The Radical Child

Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition by Paulo Freire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I considered myself far-right before I was registered to vote and voted in elections, I had doubts given the alarmism of conservative journalists like Robert Novak and the toxicity of Republicans in general--particularly their overreactions to leftist slander and propagating it instead of just ignoring it or biting back, forgetting it's their constitutional right to say things like that. In recent years, I've looked into classical philosophers, finding that most of my favorite quotes were actually spoken by leftists and even socialists like Karl Marx. Another one I looked into is Paulo Freire, whose magnum opus Pedagogy of the Oppressed I gave a gander, as I am of an "oppressed" group (autistics), and whose quote, "The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors," really resounded in me and has occurred countlessly in history with nations like America and Soviet Russia.

The 50th anniversary edition, penned by Donaldo Macedo, takes numerous shots at the "Far Right"--though most leftist American politicians use this label on those even slightly to the right of them--but he does denounce many leftists falling prey to consumerism and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren boasting about her indigenous heritage. He elaborates on Paulo Freire's life, but suggests it's bad to not teach children they're being oppressed, which figures into modern Woke indoctrination. Macedo rightfully notes how the Red Cross did nothing for Haitians devastated by natural disasters, mentions collateral damage in war, and concludes by saying that leftist and rightist educators conceal their consumerism.

Freire's preface denounces sectarianism, being too attached to sects or parties, especially religions, and says that Christians and Marxists would disagree with him, the philosopher himself being a Christian socialist. Both the Left and the Right are guilty of sectarianism, with liberation being a task for radicals.

Freire says that the oppressed must liberate themselves and their oppressors, although their fear of freedom and division often divides them, both oppressed and oppressors sometimes being in solidarity. Pedagogy is humanist and libertarian, with liberation having two stages: unveiling the world of oppression, and then making liberation a pedagogy of all. The oppressors often dehumanize others and in turn themselves, with real humanists being more identified by their trust in people than a thousand actions without trust. At all stages, the oppressed must see themselves as fully human.

He elaborates on the concept of banking education, which gives knowledge to people assumed to know nothing. Oppressors try to be humanitarian to dominate, human life holds meaning through communication, and oppression can be necrophilic. Education should be the practice of freedom, with problem-posing education basing itself on creativity. Trying to be more human, however, can result in a bigger ego and sense of dehumanization.

Freire states that dialogue is a human phenomenon, idle chatter becoming verbalism, an “alienating blah.” Dialogue needs humility, founding itself as well upon love and faith, becoming a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between coversers is the logical consequence. Only critically-thought dialogue requires critical thinking, without which there is no communication, without which there can be no true education. Educators and politicians often don’t adapt their language to the situations of the people that they address. Epochs are characterized by complex ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values, and challenges when people interact with their opposites. People need to split coded situations, thematic investigators fearing change and believing it death, and codifications must represent real-life situations.

Animals are immersed in the world, with human activity being a praxis, a transformation of the world, revolutionary leaders devitalizing if they don’t think like others. The myth of absoluting ignorance implies the existence of people who decree others’ ignorance.



Freire proceeds to discuss the theories of antidialogical and dialogical action, the first being conquest, where antidialogical individuals try to conquer the oppressed.

The second is divide and rule, where oppressors divide minorities, the oppressors not favoring promoting communities as a whole but rather selected leaders. In addition, the oppressed know from experience the price of not accepting invitations offered with the purpose of preventing their unity as a class--losing their jobs and finding their names on a blacklist, where signifying closed doors to other jobs is the least that can happen. A psychoanalysis of oppressive action might reveal the false generosity of oppressors as a dimension of their sense of guilt, with which they attempt not only to preserve an unjust and necrophilic order but to buy peace for themself.

The third is manipulation, where the dominant elites try to conform the masses to their objectives. The greater the political immaturity of the oppressed, rural or urban, the more easily they can be manipulated by elites who do not wish to lose their power. One form is to give individuals the bourgeois appetite for personal success.

The fourth is cultural invasion, which, like divisive tactics and manipulation also serves the ends of conquest. Here, the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, disrespecting the latter’s potentialities. They impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression. Many well-intentioned professionals find their educational failures ascribed to their own violent “invasions” that can border on dehumanizing. A good determination of a developing society is that it is “being for itself.” Revolutionary leaders require their people’s adherence to carry out their uprisings. Revolutionary leaders differ from the dominant elite in not just objectives but procedures.

Freire proceeds to discuss subjects who conquer others and transforms them into “things,” cooperating to transform the world. He cites Ché Guevara and affirms that revolutions can love and create life.

Leaders must unite the oppressed as their oppressors keep them divided, and attempts to unify them based on activist slogans just juxtaposes individuals.

In antidialogical action, manipulation helps conquest and domination, whereas in dialogical, the organization of people does the exact opposite.

Cultural action is always systematic and deliberate, operating on social structure either to preserve that structure or transform it. In cultural synthesis, one can resolve the contradiction between the worldview of leaders and that of their people to benefit both. Oppressors elaborate their action without their people and stand against them. However, people that internalize the images of their oppressors construct the theory of their liberating action. Only by encountering revolutionary leaders, in communion, can people build their cultural synthesis.

The afterward notes that Freire helped advance democratic movement in Brazil, teaching illiterates to read and write in only forty hours of inexpensive instruction, Freire considering critical education in schools or social movements intellectually demanding and politically risky.

