Please check the attach documents and do the following questions.

For the assignment, as before, I would like you to write a short essay of 1000 to 1200 words (in Times New Roman -12 point font, 1.5 spacing, with a Title at the beginning, and a Works Cited page at the end). 

Again, you will be required to take a position on one (or two) of the philosophers that we have examined in this second part of the course.

What this means is that you can write your paper on one of the following philosophers from Part II of the course:

1. Arthur Schopenhauer (On the Suffering of the World)

2. John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism)

3. Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Or, you can compare two of these philosophers’ ethical theories:

1. Mill and Schopenhauer (on ‘happiness,’ on ’suffering.’)

2. Freire and Mill (‘pedagogy of the oppressed,’ ‘utilitarianism.’)

3. Freire and Schopenhauer (the ‘oppressed,’ ‘suffering,’ etc.).

Like before, the main point of the assignment is that you take a position in your essay on the reading(s).

In close detail, and from the texts that we have examined, clearly and accurately describe the ethical theories of the philosopher (or philosophers) that you have decided to write about.

And also, tell me why you agree or disagree with the ethical theory (or theories) as it relates to the theme of ‘Ethics and Society.’ (You may agree with some aspects of a philosopher’s ethics, but disagree with others. Or you may entirely agree or disagree with their main ethical theory).

Also in your paper, as before, argue for the applicability (or inapplicability) of the ethical theory (or theories) in the world today, and in our contemporary society. For example, what can these theories help to teach us about ethics and society, when confronted with the problems that we face today?

Above all, as you were required to do in your previous paper, take a clear argumentative position, and argue for it convincingly throughout your essay.

Suggested Questions and Topics:

As before, you are free to develop your own original topic for the essay, as it relates to the philosophers and the readings we have examined in this second part of the course.

You are also free to bring back certain theories or ideas from the first part of the course, if they will help to strengthen your main thesis. (For example, Epicurus in relation to Mill and/or Schopenhauer – on happiness and suffering. Or, Plato in relation to Freire – on education and liberation, are at least two possible subjects to explore further).

Here ere are two suggested essay topics that may help to guide you with the assignment. Each suggested topic relates to the following questions:

“How can we best address and alleviate human suffering?”

And also, “Is there an ethical duty to do so?”

1. (Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’)

The theme of human suffering is central to John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism (1861). How does his theory of ‘utilitarianism’ address human suffering? How does he propose to resolve it, or at least to improve upon this problem in society? What is the role of the individual in Mill’s theory? How do ethics and morality affect the decisions of both individuals and groups in Mill’s theory? Finally, we know that since its publication in 1861, Mill’s theory has inspired many governments around the world to act and govern according to its main principles (especially, governments that see themselves as ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’ in the classical sense). But is it possible to actually put Mill’s theories into practice? Is anyone ever excluded or ‘left behind’ if we do so?’ And also, what are the main ethical consequences of a utilitarian society? Most importantly, do you agree or disagree with Mill’s theory for an ethics of society?

(Use examples from the text to support your arguments).

2. (Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’)

As you know, the theme of suffering is also central to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968). How does Freire address and examine human suffering in his book? What are the conditions that according to Freire, lead to increased human suffering? How is society structured in such a way that maintains a system of inequality between the ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed’? How does the education system also suffer in such a society? And finally, what does Freire propose that we do about the situation? How can the conditions of the oppressed be improved? What is needed for more equality? And how does Freire understand the possibility of liberation and freedom for both individuals and groups? Most importantly, do you agree or disagree with Freire’s ethical theory? And can you apply Freire’s ideas about ethics to the world today? 

(Use examples from the text to support your arguments).

Assessment:

For the assignment, I will assess your essay on the following criteria:

1.         Content (comprehensive, correct descriptions).

2.         Structure (clearly structured; all parts constitute a clear and coherent whole).

3.         Analysis and argumentation (in-depth dissection of philosophical ideas, that forms the basis of clearly argued position.        

