Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Essay Example

Pedagogy of the Oppressed “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is a book written by Paul Freire in the year 1968. In the book, Freire avails a theory of education in a revolutionary struggle context. The theoretical model in this book is that of dialectical materialism. This is a theory with the idea that the destiny of human beings will be settled in a grapple between two economic classes namely the owners and laborers or oppressors and the oppressed. This paper aims at conducting a critical applying the ideological and theoretical assertions in this book. “The Broken Spears” refers to a book with a collection of many accounts of the destruction of Mexico Cortes and the conquerors in their invasion. The author argues that the Spanish were to solely take the blame for the destruction of the Aztec Empire. The author shows how the Spanish took advantage of their superiority over the Aztecs in order to oppress them (Leo?n-Portilla 87). They also took advantage of their cultural difference during the invasion. The book also gives details on how tropical diseases and poor political leadership contributed to the defeat of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish troop. “The house I live in” is a documentary based on the fight against drugs and drug abuse in the United States of America. The documentary was done by Andrew Jarecki in the year 2012. The documentary shows how much the government spends on this yet the results are hardly noticeable. The documentary shows how the police have over the years targeted the poor drug using minorities instead of focusing on the people who avail the drugs (Norrell 111). The documentary also shows the alarming rate in which the number of low income white Americans been jailed for drug related offenses in rising. The documentary suggests that the war against drugs in the USA should be staged across all social and economic classes instead of focusing on a single side. Looking at “The Broken Spear” and “The House I Live In”, one will never fail to notice a certain form of oppression that is evident in both cases. In both cases there are both the oppressed and the oppressors. In “The Broken Spear”, the Aztecs are the oppressed while the Spanish are the oppressors. This is evident in the way the Spanish invades the Aztecs thus depriving them of all the resources they have. They manage to do this by taking advantage of their superiority over the Aztecs and the Aztecs’ ignorance. In “the house I live in” the police take advantage of the low class citizens in the war against drugs in the USA. As much as they know that arresting and sentencing the common drug peddlers have little effect on the success in the fight against drugs, they still do it ignoring the drug lords who happen to be of high influence to the society. The government knows well that had there been fair job opportunities for people of all social and economic classes, the drug peddlers and users of the minority communities would not be involved in these activities. However, the government in this case seems to have emphasized on the symptoms of the problem instead of the problem itself. This is a form of oppression mainly encouraged by capitalism in all the aspects of human lives. In both cases someone can agree that there is oppression of one group by another. One of the common characteristics of the people being oppressed is that they have an inferiority complex of some sort to those oppressing them. Given that the oppressors are superior to the people being oppressed, they take advantage of the weakness of their victims. For instance, in the invasion of the Aztecs, the Spanish take advantage of their superiority to invade and exploit the resources formerly belonging Aztec Empire. The police has also taken advantage of the defenselessness of the minority drug dealers and users to arrest them. The police have been able to do very little about the powerful and influential drug lords. This failure is a major hindrance to the success of their mission. This is evidenced on the effectiveness of their anti dugs war in reducing the number of drug abuse cases in the country. The two situations come to the support of the theory of Andrew Jarecki which claims that the destiny of human beings will be settled in a grapple between two economic classes namely the owners and laborers or oppressors and the oppressed. According to Freire oppression can only be overcome by a mutual process involving both the oppressed and the oppressor. He uses the fact that the power balance between the colonizers and colonized has over the years remained relatively the same (Freire 76). He claims that at some point the powerless in the society can be frightened of the freedom. For instance the case involving the Aztecs and the Spanish where the Aztecs initially believed the Spanish soldiers were gods and even undertook rituals in their honor. Freire says in his book that; “freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion." According to this text, freedom can only come resulting from Praxis (informed action) whenever there is a playing between theory and practice. The book also highly condemns the banking approach to education. This is an approach in which students are considered to be like empty bank accounts which need constants deposits. As much as informed action might be the key to freedom, this approach is portrayed as highly dehumanizing to both the students and teachers. This approach can encourage oppressive tendencies in a society. This is because the people in possession of the