Has anyone here read it? I’m listening to the audiobook and it’s kind of interesting, and I’ve picked out a few things (at least I know a tiny bit about Hegel, Fanon, Sarte, and Bergson), but why is it so jargon-y and confusing? Is there anything else I should have read first? I feel like all I’m getting out of it is what I already know from ‘Oppose book worship’ by Mao, or the bit of ‘wretched of the earth’ by fanon that I remember. What are your thoughts on the book?

  • @Tatar_Nobility
    4•1 year ago

    This was a great read imo and a spectacular feat in pedagogical studies. Donaldo Macedo answers your question in the introduction:

    The assumption that Freire […] enagage[s] in a “tunnel-vision style of … writing” is not only false: it also points to a distorted notion that there is an a priori agreed-upon style of writing that is monolithic, available to all, and “free of jargon.” This blind and facile call for writing clarity represents a pernicious mechanism used by academic liberals who suffocate discourses different from their own. Such a call often ignores how language is being used to make social inequality invisible. It also assumes that the only way to deconstruct ideologies of oppression is through a disccurse that involves what these academics characterize as a langauge of clarity.

    [D]uring a discussion we had about this, [a colleague] asked me, a bit irritably, “Why do you and Paulo insist on using Marxist jargon? Many readers who may enjoy reading Paulo may be put off by the jargon.” […] I reminded her that Freire’s language was the only means through which he could have done justice to the complexity of the various concepts dealing with oppression. For one thing, I reminded her, “Imagine that instead of writing Pedagogy of the Oppressed Freire had written “Pedagogy of the Disenfranchised.” The first title utilizes a discourse that names the oppressor, whereas the second fails to do so. […] “Pedagogy of the Disenfranchised” dislodges the agent of the action while leaving in doubt who bears the responsibility for such action. This leaves the ground wide open for blaming the victim of disenfranchisement for his or her own disenfranchisement.

    Edit: I recommend you read the book in written form because it’s not an easy, casual read. You will have to read, scrutinize, analyze and reread just to get an idea of what Freire is talking about. Granted, it is 100 percent worth it.