Scan barcode
A review by worstarchitect
Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown
I finally understand neoliberalism.
Will forever remember this book as the one that I was reading when I decided I didn't want to go into academia anymore. Reading it wasn't not a factor in my decision. Oscillates between incisive discussions on neoliberalism as it's understood today and wildly myopic/banal comments on how to surpass it.
The sections on Foucault's lectures are excellent, I really came out with a comprehensive understanding of what neoliberalism is, and more importantly, what it isn't, seeing as it's the cool term to use when something is bad in contemporary society. Brown lays it out extremely clearly, and the examples she used like the Bremer orders and the Citizens United decision do a lot to set it in an understandable context. Great stuff.
Where she totally loses me is her positive argument, which is what we should do about it. And her answer seems to be... the liberal arts? It's a hilarious non-sequitur that reveals how single-minded Brown's worldview is as a tenured university professor at Berkeley. She somehow identifies these global trends working in concert to reduce our understanding of democratic society, and then she also throws in there that it's fucked up that US News ranks schools on "Best Value" and how sad it is that professors who prioritize teaching over research are seen as "losers" by their peers (she actually uses that word in the book). There's a really awesome part where she suggests that if we lose the liberal arts, "humanity will have entered its darkest chapter ever". EVER. In the HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Luckily this part of her argument is not a huge part of the book so it doesn't sink the whole thing. While myopic, her critiques of the professionalization of universities are actually pretty spot-on, including a section where Amherst gets a little shout-out: "what is taught or learned (or not) at Princeton or Amherst is largely irrelevant to the prestige obtained and the networks accessed and reproduced... the truth is that what students learn at these institutions is mostly irrelevant to their futures in worlds of business, finance, and tech, which is where most of them are going." So true! Another critique I have is that it barely even bothers to talk about why democracy is inherently important, which is annoying but standard fare in political theory. She weirdly even admits that democracy is not a safeguard against bad outcomes but insists that it's important and does not elaborate. ok.
Will forever remember this book as the one that I was reading when I decided I didn't want to go into academia anymore. Reading it wasn't not a factor in my decision. Oscillates between incisive discussions on neoliberalism as it's understood today and wildly myopic/banal comments on how to surpass it.
The sections on Foucault's lectures are excellent, I really came out with a comprehensive understanding of what neoliberalism is, and more importantly, what it isn't, seeing as it's the cool term to use when something is bad in contemporary society. Brown lays it out extremely clearly, and the examples she used like the Bremer orders and the Citizens United decision do a lot to set it in an understandable context. Great stuff.
Where she totally loses me is her positive argument, which is what we should do about it. And her answer seems to be... the liberal arts? It's a hilarious non-sequitur that reveals how single-minded Brown's worldview is as a tenured university professor at Berkeley. She somehow identifies these global trends working in concert to reduce our understanding of democratic society, and then she also throws in there that it's fucked up that US News ranks schools on "Best Value" and how sad it is that professors who prioritize teaching over research are seen as "losers" by their peers (she actually uses that word in the book). There's a really awesome part where she suggests that if we lose the liberal arts, "humanity will have entered its darkest chapter ever". EVER. In the HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Luckily this part of her argument is not a huge part of the book so it doesn't sink the whole thing. While myopic, her critiques of the professionalization of universities are actually pretty spot-on, including a section where Amherst gets a little shout-out: "what is taught or learned (or not) at Princeton or Amherst is largely irrelevant to the prestige obtained and the networks accessed and reproduced... the truth is that what students learn at these institutions is mostly irrelevant to their futures in worlds of business, finance, and tech, which is where most of them are going." So true! Another critique I have is that it barely even bothers to talk about why democracy is inherently important, which is annoying but standard fare in political theory. She weirdly even admits that democracy is not a safeguard against bad outcomes but insists that it's important and does not elaborate. ok.