Education, Part 1b
Not Activism, Not Blah
Action
/ Reflection = word = work = praxis
Sacrifice
of action = verbalism
Sacrifice
of reflection = activism
What separates humanist philosophy from other kinds of philosophy is
that we humanists see life as an interaction between the human Subject
and the Objective universe. Others either believe in pure (subjective) will, or
in pure (objective) fate.
This philosophy is not a compromise or an arbitrary “middle way”. Instead,
it represents a real dialectical unity-and-struggle-of-opposites.
The human Subject defines the universe, and the universe contains the
human Subject.
In Chapter 3 of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire manages to express
all of this with great power, and then to develop it into an educational “praxis”
(theory-and-practice), which is dialogue.
Here are the first few paragraphs:
Verbalism without action is idle chatter
“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 there is no transformation without action.”
Activism is action for
action’s sake, and it makes dialogue impossible
“On the other hand, if action is emphasized
exclusively to the detriment of reflection, the word is converted into
activism. The latter - action for action's sake - negates the true praxis and
makes dialogue impossible. Either dichotomy, by creating unauthentic forms of
existence, creates also unauthentic forms of thought which reinforce the
original dichotomy.
“Human existence cannot be silent nor can it be nourished
by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the
world. To exist humanly is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the
world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a
new naming. Human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in
action-reflection.
“But while to say the true word - which is work, which
is praxis - is to transform the world, saying that word is not the privilege of
some few persons, but the right of everyone. Consequently no one can say a true
word alone - nor can she say it for another, in a prescriptive act which robs
others of their words.”
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Pedagogy of The
Oppressed, Chapter 3, 1970, Freire, Part 1 and Part 2.
·
A PDF file of the reading text is attached
·
To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
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