“Imagine”: Radical Love Abides in Cruel Unforgiving Times

This essay discusses how, in this current historical conjuncture of cruelty, insensitivity, greed and technological obsessiveness, radical love, and listening can abide in education and in the global society. It engages these issues in three sections. First, the essay describes and explicates the current milieu in terms of the adoration of money, the paradox between the lack of community and the virtual communication obsession. It also delves into what can be considered the central political issue of our time, that of voluntary subservience. That is, why current corporate neoliberalism and microfascism continue despite efforts to contest them. Second, the essay discusses notions of hope from a critical autobiographical context and the ways in which hope is necessary for a pedagogy of radical love and listening. Third, the essay discusses education within the current context described and the ways in which radical hope, listening and love in critical pedagogy can abide in education and society despite the tremendous forces working against such education and thinking. The essay claims finally that commitment and abiding with criticality is radical love.