Exactly What I Was Saying
"Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in 'changing the conciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them,' for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated. To achieve this end, the oppressors use the banking concept (The concept that students are merely empy recepticals in which knowledge is dumped)of education in conjunction with a paternalistic social action apparatus, within which the oppressed receive the euphemistic title of "welfare recipients." They are treated as individual cases, as marginal persons who deviate from the general configuration of a 'good, organized, and just' society. The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society, which must therefore adjust these 'incompetent and lazy' fold to its own patterns by changing their mentality. These marginals need to be 'integrated,' 'incorporated' into the healthy society that they have 'forsaken.'"
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
on becoming a "being of oneself."
*Edited for ZOMG typos.
**Double Edit. Too good not to ammend.
"In a culture circle in Chile, a group was discussing the anthropological concept of culture. In the midst of the discussion, a peasant who by banking (see above) standards was completely ignorant said: "Now I see that without man there is no world." When the educator responded: "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the men on earth were to die, but that the earth itself remained, together with trees, birds, animals, rivers, seas, the stars...wouldn't all this be a world?" "Oh no," the peasant replied emphatically. "There would be no one to say: 'This is a world.'"
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
on becoming a "being of oneself."
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
on becoming a "being of oneself."
*Edited for ZOMG typos.
**Double Edit. Too good not to ammend.
"In a culture circle in Chile, a group was discussing the anthropological concept of culture. In the midst of the discussion, a peasant who by banking (see above) standards was completely ignorant said: "Now I see that without man there is no world." When the educator responded: "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the men on earth were to die, but that the earth itself remained, together with trees, birds, animals, rivers, seas, the stars...wouldn't all this be a world?" "Oh no," the peasant replied emphatically. "There would be no one to say: 'This is a world.'"
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
on becoming a "being of oneself."