This blogpost is for preparing and documenting my session at the upcoming OERcamp.global 2025.

I am now going to explain the key terms in the title:

1. What is Open Education?
2. What is fascism?
3. How can Open Education contribute to resisting fascist tendencies in education and in society at large?

Let’s start with the first question.

I have been involved in the Open Education movement for around 15 years, mostly focusing on higher education. Throughout this time, I have continued to wonder what the term ‚open education‘ means in different contexts, such as content, practices, infrastructures and metadata. While Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined as „(…) learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others“, other variants are more challenging to describe. In particular, the notion of Open Educational Practices (OEP) has proved resistant to reaching a consensus for a considerable period of time. Despite numerous attempts by academics, OEP has different connotations, depending on the context or people you are talking to. When it comes to AI, openness has been attributed to being responsible, democratic governance, and as a general leverage to Empower the Implementation of OER and the UNESCO OER Recommendation. As Widder, West, and Whittaker argue „(…) the terms ‘open’ and ‘open source’ are used in confusing and diverse ways, often constituting more aspiration or marketing than technical descriptor, and frequently blending concepts from both open source software and open science“. For those of us who have participated long enough in the open movement, the term „openwashing“ sounds very familiar, i.e., the practice of pretending for products or initiatives to be much more open than they actually are because Openness carries strong positive associations. One of such examples refers to the company responsible for the development of ChatGPT, OpenAI, which does not in fact constitute an open AI model, notwithstanding the name of the company.

So, what can we do about it?

If we want to make sure that movements for openness can resist authoritarian or fascist regimes, I think we need to strengthen the core. So, when I say that, I’m talking about the basic ideas about education, what it is worth, and what it is there for in society.

Together with my colleague Rob Farrow I have written about Open Education as Bildung. in order to provide a solid philosophical underpinning. In this period, there was a lack of imagination regarding potential developments, such as techno-fascism, which would fundamentally challenge the fundamental principles of education and its implementation through technological means.

Emerging from the Enlightenment in the eighteenth-century in the attempt to separate science from religion, Bildung emphasizes the unrestricted interplay between individuals and the world, enabling authentic self-realization through engagement with diverse perspectives and challenging experiences. It inherently opposes homogeneity, closed systems, and the reduction of learners to passive consumers. Unfortunately, Bildung is not confined to good and just ends. In contrast, it is open to its opposite, a concept termed Dark Enlightenment, which provides a fertile ground for fascism.

This brings us to the second question: What is fascism?

Fascism is a historical phenomenon that can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s, with notable occurrences in Italy and Germany. The term may also be defined as an ideology that aims to mitigate the impact of contemporary capitalism. Fascism must not be considered as a deviation from capitalism; rather, it should be regarded as an unveiling of the domination character inherent in the capitalist system. The emergence of fascism can be understood as a response to the crisis tendencies that are an inherent feature of capitalism. In this regard, techno-fascism can be regarded as the contemporary manifestation of such a crisis, specifically within the context of digital capitalism.

Techno-fascism contains several characteristics, most notably the belief that technological development follows inexorable laws that supersede democratic deliberation. Consequently, individuals with expertise in the field of technology, such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel or Marc Andreessen, are best positioned to determine the optimal utilization of technological advancements for the benefit of society.

In her recently published book Empires of AI, Karen Hao argues that superiority is not a recent phenomenon for our modern society obsessed with technological innovation, but is in fact much older:

Over the years, I’ve found only one metaphor that encapsulates the nature of what these AI power players [e.g., Open AI] are: empires. During the long era of European colonialism, empires seized and extracted resources that were not their own and exploited the labor of the people they subjugated to mine, cultivate, and refine those resources for the empires’ enrichment. They projected racist, dehumanizing ideas of their own superiority and modernity to justify—and even entice the conquered into accepting—the invasion of sovereignty, the theft, and the subjugation. They justified their quest for power by the need to compete with other empires: In an arms race, all bets are off. All this ultimately served to entrench each empire’s power and to drive its expansion and progress. In the simplest terms, empires amassed extraordinary riches across space and time, through imposing a colonial world order, at great expense to everyone else.

