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

by James Lindsay

Critical Marxist Herbert Marcuse, who wrote in 1969, Negative thinking draws whatever force it may have from its empirical basis: the actual human condition in the given society, and the “given” possibilities to transcend this condition, to enlarge the realm of freedom. In this sense, negative thinking is by virtue of its own internal concepts “positive”: oriented toward, and comprehending a future which is “contained” in the present. And in this containment (which is an important aspect of the general containment policy pursued by the established societies), the future appears as possible liberation. It is not the only alternative: the advent of a long period of “civilized” barbarism, with or without the nuclear destruction, is equally contained in the present. Negative thinking, and the praxis guided by it, is the positive and positing effort to prevent this utter negativity. (An Essay on Liberation, p. 89)