint in opposition or in tension with anything outside of the domain of Marxism and critiquing neoliberalism runs the risk being accused of heresy. Eagleton (2003) illuminates: ‘To be inside and outside a posi- tion at the same time – to occupy a territory while loitering skeptically on the boundary – is often where the most intensely creative ideas stem from’ (40). In the spirit of a true pedagogical practice, I personally proceed first and foremost with an evaluation of the Specters of Critical Pedagogy: Must We Die in Order to Survive? Antonio Garcia BK-SAGE-STEINBERG_DOWN_V1-190302-Chp21.indd 157 30/11/19 1:13 PM