The 50th anniversary edition proceeds to various modern philosophers answering various questions about how modern schools based on Freire's philosophy would look, including Noam Chomsky, who believed that instruction should reject the notion of education as pouring water into vessels in favor of engaging students in active quests for understanding in faculty-student cooperative environments. Others such as Valerie Kinloch say that such schools would include open spaces for people to analyze current events and examine ways to combat oppression and inequality to dismantle racism, classism, sexism, inequality, and capitalism. Some like Peter McLaren complain about white supremacy, and Margo Okazawa-Rey say that neoliberalism and conservatism have engulfed colleges, but the reverse applies today given modern university indoctrination and suppression of campus speech, hence the oppressed becoming oppressors.

The 50th anniversary edition concludes with the foreword to the original version, focusing on the 1929 United States stock market crash that affected the world, Brazil included, with Freire's methods being alien at the time.

All in all, I enjoyed this book, even if the introduction was a bit off-putting at times (though it was fair and balanced), and Freire's philosophy really resonates with me as an autistic. His warning about the oppressed becoming oppressors definitely applies in the modern world, with many fringe groups seeking to force the general population to comply to their will and values--exacerbated by the Woke movement--but the oppressors and those who are genuinely oppressed (not those gaslit into believing they are) definitely need to communicate effectively, with bad dialogue being still the worst problem in the modern world. Overall, highly recommended read.

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Sorry I haven't been posting a lot, since I've been way too distracted from the PTSD I received from living with toxic immediate family for forty years, and while moving into my new apartment has been an improvement, I'm still too distracted mentally to have been able to do some actual organization (for instance, my computer desk is still a really hot mess).

Anyway, here's a lot of the stuff I had made for British Imperial Civil War Day a few days ago, more commonly referred to as US Independence Day.

First of all...



I designed this as an alternate American flag to me symbolizes imperialism (i.e. the whole "the more states it gets, the more stars it gets" thing, and I think most American "values" like hypocrisy, wastefulness, playing Judas Iscariot to its allies, and so forth, are very perverted. I call it "Die Englischweiz" since I combined elements from the English and Swiss flags. The upper-left part symbolizes the states and the others the three branches of the US government, with all keeping one another in check.

I had mentioned before on DeviantArt in a user's Deviation about my suggestion that "America the Beautiful" be the national anthem instead of "The Star-Spangled Banner" since the latter to me is a bit idolatrous, given the whole flag-worship thing, and Francis Scott Key was a slave-owner what wrote it in a slave state, and the lyrics are actually really dumb (and without the music, it sounds like a stupid conversation).

A guy responded that God shouldn't be mentioned in the national anthem, but I disagreed, as countries that are less religious like Canada mention God and theirs, and The Netherlands has a majority irreligious population, yet this is their national anthem:



I think it's pretty fucking awesome, the lyrics are really beautiful, and it semi sounds like the story of my life.

I had also written and read this sonnet and read it at my town's Creative Space a few days ago:



It was partially inspired by this editorial. Given the author and site's ideology, that really says a ton.

On that note, I did this as well:



It sickens me that the Woke and BLM crowds don't bitch about this or things like the Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears and focus exclusively on the War for Southern Independence when focusing on historical racism in the United States. I actually believe Karl Marx was a way better philosopher and think "To each according to his own ability, to each according to his own needs" is my ideal economy, and I think it can coexist with capitalism (and it does semi do in the form of social market economy).

I know people say that American is a Christian nation with Christian values, but I disagree, since most of the Founders were actually deists, which is very far from the same thing as "Christian," so I did these as well since I think American and Christian values are very incompatible:



I think in the second image the last two are cases of taking God's name in vain, but at least Ashcroft wasn't a dick about it, and I definitely respect that.

Finally, this:



I think it would have been for the far better since I honestly think the world is a way worse place because of us, given our constant treachery like laying waste to the Confederacy and other nations like North Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, backstabbing the Soviets after the Second World War, and that Britain abolished slavery well before America, among other things.

I'm not anti-American, as I do believe the American people and its issues should come first before we even fucking begin to think of getting involved in the affairs of the rest of the world, I'm just very anti-Jeffersonian as I believe his philosophy is pure bullshit.

I think that America, or at least the United States of America, needs to fucking die and be replaced by a far less sucky form of government. I think a combination of things from other nations like a Federal Council instead of a single President (like Switzerland), a parliamentary system like Germany (and things like Gerrymandering, to the rest of the world redrawing legislative distracts to favor certain parties and candidates, are uniquely American), fucking term limits for everyone (like Mexico used to have, one term, no reelection) would work wonders. And a campaign finance "Prime Directive" so that people can't influence the elections of candidates they can't even fucking vote for all across the country.

I can't say "God bless America" since I don't think He would want to remotely consider doing so for a failed democracy like we have been and still are and instead want to inflict divine judgement on us.

That's my view, folks, love or hate it. Have a good Sunday if you can.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

4. Social media -- good or bad?



I think this quote from Mike Tyson somewhat sums up social media, especially in regards to politics.

I think the term “Pandora’s box” best describes it. I first had a Facebook, which I would deactivate last May due to it being partially instrumental in my losing my last paid full-time job, and when I did have it, I didn’t bother reading my friends feed due to politics and such. I had also been on Twitter, but found it really toxic due to most furries on there being really open about triggering topics like politics, and it really ruined many of my online relationships and to an extent my mental health. I have a secret account on there to keep in communication with an artist I commissioned back in February. Instagram, with maybe a few exceptions, has mostly been good to me since it’s just mostly cool pictures and such. I’m back on Facebook as well but am only restricting it to family and friends I’ve met in real life, and while I’ve been on-and-off reading my friend's feed, there’s actually a lot of great stuff like philosophical quotes and so forth, although I have unwatched friends who have made frequent political posts, namely my paternal uncle.