THE PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED: NORTH AMERICAN STYLE

Abstract

In his introduction to Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Shaull says: "It is Freire's conviction (now supported by a wide background of experience) that every human being, no matter how "ignorant" or submerged in the "culture of silence" he may be, is capable of looking critically at his world in a dialogue encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such encounter, he can gradually perceive his personal and social reality as well as the contradictions in it. In this process, the old, paternalistic teacher-student relationship is overcome. A peasant can facilitate this process for his neighbor more effectively than a "teacher" brought in from the outside. "Men educate each other through the mediation of the world." As this happens, the word takes on new power. It is no longer an abstraction or magic but a means by which man discovers himself and his potential as he gives names to things around him. As Freire puts it, each man wins back his right to say his own word, to name the world." This summary statement - and all of Freire's work - is very rich in material for those who would be "educators" - or revolutionaries - or even futurists. I am interested, however, in a very narrow part of it; what it might mean in a North American (rather than Freire's South American) context to refer to "a culture of silence," and "proper tools for a dialogical encounter," or to say, "men educate each other through the mediation of the world," "the word takes on new power," and especially, "each man wins back bis right to say his own word, to name the world." It is my contention, which I will develop in the pages that fol1ow, that, if it is accurate (as I believe) that a system in support of illiteracy is a necessary part of exploitation and oppression in South American society then also can it truly be said that, in North America, most people are systematically oppressed as a consequence of their inability to "read" and "write" in the dominant mediation technologies around them, namely, television, cinema, radio, phonograph records, and computers (or what I will now often call, "the media").