Philosophy and Religion, Part 8
Pedagogy
In the first sentence of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of The Oppressed” (attached, pleased find Chapter 1, or
use the link below) Freire “problematises” humanisation.
“...but
while both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives, only the
first is the people's vocation,” says Freire.
This immediately places Freire side-by-side with Karl Marx, where Marx
in the whole of “Capital”, and all his life, wanted to restore humanity to
itself.
Or again, as in the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, where Marx
wrote:
“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the
chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy
or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living
flower.”
Here, on page 3 of Chapter One of the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, is
Freire’s answer to “Dialectical Materialism”:
“… 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.
Neither objectivism nor
subjectivism but rather subjectivity and objectivity in constant dialectical
relationship: this could serve as a one-sentence summary of our course on Philosophy
and Religion. Freire goes on, while explicitly embracing his connection with
Marx:
“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.”
The significance of the Subject in Freire’s theoretical scheme is clear
all the way through and is demonstrated by these words from the last paragraph
of his Chapter 1:
“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.”
The Communists, in their own minds and in their intentions, seek to
educate, organise and mobilise, not so as to command the working class and the
general masses, but to set them free.
The problem of how to do so is exactly the problem that Freire addresses
in “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” It requires the formulation quoted above: “World and human beings do not exist apart
from each other, they exist in constant interaction.” Nowhere does Freire
refer to materialism, whether dialectical or otherwise. He writes about
leadership and people both being Subjects, and co-intent on reality.
This is the interface that gives meaning to both education and to
politics, and it is rooted in philosophy.
We are talking of revolutionary pedagogy. We are talking here of
teaching with a purpose and a reason that anyone can understand (i.e. “intentionality”)
– especially the students. We are talking of liberation. In South Africa, this
is called “people’s education for people’s power”.
In the next chapter we will dwell upon the dreadful mistakes that can be
made if we fall into the errors of what Freire calls “the banking theory of
education”.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Pedagogy of The Oppressed,
Chapter 1, 1970, Freire.
