{"id":3120,"date":"2025-02-10T09:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/?p=3120"},"modified":"2025-02-11T14:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T22:31:14","slug":"responding-to-adornos-demand-disinformation-genocide-and-the-need-for-radicalizing-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/2025\/02\/10\/responding-to-adornos-demand-disinformation-genocide-and-the-need-for-radicalizing-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to \u201cAdorno\u2019s Demand\u201d: Disinformation, Genocide, and the Need for Radicalizing Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by – Jonathan Turcotte-Summers<\/a> (PhD candidate, EDST)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explanatory Note:<\/strong> Education in the Age of Misinformation (2023)<\/a><\/em>, edited by Lana Parker, included my chapter \u201cAdorno\u2019s Demand: Post-Truth, the Alt-Right, and the Need for Antifascist Education.\u201d  A panel discussion about the book was to take place at the 2024 conference of the North American Association for Philosophy and Education (NAAPE)<\/a>, held from October 25 to 27 at University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. As I was unable to attend the conference, co-author and panelist Vik Joshi offered to present some remarks on my behalf, but the panel had to be cancelled at the last minute. What follows are the remarks I had prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to begin by thanking NAAPE for hosting this panel, our editor Lana Parker for having graciously included my contribution in the book, my co-contributors for having offered their own excellent and insightful work on this crucial topic, and of course everyone joining us for this discussion today. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My chapter of the book doesn\u2019t address misinformation<\/em> as much as it does disinformation<\/em>, although I fail to make explicit the distinction between these two terms often used interchangeably. In fact, my chapter doesn\u2019t include the word disinformation<\/em> at all. Misinformation<\/em> might be defined as simply incorrect or inaccurate information, regardless of the motive with which it\u2019s communicated. It might be shared by mistake or through neglect. Disinformation<\/em>, however, is helpfully defined by Parker, Liu, and Smith in Chapter 7<\/a> as \u201cthe deliberate effort to intentionally expose and circulate misinformation.\u201d It is shared with a particular intent<\/em>, whether to lead astray<\/em> in the words of Kelly and Haufbauer describe in Chapter 3<\/a>, or to do harm,<\/em> in those of Melo-Pfeifer and Gertz in Chapter 12<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my work, I examine who intends to lead whom astray, who intends to do harm to whom, using what forms of disinformation, and toward what political and economic ends. In particular, I explore the ways in which disinformation is instrumentalized by right-wing extremists, ultra-conservative agitators, and indeed fascists, not merely to substitute one version of truth for another, but to undermine the validity of truth as a category in public discourse. While a number of contemporary authors signal this manoeuvre, my chapter turns to the work of the Frankfurt School, and especially Theodor Adorno. In Minima Moralia<\/a>, Adorno tells us that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power\u2026 not only suppresses truth as in earlier despotic orders, but has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Opposing what has been termed truth decay<\/em>, and opposing the advance of fascism, is of obvious importance to Adorno as a German Jew who escaped the Nazi Holocaust. And he insists that it ought to be not only a concern<\/em> for educators, but in fact the primary concern<\/em> of all education. It is with this assertion that my chapter opens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe premier demand upon all education is that Auschwitz not happen again. \u2026 Every debate about the ideals of education is trivial and inconsequential compared to this single ideal: never again Auschwitz.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If we understand never again<\/em> to mean, as I believe it should, never again to anyone<\/em>, the problem is that we as educators have already failed Adorno, our students, and indeed the world. Auschwitz happened many times before Auschwitz, and has already happened many more since: among them, Cambodia 1975-1979, Rwanda 1994, Bosnia 1992-1995, East Timor 1974-1999, Myanmar, Congo, Sudan, Palestine\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Focusing on Palestine: Disinformation as a Weapon<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I feel compelled to focus here on the particular case of Palestine. Officials in the Israeli occupation have referred to their involvement in an information war<\/em>, as have headlines in news outlets from Time Magazine<\/em> to ABC News to Al Jazeera. An article in Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a> describes how, following its 2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, the occupation spent a decade preparing for such a war by purposefully seeking social media superiority:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIsrael\u2019s Ministry of Strategic Affairs began to oversee a network of influencers and pro-Israeli organizations that advanced the Israeli state\u2019s message against the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign and other critics of the occupation, through deceptive, coordinated campaigns designed to appear grassroots-driven and