4.         Originality 

5.         Writing style (free from grammatical errors, typos, and spelling mistakes, etc.). 

Utilitarianism/9

formula should be correctly understood. I believe that the very imper-
fect notion ordinarily formed of its meaning, is the chief obstacle which
impedes its reception; and that could it be cleared, even from only the
grosser misconceptions, the question would be greatly simplified, and a
large proportion of its difficulties removed. Before, therefore, I attempt
to enter into the philosophical grounds which can be given for assenting
to the utilitarian standard, I shall offer some illustrations of the doctrine
itself; with the view of showing more clearly what it is, distinguishing it
from what it is not, and disposing of such of the practical objections to
it as either originate in, or are closely connected with, mistaken interpre-
tations of its meaning. Having thus prepared the ground, I shall after-
wards endeavour to throw such light as I can upon the question, consid-
ered as one of philosophical theory.

Chapter 2
What Utilitarianism Is.
A passing remark is all that needs be given to the ignorant blunder of
supposing that those who stand up for utility as the test of right and
wrong, use the term in that restricted and merely colloquial sense in
which utility is opposed to pleasure. An apology is due to the philo-
sophical opponents of utilitarianism, for even the momentary appear-
ance of confounding them with any one capable of so absurd a miscon-
ception; which is the more extraordinary, inasmuch as the contrary ac-
cusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and that too in its grossest
form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism: and, as
has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of persons,
and often the very same persons, denounce the theory “as impracticably
dry when the word utility precedes the word pleasure, and as too practi-
cably voluptuous when the word pleasure precedes the word utility.”
Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer,
from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant
by it, not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but plea-
sure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing
the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that
the useful means these, among other things. Yet the common herd, in-
cluding the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals, but
in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into this shal-
low mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while knowing noth-
ing whatever about it but its sound, they habitually express by it the

10/John Stuart Mill

rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of its forms; of beauty, of
ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term thus ignorantly misapplied
solely in disparagement, but occasionally in compliment; as though it
implied superiority to frivolity and the mere pleasures of the moment.
And this perverted use is the only one in which the word is popularly
known, and the one from which the new generation are acquiring their
sole notion of its meaning. Those who introduced the word, but who had
for many years discontinued it as a distinctive appellation, may well feel
themselves called upon to resume it, if by doing so they can hope to
contribute anything towards rescuing it from this utter degradation.1

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the ab-
sence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To
give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more
requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of
pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But
these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on
which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure, and
freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all
desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other
scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or
as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them
in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike.
To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than plea-
sure—no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit—they designate
as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to
whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemp-
tuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally
made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French,
and English assailants.

When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it
is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrad-
ing light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of
no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposi-
tion were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no
longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the

Utilitarianism/11

same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough
for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the
Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a
beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happi-
ness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appe-
tites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as
happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed,
consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing
out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do
this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements
require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life
which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and
imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as plea-
sures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that
utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over
bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness,
etc., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather
than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have
fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it
may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite com-
patible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds
of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would
be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered
as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to
depend on quantity alone.

If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or
what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a plea-
sure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible an-
swer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who
have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any
feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable plea-
sure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with
both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing
it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not
resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is
capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a
superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in
comparison, of small account.

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally ac-

12/John Stuart Mill

quainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both,
do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which
employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to
be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest
allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would con-
sent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person
of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they
should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better sat-
isfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what
they possess more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the
desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they
would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from
it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesir-
able in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more to make
him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly
accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite
of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to
be a lower grade of existence. We may give what explanation we please
of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is
given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least
estimable feelings of which mankind are capable: we may refer it to the
love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with
the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the
love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter
into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense
of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in
some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties,
and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is
strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than
momentarily, an object of desire to them.

Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of
happiness—that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances,
is not happier than the inferior—confounds the two very different ideas,
of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose ca-
pacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them
fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any
happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imper-
fect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bear-
able; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed uncon-

Utilitarianism/13

scious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good
which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dis-
satisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is
because they only know their own side of the question. The other party
to the comparison knows both sides.

It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher plea-
sures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to
the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the
intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of charac-
ter, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be
the less valuable; and this no less when the choice is between two bodily
pleasures, than when it is between bodily and mental. They pursue sen-
sual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware that
health is the greater good.

