The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

by James Lindsay

The blatantly religious tone is consistent throughout Freire’s work. For example, we have already mentioned Freire’s insistence that education should be about “learning to speak the word to proclaim the world,” which is the unique role of God in the Bible. Freire is quite explicit about this role being the role of the man who wishes to transform society according to Marxist Theory, though. Take the way he opens chapter 3 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he touches upon this subject specifically: As we attempt to analyze dialogue as a human phenomenon, we discover something which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instrument which makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constitutive elements. Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed—even in part—the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world. An unauthentic word, one which is unable to transform reality, results when dichotomy is imposed upon its constitutive elements. When a word is deprived of its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating “blah.” It becomes an empty word, one which cannot denounce the world, for denunciation is impossible without a commitment to transform, and th...