12 Suggestions On "What to do"

[blindpig]

Raphaelle
01-18-2007, 12:09 PM

why not?

[blindpig]

Two Americas
01-18-2007, 04:32 PM

My assumption is that, since most of them aren't only stupid in specific ways, they perceive the threat too. But their pc imperative is in conflict with their good sense. So they can neither support nor oppose.

It's a theory at least

Yes, I think you are right. Good analysis.

Why not?

Look at what happened in the 60's. The movement became more and more about the war. It was not possible to suddenly switch horses and make up new issues after the war was over, or at least once it was no longer affecting upscale suburban kids.

You can't play with people that way. If you make opposition all about the war, once the war is over I can promise you this - you will get blank looks after the war is over if you try to say - "OK we stopped the war. Now let's overthrow capitalism."

[blindpig]

Mairead
01-18-2007, 04:36 PM

Look at what happened in the 60's. The movement became more and more about the war. It was not possible to suddenly switch horses and make up new issues after the war was over, or at least once it was no longer affecting upscale suburban kids.

You can't play with people that way. If you make opposition all about the war, once the war is over I can promise you this - you will get blank looks after the war is over if you try to say - "OK we stopped the war. Now let's overthrow capitalism."

Okay, Fairy Nuff. So what happens to the 'one action=one issue' principle? Or are you suggesting that we have to insert it but defer it. Or what exactly are you suggesting--I'm lost!

[blindpig]

anaxarchos
01-19-2007, 12:03 PM

Look at what happened in the 60's. The movement became more and more about the war. It was not possible to suddenly switch horses and make up new issues after the war was over, or at least once it was no longer affecting upscale suburban kids.

You can't play with people that way. If you make opposition all about the war, once the war is over I can promise you this - you will get blank looks after the war is over if you try to say - "OK we stopped the war. Now let's overthrow capitalism."

Okay, Fairy Nuff. So what happens to the 'one action=one issue' principle? Or are you suggesting that we have to insert it but defer it. Or what exactly are you suggesting--I'm lost!

I'll let Mike talk for himself but for me this is very easy. What you stand for is very different from who you stand with in regard to the issues of the day. It is impossible to not "get involved" if you believe those issues to be real and substantial, even if you think that those issues are not "politically optimal". It is equally impossible to not encompass your participation within your worldview. So too with regard to the priority which you may give to specific issues and who you decide to work with (which, in the end, is a political assessment).

The funkieness comes in when you start to confuse the two. One issue, one action is typical of coalition actions but not necessarily of coalition "politics" (see the "Democratic Party"). Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink potentially undermines the focus, breadth, and impact of Anti-war demonstrations because it is not the lack of acknowledgement of the issues of various mass organizations which keeps them away from demonstrations. This makes the scenario exactly opposite to the leftish coalitions of the liberals in electoral politics in which the right to bring along ones kitchen sink is the most important basis (and, sometimes, the only basis) for participating at all.

The "why" and "wherefore" of this "stuff" is more important than the "black and white" of it.

"All theory, dear friend, is grey, but the golden tree of life springs ever green", Goethe.

"All theory is grey, but life is perpetually multi-colored", Fichte's version.

[blindpig]

Mairead
01-19-2007, 12:29 PM

Look at what happened in the 60's. The movement became more and more about the war. It was not possible to suddenly switch horses and make up new issues after the war was over, or at least once it was no longer affecting upscale suburban kids.

You can't play with people that way. If you make opposition all about the war, once the war is over I can promise you this - you will get blank looks after the war is over if you try to say - "OK we stopped the war. Now let's overthrow capitalism."

Okay, Fairy Nuff. So what happens to the 'one action=one issue' principle? Or are you suggesting that we have to insert it but defer it. Or what exactly are you suggesting--I'm lost!

I'll let Mike talk for himself but for me this is very easy. What you stand for is very different from who you stand with in regard to the issues of the day. It is impossible to not "get involved" if you believe those issues to be real and substantial, even if you think that those issues are not "politically optimal". It is equally impossible to not encompass your participation within your worldview. So too with regard to the priority which you may give to specific issues and who you decide to work with (which, in the end, is a political assessment).