It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful en-
thusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indo-
lence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this
very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of plea-
sures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote them-
selves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the
other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender
plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of
sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if
the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the
society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that
higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose
their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for
indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not
because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the
only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any
longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who
has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever know-
ingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have
broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both.

From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there
can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two
pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the
feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the

14/John Stuart Mill

judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they
differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And
there needs be the less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the
quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to
even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining
which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable
sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with
both? Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always
heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particu-
lar pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except
the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those
feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher fac-
ulties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to
those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is
suspectible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly
just conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the directive rule
of human conduct. But it is by no means an indispensable condition to
the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not the
agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness
altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character
is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it
makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely
a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the
general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual
were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as
happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the
bare enunciation of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation
superfluous.

According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained,
the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other
things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that
of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain,
and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and
quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity,
being the preference felt by those who in their opportunities of experi-
ence, to which must be added their habits of self-consciousness and self-
observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This,
being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is

PAULO FREIRE

PEDAGOGY
of the

OPPRESSED
;

• 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION •

Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos

With an Introduction by Donaldo Macedo

A continuum
• I f N E W Y O R K • L O N D O N

2005

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
15 East 26,h Street, New York, NY 10010

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

Copyright © 1970, 1993 by Paulo Freire
Introduction © 2000 by Donaldo Macedo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the written permission of
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freire, Paulo, 1921-
[Pedagogia del oprimido. English]
Pedagogy of the oppressed / Paulo Freire ; translated by Myra

Bergman Ramos ; introduction by Donaldo Macedo.—30th anniversary ed.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8264-1276-9 (alk. paper)
1. Freire, Paulo, 1921- 2. Education—Philosophy. 3. Popular

education—Philosophy. 4. Critical pedagogy. I. Title.

LB880.F73 P4313 2000
370.11*5—dc21 00-030304

To the oppressed,
and to those who suffer with them
and fight at their side

CHAPTER

1

While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been humankind’s central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable
concern.l Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition
of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as an
historical reality And as an individual perceives the extent of dehu-
manization, he or she rtiay ask if humanization is a viable possibility.
Within history^ in concrete, objective contexts, both humanization
and dehumanization are possibilities for a person as an uncompleted
being conscious of their incompletion.

But while both humanization and dehumanization are real alter-
natives, only the first is the people’s vocation. This vocation is con-
stantly negated, yet it is affirmed by that very negation. It is

1. The current movements of rebellion, especially those of youth, while they
necessarily reflect the peculiarities of their respective settings, manifest in their
essence this preoccupation with people as beings in the world and with the world—
preoccupation with what and how they are “being.” As they place consumer civiliza­
tion in judgment, denounce bureaucracies of all types, demand the transformation
of the universities (changing the rigid nature of the teacher-student relationship and
placing that relationship within the context of reality), propose the transformation of
reality itself so that universities can be renewed, attack old orders and established
institutions in the attempt to affirm human beings as the Subjects of decision, all
these movements reflect the style of our age, which is more anthropological than
anthropocentric.

4 4 – P A U L O F R E I R E

thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression, and the violence of
the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for
freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost hu­
manity.

Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity
has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have
stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully
human. This distortion occurs within history; but it is not an histori­
cal vocation. Indeed, to admit of dehumanization as an historical
vocation would lead either to cynicism or total despair. The struggle
for humanization, for the emancipation of labor, for the overcoming
of alienation, for the affirmation of men and women as persons would
be meaningless. This struggle is possible only because dehumaniza­
tion, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but
the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppres­
sors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.

Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or
later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those
who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the
oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is
a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but
rather restorers of the humanity of both.

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the op­
pressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The
oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power,
cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the op­
pressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness
of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. 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 gen­
erosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.

P E D A G O G Y OF TH E O P P R E S S E D • 4 5

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 individ­
uals or entire peoples—need be extended less and less in supplica­
tion, so that more and more they become human hands which work
and, working, transform the world.

