Reappraising Freir: The potential and limits of conscientization
Chapter One: The Problem Of Language - Why The 'Peculiar Prose'?
By D'Arcy Martin
I felt cheated that it should be written in the language of the seminary...the peculiar prose in which champions of the Christian - Marxist dialogue cloak their ideas. What Freire has to say is almost unintelligible to the ordinary Canadian and difficult for all but a very specialized group of academics. His choice of language symptomatic of his whole approach to the question of revolution and revolutionary leadership...His language is also indicative of this lack of real respect for the people: they are not even given the opportunity to share his rarified view of the true revolutionary educational process.
This comment by a community educator reflects the horror of many progressive Canadians when they first read Paulo Freire. Among critics and supporters alike, it has been said that Freire's use of language is a serious obstacle to understanding. Some, like Joan Kuyek, that this as an indication of 'elitist' or 'bourgeois' tendencies in his work as a whole. Others take it to be a regrettable but mild limitation in communicating Freire's message. But all seem to be agreed that the form in which Freire writes militates against the the engaged and critical dialogue which is central to the content of his writing. It is this 'common sense' position which will be challenged in this chapter.
Certainly when one opens Freire's best-known book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the first statement is disconcerting:
While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been man's central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern. Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as a historical reality.
It must be admitted that terms like "axiological" and "ontological" are hardly part of everyday usage among radical educators. Thus the first impulse of many readers is to conclude that Freire is inaccessible because of jargon. Yet on reading further in this book, and certainly in most of his articles, few other philosophical terms appear which in themselves require dictionary help or a Canadian with average high school training. These occasional terms are the tools in trade of an educational philosopher, and it would hardly seem unreasonable for Freire to require that readers who wish to grapple with his work at a theoretical level take the trouble to look up a few basic words. In looking even through a single chapter of Freire, it should be clear that technical jargon is not what makes his writing "peculiar".
A second explanation sometimes advanced for the difficulties in reading Freire is that he is carried away by rhetorical momentum. Once again, Kuyek traces the problem to the flourishes typical of a classical education, a certain fascination with linguistic elegance as an end in itself which in fact impedes dialogue with popular educators lacking university training. It may be that Freire retains elements of cultural snobbery which have not been eliminated by reflection and action after his university studies. But to make this the central explanation for his apparently opaque style leaves a puzzle concerning Freire's apparent success in the practice of communicating with illiterate peasants. It tends to reduce Freire to the status of a rather pretentious orator, an impression which clashes directly with the experience of workshops, seminars, and working teams in many parts of the world who have had direct contact with him.
No doubt it is necessary to criticize Freire for occasional unnecessary lapses into philosophical jargon, and for traces of pompous rhetoric in his writing. But those who undertake such criticism must carry it past a simple observation, for it should be clear that Freire's language is carefully crafted; he is in fact exceptionally conscious of the words he uses.
Consider the way that Freire often opens an essay by exegesis of the words in the title. His paper on "Extension or communication", for example, starts by committing five pages to "semantic analysis of the term 'extension'". Through this analysis, Freire uncovers the tendency to cultural arrogance implicit in the very term, and then goes on to criticize the cultural invasion which most extension education represents for the popular sectors to whom it is addressed. These are central themes for the article, derived from consideration of a single word.
Similarly, when Freire is asked to write about 'cultural freedom in Latin America', he observes of the assignment:
I will first take the linguistic structure as a whole and as a knowable object. Then, after 'breaking it up', I will be able to 'see' the whole from within and behold the 'contextual sense' of its words. (emphasis added)
He then proceeds to a meticulous consideration of the phrase, spelling out the particular use of adjective and preposition within it. Once more, he moves from this detailed analysis of language to the development of broader themes in the article. A consideration of language again becomes central to his exposition of content. In this light, it should be clear that Freire is acutely aware of the ways in which other educators use language, and makes of this awareness a point of departure for exposition of his views. Unfortunately, few of those who have commented on difficulties with Freire's writing style have done the same.
If the core of his arguments if frequently expressed in terms of linguistic analysis, it is also true that many of Freire's key phrases have references to language within them. He speaks of liberation as a process of "recovering the word"; he says dialogue is an encounter to "name to world"; he considers the consciousness of the oppressed to be a "culture of silence". Such phrases recur in Freire's writing; terms relating to language provide a consistent basis for outlining his political perspective as well as a point of departure in a number of essays.
