“The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”

        “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, written by Paulo Friere is dealing with the oppressors and the oppressed. While connecting oppression with humanization, dehumanization and dehumanization he is finding out the correct way to be a human. Most of his views are the exact reality of the world. The world is controlled by the ones who are in power and they are the ones who decide who should live and who should die by living a good life and by living a worst life.  From the history onwards, the ones who were in power ruled above the ones who did not have the power to speak or to act. People got used to this fact that the ones who are powerful in the cases of status and money should make the decisions and that the powerless are obliged to obey the powerful ones. Every individual has a side, which cares only for themselves. When this side of human being succeeds in every stages of life, they start to be happy. This makes them try hard to maintain that happiness and that makes some people to hurt others and to not care for others, to maintain their happiness which in results harms the happy life other individuals.

            The author identifies the violence against the oppressed by the oppressors. The violence that he identifies is against the oppressed ones who are “unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, and cheated in the sale of their labor” (50).  The oppressors are abused by the oppressors. He says that, “For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more – always more- even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing” (58). He identifies the oppressors as the one’s whose primary goal is money and to keep everything with them. He addresses the oppressors as the ones who do not recognize others as persons and the ones who love only themselves. He wants the oppressed to change the oppressors by not taking the position of oppressors. He wants the oppressed ones to bring back humanity of both oppressors and oppressed ones.  He says that, to regain humanity the oppressed should recognize that they were being destroyed (68). He suggests that, “the only effective instrument is a humanizing pedagogy” (68).

            How can the oppressors by taking away the power of the oppressors restore the humanity that the opressr has lost? A person who does bad things against others is evil in nature and that nature cannot be changed by anyone else unless he decides to change that. If oppressed ones take away the oppressors’ power, they are not giving back the humanity that the oppressors’ have lost. The taking away of power can result in more evil behavior, because when the luxuries are taken away, they will try hard to get it back.

-Minnu Jose