This lesson and this apprenticeship must come, however, from the
oppressed themselves and from those who are truly solidary with
them. As individuals or as peoples, by fighting for the restoration
of their humanity they will be attempting the restoration of true
generosity. Who are better prepared than the oppressed to under­
stand the terrible significance of an oppressive society? Who suffer
the eflFects of oppression more than the oppressed? Who can better
understand the necessity of liberation? They will not gain this libera­
tion by chance but through the praxis of their quest for it, through
their recognition of the necessity to fight for it. And this fight, be­
cause of the purpose given it by the oppressed, will actually consti­
tute an act of love opposing the lovelessness which lies at the heart
of the oppressors violence, lovelessness even when clothed in false
generosity.

But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the
oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to be­
come oppressors, or “sub-oppressors.” The very structure of their
thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete,
existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be
men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their
model of humanity. This phenomenon derives from the fact that the
oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt
an attitude of “adhesion” to the oppressor. Under these circum­
stances they cannot “consider” him sufficiently clearly to objectivize
him—to discover him “outside” themselves. This does not necessar­
ily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden.
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

4 6 – P A U L O F R E I R E

signify engagement in a struggle to overcome the contradiction;2 the
one pole aspires not to liberation, but to identification with its oppo-
site pole.

In this situation the oppressed do not see the “new man” as the
person to be born from the resolution of this contradiction, as op-
pression gives way to liberation. For them, the new man or woman
themselves become oppressors. Their vision of the new man or
woman is individualistic; because of their identification with the
oppressor, they have no consciousness of themselves as persons or
as members of an oppressed class. It is not to become free that they
want agrarian reform, but in order to acquire land and thus become
landowners—or, more precisely, bosses over other workers. It is a
rare peasant who, once “promoted” to overseer, does not become
more of a tyrant towards his former comrades than the owner him-
self. This is because the context of the peasant’s situation, that is,
oppression, remains unchanged. In this example, the overseer, in
order to make sure of his job, must be as tough as the owner—and
more so. Thus is illustrated our previous assertion that during the
initial stage of their struggle the oppressed find in the oppressor
their model of “manhood.”

Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppres-
sion by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this
phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly par-
ticipate in revolution intend—conditioned by the myths of the old
order—to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their for-
mer oppressor is still cast over them.

The “fear of freedom” which afflicts the oppressed,3 a fear which
may equally well lead them to desire the role of oppressor or bind
them to the role of oppressed, should be examined. One of the basic
elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is

2. As used throughout this book, the term “contradiction” denotes the dialectical
conflict between opposing social forces.—Translator s note.

3. 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.

PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED – 4 7

prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one
individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of
the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the pre­
servers consciousness. Thus, the behavior of the oppressed is a
prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the op­
pressor.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor
and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would
require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and
responsibility. Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must
be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal
located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is
rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human com­
pletion.

To surmount the situation of oppression, people must first criti­
cally recognize its causes, so that through transforming action they
can create a new situation, one which makes possible the pursuit of
a fuller humanity. But the struggle to be more fully human has
already begun in the authentic struggle to transform the situation.
Although the situation of oppression is a dehumanized and dehu­
manizing totality affecting both the oppressors and those whom they
oppress, it is the latter who must, from their stifled humanity, wage
for both the struggle for a fuller humanity; the oppressor, who is
himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, is unable to
lead this struggle.

However, the oppressed, who have adapted to the structure of
domination in which they are immersed, and have become resigned
to it, are inhibited from waging the struggle for freedom so long as
they feel incapable of running the risks it requires. Moreover, their
struggle for freedom threatens not only the oppressor, but also their
own oppressed comrades who are fearful of still greater repression.
When they discover within themselves the yearning to be free, they
perceive that this yearning can be transformed into reality only
when the same yearning is aroused in their comrades. But while
dominated by the fear of freedom they refuse to appeal to others,

4 8 – P A U L O F R E I R E

or to listen to the appeals of others, or even to the appeals of their
own conscience. They prefer gregariousness to authentic comrade­
ship; they prefer the security of conformity with their state of unfree-
dom to the creative communion produced by freedom and even the
very pursuit of freedom.

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 exis­
tence, 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 being wholly themselves or being
divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting
them; 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. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their
education must take into account.

This book will present some aspects of what the writer has termed
the pedagogy of the oppressed, a pedagogy which must be forged
with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the
incessant struggle to regain their humanity. This pedagogy makes
oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and
from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the
struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will
be made and remade.