Even more significant, surely, is the fact that linguistic considerations are the basis of his pedagogical methods. If Freire is concerned with language as a theorist, he has also been engaged in sustained educational work which centres its concern on language development. In developing his psycho-social method of literacy, Freire made innovative use of linguistics to help peasants develop written and verbal communications skills. The literacy materials prepared by his teams are concise, clear and simple in the way that they pose problems. If Freire's published reflections on these experiences are not, it emy be hasty to assume that his form of expression contradicts his political and pedagogical golds.
In this thesis, a different hypothesis will be adopted, indeed one which is diametrically opposed to the 'common sense' criticisms of his writing. It will be assumed that the care and precision which Freire applies to the dissection of other people's language is also evidenced in his own use of words. It will be considered that his use of words, rather than an obstacle to understanding, are the key to grasping his content. And, as Freire does himself in several essays, a consideration of language will serve as the starting point for a critical exposition of ideas. The basis of the position advanced here is that if Freire's writing appears "unintelligible', it is not because he writes badly, but because he thinks differently from those who are trying to "make sense" of his ideas.
It has been suggested that the major difficulty with Freire is not in grasping specific words, but rather in gathering the threads of his argument. The problem lies in linking his flashes of insight into a coherent pattern. To clarify the problem, let us consider a specific statement by Freire, and attempt to unravel his language. One concise argument can be found just two pages after the rather daunting start to Pedagogy of the Oppressed, quoted above:
In order to have the continued opportunity to express their 'generoisty', 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. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity."
Here there is no jargon to impede understanding, no technical or philosophical terms alien to everyday speech. And there are no obscure references of the sort associated with rhetorical flourish. Further, the content of the statement seems reasonably clear at first glance, at least for any radical educator who has had to face the quesetion of financial support for progressive work.
Undoubtedly, this statement is very elliptical. In only four sentences, Freire traces a whole set of relations; false generosity - charity - true generosity - injustice - poverty - oppression. It could be said that these are the six facts in the statements, the reference points in the argument. Yet in a curious way it is difficult to define a focus, for the comments can be restated in an equally meaningful way by starting with any one of the reference points. The argument is hard to 'pin down' because it simultaneously considers relations among several elements rather than focusing attention on a single element. The specific sense given to the words 'generosity' and 'charity', for example, is defined in relation to the whole statement. Each of these two terms implies the other at the same time that it is distinguished from the other; each term is subjected to a value judgment in terms of the other; and the progression from one to the other is not a linear sequence but an exploration of internal and external relations between them. A similar set of relations is implied among other elements as well - for example, between false generosity and poverty, or between charity and oppression. In a sense, then, the subject matter o the statement is not the six 'facts' which are isolated at first glance as reference points, but rather the relations among them.
The elusive quality in Freire's writing becomes clear if one tries to summarize the central concerns in his theory by pinning down specific definitions of important terms. This approach has in fact limited the usefulness of much writing about Freire, since analysts of his work try to save their readers from their own difficulties with his 'peculiar prose' by reducing his theory to a few basic definitions. Typical would be the stress laid on definitions of culture, clearly a term of great 'generative' significance in Freire's work. This term turns up repeatedly in the titles of his articles, and is an element in several key phrases, such as 'culture of silence', 'cultural action for freedom', and antrhropological concept of culture'. It could be said that Freire uses the term to cover references to the social totality. But its meaning would seem to be much richer than this bald definition would suggest. Consider two points where Freire concentrates attention on the word:
Culture, created by men through their praxis and their work, is the symbolic and 'comprehensive' universe in which men act as conscious beings. Nevertheless, to the extent that men, in their dialectical relationship with the world, transform the world through their work, they are conditioned by the products of their own action. Thus in objectifying the world, me objectify themselves, and culture appears, then, as the alienation or 'estrangement' of the very being who creates it. But, dialectically, the original alienation constitutes a fundamental moment of the very de-alienation process.
Culture, the creation of man, in a certain way creates him. Affected by his own praxis, he conditions it through the dialectical movement between culture itself as a superstructure and the infrastructure. It is through creating and being conditioned by his own creation, by creating an object on becoming an object, that he finds the great challenge of freedom. Only those beings who live this paradox of creating and being conditioned by their creation are capable of achieving freedom.
