Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Paulo Freire

the duality

without freedom they cannot exist authentically.

although they desire authentic existence,...

The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world.

their education must take into account.

the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged with, not for, the oppressed

this pedagogy will be made and remade.

The central problem is this: How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?

The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.

the solution of this contradiction is born in the labor which brings into the world this new being: no longer oppressor nor longer oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom.

cannot be achieved in idealistic terms.

they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting si...

The oppressed can overcome the contradiction in which they are caught only when this perception enlists them in the struggle to free themselves.

Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed.

Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture.

The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor—when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love.

To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.

the concrete situation which begets oppression must be transformed.

On the contrary, one cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity.

The separation of objectivity from subjectivity, the denial of the latter when analyzing reality or acting upon it, is objectivism.

the denial of objectivity in analysis or action, resulting in a subjectivism which leads to solipsistic positions, denies action ...

To deny the importance of subjectivity in the process of transforming the world and history is naive and simplistic.

World and human beings do not exist apart from each other, they exist in constant interaction.

One of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings’ consiousness.

Hay que hacer al opresión real todavía mas opresiva añadiendo a aquella la conciéncia de la opresión haciendo la infamia todavía mas infamante, al pregonarla.

Making “real oppression more oppressive still by adding to it the realization of oppression” corresponds to the dialectical relation between the subjective and the objective.

To achieve this goal, the oppressed must confront reality critically, simultaneously objectifying and acting upon that reality. A mere perception of real-ity not followed by this critical intervention will not lead to a transformation of objective reality—precisely because it is not a true perception.

A fact which is not denied but whose truths are rationalized loses its objective base. It ceases to be concrete and becomes a myth created in defense of the class of the perceiver.

The oppressor knows full well that this intervention would not be to his interest.

il doit, pour employer les mots de Marx, expliquer aux masses leur propre action non seulement afin d’assurer la continuité des expériences révolutionnaires du prolétariat, mais aussi d’activer consciemment le développement ultérieur de ces expériences.8

“To explain to the masses their own action” is to clarify and illuminate that action, both regarding its relationship to the objective facts by which it was prompted, and regarding its purposes.

There would be no human action if there were no objective reality, no world to be the “not I” of the person and to challenge them; just as there would be no human action if humankind were not a “project,” if he or she were not able to transcend himself or herself, if one were not able to perceive reality and understand it in order to transform it.

world and action are intimately interdependent. But action is human only when it is not merely an occupation but also a preoccupation, that is, when it is not dichotomized from reflection.

no reality transforms itself,9 and the duty which Lukács ascribes to the revolutionary party of “explaining to the masses their own action” coincides with our affirmation of the need for the critical intervention of the people in reality through the praxis.

The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.

authentic, humanist (not humanitarian) generosity,

pedagogy of humankind.

Pedagogy which begins with the egoistic interests of the oppressors (an egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism) and makes of the oppressed the objects of its humanita...

the pedagogy of the oppressed cannot be developed or practiced by the oppressors. It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but ...

But if the implementation of a liberating education requires politi-cal power and the oppressed have none, how then is it possible to carry out the pedago...

One aspect of the reply is to be found in the distinction between systematic education, which can only be changed by political power, and educational projects, which should be carried out with the oppressed in the process of organizing them.

two distinct stages.

the oppressed unveil the world of oppression and through the praxis commit themselves to its transformation.

this pedagogy ceases to belong to the oppressed and becomes a pedagogy of all people in the proc...

In the first stage this confrontation occurs through the change in the way the oppressed perceive the world of oppression; in the second stage, through the expulsion of the myths created and developed in the old order, which like specters haunt the new structure emerging from the revolutionary transformation.

must deal with the problem of the oppressed consciousness and the oppressor consciousness, the problem of men and women who oppress and men and women who suffer oppression.

A particular problem is the duality of the oppressed: they are contradictory, divided beings, shaped by and existing in a concrete ...

Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as op-pressed?

There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation.

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons—not by those who are oppr...