The funkieness comes in when you start to confuse the two. One issue, one action is typical of coalition actions but not necissarily of coalition "politics" (see the "Democratic Party"). Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink potentially undermines the focus, breadth, and impact of Anti-war demonstrations because it is not the lack of acknowledgement of the issues of various mass organizations which keeps them away from demonstrations. This makes the scenario exactly opposite to the leftish coalitions of the liberals in electoral politics in which the right to bring along ones kitchen sink is the most important basis (and, sometimes, the only basis) for participating at all.

The "why" and "wherefore" of this "stuff" is more important than the "black and white" of it.

"All theory, dear friend, is grey, but the golden tree of life springs ever green", Goethe.

"All theory is grey, but life is perpetually multi-colored", Fichte's version.

.

Okay, I can go for that. Now the question is what does Mike have in mind.

(Thanks for reminding me of the Goethe quote--it's one of my faves. 'Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie/und grün des Lebens goldner Baum'. Kluger Kerl, der Goethe.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20130328000 ... 47498.html

[solidgold]

re: activists

Interesting conversation about "issue-oriented" movements--perhaps not relevant to today. Mid-10's and on, it seems like the relative hippie-equivalent has a laundry list of issues they're concerned about at all times. But the roads seem to go the same place, and they're definitely not interested in the destination.

p.s. Wayback Machine is my worst nightmare. Some things should disappear forever. :]

[blindpig]

re: activists

Interesting conversation about "issue-oriented" movements--perhaps not relevant to today. Mid-10's and on, it seems like the relative hippie-equivalent has a laundry list of issues they're concerned about at all times. But the roads seem to go the same place, and they're definitely not interested in the destination.

p.s. Wayback Machine is my worst nightmare. Some things should disappear forever. :]

It's a pain in the ass but can be made intelligible. Beats a fucking blank. The purpose of this thread is in part to correct that tendency of planned futility.

[blindpig]

A red fighter is not always a publicist, but a red publicist is always a fighter
No. 5/69, V.2022

As a study of social life, good journalism is made up of scientific content and literary expressiveness . Briefly, its essence can be described as a directed influence on the reader with the help of logical conclusions and sensory images.

Scientific content

The sincere interest of the author in the topic is the key to a specific influence on the reader. The more people discover in themselves a taste for philosophical reading, the more the author acts as a magnifying lens, refracting the objective through the subjective, illuminating the main thing in the process of developing opposites, helping to awaken a keen interest in dialectical = creative thinking, climbing to the shining heights of science. Behind the interest of the researcher lies a deeper motive - the pleasure of a comprehensive coverage of the issue, the delight of personal discovery.

The deeper the author penetrates into the essence of the issue, the easier it is for him to avoid mistakes and the more expressive his creation. But the correctly chosen direction of movement of the author's thought does not mean that the question of how specifically to move has been resolved. For this, a specific goal of the work is set and the idea of ​​the article is embodied in its plan.

The plan as a division of the conceived work into stages appears in the form of questions disclosed in the article. It is necessary to give form to the author's content and is improved until the end of the entire work. Making the idea into a plan, its preliminary layout is the first stage of working with the text. A clear plan is a specific route for the author's thought to move along the path of a comprehensive analysis of the problem, from finding out the causes of its occurrence to understanding its opposite sides and the conditions for its successful solution.

There are two main ways of considering the phenomenon: historical and analytical. They do not exist in their pure form, they always mix, nevertheless one of them, one way or another, but prevails:

1. Historical - when the presentation begins from the emergence of the phenomenon and as the description of its development, the author reveals its essence. This is the simplest and most popular way of presenting material, inherent, for example, in most textbooks.

2. Analytical - when the presentation begins with an assessment of the phenomenon as the identity and unity of opposites, and then the author reveals what kind of identity and what kind of unity (struggle) of opposite sides are inherent in the phenomenon and lead it to a qualitative change. So we see the disclosure of essence and the transformation of cause into effect. A classic example is Capital. Criticism of Political Economy” by K. Marx.

If the research topic includes the disclosure of the essence of several phenomena, it is advisable to start with a theoretical consideration of their unity, identity and opposition, and then proceed to establish links between them. For example, to write, say, about the war in Ukraine, one should first analyze what social system and political regime prevail on both sides of the conflict, how they are similar, how they differ, what is the international situation, etc.

