The Politics of Education: Louis Althusser, Ideological Control, and Critical Consciousness
“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’” — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 Education in the United States has become a critical battleground in ideological control. Across the country, federal and state governments have inserted themselves into public education and universities, particularly pushing legislative efforts to ban books in efforts of restricting intellectual and cultural conversation: on race, gender, sexuality, and the history of the United States of America. This attack has persisted in the Republican party, long before the Trump era, however has accelerated in recent years, primarily K-12 education– recently legalized in Florida by Republican Governor Ron Desantis’s 2022 “The Individual Freedom Act (IFA)”. School systems are becoming more of an extension of political forces. This censorship on what is taught in the classr...
