Oppression

Life. Inside me. I hate being conscientious. I hate wondering that my thoughts are correct, that they coincide with reality. What’s with this word ‘hate’ anyway? Why is it in my vocabulary?

I’m gonna let my thoughts flow freely for a bit…

I have a logic exam today. The book is peeled open and…

I find that when I’m stressed my mind operates at limited capacity. My ability to think critically and abstractly and creatively is severely hindered. I think of myself in a haze, a deep fog that extends just out of arms reach which veils the world in confusion.

We’re reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Philosophy of Education. While I haven’t read it straight through yet, I’ve been reading excerpts here and there, attempting to harvest his insights. The book it wholly inspiring.

The book seeks to address the disruption of a dualistic hierarchal structural framework. The author, Pablo Freire, is advocating a defiant revolution away from it. But how does one escape?

Its based on the subject object relationship. The more I learn about this subject object theme, the more I realize its power. It is a structure that is embedded in psychology, our language, our culture. The subject is ‘I’, or ‘Dasein’. It is our being, the centralized, egocentric starting point of everything in our world. The object is simply our world and the others, its people and places and things and events. The structure is almost inescapable. There is I, there is everything else.

This translates into a hierarchal structure. It is a vertical framework. It is the oppressor, the subject, and the oppressed, the object. The power schemes arise when one subject is more human that the other, when he has something to give. This generosity is false. It undermines the ability of the oppressed subject to think critically and instead creates a dependency on the oppressor, further reinforcing the relationship. The oppressor and the oppressed cannot escape this structure. The oppressed look up at the oppressor with envy and wish to become the oppressor. If this revolution is accomplished, the structure remains the same, only reversed.

A hierarchal dualistic structural framework exists within the subject object relationship. In chapter one, this relationship exists in the form of the oppressed and the oppressor. Because the subject and object operate within this framework, any reversal of roles will maintain the tyranny and subject object relationship. There will always be an oppressor and the oppressed. For the oppressed to revolt and overcome the oppressed will simply leave them in the oppressors position as the subject. As for the oppressors, there is no escaping their role without the mutual cooperation of the oppressed. The hierarchal structure oppresses them both.

Freeing oneself this framework requires that the oppressor and the oppressed operate both as subjects with the aim at forging knowledge from reality together. It is not an exclusive task, but rather a mutual undertaking.

Humanization and dehumanization. Consciousness and unconsciousness. It is mans duty to be ‘rich’ in world, to have a sense of place. Being rich in the world is being conscious of everything around you, the reality that you wade through. Dehumanization is the process of oppression that leaves man poor in world, without place. Animals are poor in world. They have no sense of place in which they construct their reality. Rocks, it could be said, have no world at all.

All knowledge is relational knowledge. It is order and place of things, ideas, etc. When it is treated as solidary, it becomes absolute. This fosters a banking method where ideas are exchanged as if reality were a static stationary object. As a result, it ceases to be explored and we cease to learn. We depend on the oppressor, these generous givers, to provide this knowledge. This robs us of our humanity. But the oppressor is just as oppressed. He cannot escape the system, the structure, as long as the oppressed see him as the oppressor, as long as a place for him exists.

So… I’m rambling. Why the hell does this shit sound so good when I hear it?

Its about horizontal relationships. Its about a mutual undertaking with the world. It is not about us and them. it is about togetherness. I sound like a friggen hippy.

Co-intentionality. It is founded on love, first and foremost. This is the basis for all further progress.

blah.