Thanks to Darby for reminding me of the value of this
classic book.  I'm posting my reading notes, with a few
comments.  The text is not gender neutral so neither are any
of the quotes.  sc
 
Friere, Paulo.  pedagogy of the oppressed, Continuum, New
York, 1984.
 
From the Foreword, by Richard Shaull:
 
     (Friere's) early sharing of the life of the  poor also
     led him to the discovery of what he describes as the
     "culture of silence" of the dispossessed.  He came to
     realize that their ignorance and lethargy were the
     direct product of the whole situation of economic,
     social, and political domination--and of the
     paternalism--of which they were victims.  Rather than
     being encouraged and equipped to know and respond to
     the concrete realities of their world, they were kept
     "submerged" in a situation in which such critical
     awareness and response were practically impossible. 
     And it became clear to him that the whole educational
     system was one of the major instruments for the
     maintenance of this culture of silence.  p 11
 
     (for poor read c/s/x; for educational system read
     mental health (educational) system sc) 
 
     Fed up as I am with the abstractness and sterility of
     so much intellectual work in academic circles today, I
     am excited by a process of reflection which is set in a
     thoroughly historical context, which is carried on in
     the midst of a struggle to create a new social order
     and thus represents a new unity of theory and _praxis_. 
     And I am encouraged when a man of the stature of Paulo
     Freire incarnates a rediscovery of the humanizing
     vocation of the intellectual, and demonstrates the
     power of thought to negate accepted limits and open the
     way to a new future.  p 12
 
     (T)he 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 concept is an underpinning of a value of People
     Who, that we speak for ourselves, each of us, that we
     are not spoken for.  sc)
 
     (C/s/x are now educating ourselves, engaged in) _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.  p 15
 
     (From the point of the view of the existing system,
     there is a premise that is not always made explicit:) 
     It is better for the victims of injustice not to
     recognize themselves as such.  p 20 
 
     Many who defend freedom are actually afraid of freedom. 
     "They give their doubts and misgivings an air of
     profound sobriety ... .  But they confuse freedom with
     the maintenance of the status quo."  Anything that
     suggests change is seem as a threat to freedom itself. 
     p 21
 
From Chapter 1:
 
     Any attempt to "soften" the power of the oppressor in
     deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost
     always manifests itself in the form of false
     generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. 
     In order to have the continued opportunity to express
     their "generosity," the oppressors must perpetuate
     injustice as well.  An unjust social order is the
     permanent fount of this "generosity," which is
     nourished by death, despair, and poverty.  That is why
     the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at
     the slightest threat to its source.  p 29
 
     (The California Network of Mental Health Clients has
     just endorsed proposed legislation regulating the use
     of restraints.  sc)
 
     True generosity consists precisely in fighting to
     destroy the causes which nourish false charity.  False
     charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the
     "rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. 
     True generosity lies in striving so that these hands --
     whether of individuals or entire peoples -- need be
     extended less and less in supplication, so that more
     and more they become human hands which work and,
     working transform the world.  p 29
 
     (I see transforming our world as one of the goals of 
     ThisIsCrazy.  sc)
 
     But their perception of themselves as oppressed is
     impaired by their submersion in the reality of
     oppression.  At this level, their perception of
     themselves as opposites of the oppressor does not yet
     signify engagement in a struggle to overcome the
     contradiction; the one pole aspires not to liberation,
     but to identification with its opposite pole.  p 30
 
     (Isn't this the issue when c/s/x groups accept public
     monies, when c/s/x are hired by mental health systems
     as case managers and liaisons, what is called collusion
     by activists whose value is to keep completely separate
     from the public systems?  sc)
 
     The oppressed, having internalized the image of the
     oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of
     freedom.  Freedom would require them to eject the image
     and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. 
     Freedom is acquired by conquest, not gift.  It must be
     pursued constantly and responsibly.  p 31
 
     (I argue a lot for the rights of users of mental health
     services.  But what are the responsibilities of People
     Who?  One that I urge is that each of us create an
     advance directive dealing with how we want to be
     treated in case of involuntary hospitalization, what
     forced treatments are acceptable, etc.  Have I just
     bought into the oppressors model?  What are my
     responsibilities as a mad woman?  sc)
     
     This fear of freedom is also to be found in the
     oppressors, though obviously in a different form.  The
     oppressed are afraid to embrace freedom; the oppressors
     are afraid of losing the "freedom" to oppress.  p 31
 
     The oppressed suffer from the duality which has
     established itself in their innermost being.  They
     discover that without freedom they cannot exist
     authentically.  Yet, although they desire authentic
     existence, they fear it.  They are at one and the same
     time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness
     they have internalized.  The conflict lies in the
     choice between wholly themselves or being divided;
     between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting
     him; between human solidarity or alienation; between
     following prescriptions or having choices; between
     being spectators or actors; between acting or having
     the illusion of acting through the action of the
     oppressors; between speaking out or being silent,
     castrated in their power to create and re-create, in
     their power to transform the world.  p 33
 
     As long as they live in the duality in which _to be_ is
     _to be like_, and _to be like_ is _to be like the
     oppressor_, this contribution is impossible.  p 33
 
     Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation
     of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical
     posture.  ...  The oppressor is solidary with the
     oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as
     an abstract category and sees them as persons who have
     been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice,
     cheated in the sale of their labor -- when he stops
     making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures
     and risks an act of love.  p 35
 
     No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain
     distant from the oppressed by treating them as
     unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation
     models from among the oppressors.  p 39
 
     Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who
     exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons -- not
     by those who are oppressed, exploited, and
     unrecognized.  p 42
 
     For the  oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more
     -- always more --even at the cost of the oppressed
     having less or having nothing.  For them _to be is to
     have_ and to be the class of the "haves."  As
     beneficiaries of a situation of oppression, the
     oppressors cannot perceive that if _having_ is a
     condition of _being_, it is a necessary condition for
     all men.  p 44
 
 
 
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