spontaneous<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A 2013 article in Israeli newspaper Haaretz<\/em><\/a> reported that the Prime Minister\u2019s office planned to hire hundreds of university students, in collaboration with their national union, into covert semi-military<\/em> units to wage online battles of \u201cpublic diplomacy,\u201d or hasbara<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 2017, the mobile app and online platform Act.IL was launched, a joint project by an Israeli university and US non-profits<\/a> in collaboration with the occupation\u2019s intelligence community. Referred to as an Iron Dome of Truth<\/em>, it gamified pro-Israeli social media engagement, with daily missions<\/em> allowing its 15,000 users around the world<\/a> to compete for points, earn badges, and climb leaderboards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, the Israeli government relaunched Concert, a joint venture with private investors intended to \u201c[recruit] pro-Israeli activists and organizations for ‘Hasbara’ purposes,\u201d according to an article in Haaretz<\/em><\/a>. In reality, an Israeli media watchdog<\/a> explained that \u201cthe plan is to transfer money indirectly to foreign organizations that will spread Israeli propaganda in the countries in which they operate, all while hiding the fact that they are backed by the Israeli government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also the Hasbara Fellowships program<\/a>, whose website suggests is active on over 95 North American university campuses. It brings hundreds of students to Israel for hasbara training twice per year and provides them with resources and support for their efforts upon their return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, the occupation has turned to artificial intelligence<\/a>, using it to create fake websites and inauthentic social media accounts advancing its talking points. An episode of the Jerusalem Post<\/em>\u2019s podcast, titled \u201cCan AI Help Israelis Do Better Hasbara?<\/a>,\u201d features an interview with the founder of an AI project who leads workshops for high-school students. And the website of Technion University<\/a> lauds the student leader of a team that created \u201cno less than an army of robots to massively increase the impact of pro-Israel efforts on social media.\u201d Technion adds that, “when deployed on a larger scale, this will most certainly shift the balance of content in the right direction and take away the advantage of numbers from our online enemies.\u201d This is likely why the Israeli government recently purchased, according to a Haaretz<\/em> report<\/a>, \u201ca technological system capable of conducting mass online influence campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Role of Disinformation in Genocide<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So after the raid by Hamas on October 7 of 2023, an article in The Intercept<\/em><\/a> explained that Israel\u2019s extensive hasbara apparatus allowed the regime to \u201crapidly [deploy] a multipronged propaganda strategy to win unprecedented support from the U.S. and other Western governments for a sweeping war against the entire population of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, much of the propaganda deployed by the occupation and its supporters in this war has proven, in fact, to be disinformation<\/em>. For example, the claim propagated by even Joe Biden that forty babies were beheaded on October 7 turned out to be false, as did stories of newborns burned in ovens that day. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken\u2019s gruesome account of eyes gouged and breasts cut off at a breakfast table was also a complete fabrication, multiple reports of sexual assault have been debunked, and Israeli media have confirmed that many of their citizens who lost their lives on October 7 were actually killed by their own military as it executed the Hannibal Directive. Soon afterward, there were unfounded claims that hospitals were being used as Hamas command centres, with a supposed list of fighters on the wall of one turning out to be simply a calendar with the days of the week. And these are just a few of the most obvious and memorable examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, why am I calling this disinformation<\/em> and not simply misinformation<\/em>? Because it appears to constitute a deliberate effort to intentionally lead astray and do harm. More specifically, it constitutes a deliberate effort by an ongoing settler-colonial project to generate enough uncertainty and confusion around the matter<\/a>, especially among Western audiences, to allow it to proceed with the destruction and elimination of the native population\u2014with numerous scholars of the subject, experts in international law, and the International Court of Justice all using the word genocide<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we should not be surprised that leaders of the occupation would weaponize disinformation with the aim of\u2014in Adorno\u2019s words\u2014converting questions of truth into questions of power. Even the New York Times<\/em> and Washington Post<\/em> have been calling its current government far-right<\/em> since 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One interesting feature of disinformation is that it necessarily spawns further disinformation, especially regarding its motives. The very nature of disinformation<\/em> requires that it be defended with further disinformation about the intent of those disseminating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Disinformation, Radicalization, and National Myths<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for Israel\u2019s hasbara industry, the Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a>, a bipartisan Washington think tank, reports that \u201cGen Z\u2019s penchant for credible and legitimate information has reinforced a steadfast rejection of Israel\u2019s propaganda and support for Palestine. The global reaction to the October 7 attacks quickly shifted from sympathy to opposition against Israel\u2019s retaliations.