Reaction to Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed

In this book, Paolo Freire seeks to tackle the bulk of barriers to development, from the hegemonic (deeper than ideological) layer, helping to free the world’s oppressed from the shackles of oppression and underdevelopment, while re-humanizing all peoples. He presents his thoughts on how to re-engineer the educational system, and help organize societies in such a way as to transform oppressive structures. He is of the conviction his approach will yield a more equitable, caring, loving, and humane world, through action, co-creation, and partnership between the world’s ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’.

Freire discusses a muzzling trend in which people are caught up in a "culture of silence" that makes them assess their whole world through the nature and quality of their social relations. This socially constructed reality makes the illiterate or other oppressed person so changed that he/she is no longer a mere object responding to social stimuli. This miseducation postures people into unquestioningly imbibing and accepting the status quo, making them fail to deal critically and creatively with reality in ways that will enable them discover how to transform their worlds.

Man’s inhumanity towards man sets in motion a spiral of dehumanization, affecting both those whose humanity has been ravaged (the oppressed), and those who have stolen it (dominators), acutely denying both parties the chance to develop their humanity. The peasants gain a sense of alienation, resignation, fatalism, hopelessness, despondency, and dependence, kowtowing to the dictates of the dominator. They further develop a keen sense of self-depreciation and low self-esteem, coupled with a palpable impotency in improving their quality of life and life chances, through a process of internalization of the oppressors' opinions and negative affirmations towards the peasants. The objective of the oppressor’s consciousness is to dominate as such, liquidating the oppressed in the process. The oppressors see themselves only as ‘human beings’, and the oppressed as ‘things’ or mere chattels. Thus, they rule in such a way that changes everything into an object of domination, driven by a materialistic worldview which says that: "to be is to have, and to be the class of the haves.'"

This dependence and sense of powerlessness is only broken when the peasant gains a consciousness of his circumstances, and realizes his sorry state of dependence. They need to "perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform." In the constant clash between the dominator and the dominated, the stage is set at some point where change in both the oppressed and the oppressor becomes imminent. It is the task of the oppressed to cause a revolution to re-humanize both parties, but this change will be a bitter struggle, as the oppressor tries vainly to cling on to power.

Change must come from both sides. It is also the duty of the oppressed, when they regain power, not to pay the overthrown oppressors in their own coins, via dozes of oppression. It is time for the oppressed to humanize both sides. In Hegelian sense, a state of synthesis is reached when the antithetical positions between the two classes is resolved, by the emergence of a new kind of human being. This is achieved through a process of liberation in which people in communion (deep social relations, marked by fellow-feeling) liberate each other. The oppressor truly helps the oppressed only when he stops seeing them (oppressed) as mere cogs in the wheel of production, but as unique persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived, pillaged, and cheated. This requires an end to pious, individualistic gestures, and rather risking genuine acts of love.

There is a complication of the liberation process, where elements of the oppressors join in the struggle for liberation, by moving to the side of the exploited. Such elements join the liberation struggle with aspects of their inhuman psyche, and mistrusting the people's ability to think, to want, and to know. They pay mere lip service to their resolve to take charge of the liberation struggle. Restrictions are set in motion to avert the return of tyranny, and when those who were formerly oppressed create a new order where the rights and special advantages of the previous elites are no more, an even playing field emerges. Freire finds this situation as equitable, and not tantamount to reverse discrimination. To him a system that keeps the former oppressors from regaining their former pride of place, is "oppressive only when it prevents people from being more fully human”. Restraints that keep the former oppressors from regaining their former position and putting rigid old social structures back in place do not constitute oppression. However, a new order "hardens into a dominating bureaucracy, the humanist dimension of the struggle is lost, and it is no longer possible to speak of liberation."

Freire cautions against the emergence false generosity, in lieu of true generosity. False charity involves tokenism to the have-nots, but preserves the powers, rights and extends largesse towards the haves'. True generosity lies in social justice, and in creating conditions where all members of society are empowered and made capable of working and transforming their world. This calls for dialogue, in place of monologue, in the development agenda. It calls also for the participation of the oppressed in determining the pathways to their destiny and development. People can only be liberated with their reflective participation in the act of liberation.

The main thrust of Freire’s prescription for curing the system of its mischief of dependence and underdevelopment rests on transforming the educational system, from one of asymmetry

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