White pedagogy and the “imposed pleasure”. The disjunctive thinking of “cancel culture”

Abstract

Building on a heuristic and methodological approach based on problematicism, this paper aims to explore the dialectic between the multifaceted expressions of “cancel culture” and the (social and biological) function of educational experience, particularly in relation to contemporary modes of youth transgression. Specifically, the hypothesis suggests that education in recent decades has, through the subtly violent mechanisms of "white pedagogy," contributed to the dissemination of a culture that, while serving as a genuinely countercultural emancipatory device (Bertin) in vital conflict with the restrictive retrotopias that often constrain pedagogical reflection, has also imposed and prescribed the principle of pleasure and enjoyment. Consequently, “cancel culture” appears aligned with the epistemology of disjunctive thinking, which is deeply rooted in the metaphysical tradition of Western civilization and unconditionally subordinates instincts to a transcendent spirit, often with moralistic implications.