Pedagogy of the oppressed- chapter one part two, excerpts

Perhaps the most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century, Paulo Freire has been particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.

Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia). Freire was able to draw upon, and weave together, a number of strands of thinking about educational practice and liberation. Sometimes some rather excessive claims are made for his work e.g. 'the most significant educational thinker of the twentieth century'. He wasn't - John Dewey would probably take that honour - but Freire certainly made a number of important theoretical innovations that have had a considerable impact on the development of educational practice - and on informal education and popular education in particular. (viahttp://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm)

PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED

(translated by Myra Bergman Ramos - )

Chapter one, part two, excerpts

Any situation in which A objectively exploits B of hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to become more fully human. With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun.

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons- not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognized. It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves.

For the oppressors, “human beings” refers only to themselves; other people are “things”. For the oppressors, there exists only one right: their right to live in peace, over against the right, not always even recognized, but simply conceded, of the oppressed to survival. And they make this concession only because the existence of the oppressed is necessary to their own existence.

This behavior, this way of understanding the world and people is explained by their existence as a dominant class. Once a situation of violence and oppression has been established, it engenders an entire way of life and behavior for those caught up in it- oppressors and oppressed alike. Both are submerged in this situation, and both bear the marks of oppression.

The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into n object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time- everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal.

In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; hence their strictly materialistic conception of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more- always more- even t the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have and to be the class of the “haves”.

The oppressors do not perceive the monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own “effort”, with their “courage to take risks.” If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the “generous gestures” of the dominant class. Precisely because they are “ungrateful” and “envious”, the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched.

If the humanization of the oppressed signifies subversion, so also does their freedom; hence the necessity for constant control. And the more the oppressors control the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate “things”. This tendency of the oppressor consciousness to in-animate everything and everyone it encounters, in its eagerness to possess, unquestionably corresponds with a tendency to sadism.

“The pleasure in complete domination over another person (or other animate creature) is the very essence of the sadistic drive. Another way of formulating the same thought is to say that the aim of sadism is to transform a man into a thing, something animate into something inanimate, since by complete and absolute control the living loses one essential quality of life- freedom.” (Erich Fromm, “The heart of Man”, New York 1966)

Sadistic love is a perverted love- a love of death, not of life. One of the characteristics of the oppressor consciousness and its necrophilic view of the world is thus sadism. As the oppressor consciousness, in order to dominate tries to deter the drive to search, the restlessness and the creative power which characterize life, it kills life.

Given the preceding context, another issue of indubitable importance arises: the fact that certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation, thus moving from one pole of the contradiction to another. It happens, however, that as they cease to be exploiters or indifferent spectators or simply the heirs of exploitation and move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to think, to want and to know. Accordingly, these adherents to the people’s cause constantly run the risk of falling onto a type of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors. The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify that generosity. Our converts on the other hand, truly desire to transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust.

Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly. This conversion is so radical s not to allow of ambiguous behavior. To affirm this conversion but to consider oneself the proprietor of revolutionary wisdom – which must then be given to (or imposed on ) the people- is to retain the old ways. The convert who approaches the people but feels alarm at each step they take, each doubt they express and each suggestion they offer, and attempts to impose his “status”, remains nostalgic towards his origins.

The peasant begins to get courage to overcome his dependence when he realizes that he is dependent. Until then, he goes along with the boss and says “What can I do? I’m only a peasant.”
When superficially analyzed, this fatalism is sometimes interpreted as a docility that is a trait of national character. Fatalism in the guise of docility is the fruit of an historical and sociological situation, not an essential characteristic of a people’s behavior. It almost always is related to the power of destiny or fate or fortune – inevitable forces – or to a distorted view of God.
Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the “order” which serves the interests of the oppressor whose image they have internalized. Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their own comrades for the pettiest reasons.

“The colonized man will first manifest this aggressiveness which has been deposited in his bones gainst his own people. This is the period when the niggers beat each other up, and the police and magistrates do not know which way to turn when faced with the astonishing waves of crime in North Africa ” (Frantz Fanon- “The wretched of the earth”, New York, 1968)

It is possible that in this behavior they are once more manifesting their duality. Because the oppressor exists within their oppressed comrades, when they attack their comrades they are indirectly ttacking the oppressor as well.

On the other hand, at a certain point in their existential experience the oppressed feel an irresistible attraction towards the oppressors and their way of life. Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration. In their alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors, to imitate them to follow them. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the middle-class oppressed, who yearn to be equal to the “eminent” men and women of the upper class.

Self- depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them. So often do they hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything- that they are sick, lazy and unproductive – that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness.
They call themselves ignorant and say the “professor” is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen.

Almost never do they realize that they too “know things” they have learned in their relations with the world and with other women and men. Given the circumstances which have produced their duality, it is only natural to distrust themselves.

They have a diffuse, magical belief in the invulnerability and power of the oppressor. This total emotional dependence can lead the oppressed to what Fromm calls necrophilic behavior: the destruction of life- their own or that of their oppressed fellows.

It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection; only then will it be a praxis.