Book Review: A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics, by Matthew Slaboch

• DOI: 10.1177/0090591718779002
• Published date: 01 August 2019
• Date: 01 August 2019
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews 607

A moment of immanent critique in the book comes in Sokoloff’s discussion

of Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educational activist, who saw the classroom as

both the crucible for and precursor to radical democracy. Freire notes the influ-

ence of power on all aspects of education, especially the methods believed to

be conducive to learning and hierarchies of status that are replicated in the

classroom, particularly through the diminished expectations of students from

lower socioeconomic backgrounds. For Freire, accepting that the classroom is

not a neutral space does not mean that it should become one where a single

political ideology reigns supreme, a temptation for the Left just as much as for

the Right. Sokoloff writes, “The Left’s mistake, for Freire, has always been

their absolute conviction of their certainties, which makes them sectarian,

authoritarian and religious” (121). However, I wonder how this concern might

resonate with the framework put forth in the book. If we give central impor-

tance to hatred, rage, and revolt without more discussion of how and when they

might be most useful and their relationship to other normative concerns, is

there not a danger of their reification and the emergence of a new ideology?

Emotional and affective states are not synonymous with modes of think-

ing, even if they are highly influential in the process, and it seems like one of

the aspirations of the book was a transformed mode of thinking regarding

citizenship. Starting with the recognition of hatred and rage as motivating

forces, Sokoloff’s self-described utopian vision includes components of a

clearly identified political and economic enemy, coalitions emerging from

political identity claims, and a responsive political sphere, among others. Yet

the book presents these within a structure of parataxis, articulating a series of

observations rather than asserting causal or dependent relationships between

them. Such a structure makes it difficult to understand what is necessary to

achieve the mandate of confrontational citizenship Sokoloff desires.

A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics, by Matthew Slaboch.

Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018, 208 pp.

Reviewed by: Samuel Goldman, Political Science, George Washington University,

Washington, DC, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0090591718779002

In 2007, the artist Shepard Fairey created one of the iconic images of Barack

Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Based on a photo by a Reuters photog-

rapher, Fairey’s poster featured a silk-screened print of then-senator Obama,

boldly colored in red, white, and blue. Beneath Obama’s face, Fairey placed

the word PROGRESS.