It would be an unusual reader indeed who could grasp the full richness of these brief quotes on a first reading. It would be an even more unusual writer who could easily reduce them to a 'common sense' definition of the word "culture" in a couple of sentences. Yet there are no terms unfamiliar to readers reasonably versed in critical social theory, and no rhetorical excess. Rather, it is the constant use of paradox, of contradiction and synthesis, which makes these two statements seem impenetrable. The apparent density of the prose is not die to the number of facts introduced but rather to the diversity and complexity of relations among those facts. Thus culture is presented in terms of human praxis - transforming work - social conditioning - alienation - de-alienation - superstructure - infrastructure - objectification - creation. It is in this set of relations that an adequate definition of Freire's use of the term would have to operate. And given the complexity of such relations, any attempt to define the term is almost certain to be as 'incomprehensible' as Freire himself. It seems clear that Freire deals here with culture, not as a thing but as a relation. His attempts at brief definition, then, become an exploration of things-in-relation rather than a linear statement.
One further illustration should suffice to clarify the point about Freire's 'peculiar' prose. It centres upon language itself, on Freire's use of the term word. Clearly the term contains some theological allusions but its major reference is to the shift in relations between the illiterate and language which is the technical goal of literacy education. More broadly, it also occurs in Freire's political perspective, as an element of the praxis considered by Williams and others to be the best point of departure for understanding and applying Freire's ideas. Consider these two comments:
Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed - even in part - the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.
Insofar as language is impossible without thought, and language and thought are impossible without the world to which they refer, the human word is more than mere vocabulary - it is word-and-action. The cognitive dimensions of the literacy process must include the relationships of men with their world...Learning to read and write ought to be an opportunity for men to know what speaking the word really means: a human act implying reflection and action. As such, it is a primordial right and not the privilege of a few.
In this case, once again, a matter-of-fact definition would be difficult to extract from Freire's use of the term. Clearly, his view is at word includes two levels of definition, on referring to reflection and the other to action. He refers to a "true" word, which hence implies the existence of false definitions. He situates the term in relation to language", "thought", "the world" and so on. And he discerns aspects of the term which touch politics, privilege and social change in ways that no common-sense definition ever would. In the process, the significance of his use of the term word is clarified by a series of successive approximations, to use a mathematical metaphor. And it is this exploration, rather than a strict marking out of denotation and connotation which yields the only adequate grasp of Freire's use of the term.
Enough of illustrations. By reference to the terms of culture and word, a general hypothesis about Freire's use of language is being considered. This hypothesis is that most readers find Freire's style bewildering, not because he uses jargon or rhetoric but because his thought patterns are different form their own. Their effort to 'make sense' of his writing, then, appear to be distortions of his ideas, a refusal to adjust their won intellectual process to accommodate a thinker who sees the world relationally rather than factually.
From the examples considered above, it seems more fruitful to adopt a hypothesis that Freire knows what he is doing in his choice of words than to assume that he does not. On looking closely at Freire's 'peculiar prose', an apparent contradiction between form and content has been resolved, and coherence established at a new level. In fact, his language reflects a theory of relations rather than of discrete objects; his use of words carries within it an epistemology that is dialectical rather than linear.
Given Freire's relational method, it is fruitless to pull fragments out of his writing and criticize them in isolation. Such an exercise may help to demystify individuals who are infatuated with the elegance in Freire's turn of phrase, but it does little to help serious and progressive educators to advance their understanding. Those who engage in such 'debate' with Freire have simply missed the point of his language. And thought will be taken as the essential form of Freire's writing. Criticisms which are raised, then, would hove to do with failures to integrate specific elements into the relational framework, or cases where Freire distorts or truncates a particular relation.
On the understanding that Freire's exposition is relational, one is enabled to level criticisms that are relational, to tackle Freire on his home ground. Only in this way can one avoid the fallacy suggested in the popular Latin American saying that 'one does not ask the elm tree to produce pears'. The internal relations among Freire's ideas can be found in a six-point summary reproduced in an adult education journal:
1. Education must help the individual to become a subject, beginning with everything that constitutes his own life.
2. Man becomes a subject by reflecting on his situation and on his concrete environment.
3. Man is able to lift himself to a higher level of awareness and become a subject in proportion to the extent to which he intervenes in his society, reflects on its context and commits himself to it.
4. Man creates culture in the extent to which he integrates in his social and cultural environment, reflects on it and responds to its challenges.
5. Man makes history by his response to nature's challenges and his relationships with others.
6. Education must be - in its content, curriculum and methods - adapted to the desired end, which is to enable the individual to become a subject, to transform the world, to relate to other human beings (to establish reciprocal relationships), to mould his culture and to make history.
