Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Epistemologies: Pedagogies of Ignorance and the Production of Political, Cultural, and Biological Bodies

• In Event: Pushing the Curriculum Boundaries in Authoritarian Educational Times

Abstract

We critically examine how ignorance functions as a pedagogical tool in the post-truth era, where misinformation is deliberately produced, circulated, and monetized. Drawing from Charles Mills’ concept of racialized ignorance and feminist epistemologies (Haraway, 1991; Tuana, 2006), we trace how ignorance is operationalized across the body biologic, culturalistic, and politic. Using bricolage and anti-methodological approaches, we interpret digital, cultural, and political texts from corporate and government websites and platforms like YouTube, Telegram, and BitChute, showing how epistemic nihilism and strategic incoherence destabilize public discourses. We argue that ignorance serves diseducative, depoliticizing, and necropolitical ends—structuring not only what can be known, but also who gets to live meaningfully. We offer a critical framework for resisting ignorance as a governing logic.

Authors

• Erik L. Malewski, Kennesaw State University

• Jennifer April Sandlin, Arizona State University

• Jake Burdick, Purdue University