Coverage of the topic begins with the establishment of general facts - truths of the first order and movement from them deep into the phenomenon under study. Serving as the basis of scientific research, facts require comprehension and generalization into a system that changes under the influence of a certain objective law . Its identification allows the author to move from the established truth through logical conclusions to the essence of a particular phenomenon, leading the reader from the surface of general facts to their detailed depth, from general patterns and probable development trends to particular, specific results. In conclusion, revealing the characteristic features of the process under study, its connections and significance in public life, the author draws conclusions, presenting them to readers as a guide to action.

Didactics in the presentation may necessarily require the repetition of a key thought. These repetitions should be illustrated with original examples. The more logical evidence, historical analogies, apt allegories are used in the text, the more visual the material has, the easier it is for the author to keep the reader's attention, to prove to him the correctness of his position.

The scientific value of the content directly depends on the ability of the author to think outside the box, inventively. If the view of reality does not stop well-known truths, revolving in the cycle of everyday reactions, it is useless to imitate it as a creative one. And although it is difficult to go beyond secondaryness, it is necessary to keep to this goal. Remember that a dialectic materialist always proceeds from an analysis of the effect of objective laws on social relations. And if young writers are recommended to take an example from the classics of literature, then the debutants of red journalism - from the classics of Marxism: Marx - Engels - Lenin - Stalin. The systematic appeal to primary sources convincingly demonstrates the genius of the recognized leaders of communism in the synthesis of patterns from a multitude of contradictory events,

The content of journalism requires the utmost conceptual accuracy, eliminating the ambiguity or vagueness of interpretations. When checking the text for statements that can be interpreted in two ways, for unfounded statements, for excessive categoricalness and emotional vehemence, it should be borne in mind that an unambiguous reading of the author's conclusions emphasizes the scientific content of the article, reflecting the prudence, weightiness and persuasiveness of the text.

Given that all the exploited spontaneously live with a constant feeling of repulse ready to break out, the main task of the red publicist is to understand the logic of social processes, influence them and direct them in the direction of progress, in the matter of establishing scientific = communist relations in society.

Literary form

Despite the decisive role of the content of the study, its literary form cannot be neglected. Because the form of presentation of the material, reflecting the external and internal structure of the article, can both hinder and promote the development of content. Following the rule “the more complex the content, the richer its form should be”, the author should consider his creation as a living unity of content and form, understanding the form as content, and the content as formed.

The literary form of a journalistic article consists of three main components: figurativeness, composition, style.

All the phenomena and processes depicted in the work used by the publicist are a picture of reality with the "added value" of the author's thought, revealing the latter and appealing to the mind and feelings of the reader.

The composition of the article - its "architecture", composed of elements and certain parts of the text, their order and relationship - is necessary to combine the analytical reflection of reality with its subjective emotional coloring, when objective scientific truth is presented to the reader through life observations and everyday facts that are understandable and close to him. .

Style as a characteristic orderliness of research implies creative individuality, author's originality in presentation with the help of figurative thinking.

Considering all three components inseparably, it is worth noting that a good literary form is a dagger-like theme, a clear narrative rhythm, weighty laconicism and rich imagery of speech . Despite the fact that journalism is devoted to the pressing problems of public life, the research topic must reflect not only a specific social problem, its roots, but also its self-deployment - a likely repetition of the situation on a new round of reality. Accordingly, the structure of the article emphasizes the movement of the author's thought from the past to the present, from the present to the future.

The constructions of the literary form are varied, but special attention is paid to the title, headings, beginning and end of the work. As the most significant elements of the structure, with the help of which the author highlights the "semantic milestones" of the article, they will become separate guidelines for focusing the reader's attention, turning out to be the compositional foundation of the work.

Highlighting the key points of the content in the introductory part and in the summary, it is useful to pay attention to the “condensedness” of meanings throughout the text, when it is impossible to squeeze out “water” from it, and reproach the publicist for “liquid authorship”.

The greatest effect from the material is achieved if it has stylistic originality, i.e. the author does not use common clichés and clichés and writes so excitingly that the reader sees the last point with regret.

