Freire -just to start with him
I started (and only started) reading FREIRE in the French version (la pédagogie des opprimé es — Traduit du portugais (Brésil) by Élodie Dupau et Melenn Kerhoas. Introduction of Irène Pereira.
Freire remains among the giants (like Hegel or Heidegger o Gadamer) — that we are afraid to face. The editors should put an on the text an adviser message — read it as you would read Paulo Coelho. A pleasure moment on the sofa. Instead, we come to the book with apprehension, and as a general idea, “I more or less know what it’s about”.
Indeed, the introduction warns that we probably have some distorted ideas about the text — due to its enormous popularity.
The eternal question of who oppresses and who is after. Words that sound harsh now that I write, with the Russia-Ukraine war at the gates. And I wonder, as in Frantz Fanon, when everything can be brought back to the scale of the microcosm of our psychology, where we are both oppressed and often oppressors towards others and towards ourselves.
« l’opprimé n’a pas vocation seulement à se libérer lui-même, il doit libérer l’humanité. Seuls les opprimés peuvent, en se libérant eux-mêmes, libérer les oppresseurs. Car si les oppresseurs peuvent avoir l’impression d’être libres, en réalité, ils sont aliénés dans l’avoir plutôt qu’ils ne développent leur être » (XX).
The introduction warns that we probably have some distorted ideas about the text.
I am happy to immerse myself in reading this text as an adult: the introduction resonates with university studies and universal values.
