autodidacte médical
17th April 2007, 01:30
Greetings comrades, I am currently re-reading Paulo Freire's Pedagogy Of The Oppressed and would like to share and discuss a few quotes from the first chapter.
"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 the other. Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been so throughout the history of this struggle. 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 into a type of of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors."
"The man or women who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived. 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."
"Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the "order" which serves the interests of the oppressors whos 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 of reasons.
It is possible that in this behavior they at once manifesting their duality. Because the oppressor exist within their oppressed comrades, when they attack those comrades they are indirectly attacking the oppressor aswell.
On the other hand, at a certain point in their existential experience the opressed feel a 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."
"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 the other. Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been so throughout the history of this struggle. 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 into a type of of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors."
"The man or women who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived. 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."
"Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the "order" which serves the interests of the oppressors whos 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 of reasons.
It is possible that in this behavior they at once manifesting their duality. Because the oppressor exist within their oppressed comrades, when they attack those comrades they are indirectly attacking the oppressor aswell.
On the other hand, at a certain point in their existential experience the opressed feel a 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."