The language of journalism connects two opposite moments of one movement - from the idea of ​​the article to its implementation: the tendency towards cognitive "caloric content" and the tendency towards emotional-sensual richness of the text. The scientific style is characterized by the dominance of the informative and analytical moment. Hence the effect of expression, without which a journalistic article would tilt towards a highly specialized scientific monograph, is necessary in strictly limited doses. An immoderate emotional presentation can also occur without the author's consciousness if his style is not perfected, if the text contains a lot of unnecessary adjectives, if a warm heart is not balanced by a cold head. Journalistic "heat" of this kind is characteristic of the yellow press and is designed for the affective reaction of the public - panem et circenses.

Unjustified emotions necessarily lead to "extra weight" of the text, and a mature publicist always remembers how easy it is to overload a work and how difficult it is to make it outstanding and as intelligible as possible. Considering that a typical recipient has at least a secondary education, and, at a maximum, is a person who has taken place in a particular profession, there is no need to explain obvious truths to him. Write about the famous in the style of a discoverer.

It is advisable to leave the reader the opportunity to come to the correct conclusions, anticipating the movement of the author's thought and the conclusions that follow. To be able to write in such a way that one wants to think, argue, dig into the sources on one's own means creating the prerequisites for a steady interest and motivation for the reader to act according to new knowledge. The same fact emphasizes the viability of the publicist as a master of his craft. And vice versa: an article without a riddle, without a "zest", without unexpected turns of inventive thinking is akin to a sermon. An excessively didactic tone tends to fruitless verbosity and excessive edification, since scrupulousness is necessary in the search for truth, but not in its presentation, unless, of course, this is a theoretical innovation.

In this respect, the difference between a graphomaniac and a writer is indicative. The first is in love with every word he writes, the second is ready to ruthlessly shorten the text, cutting off the unnecessary and remembering that not everything he writes is valuable.

The surest remedy for excessive verbosity is to decompose each sentence. Notice the meaning and interaction of individual words, because the extra volume of text is made up of individual extra words. Multiple self-editing and the understanding that the first version of the text is far from the limit of possibilities, that the stoic search for errors and painstaking processing of the form and content, the structure of the text and its semantic accents strengthens the red publicist, increases his audience, raises the bar of his demands on himself.

It is known that a fussy, superficial, inconsistent person is functionally indistinguishable from a fool. Therefore, after the end of the work, it is necessary to postpone the text in order to later critically reread it, to catch the shortcomings of the content and the shortcomings of the literary form that were not noticed earlier. Of course, sketching, in fact, a draft and sending it to the editor is the easiest thing, but finishing the work is much more difficult. Hence, all authors who send articles to the Proryv magazine and the Proryvist newspaper for a troika should be prepared for the fact that they will be obliged to “squeeze” it to the top five, since both editorial offices help those who already have success and their desire is visible. multiply.

Southerner
27/05/2022

https://prorivists.org/69_prop/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

The Imperative of Political Education in a Miseducated Society
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 21, 2023
Jasmine Butler



Table of Contents

1.Introduction
2.Anti-Intellectualism in Pop Culture
3.Anti-Intellectualism in “Revolutionary” Spaces
4.My Experiences As an Educator
5.Revisiting Pedagogy of the Oppressed
6.Dialogue
7.The Role of the Political Educator
8.Overcoming Pessimism
9.Sources

Introduction

Education is under attack. Book bans and ahistorical curriculum adjustments have been sweeping the nation yet again, ranging from demonizing queer folks and literature to parroting watered-down (at best) recollections of chattel slavery and other historical travesties. The upheaval over “critical race theory” being supposedly taught in K-12 schools has been the trojan horse overshadowing the erosion of the few inclusive, diverse, and critical perspectives in public education curriculum. Experienced teachers are being pushed out of the profession by unlivable wages and unrealistic expectations of how to support students’ learning, lending towards the admitted right-wing goal of defunding and privatizing the public education system. The American public education system is proving itself to be a factory for producing future workers and prisoners, its veil of benevolence falling before our very eyes.

This assault on historical awareness and critical thinking does not end at the schoolhouse, either. Since the mass media misinformation machine gained access to the internet and social media, it has funneled loads of conspiracy, disinformation, propaganda, and hyper-capitalist ideology into the minds of the young, old, and in between. Political participation and community responsibility have been watered down to just voting, and calls for critical analysis of the world around us are met with either “it’s not that deep” or “it’s not my problem.” Any attempts to encourage folks to read and study the past and the conditions of the present are met with a variety of excuses, from misguided accusations of inaccessibility to flat-out refuting the necessity of learning.