\u201d It would appear that the Israeli genocide in Palestine\u2014along with the complicity of our governmental, academic, and other institutions\u2014is effectively radicalizing<\/em> young people in the West, although I use the term radical<\/em> in a sense quite different from my co-authors, in a sense closer to its original Latin meaning of going to the root<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulo Freire makes a necessary distinction in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSectarianism, fed by fanaticism, is always castrating. Radicalization, nourished by a critical spirit, is always creative. \u2026 Sectarianism in any quarter is an obstacle to the emancipation of mankind. … On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to radicalism, the sectarianism<\/em> Freire describes is on display in the curriculum of the Israeli school system, as illustrated by Nurit Peled-Elhanan of Tel Aviv University in Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education<\/em><\/a>, published in 2012. She calls Israel a Jewish ethnocracy<\/em> and argues that a key purpose of its schooling is enforcing ignorance and instilling in students fear and hatred of Arabs in preparation for their eventual military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a half-century earlier, a study funded by the US Office of Education<\/a> had presented Israel\u2019s school system in even less flattering terms. Anthropologist Yehudi A. Cohen wrote in 1969 that students are indoctrinated into a culture of relentless tension, violence, and \u201cBiblically legitimated genocide.\u201d He continues: \u201cAs long as Israeli Jews maintain their insistence on exclusivity, \u2026 which is formally represented in their caste system and in their own contributions to the maintenance of a state of war by insisting on impossible fundamentalist conditions for negotiation, they are going to need to continue to instill such values in their children at their most impressionable stages.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, while it is an exceptional case, Israel\u2019s school system is certainly not unique in its dissemination of disinformation in order to protect and advance national interests. I\u2019m afraid we\u2019re making a mistake if we talk about Education in the Age of Misinformation<\/em> without considering how schools have always<\/em> been important sites for the propagation of half-truths and outright falsehoods foundational to the existing social, political, and economic order. These are commonly called national myths<\/em>, although in my chapter I cite Horkheimer and Adorno\u2019s problematization of the dichotomy of myth and truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academic institutions have always<\/em> been in a position to propagate misinformation because they have always<\/em> played a key role as mediators and adjudicators in the establishment of truth. It\u2019s just that truth<\/em>, as De Schrijver and Cornelissen remind us in chapter 8 of our book, isn\u2019t necessarily a singular, universal, or unchanging thing. And, in establishing it, our institutions have all too often tended to adjudicate in favour of the existing social, political, and economic order\u2014including genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Call for Antifascist Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So I end up returning to the call with which I concluded my contribution to the book: a call for an antifascist<\/em> education, which is necessarily a radicalizing<\/em> education, not one that hypocritically attempts to fence-sit on the most pressing issues of our time or shirk its historic responsibility to establish truth, thus abetting the fascistic project of making truth altogether irrelevant. Rather, I call for an education that reclaims its vitality and its relevance by enabling us to fully enter reality so that, knowing it better, we can\u2014in Freire\u2019s words\u2014better transform it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blog Editorellaw8Edit Profile<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sorry that I couldn\u2019t be with you today to address your questions or the flaws you will undoubtedly have found in these brief remarks, but I\u2019d like to thank you very much for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this powerful reflection, PhD Candidate Jonathan Turcotte-Summers shares his prepared remarks for the 2024 North American Association for Philosophy and Education conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85465,"featured_media":3216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[79,76,45,75,77,78,44],"class_list":["post-3120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-adorno","tag-disinformation","tag-edst","tag-genocide","tag-jonathan-turcotte-summers","tag-radicalization","tag-ubc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3120"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3215,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120\/revisions\/3215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/edst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}