Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Review

Humanistic to a fault, Paulo Friede’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed aims to elucidate what he sees as the main undertaking of any revolutionary group: the education, and eventually liberation, of the people. This is for Friede not only the goal but the task sina qua none as revolutionaries. Importantly, the task must be carried out with the people, not for them. As he laments as the common failure of all-too-many revolutionaries:

They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change.

The liberation of the people is put forth as the object of education, and the very meaning of education is thus transformed. Liberation is the evolution from man as oppressed, as a being-for-others, to a being-for-himself. It requires a critical view of one’s position in life, a change from viewing the world as “it”, something to be passively accepted as a static precondition for life, to recognizing one’s existence as being-alongside-the-world, with the ability to change and form it. Contrary, the oppressed is one who is..

A person merely in the world, not with the world or with others; the [oppressed] individual is spectator, not re-creator.

Likewise, the oppressor is caught in the dynamic of conqueror, of oppressing and denying the life around him. In fact, this is the very definition of what it comes to be a man, to be successful, or to gain control of one’s life. It is defined in the power-dynamics to the other.

Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors.

Deeply inspiring far beyond its original context, Friede touches liberation and sets out the task for all of us to be carried out, for others just as much as for ourselves. To live humbly in conjunction with the people around us, recognizing and allowing them to be on their own conditions. Letting go of our need to imprint our own view on others, to conform them, and thus freeing ourselves from an existence defined by relations of power to others. To just be, for oneself, without the withdrawal that it so often implies. A noble task if there ever was one.

… This solidarity is born only when the leaders witness to it by their humble, loving, and courageous encounter with the people. Not all men and women have sufficient courage for this encounter - but when they avoid encounters they become inflexible and treat others as mere objects; instead of nurturing life, they kill life; instead of searching for life, they flee from it. And these are oppressor characteristics.