Anti-Intellectualism in Pop Culture

This trend infamously peeked its head three years ago when “woke” rap icon J. Cole infamously feuded with anti-capitalist icon and fellow rapper Noname. Cole felt targeted by Noname’s Twitter callout of wealthy celebrities not doing enough for social causes, and decided to ramble about the matter in his track “Snow on tha Bluff.”

“She mad at the celebrities, low-key I be thinkin’ she talkin’ ‘bout me / Now I ain’t no dummy to think I’m above criticism / So when I see something that’s valid, I listen / But shit, it’s something about the queen tone that’s botherin’ me.” – Jermaine Cole

Rather than turn inward and reflect on his complicity or lack of awareness of social issues, he instead turned to tone policing Noname. When the exchange moved back to Twitter after listeners rightfully accessed that he was dissing Noname, he slightly backtracked by encouraging folks to follow her and support her analysis and leadership. He goes on to say that he isn’t a leader or a reader, but that he “do a lot of thinking” and appreciates her for challenging his beliefs. In this near complete 180 from what he said in the song, he revealed the contradictions of thinking and being opinionated on social issues without having any basis for those opinions outside their own lived experience. While lived experience is a critical aspect of social consciousness and praxis, it alone is not enough to understand the complex reality of our times. This is why study and critical dialogue are so important, yet folks like Cole espouse the same anti-intellectual rhetoric that the conservative right does. Why read, why study, why take in facts and opinions from others when you have all the information you need in your head, right? Coupled with how dangerously undereducated Americans are, this is a very harmful line of thinking.

Anti-Intellectualism in “Revolutionary” Spaces

Even leftist organizing spaces are not immune to rampant anti-intellectualism. I’ve heard right-wing dog whistles around intellectualism and studying repeated in earnest in these spaces with little to no awareness of their origin. I’ve observed mounting resistance towards making time for critical reflection, study, and dialogue, with folks wishing to bypass these necessities and get straight to “the work.” In many spaces, various types of expertise are prioritized (donor foundation connections, non-profit management, electoral strategy, etc.) while the critical movement history and political grounding necessary for authentic and transformative collective action is left out. With so many rights and livelihoods currently under attack, many other progressive organizations are constantly on the defense and are forced to make taut decisions about how to allocate their time and energy. In either case, critical study of our past and present material conditions is no longer a priority in many spaces – to the detriment of a principled, unified left.

I don’t mean to make recklessly sweeping generalizations, but rather I seek to point out a worrisome trend in public discourse and in organizing spaces that is turning us against study, productive discourse, and action, i.e. praxis. Anti-intellectualism has historically risen at times of heightened inequality and coincided with the rise of cult-like thinking and behavior not rooted in material reality. Today, thinking and learning are under attack on all fronts – public education is dissolving, academia is as colonial as ever, misinformation and propaganda are abundant, and everywhere you turn ignorance is being weaponized and exploited. This in turn means we have an abundance of people indifferent to the exploitative ills of society, including their own experiences, and uninterested in seeking change. So what does all this mean for political educators who seek to use education as a tool towards liberation?

In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower. (Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Sister Outsider, pg 112)

My Experiences As an Educator

I’m a budding political educator and cultural worker. I am passionate about education and learning, revolutionary history, and community power. I use zines, workshops, clinics, writing, and other mediums to learn in community with others. A spirit of and commitment to revolution runs through all of my work, and I take seriously the task of creating a revolutionary culture. This means I must also take seriously any trends or patterns that deter the spread of revolutionary culture.

In the past year of leading political education programs primarily in organizing communities, I was faced with a number of questions and frustrations about how we could possibly transform our society when at base so many of us seem deeply unwilling to learn and take action. I knew in some sense that the answer to much of the despair people have felt in recent years must be learning about our reality and then together acting upon it, but I struggled to figure out how to get folks to prioritize this learning. I realized that this was a moment for me to take my own advice and seek answers from those who have done this work before me. Thus I’ve been undertaking a close read of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed to ground myself in the purpose and responsibility of liberatory education.

