Democratic Education in an Armed Society

Democratic Education in an Armed Society: Learning to Live with Guns examines the points of intersection between school gun violence and democratic education. Samantha Deane explores the connection between how we teach children to think of themselves as democratic actors and the unceasing plague of gun violence. Juxtaposing two images of political agency, Deane connects an essentialized view of humans as masters of themselves, objects, and history with discourses that aim to train individuals to be autonomous and rational users of objects like guns. This liberal view gives us no way to think about how objects, narratives, and norms contour the selves we claim to be. Deane suggests that we must learn to attend to the ways in which our ability to act in the world is shared and distributed. In a society shot through with guns and enamored with individualism, the future of associational life depends on whether we learn to do democracy with the objects we hold dear.