Basics, Part 1c
Pedagogy is
the Revolutionary Instrument
“While the
problem of humanization has always, from an axiological [Axiology: The
philosophical study of value] point of view, been humankind's central
problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern. Concern for
humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an
ontological possibility but as an historical reality And as an individual
perceives the extent of dehumanization, he or she may ask if humanization is a
viable possibility. Within history in concrete, objective contexts, both
humanization and dehumanization are possibilities for a person as an
uncompleted being conscious of their incompletion.
“But while
both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives, only the first is
the people's vocation. This vocation is constantly negated, yet it is affirmed
by that very negation. It is thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression,
and the violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the
oppressed for freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost
humanity.”
Thus begins Chapter 1 of Paul
Freire’s masterpiece, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (attached).
This “Basics” course does explicitly
not introduce any so-called “tools of analysis”, or “dialectical materialism”. These
things are not specifically dealt with until the CU course on Philosophy and Religion.
But it is not the case that there is no philosophy in the “Basics” course. It
starts right here at the beginning, with Paulo Freire, and it is very profound
and very advanced.
Although he never professes
to be exclusively a Marxist, Paulo Freire is from the start of this book advocating
the recovery of lost humanity, which is the fundamental intention of Karl
Marx’s master-work, “Capital”.
Marx, by the way, was not a
“dialectical materialist”, or at least, not in the commonly-understood meaning of
that term. Marx’s understanding of the dialectical relationship between the
human subject and the objective material world corresponded exactly to the
following two paragraphs by Freire, from page 6 of the attached booklet:
“To present
this radical demand for the objective transformation of reality to combat
subjectivist immobility which would divert the recognition of oppression into
patient waiting for oppression to disappear by itself is not to dismiss the
role of subjectivity in the struggle to change structures. On the contrary one
cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity. Neither can exist without
the other, nor can they be dichotomized. The separation of objectivity from subjectivity,
the denial of the latter when analyzing reality or acting upon it, is
objectivism. On the other hand, the denial of objectivity in analysis or
action, resulting in a subjectivism which leads to solipsistic positions,
denies action itself by denying objective reality. Neither objectivism nor
subjectivism, nor yet psychologism is propounded here, but rather subjectivity
and objectivity in constant dialectical relationship.
“To deny the
importance of subjectivity in the process of transforming the world and history
is naive and simplistic. It is to admit the impossible: a world without people.
This objectivistic position is as ingenuous as that of subjectivism, which
postulates people without a world. World and human beings do not exist apart from
each other, they exist in constant interaction. Man does not espouse such a
dichotomy; nor does any other critical, realistic thinker. What Marx criticized
and scientifically destroyed was not subjectivity, but subjectivism and
psychologism. Just as objective social reality exists not by chance, but as the
product of human action, so it is not transformed by chance. If humankind
produce social reality (which in the "inversion of the praxis" turns
back upon them and conditions them), then transforming that reality is an
historical task, a task for humanity.”
These paragraphs assert that
there is no priority of the objective or
material world over the subjective human consciousness. Freire is highly
preoccupied with the subject-object relationship, and insists “that the
concrete situation which begets oppression must be transformed” (p.5). But the
people’s vocation is humanisation, says Freire. Transforming social reality is
an historical task – a task for humanity as the subjective, creative agent of its
own history. This is the first item business that we have before us as human
beings, and our “only effective instrument is a humanizing pedagogy.”
This last phrase comes from
the final paragraphs of Chapter 1 of “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, which are
here given in full:
“The struggle
begins with men's recognition that they have been destroyed. Propaganda,
management, manipulation - all arms of domination - cannot be the instruments
of their rehumanization. The only effective instrument is a humanizing pedagogy
in which the revolutionary leadership establishes a permanent relationship of
dialogue with the oppressed. In a humanizing pedagogy the method ceases to be
an instrument by which the teachers (in this instance, the revolutionary
leadership) can manipulate the students (in this instance, the oppressed),
because it expresses the consciousness of the students themselves.”
‘The method is, in fact, the external form of
consciousness manifest in acts, which takes on the fundamental property of
consciousness - its intentionality. The essence of consciousness is being with
the world, and this behavior is permanent and unavoidable. Accordingly
consciousness is in essence a 'way towards' something apart from itself outside
itself, which surrounds it and which it apprehends by means of its ideational
capacity Consciousness is thus by definition a method, in the most general
sense of the word. [Alvaro Vieira Pinto, from a work in preparation on the philosophy of
science.]’
“A
revolutionary leadership must accordingly practice co-intentional education.
Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both
Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality and thereby coming to
know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they
attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they
discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. In this way, the presence of
the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation will be what it should be:
not pseudo-participation, but committed involvement.”
Not only does this explain
the basis upon which the entire Communist University project been built. It is
also a fully-worked-out manual for day-to-day revolutionary practice. It tells
you, directly, what to do.
In the course of Freire’s
development of his argument and even in the few paragraphs quoted in this
introduction, above, Freire explains a great deal of philosophy, including the
subject and the object, and dialectics.
But he does so in a way that
is immediately linked to the practical way forward, and this is why Paulo
Freire’s writing serves as a better introduction to philosophy in our Basics
course than Engels would be, or “Dialego”, for that matter.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Paulo Freire,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970, Chapter 1.
·
A PDF file of the reading text is attached
·
To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
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