Revisiting Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Freire, the renowned Brazilian educator, has long been heralded as a revolutionary teacher who observed and theorized the connections between education and liberation. Freire’s pedagogy is uniquely powerful because it puts humanism and the pursuit of becoming more fully human at its center. He posits that oppression revokes or inhibits our full humanity, and only through reflection and action upon the world can we transform it and in the process become more fully human.

“The oppressed, who have been shaped by the death-affirming climate of oppression, must find through their struggle the way to life-affirming humanization, which does not lie simply in having more to eat (although it does involve having more to eat and cannot fail to include this aspect). . . In order to regain their humanity they must cease to be things and fight as men and women. This is a radical requirement. They cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become human beings.” (Freire, pg 50)

Despite reading the text over 50 years after it was first published, I found deep renewal and understanding in his conceptualization of education as the pursuit of a fuller humanity through reflection and action. Oppression destroys and dehumanizes. Peeling back the veil and revealing its true character is the goal of education and the purpose of the educator. Only by making society’s malignant forces of racial capitalism, patriarchy, etc. visible can folks be moved to take action toward eradicating these ills.

Freire’s pedagogy centers the process of understanding the world around us to then transform it, becoming more fully human in the process. To create such possibilities, Freire offers “problem-posing education” as the antithesis to popular oppressive modes of education.

“In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.” pg 64

“Problem-posing” education is based on a number of assumptions that Freire explains in detail, among them being:

1. learners are conscious and capable

2. learning takes place through problem-solving

3. learning must be practical

In short, this means that we must look towards our own lives and material conditions as the grounds for understanding the world at large. The teacher’s role is to then take the observations on the issues of the world around us and pose them as questions back to learners to critically dialogue about, and as problems to act upon. Intrinsic to this then is the understanding that we are capable of acting upon the world around us, and that we are moved to do so when we have a critical understanding of the world. Rather than approaching a community with factoids and theoretical perspectives that are seemingly divorced from their reality, a truly liberatory educational program would begin with making sense of participants’ worlds first. Only through dialoguing about our assumptions and observations about our lives, communities, neighborhoods, culture, etc. can folks then come to new conclusions about how the world works and be open to different ways of understanding. This opens the door for creating alternate possibilities for how we live together.

Dialogue is thus an essential characteristic of liberatory education that I previously acknowledged but that I haven’t done a good job of centering in my education work. Freire’s assertion that an educational program must begin with dialoguing about participants’ current way of knowing the world shakes up the teacher-student paradigm characteristic in banking modes of education. Freire describes the educational programs of oppressors as one in which teachers, who hold all the knowledge and determine the content of the program, “deposits” information into students who passively accept the teacher’s description of the world. It utilizes propaganda, slogans, and other “deposits” that when uncritically accepted, result in the underdevelopment of our critical consciousness and an inability to recognize ourselves as potential transformers of the world. This banking model of education creates passive individuals who accept that the world is stagnant and unmovable and that the flow of historical events has been inevitable. Beyond the classroom, this results in adults with no awareness of their capacity for transforming the world around them.

This conceptualization of education shook loose my frustration with folks who don’t see a need to learn outside of their own experiences – it is in human nature to base our worldview and understanding on our own lives. It has been intentional education malpractice, however, to convince us that we need not critically reflect upon our own and others’ experiences. Instead, “subjectivity and objectivity [must be] in constant dialectical relationship,” – we must constantly draw connections between our own experiences and those beyond what we know (Freire pg 32). Moving from our individual perspectives to making connections to broader systems and peoples requires a collaborative learning environment, not one in which educators simply try to re-program students into our “correct” way of thinking through more uncritical deposits. A 4th basic assumption of problem-posing education is that teachers and students must be co-investigators.

I, like many other progressive educators, have often failed to dissolve this teacher-student contradiction that upholds the teacher as the sole knowledge owner. I would bring my own expectations and objectives to participants based on what I thought they should know about the world and how I thought they’d best be pushed toward transformative action. I’d then find myself frustrated when participants were unable or unwilling to engage with the content provided, citing its inapplicability to their lives or the impossibility of devoting time to study when the world outside is actively deteriorating into chaos. While I know that lessons on Marxism, Dialectics, and other revolutionary tools were indeed relevant to them, all they could see was me attempting to school them on far-out theoretical topics. To this end, Freire had to say:

“To achieve this praxis, however, it is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in their ability to reason. Whoever lacks this trust will fail to initiate (or will abandon) dialogue, reflection, and communication, and will fall into using slogans, communiqués, monologues, and instructions.”

