Paulo Freire Quotes

September 9, 2017 Education

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. — Paulo Freire “The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves… ” — Paulo Freire Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. ” — Paulo Freire “No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are. — Paulo Freire “One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects. ” — Paulo Freire “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed” — Paulo Freire “… the fact that certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation, thus moving from one pole of the contradiction to the other…

Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been throughout the history of this struggle. It happens, however, that as they cease to be exploiters or indifferent spectators or simply the heirs of exploitation and move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to think, to want, and to know. Accordingly, these adherents to the people’s cause constantly run the risk of falling into a type of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors.

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The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify that generosity. Our converts, on the other hand, truly desire to transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust. — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “The oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “language is never neutral” — Paulo Freire “It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice.

For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the ‘rejects of life. ‘ It is not the tyrannized who initiate despotism, but the tyrants.

It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “The multitude is always in the wrong. ” — Paulo Freire “some may think that to affirm dialogue—the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world—is naively and subjectively idealistic. here is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans. ” — Paulo Freire “The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a ‘circle of certainty’ within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them.

This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. ” — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend – conditioned by the myths of the old order – to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them. — Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) “Libertarian action must recognize this dependence as a weak point and must attempt through reflection and action to transform it into independence. However, not even the best-intentioned leadership can bestow independence as a gift. The liberation of the oppressed is a liberation of women and men, not things. Accordingly, while no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others. Liberation, a human phenomenon, cannot be achieved by semihumans. Any attempt to treat people as semihumans only dehumanizes

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