This synthesis is totally stripped of jargon, and concise to the point where the interrelated and interdependent nature of Freire's ideas is made clear. The six principles build on each other, yet scarcely in a linear way. Rather, the pattern of logic is one of concentric circles, moving from an individual's "own life" out to "history" at the broadest level, and then returning to the point of departure. It could be said that the whole constitutes a definition of education, but other points of entry could be selected which would make the whole a definition of consciousness, of man or of history. In the content of Freire's theory, then, no less than in the form of his language, it is a relational approach which proves most fruitful. Here each of the principles is internally related to the other five, in that it implies the other five and can only be fully understood in relation to the whole. To pull any one of these principles out of context, out of the set of relations which gives it meaning, might still leave it 'intelligible' in common-sense terms, but would drain it into a formulation which would indeed be abstract.
By uncovering the relational nature of Freire's language, then, a good deal of explanatory power can be developed for study of his ideas. It is in this perspective that comments such as the following, rather than exclusive appear as illuminating:
An explicit relationship has been established between cultural action for freedom, conscientisation as its chief enterprise, and the transcendence of semi-transitive state of consciousness by critical consciousness. Critical consciousness is brought about not through an intellectual effort only, but through praxis - through the authentic union of action and reflection." (emphasis added)
From this consideration of Freire's language, then, it would follow that Freire's theoretical task is one of establishing connections among phenomena often seen in isolation (e.g. agricultural extension and literacy). It is in relational or dialectical terms that Freire's theoretical work, quite simply, makes the most sense. In the remainder of this thesis, therefore, it is this approach which will be adopted, both for inquiry and for exposition.
Such an approach of course, cannot pretend to be objective. For once Freire's theory and practice are considered as an interrelated and coherent whole, one is forced to define one's own relation in theory and practice to the challenge which it represents. As Freire repeatedly insists that there can be no neutral education, so too in a relational framework there can be no neutral study of his ideas. In recognizing that the internal relations of Freire's praxis would be analysed and presented differently by others acting in a different context and with different values, one is not prevented from an intellectually valid study of his ideas. Rather, one is enabled to undertake it in the same critical and practical spirit as that of Freire's own writing. It is on the basis of sympathy for Freire's value commitments and acceptance of his relational method that some theoretical problems will be explored in the next chapter.
This comment by a community educator reflects the horror of many progressive Canadians when they first read Paulo Freire. Among critics and supporters alike, it has been said that Freire's use of language is a serious obstacle to understanding. Some, like Joan Kuyek, that this as an indication of 'elitist' or 'bourgeois' tendencies in his work as a whole. Others take it to be a regrettable but mild limitation in communicating Freire's message. But all seem to be agreed that the form in which Freire writes militates against the the engaged and critical dialogue which is central to the content of his writing. It is this 'common sense' position which will be challenged in this chapter.
Certainly when one opens Freire's best-known book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the first statement is disconcerting:
While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been man's central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern. Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as a historical reality.
It must be admitted that terms like "axiological" and "ontological" are hardly part of everyday usage among radical educators. Thus the first impulse of many readers is to conclude that Freire is inaccessible because of jargon. Yet on reading further in this book, and certainly in most of his articles, few other philosophical terms appear which in themselves require dictionary help or a Canadian with average high school training. These occasional terms are the tools in trade of an educational philosopher, and it would hardly seem unreasonable for Freire to require that readers who wish to grapple with his work at a theoretical level take the trouble to look up a few basic words. In looking even through a single chapter of Freire, it should be clear that technical jargon is not what makes his writing "peculiar".
A second explanation sometimes advanced for the difficulties in reading Freire is that he is carried away by rhetorical momentum. Once again, Kuyek traces the problem to the flourishes typical of a classical education, a certain fascination with linguistic elegance as an end in itself which in fact impedes dialogue with popular educators lacking university training. It may be that Freire retains elements of cultural snobbery which have not been eliminated by reflection and action after his university studies. But to make this the central explanation for his apparently opaque style leaves a puzzle concerning Freire's apparent success in the practice of communicating with illiterate peasants. It tends to reduce Freire to the status of a rather pretentious orator, an impression which clashes directly with the experience of workshops, seminars, and working teams in many parts of the world who have had direct contact with him.
No doubt it is necessary to criticize Freire for occasional unnecessary lapses into philosophical jargon, and for traces of pompous rhetoric in his writing. But those who undertake such criticism must carry it past a simple observation, for it should be clear that Freire's language is carefully crafted; he is in fact exceptionally conscious of the words he uses.