Freire pg 48

In order for education to lead to transformation, it must begin with reflection upon the experiences of the people and be dictated by their needs. Liberatory education isn’t about dictating dogma or winning folks over to “my side” of the political spectrum. It is about opening minds to the world’s ever-changing nature, to the possibility of acting upon and transforming the world around them, and to the oppressive reality in which they’ve been so deeply submerged that they fail to see its borders and holes. My role as an educator is to be a collaborator and co-conspirator as people study, dialogue, and take action toward transforming their society. My goal is to help folks make sense of their surroundings, to name the unnamed and invisibilized powers at play, and to connect their experiences to larger truths about the society in which we live. “The conviction of the oppressed that they must fight for their liberation is not a gift bestowed by the revolutionary leadership, but the result of their own conscientizaçāo.” (Freire pg 49)

Dialogue

The core of transformative education thus must be dialogue. Of all the reasons I gave for the rising anti-intellectualism and refusal to reflect critically on the world, the lack of critical dialogue among people is one of the main culprits. Siloing ourselves within our own experiences and refusing to engage with ideas and observations that contrast with our own creates isolated individuals. Freire points out that we are all entrenched in the dominant mode of thinking, that of oppression, and thus any information that counters that mode of thinking will be met with resistance. He also posits that for the oppressed, often the first impulse upon making more sense of the world is to want to emulate the oppressor – to become more like them. One example of both of these phenomena is that of Black Capitalists, or those who have concluded that playing the game of capitalism is better than succumbing to it. Turning to radical and transformative new ways of relating that aren’t riddled with oppressive dynamics would require rejecting the oppressive mode of thinking that would have us believe that capitalism is the only way. Instead, folks vie to play the game instead, hoping to simply not come out at the bottom. Open social media any day to find dozens more examples of the impossibility of thinking beyond the capitalist constraints placed on us – you’ll find people ardently arguing against their own wellbeing and in favor of their own oppression because they cannot imagine otherwise. “Freedom would require them to eject this image [of the oppressor] and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. . . freedom is not an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.” (Freire, pg 29) Every day that we are not breaking down the barriers of capitalist thinking and helping folks to realize the constraints on their lives is a failure of the left.

Alongside the belief that society is not stagnant and can indeed be transformed, there must also exist trust that together you and your peers can cause that transformation. This trust is only built through dialogue and the bridging of experiences. A revolution cannot be carried out by a few revolutionary leaders for the people. A revolution is only a revolution if it is being carried out by equally informed and active participants, as anything less would not be representative of the people’s desires. According to Freire, dialogue and study bring about a commitment to simultaneous reflection and action. This is an ongoing trust-building exercise – dialogue, reflection, action, dialogue, reflection, action, over and over until collective transformation through revolution is attainable.

The Role of the Political Educator

I believe that it is our role as political educators is to push back against misinformation, against intellectual laziness and anti-intellectualism, and against the idea that we all already know everything we need to know inherently. We don’t. There is so much to understand about the world beyond what is observable in our individual experiences, and we educators must take up the responsibility of making these connections clear. We should not blame or shame individuals for falling prey to these forces, but rather work to help folks understand the source of their assumptions. Often we don’t realize we’re repeating white-ring propaganda because of the insidious nature of such propaganda. We often don’t realize that our resistance to committing to revolutionary study with our communities is both rooted in an anti-left, anti-critical thinking anti-intellectualism, and that it is actively standing in the way of a more unified left. Only through prioritizing critical reflection and dialogue about our material realities can we move towards transforming our world to one that is humanistic rather that necrophilic.

It is also our responsibility to make histories of resistance and revolution known, to make their unfinished possibilities irresistible. To expand on Toni Cade Bambara’s assertion that “As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible,” I posit that this too is the responsibility of the movement educator.

The study of movement history allows us to reflect upon and learn from past movements – their strategies, tactics, goals, blind spots, and downfalls are all lessons to be learned from. There is no time to reinvent the wheel, to spend valuable years on strategies and tactics that don’t meet the opposition of rising fascism that is here, now. Only through prioritizing the study of our movement’s history and the opposition’s development can we arrive at strategies and tactics that meet the current moment.

