TŁUMACZĄC MCLARENA: GLOBALIZACJA, POSTMODERNIZM I REWOLUCJA
EXPLAINING MCLAREN: GLOBALISATION, POSTMODENISM AND REVOLUTION

Summary/Abstract: The paper attemps to interpret the current turn towards a more orthodox Marxism in the resent writings of Peter McLaren. First, it evokes the critique of global capitalism as the bacjground against which the radicalisation of critical pedagogy should be read. Special attention is paid to the debate with postmodernism as (after A. Callinicos) and ideological fromation of middle class consciousness that - on the one hand- manages to define certain areas of oppression but, at the same time, tends to invalidate the hope for radical change. This issue relates to the question of materiality vs. discursivity of oppression, and the respective strategies of social change and pedagogical intervention. McLarens; idea of revolutionary pedagogy (as extending the domain of critical pedagogy) is then presented and - briefly critically analysed. The issue of the mobilising possibilities of the orthodox Marxist rhetoric is also taken up: its potential vitality in the Western radical humanism is contrasted with the phenomenon of its de-signification in the former East Block countries. The fact that Marxist jargon has "used up" its meaning ( at least seemingly so in Poland) does not mean, hovewer, that the problems of class oppression have disappeared, or that the social imaginary should be closed to the possibilities of radical changes. In brief, the radicalisation of critical pedagogy in McLaren's writing may discourage some of those readres who experinced the domiantion of Marxism as offical ideology, but reading throught its orthodox rhetoric allows for fresh, inspiring and radically diffrent understanding.

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