As early as the 1990s, critics warned we were „headed for technofascism“, observing Silicon Valley’s worship of male power as „reminiscent of the early celebrants of Euro-fascism from the 1930s.“ What appeared then as reactionary tendencies has now crystallized into a coherent authoritarian formation. Besides technological determinism, there is a second element, which contributes to techno-fascism: Metapolitics: a battle for cultural influence and ideas. The goal is to obtain cultural hegemony in a Gramscian sense, i.e. a prerequisite to establish new political order. Therefore, metapolitical work aims to normalize an anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian worldview that is fundamental to techno-fascism.

It is evident that the discourse surrounding techno-fascism is designed to discredit liberal concepts such as Bildung, which serves as a foundational principle for liberal institutions.

From the perspective of Bildung, the Dark Enlightenment’s rhetoric of „awaking“ represents a perversion of educational ideals such as gaining new knowledge about oneself and the nature of society.

The metaphor of the ‚red pill‘, borrowed from the popular film The Matrix, is employed to suggest precisely such a state of enlightenment or revelation. The red-pilled individual becomes aware that what was previously held to be fundamental values, such as equality, diversity, progress and social justice, are in fact a heresy. There is a powerful elite also known as „The Cathedral“ that controls the believe systems of the society. „The Cathedral“ has been introduced by the controversial blogger and self-proclaimed Neo-Monarchist Curtis Yarvin, as the nexus of educational, media, and nonprofit organizations that he believes sets the tenor for discourse.

(Red pills, my picture from the exhibition Global Fascisms.)

As I noted in the previous section, from a Bildung perspective, this represents the opposite of education disguised as enlightenment. Rather than facilitating ongoing critical reflection and exposure to diverse perspectives, red pilling stifles inquiry, substituting the arduous task of education with a singular „revelation“ that promises certainty once and for all. The concept of the „red pill“ has emerged as a notable phenomenon within the context of online political culture, serving to unify diverse groups (including libertarians, paleoconservatives, white nationalists, and anti-feminists) through a common sentiment of opposition to liberal democratic norms and institutions.

The combination of the ideological framework of ‚technological determinism‘ with the substantial wealth accumulated by tech oligarchs and their pronounced anti-democratic stance is what engenders the peril of techno-fascism. During the inauguration ceremony of US President Trump in January 2025, this alignment was clearly observable.

So, in what manner might Open Education offer a solution to the present dilemma?

It is my conviction that Open Education can serve as a vital tool to resist techno-fascist formations. Yet, this requires us to reclaim and radicalize the emancipatory potential of openness while avoiding its cultural appropriation. More precisely, we need to move from technological determinism to democratic sovereignty. As the incident of Twitter has demonstrated, there are alternatives to proprietary platforms controlled by ultra richt tech oligarchs. It is evident that Open Education is especially prone to open and sovereign infrastructures. By limiting the power of tech moguls and utilizing decentralized systems in education, we can also demystify claims of technological superiority. As this is often coupled with reactionary beliefs about the nature of society, we can perform anti-fascist educational work.

It is crucial to integrate decentralized open infrastructure with a belief system that challenges any form of technological determinism.

Open Education, understood as Bildung, is a potential counter-strategy to resist the rise of techno-fascism, i.e. the assertion of technological and economic elites that they possess comprehensive knowledge on how we learn and who is entitled to learn. Universities have long been regarded as traditional spaces where critical inquiry, uncomfortable questions and collective knowledge-building occur.

It is evident that the fundamental philosophy underpinning Open Education and the concept of Bildung is one that is characterized by an emancipatory promise. However, this promise extends beyond the mere accessibility of educational resources (OER), encompassing the utilization of technologies in a manner that deeply aligns with OER principles. Moreover, it calls for the imagination of future scenarios that are not predefined by the actions of tech-oligarchs.

Categories: Open Education

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