The central problem is this: How can the oppressed, as divided,
unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their
liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be “hosts” of the
oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating
pedagogy. 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. The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for
their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are mani­
festations of dehumanization.

CHAPTER

2

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamen­tally narrative character. This relationship involves a nar­
rating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the
students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of
reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and
petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.

The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static,
compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic
completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His
task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration—
contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the
totality that engendered them and could give them significance.
Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alien­
ated, and alienating verbosity.

The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then,
is the sonority of words, not their transforming power. “Four times
four is sixteen; the capital of Para is Belem.” The student records,
memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four
times four really means, or realizing the true significance of “capital”
in the affirmation “the capital of Para is Belem,” that is, what Belem
means for Pard and what Para means for Brazil.

Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to

7 2 ‘ P A U L O F R E I R E

memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns
them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the
teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a
teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves
to be filled, the better students they are.

Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the stu-
dents are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead
of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes de-
posits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.
This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of
action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing,
and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity
to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in
the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away
through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this
(at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the
praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only
through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient,
continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with
the world, and with each other.

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed
by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom
they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance
onto others, a characteristic of the ideology)of oppression, negates
education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher pre-
sents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by consid-
ering their ignorance absolute, he- justifies his own existence. The
students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept
their ignorance as justifying the teachers existence—but, unlike the
slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher.

The raison d’etre of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies
in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the
solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the
poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers
and students.

PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED ‘ 7 3

This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the banking concept.
On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates
the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices,
which mirrOr oppressive society as a whole:

(a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
(b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
(c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
(d) the teacher talks and the students listen—meekly;
(e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
(f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students

comply;
(g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting

through the action of the teacher;
(h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students

(who were not consulted) adapt to it;
(i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or

her own professional authority, which she and he sets in oppo­
sition to the freedom of the students;

(j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the
pupils are mere objects.

It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards
men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at
storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the
critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in
the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they
accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply
to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality
deposited in them.

The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the
students creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the
interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world re­
vealed nor to see it transformed. The oppressors use their “humani-
tarianism” to preserve a profitable situation. Thus they react almost
instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates

7 4 – P A U L O F R E I R E

the critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of reality
but always seeks out the ties which link one point to another and
one problem to another.

Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in “changing the con-
sciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses
them”;1 for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that
situation, the more easily they can be dominated. To achieve this
end, the oppressors use the banking concept of education in con-
junction with a paternalistic social action apparatus, within which
the oppressed receive the euphemistic title of “welfare recipients.”
They are treated as individual cases, as marginal persons who devi-
ate from the general configuration of a “good, organized, and just”
society. The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy
society, which must therefore adjust these “incompetent and lazy”
folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality. These marginals
need to be “integrated,” “incorporated” into the healthy society that
they have “forsaken.”

The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals,” are
not people living “outside” society. They have always been
“inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.”
The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppres-
sion, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings
for themselves.” Such transformation, of course, would undermine
the oppressors purposes; hence their utilization of the banking con-
cept of education to avoid the threat of student cpnscientizagdo.

The banking approach to adult education, for example, will never
propose to students that they critically consider reality. It will deal
instead with such vital questions as whether Roger gave green grass
to the goat, and insist upon the importance of learning that, on the
contrary, floger gave green grass to the rabbit. The “humanism” of
the banking approach masks the effort to turn women and men into
automatons—the very negation of their ontological vocation to be
more fully human.

1. Simone de Beauvoir, La Pensee de Droite, Aujord’hui (Paris); ST, El Pensami-
ento politico de la Derecha (Buenos Aires, 1963), p. 34.

PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED ‘ 7 5

Those who use the banking approach, knowingly or unknowingly
(for there are innumerable well-intentioned bank-clerk teachers who
do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize), fail to
perceive that the deposits themselves contain contradictions about
reality. But, sooner or later, these contradictions may lead formerly
passive students to turn against their domestication and the attempt
to domesticate reality. They may discover through existential experi­
ence that their present way of life is irreconcilable with their voca­
tion to become fully human. They may perceive through their
relations with reality that reality is really a process, undergoing
constant transformation. If men and women are searchers and their
ontological vocation is humanization, sooner or later they may per­
ceive the contradiction in which banking education seeks to main­
tain them, and then engage themselves in the struggle for their
liberation.

