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 has recently been criticised for not
introducing any so-called “tools of analysis” or “dialectical materialism”. It
is true that these things are not specifically dealt with until the CU course
on Philosophy and Religion.
But it is not true 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 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”.
Marx’s understanding of the dialectical realationship between the human subject
and the objective material world corresponded exactly to these two paragraphs 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. 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.