Beyond the realm of formal organizing, study and dialogue are so deeply important as proactive measures to learn beyond our own experiences. To truly prevent harm rather than constantly reacting to it, we must commit to listening and learning about identities, experiences, and cultures unfamiliar to us so that we don’t repeat harmful rhetoric and actions out of ignorance. As abolitionists and transformative justice practitioners constantly remind us, abolition is a journey not just a destination. We will constantly fail each other if we only attempt to mitigate harm that’s already occurred. We will constantly fail each other if we only understand conflict and debate as sources of harm rather than the generative processes they can and ought to be.

Only through collective understanding can we build collective trust and responsibility, which are essential elements for ridding our communities of unnecessary harm.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting. – Simone de Beauvoir

Thus, this is not just a lesson for political educators, but to all who wish to be in better relation with the diversity of humans whom we share the world with – a commitment to critical reflection and learning is a commitment to community and revolution. And with that committed community and spirit of revolution comes action. Freire stresses that

“Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the opppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. . . It is essential for the oppressed to realize that when they accept the struggle for humanization they also accept, from that moment, their total responsibility for the struggle.” (Freire pg 47-50)

Overcoming Pessimism

Nihilism and defeat are tools of the oppressor: we are less powerful when we don’t believe in our capacity to create change. But when we study, when we are truly committed to understanding the world around us, the desire to act upon the world follows with a force. Revolutionary optimism is made possible by being and acting in community with others, for only through seeing the results of our collective power can we continue to stoke our belief in our collective capacity. I guarantee you that if you commit to that book club or study group, you’ll find yourself invigorated towards action. Study compels us to figure things out together rather than to accept defeat at its face.

This change will never come from the top down, the colonial state, the capitalist or the techno-business class. These classes deny us our right to full humanity through devaluation, exploitation, and violence. It is antithetical to their purpose and existence to fight for our liberation. We will only see change through radical class consciousness and collective action, for the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house:

“Within the interdependence of mutual (non-dominant) difference lies that security which enables us to descend into the chaos of knowledge and return with true visions of our future, along with the concomitant power to effect those changes which can bring that future into being. . . Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression.” pg 112, Sister Outsider

This line from the fourth and final chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed sums up the imperative of study and reflection for building a revolution:

“Lenin’s famous statement: “Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement” means that a revolution is achieved with neither verbalism nor activism, but rather with praxis, that is, reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed.”

To be for liberation is to constantly reflect on society and the systems at play in order to transform them. This includes our educational practices in and out of radical movement spaces – these are also spaces in need of transformation. It is the charge of the radical educator to destabilize the teacher-student binary in their classrooms and commit to critical reflection alongside their students, as co conspirators. It is up to us to reject the teaching that dominant ways of knowing and doing things are the only possible option and to deepen our consciousness together toward new solutions.

This year and beyond, I want to approach my work as a political educator from a place of principled rootedness. The teachings of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and other liberatory educators have provided us with the tools to deepen our critical consciousness and our capacity for transformation. I encourage you all – fellow educators, movement organizers, and regular people looking to turn their despair into knowledge and action – to join me in collective study and reflection. Despite the mounting fascist attacks on education, learning, and critical thinking, we must continue to push for prioritizing study and struggle in our movement spaces. Rather than be filled with shame for de-prioritizing or being resistant to study, let this be a call to you to incorporate revolutionary study into your organizing journey. Only through dialogue and critical reflection can we build the trust necessary to take risks together, and only through collective risk can we transform society away from dehumanization and violence and towards humanitarian care.

Sources

1 According to the translator, the term conscientizaçāo refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.

2 Pedagogy of the Oppressed, ch. 1 pg 47. Freire discusses the oppressed’s dependence on the oppressor and paraphrases Fromm description of “necrophillic behavior: the destruction o life – their own or that of their oppressed fellows.” ; pg. 58 “Oppression – overwhelming control – is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life.”

3 Toni Cade Bambara. “An Interview with Toni Cade Bambara.” By Kay Bonetti. Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara. Ed. Thabiti Lewis. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2012. 35–47. Print.

4 Audre Lorde. “The Master’s Tools.” Sister Outsider. Ten speed press, 1984.

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