Thinking Lab. Experimenting with counter-pedagogies of cruelty

Abstract

The critics to forms of cruelty instilled in our society have reached a high degree of inte- rest, especially due to femicides and the consequent criticism of patriarchy. Although this can also extend to the problematic division of the species between animals, humans, and non-humans that focuses on suffering, a feeling reserved for the dignity of the human per- son. 

These moments of unnecessary and avoidable pain that we suffer as sentient beings, cha- llenge the academy to initiate or to deepen certain lines of inquiry weighing the effects of individual, social and cultural transformations. 

Motivated by the hypothesis that Rita Segato provides in a denouncing tone, which is that feminicides enroll in modes of transmission that respond to pedagogies of cruelty. During 2019, we made a proposal of extension entitled “Laboratory of thought: Counter-pedago- gies of cruelty. Body and experience.” 

From different trajectories and institutional insertions, we are in between the philosophical and pedagogical task, and we warn that the elaboration of counter-pedagogies of cruelty is only an incipient path, but with indications that account for the need of development. 

At the same time, we have the conviction that by addressing this thematic, in addition to recovering, expanding and advancing certain theoretical lines of research that we have been conducted, it also paves the way towards the construction of counter-pedagogies of cruelty, where the emphasis is placed in what happens to us, what it evokes or how certain readings affect us. Therefore, a counter-pedagogy of cruelty implies transformations in modes, per- haps the most instilled, of transmission. With these elements, we appreciate the university extension in continuous training as a clo- se, feasible and powerful option to support what has resulted in a “Thinking Laboratory.”