knowledge might use it to oppress the less informed people just like it happened with the Aztecs and the Spanish or as it happens in the war against drugs in the United States of America. Instead of this approach the author advocates for an educational approach in which the participants are viewed as incomplete beings. This approach aims at making people aware of their incompleteness thus encourage to strive towards being complete (Freire 101). With the constant strive towards being complete is likely to push the oppressed parties toward wanting to demand for more freedom from their oppressors. The book also points at dialog as another way of solving disputes between the oppressed and their oppressors. By using unity, cooperation, culture synthesis and organization can be highly beneficial in liberating oppressed communities (Freire 123). This is opposed to antidialogic techniques used in the invasion of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish. Methods such as manipulation, conquest, divide and rule tactics, and cultural invasion are highly discouraged by the author. The author suggests that populist dialogue can be instrumental for revolution that might lead to deliverance from oppression. In the modern society, oppression is experienced in many forms. The most common forms are racial and gender related (Marinetto 79). These two forms of oppression are not new in the society. In fact they have experienced a high rate of decrease lately. The male gender has always had dominance in almost all aspects of human existence. This is because of the general misconception that the female gender is a weaker gender. This is evident everywhere in the society from working places, social facilities and even religious related activities. It is clearly evident that even in the most liberal nations this perception of male superiority is still dominant (Hillock 42). The situation is even worse in the less liberal countries where women are treated as lesser beings by their male counterparts in all the aspects of life. Below are 2 pictures showing both racial and gender oppression. Gender oppression; Retrieved from, http://www.letsrun.com/2007/Switzer_Boston.jpg Racial oppression: Retrieved from, http://www.amistadresource.org/LBimages/image_08_13_030_a_R07-2010.jpg Racial and class discrimination is also another form of oppression that is common in the modern society. Like in the USA, the white and wealthy citizens are considered to be superior. Just like in the documentary on the fight against drugs in the USA revealed, more than 70% of the people convicted due to drug related come from the minority communities. This does not necessarily mean that they are the biggest contributors to this socially unacceptable community (Pitts, 2007). If it were so then probably the fight against drugs in the USA would have been successful. This only shows that the real drug lords who are in fact just using the drug peddlers are let free. Given the high rate of unemployment amongst the minority these drug lords find them as easy preys to use in the activities. The graph below shows the unequal distribution of wealth in US due to racial discrimination. Retrieved from http://feministphilosophers.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/chart-racial-wealth-gap-3-top.gif Praxis revolution is a form of revolution that advocates for the use of both action and theory. It can also be referred to as the use of informed action. In the Marxist sense it can be referred to as revolutionary undertaking in which the oppressed people seek to assess the world based on their own interest instead of just giving in to the ideologies of the oppressor (Ball 98). Given that most people under oppression remain in that state as a result of not being aware of what they can or cannot be able to do. This will enable the oppressed people not only to seek freedom from hunger but to fight for them to have a free will, freedom to make their own decisions, and freedom to do things in their own way. When they start doing this the struggle will be no longer based on getting rid of their oppressor but making their living conditions better. After assessing the world the people under oppression will be less likely to be taken advantage of. Like in the case of the invasion of the Aztecs Empire by the Spanish, they highly took advantage of their lack of information on how the world beyond them was. This is also a common scenario in the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. Due to ignorance most colonies had the initial belief that their colonizers were greater than them. Most of the colonizers also had a belief in their superiority over their subjects. This highly changes immediately the oppressed gets to the realization of the truth. Work Cited Ball, Terence. Political Theory and Praxis: New Perspectives. Minneapolis, Minn., University of Minnesora Press, 1977. Print. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Books, 1993. Print. Hillock, Susan. Conceptualizations and Experiences of Oppression: Gender Differences, 2012 vol. 27 no. 1 38-50. Leo?n-Portilla, Miguel. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Print. Marinetto, Michael. Social Theory, the State and Modern Society: The State in Contemporary Social Thought. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2007. Print. Norrell, Robert J. The House I Live in: Race in the American Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Internet resource. Pitts, Leonard. "RACIAL OPPRESSION IS A ONE-WAY STREET." The Sun: 0. Jun 03 2007. ProQuest. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Read More