ABSTRACT
There is a long history of higher education taking on research funds and projects that serve the military-industrial complex, such projects were often hidden from public view. Neoliberalism and the spectacle of terror resonate with the entrenched spirit of Social Darwinism, while simultaneously impoverishing higher education and other public spheres that demand democratic modes of subjectivity and sociality. This chapter also discusses the aestheticization of human suffering in order to underscore what has shifted in the educational function of the broader culture since the aesthetics of depravity was conceptualized, and what educational issues are at stake in the emerging depravity of aesthetics. The chapter builds on the contemporary relationship between aesthetics and violence. Images of mind-crushing punishment and cruelty now provide the framework for establishing legislative practices among a group of right-wing extremists who are shaping policy in the United States.