Consider the way that Freire often opens an essay by exegesis of the words in the title. His paper on "Extension or communication", for example, starts by committing five pages to "semantic analysis of the term 'extension'". Through this analysis, Freire uncovers the tendency to cultural arrogance implicit in the very term, and then goes on to criticize the cultural invasion which most extension education represents for the popular sectors to whom it is addressed. These are central themes for the article, derived from consideration of a single word.
Similarly, when Freire is asked to write about 'cultural freedom in Latin America', he observes of the assignment:
I will first take the linguistic structure as a whole and as a knowable object. Then, after 'breaking it up', I will be able to 'see' the whole from within and behold the 'contextual sense' of its words. (emphasis added)
He then proceeds to a meticulous consideration of the phrase, spelling out the particular use of adjective and preposition within it. Once more, he moves from this detailed analysis of language to the development of broader themes in the article. A consideration of language again becomes central to his exposition of content. In this light, it should be clear that Freire is acutely aware of the ways in which other educators use language, and makes of this awareness a point of departure for exposition of his views. Unfortunately, few of those who have commented on difficulties with Freire's writing style have done the same.
If the core of his arguments if frequently expressed in terms of linguistic analysis, it is also true that many of Freire's key phrases have references to language within them. He speaks of liberation as a process of "recovering the word"; he says dialogue is an encounter to "name to world"; he considers the consciousness of the oppressed to be a "culture of silence". Such phrases recur in Freire's writing; terms relating to language provide a consistent basis for outlining his political perspective as well as a point of departure in a number of essays.
Even more significant, surely, is the fact that linguistic considerations are the basis of his pedagogical methods. If Freire is concerned with language as a theorist, he has also been engaged in sustained educational work which centres its concern on language development. In developing his psycho-social method of literacy, Freire made innovative use of linguistics to help peasants develop written and verbal communications skills. The literacy materials prepared by his teams are concise, clear and simple in the way that they pose problems. If Freire's published reflections on these experiences are not, it emy be hasty to assume that his form of expression contradicts his political and pedagogical golds.
In this thesis, a different hypothesis will be adopted, indeed one which is diametrically opposed to the 'common sense' criticisms of his writing. It will be assumed that the care and precision which Freire applies to the dissection of other people's language is also evidenced in his own use of words. It will be considered that his use of words, rather than an obstacle to understanding, are the key to grasping his content. And, as Freire does himself in several essays, a consideration of language will serve as the starting point for a critical exposition of ideas. The basis of the position advanced here is that if Freire's writing appears "unintelligible', it is not because he writes badly, but because he thinks differently from those who are trying to "make sense" of his ideas.
It has been suggested that the major difficulty with Freire is not in grasping specific words, but rather in gathering the threads of his argument. The problem lies in linking his flashes of insight into a coherent pattern. To clarify the problem, let us consider a specific statement by Freire, and attempt to unravel his language. One concise argument can be found just two pages after the rather daunting start to Pedagogy of the Oppressed, quoted above:
In order to have the continued opportunity to express their 'generoisty', 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. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity."
Here there is no jargon to impede understanding, no technical or philosophical terms alien to everyday speech. And there are no obscure references of the sort associated with rhetorical flourish. Further, the content of the statement seems reasonably clear at first glance, at least for any radical educator who has had to face the quesetion of financial support for progressive work.
Undoubtedly, this statement is very elliptical. In only four sentences, Freire traces a whole set of relations; false generosity - charity - true generosity - injustice - poverty - oppression. It could be said that these are the six facts in the statements, the reference points in the argument. Yet in a curious way it is difficult to define a focus, for the comments can be restated in an equally meaningful way by starting with any one of the reference points. The argument is hard to 'pin down' because it simultaneously considers relations among several elements rather than focusing attention on a single element. The specific sense given to the words 'generosity' and 'charity', for example, is defined in relation to the whole statement. Each of these two terms implies the other at the same time that it is distinguished from the other; each term is subjected to a value judgment in terms of the other; and the progression from one to the other is not a linear sequence but an exploration of internal and external relations between them. A similar set of relations is implied among other elements as well - for example, between false generosity and poverty, or between charity and oppression. In a sense, then, the subject matter o the statement is not the six 'facts' which are isolated at first glance as reference points, but rather the relations among them.
