Marxism After Marx: Critical Consciousness and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed

paulo freires seminal work pedagogy of the oppressed radically altered the way many people think about education for the left it continues to be a guiding text on politicization and the development of critical thinking though one video is incapable of doing ferrari's ideas justice we will nevertheless take the time to look over some of the major concepts frary contributed in his brief but powerful analysis of education and class consciousness to begin with let's reflect on the concept of conscientious assault conscientious assault refers to learning to perceive social political and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality sometimes translated as critical consciousness in english the central concept reflects fairy's insistence on the interconnectedness of theory and practice developing critical consciousness for freyre is not just about learning how to ask the right questions it is equally about applying one's findings to alter material and social circumstances naturally achieving critical consciousness and facilitating its development in others is one of the primary focuses if not the primary focus of revolutionary movements it is no coincidence that this primary focus is also among the most difficult tasks to accomplish the path to critical consciousness is necessarily emancipatory which carries a number of meanings first it means that critical consciousness cannot be imparted from one individual to another as a unidirectional and pseudo-charitable act it also means that the individual working to develop critical consciousness must actively want to engage in an emancipatory practice but this can be challenging because as ferry writes freedom can be a daunting concept at the heart of frereri's argument is the idea of liberation as a humanizing process this establishes a clear goal for humanity a narrative of the human struggle for freedom those social forces that limit or regress the struggle for emancipation are characterized by fairy as dehumanizing what is especially interesting in fairy's perspective is that the act of oppression is dehumanizing not only for the oppressed but for the oppressors in oppressing others the oppressors engender in themselves violence which strips them of their humanity the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is then to liberate themselves and the oppressors as well oppressive social formations are powerful not only in their capacity to physically subjugate the oppressed they are also powerful because they condition and shape the psyche of both the oppressors and the oppressed this is manifested in the oppressed in their attempts at emancipation ferry writes that the very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete existential situation by which they were shaped their ideal is to be men but for them to be men is to be oppressors implicitly even the oppressed value oppression because it's all they know it's their lived experience breaking free of this mode of thinking is one of the obstacles in achieving emancipation the oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being they discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically yet although they desire authentic existence they fear it they are at one and at the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized this is where pharah introduces the so-called pedagogy of the oppressed pedagogy which refers to the theory and practice of teaching must break the duality of the oppressed and deliver critical consciousness but it cannot authentically do so without being developed with not for the oppressed in other words critical consciousness cannot be dictated from one person to another what is needed is a critical pedagogy one that departs from the socially ingrained oppressor oppressed dynamic frairy recognizes that the way we impart knowledge is very much a reflection of the top-down social relations of an oppressive society he calls the conventional method of teaching the banking concept of education in this method there are clearly defined teacher and student roles the teacher is seen as holding all of the knowledge and throughout a series of lessons deposits this knowledge into the student as if depositing something into a bank the teacher is the depositor while the student is the receiver the student is assumed to hold no knowledge of their own frerry elaborates on this saying it is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable manageable beings the more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world the more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them frere challenges the educational method with what he calls libertarian education he argues that education must begin with the solution of the teacher's student contradiction by reconciling the polls of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students problem-posing education which ferrara uses somewhat interchangeably with libertarian education breaks with the vertical pattern characteristic of banking education to begin with problem posing education acknowledges that learning occurs collectively that both the educator and the student are learning and teaching simultaneously in this sense both are active and neither is passive in the learning process problem posing education also asserts that the student is not an empty bank waiting to be filled but a holder of knowledge as well ferry draws on his experience of collective learning in latin america where revolutionary activists went out into communities to practice libertarian education instead of arriving with a suitcase full of jargon and didactic rhetoric the educators carefully studied the communities