Critical Pedagogy and Jack the Giant Killer

One of my graduate students is taking a course in “Critical Pedagogy.”

The name does not reveal the true subject: it is the systematic assertion that teachers should devote all their in-class efforts to promoting revolution against the system, rather than teaching the assigned subject. What Jordan Peterson refers to as “cultural Marxism.”

My student cited a typical thesis in this subject: “Jack and the Beanstalk” told from the perspective of the giant.

Interesting, because I only recently saw the same trick in an assigned textbook for young learners: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” from the perspective of the wolf.

This reveals a core appeal of such ideological approaches. They make it easy to write a thesis. You just take any classic text, and do a “feminist view,” or a “Freudian view,” or a “structuralist view” or whatever. It is purely formulaic, mechanical. It takes no talent or insight; it is like filling in the blanks on a form.

It also explains why these ideological fads fade: after a while, you need a new ideology, or you run out of thesis topics. They come, they go, and no new knowledge nor insight into the works is generated.

The idea behind reading “Jack and the Beanstalk” from the giant’s point of view is no doubt to subvert cultural norms and show the violence inherent in the system. Jack, after all, is a murderer and a thief.

But this is working from the false assumption that Jack was ever considered a hero.

There is nothing new or transgressive about seeing an apparent villain in a fairy tale as a hero, as the suggested thesis topic does with the giant. This is the basic plot, for example, of “Beauty and the Beast.” “Rumpelstiltskin” hinges on an apparent hero turning out to be a villain. The tales school us in trying to see things from all perspectives.

We see an example in “Jack and the Beanstalk” itself. A pedlar trades five beans for Jack’s cow. We as listeners of course assume, as Jack’s mother does, that he is a con artist. But it turns out the beans really are magic. He was a good guy after all.

Is the tale prejudiced against giants?

Clearly not; the giant’s wife, the giantess, is a sympathetic character.

So it is obviously part of the original story that one is supposed to see things from the giant’s viewpoint as well as Jack’s. Jack’s moral position is meant to be ambiguous. He is a “trickster,” a figure familiar in folklore of all lands.

Why there are such stories, in all cultures, is an interesting issue. It might make a good thesis.

It might also make a good thesis to consider the moral questions raised. They are not simple. Is Jack justified in stealing because of his need? Is Jack justified because the giant is a cannibal? Is the giant’s wife betraying her husband, or is it her duty to protect a stranger? What determines the real value of a bean or a cow? On what grounds can we judge a voluntary exchange either fair or unfair? Is Jack justified by self-defense in killing the giant pursuing him? Even though the giant is trying to recover stolen property?

All fascinating questions, that the story is skillfully and deliberately raising.

All missed by this “critical pedagogy approach,” which comes at the tale from the novel and rigid perspective that the giant must be supposed to be right in whatever he does.

Because, hey, he is the giant, he is rich and powerful. And might apparently determines right.