But the humanist, revolutionary educator cannot wait for this pos­
sibility to materialize. From the outset, her efforts must coincide
with those of the students to engage in critical thinking and the
quest for mutual humanization. His efforts must be imbued with a
profqund trust in people and their creative power. To achieve this,
they must be partners of the students in their relations with them.

The banking concept does not admit to such partnership—and
necessarily so. To resolve the teacher-student contradiction, to ex­
change the role of depositor, prescriber, domesticator, for the role
of student among students would be to undermine the power of
oppression and serve the cause of liberation.

Implicit in the banking concept is Uie assumption of a dichotomy
between human beings and the world: a person is merely in the
world, not with the world or with others; the individual is spectator,
not re-creator. In this view, the person is not a conscious being
(corpo consciente); he or she is rather the possessor of a conscious­
ness: an empty “mind” passively open to the reception of deposits
of reality from the world outside. For example, my desk, my books,
my coffee cup, all the objects before me—as bits of the world which
surround me—would be “inside” me, exactly as I am inside my

7 6 – P A U L O F R E I R E

study right now. This view makes no distinction between being ac-
cessible to consciousness and entering consciousness. The distinc-
tion, however, is essential: the objects which surround me are simply
accessible to my consciousness, not located within it. I am aware of
them, but they are not inside me.

It follows logically from the banking notion of consciousness that
the educator s role is to regulate the way the world “enters into” the
students. The teachers task is to organise a process which already
occurs spontaneously, to “fill” the students by making deposits of
information which he or she considers to constitute true knowledge.2

And since people “receive” the world as passive entities, education
should make them more passive still, and adapt them to the world.
The educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he
is better “fit” for the world. Translated into practice, this concept is
well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests
on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and
how little they question it.

The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which
the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them
of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can
continue to prescribe. The theory and practice of banking education
serve this end quite efficiently. Verbalistic lessons, reading require-
ments,3 the methods for evaluating “knowledge,” the distance be-
tween the teacher and the taught, the criteria, for promotion:
everything in this ready-to-wear approach serves to obviate
thinking.

The bank-clerk educator does not realize that there is no true
security in his hypertrophied role, that one must seek to live with
others in solidarity. One cannot impose oneself, nor even merely

2. This concept corresponds to what Sartre calls the “digestive” or “nutritive”
concept of education, in which knowledge is “fed” by the teacher to the students
to “fill them out.” See Jean-Paul Sartre, “Une idee fundamentale de la phenomeno-
logie de Husserl: L’intentionalite,” Situations I (Paris, 1947).

3. For example, some professors specify in their reading lists that a book should
be read from pages 10 to 15—and do this to “help” their students!

P E D A G O G Y OF TH E O P P R E S S E D • 7 7

co-exist with one’s students. Solidarity requires true communica­
tion, and the concept by which such an educator is guided fears and
proscribes< communication.

Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning.
The teachers thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of
the students thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students,
nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, think­
ing that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory
tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought
has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the
subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.

Because banking education begins with a false understanding of
men and women as objects, it cannot promote the development
of what Fromm calls “biophily,” but instead produces its opposite:
“necrophily.”

While life is characterized by growth in a structured, functional
manner, the necrophilous person loves all that does not grow, all
that is mechanical. The necrophilous person is driven by the
desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach
life mechanically, as if all living persons were things. . . . Mem­
ory, rather than experience; having, rather than being, is what
counts. The necrophilous person can relate to an object—a
flower or a person—only if he possesses it; hence a threat to his
possession is a threat to himself; if he loses possession he loses
contact with the world. . . . He loves control, and in the act of
controlling he kills life.4

Oppression—overwhelming control—is necrophilic; it is nour­
ished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education,
which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based
on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of conscious­
ness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to
control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the
world, and inhibits their creative power.

4. Fromm, op. cit.y p. 41.