learning sessions were driven by the community members who remarked on the real problems and observations accumulated through their lived experiences the role of the educators was to eventually facilitate these discussions by posing problems hence the term problem posing education the problems helped frame the discourse and facilitated a critical evaluation of the topic at hand this was neither a smooth nor perfect process members of the community were often hesitant to make assertive claims due to their own insecurities having internalized the role of empty receivers many were cautious and instinctively waited on the facilitator to deposit information overtly political topics were touchy as well the learners found that in not having engaged their creative capacities to think beyond the confines of their socio-political realities it was difficult to even begin successful collective learning included what fairy calls thematic investigations and perpetual decoding in short the group deconstructed the world around them and meditated on each element together this continuous dialogue demonstrated the horizontality of libertarian education in contrast with the banking model dialogue is paramount in ferry's critical pedagogy dialogical interaction between the educator and the people stood in contrast to the anti-dialogics exemplified in the banking model apart from its inherent fluidity and interconnectivity prairie distinguished dialogics from anti-dialogics in its manifestation of the unity of theory and practice as freyry put it the sacrifice of action is verbalism whereas the sacrifice of reflection is activism libertarian education being dialogical in nature must embrace both thought and action dialogical activity seeks transformation of the world and reflects that objective in its deconstruction of the vertical relationship in the conventional method of learning by contrast anti-dialogical activity implicitly and at times explicitly rejects transformative projects or at least limits them freyri describes the theory of oppressive action as anti-dialogical the oppressors are concerned with various means by which to subjugate the oppressed among these are conquest divide and rule manipulation and cultural invasion freyri argues that once a situation of oppression has been initiated anti-dialogue becomes indispensable to its preservation the oppressors use a variety of ideological tools many of which we are familiar with to ensure that they maintain the social hierarchy frairy gives a list of some of the myths that the oppressors deposit into society to legitimize and sanctify oppression the myth that the oppressive order is a free society the myth that all persons are free to work where they wish that if they don't like their boss they can leave him and look for another job the myth that this order respects human rights and is therefore worth of esteem the myth that anyone who is industrious can become an entrepreneur worse yet the myth that the street vendor is as much an entrepreneur as the owner of a large factory the myth of private property as fundamental to personal human development as long as oppressors are the only true human beings the myth of the industriousness of the oppressors and the laziness and the dishonesty of the oppressed as well as the myth of the natural inferiority of the latter and the superiority of the former ferrari's work shines a light on several problems for the contemporary left the first is the absence of humility as a fundamental element of dialogical action libertarian education requires that knowledge is not directed at people but rather developed with them in this sense the question of converting the masses to correct ideology are misguided and cling in fairy's terms to the anti-dialogical arrogance of the banker clerk developing critical consciousness requires a collective and horizontal commitment a dialogue that may be facilitated by the educator but not in any capacity dictated challenging the banking method of education goes beyond interacting with the people even internally many on the left enter discourse with others with the intention of conversion or persuasion both interlocutors fashion themselves as the teachers wishing to impart their truth rarely do both individuals take on the teacher-student role and become learners concurrently in beginning to practice the elements of libertarian education internally and in developing dialogical principles of action the left may eventually teach itself how to help generate critical consciousness beyond its confines freyra is abundantly clear in warning us that even a revolutionary claiming to be aligned with the people may regress towards or preserve anti-dialogical tendencies a revolutionary theory of action fairy says can only be built through the encounter of the people with the revolutionary leaders based on dialogically derived praxis that brings us to the end of this video thank you all for watching and a special thanks to everyone who continues to support this project on patreon and beyond we will leave you once again with the quote from marx perhaps more topical here than in any previous video the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point is to change it

Channel: The Marxist Project

Views: 4,080

Rating: 4.9471364 out of 5

Keywords: paulo freire, critical pedagogy, marxism, marx, socialism, communism, pedagogy of the oppressed, education, historical materialism, dialectics, dialogics

Id: flKw98LQi3c

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/MarxistPCUSA]

This is such an under considered subject that I'm glad this video goes in to. Nothing can quite do the book justice but this broke it down excellently.

[u/princess420blaze]

Most important book to be written in Brazil!