ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the critical step of remembrance required to understanding how debates and the democratic idea of ‘the public’ and the ‘will of the public’ have become manipulated and undermined through deception, lies and a disregard for ‘truth’ or ‘validity’ in the production of ‘facts’ and ‘evidence’. It explains the implications for ‘truth’, ‘validity’ and ‘objectivity’ when neoliberal and neoconservative philosophies treat the values of a liberal. The book shows how radical research approaches can put ‘power out of joint’ and how education can create the conditions for people to organise their powers through a logic of freedom and equality. It addresses the question of what can be done by exploring the histories, describing the current state of affairs, undoing the knots of discourses, deconstructing the apparently fixed and natural forms of social life as it is.