The elusive quality in Freire's writing becomes clear if one tries to summarize the central concerns in his theory by pinning down specific definitions of important terms. This approach has in fact limited the usefulness of much writing about Freire, since analysts of his work try to save their readers from their own difficulties with his 'peculiar prose' by reducing his theory to a few basic definitions. Typical would be the stress laid on definitions of culture, clearly a term of great 'generative' significance in Freire's work. This term turns up repeatedly in the titles of his articles, and is an element in several key phrases, such as 'culture of silence', 'cultural action for freedom', and antrhropological concept of culture'. It could be said that Freire uses the term to cover references to the social totality. But its meaning would seem to be much richer than this bald definition would suggest. Consider two points where Freire concentrates attention on the word:
Culture, created by men through their praxis and their work, is the symbolic and 'comprehensive' universe in which men act as conscious beings. Nevertheless, to the extent that men, in their dialectical relationship with the world, transform the world through their work, they are conditioned by the products of their own action. Thus in objectifying the world, me objectify themselves, and culture appears, then, as the alienation or 'estrangement' of the very being who creates it. But, dialectically, the original alienation constitutes a fundamental moment of the very de-alienation process.
Culture, the creation of man, in a certain way creates him. Affected by his own praxis, he conditions it through the dialectical movement between culture itself as a superstructure and the infrastructure. It is through creating and being conditioned by his own creation, by creating an object on becoming an object, that he finds the great challenge of freedom. Only those beings who live this paradox of creating and being conditioned by their creation are capable of achieving freedom.
It would be an unusual reader indeed who could grasp the full richness of these brief quotes on a first reading. It would be an even more unusual writer who could easily reduce them to a 'common sense' definition of the word "culture" in a couple of sentences. Yet there are no terms unfamiliar to readers reasonably versed in critical social theory, and no rhetorical excess. Rather, it is the constant use of paradox, of contradiction and synthesis, which makes these two statements seem impenetrable. The apparent density of the prose is not die to the number of facts introduced but rather to the diversity and complexity of relations among those facts. Thus culture is presented in terms of human praxis - transforming work - social conditioning - alienation - de-alienation - superstructure - infrastructure - objectification - creation. It is in this set of relations that an adequate definition of Freire's use of the term would have to operate. And given the complexity of such relations, any attempt to define the term is almost certain to be as 'incomprehensible' as Freire himself. It seems clear that Freire deals here with culture, not as a thing but as a relation. His attempts at brief definition, then, become an exploration of things-in-relation rather than a linear statement.
One further illustration should suffice to clarify the point about Freire's 'peculiar' prose. It centres upon language itself, on Freire's use of the term word. Clearly the term contains some theological allusions but its major reference is to the shift in relations between the illiterate and language which is the technical goal of literacy education. More broadly, it also occurs in Freire's political perspective, as an element of the praxis considered by Williams and others to be the best point of departure for understanding and applying Freire's ideas. Consider these two comments:
Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed - even in part - the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.
Insofar as language is impossible without thought, and language and thought are impossible without the world to which they refer, the human word is more than mere vocabulary - it is word-and-action. The cognitive dimensions of the literacy process must include the relationships of men with their world...Learning to read and write ought to be an opportunity for men to know what speaking the word really means: a human act implying reflection and action. As such, it is a primordial right and not the privilege of a few.
In this case, once again, a matter-of-fact definition would be difficult to extract from Freire's use of the term. Clearly, his view is at word includes two levels of definition, on referring to reflection and the other to action. He refers to a "true" word, which hence implies the existence of false definitions. He situates the term in relation to language", "thought", "the world" and so on. And he discerns aspects of the term which touch politics, privilege and social change in ways that no common-sense definition ever would. In the process, the significance of his use of the term word is clarified by a series of successive approximations, to use a mathematical metaphor. And it is this exploration, rather than a strict marking out of denotation and connotation which yields the only adequate grasp of Freire's use of the term.
Enough of illustrations. By reference to the terms of culture and word, a general hypothesis about Freire's use of language is being considered. This hypothesis is that most readers find Freire's style bewildering, not because he uses jargon or rhetoric but because his thought patterns are different form their own. Their effort to 'make sense' of his writing, then, appear to be distortions of his ideas, a refusal to adjust their won intellectual process to accommodate a thinker who sees the world relationally rather than factually.
From the examples considered above, it seems more fruitful to adopt a hypothesis that Freire knows what he is doing in his choice of words than to assume that he does not. On looking closely at Freire's 'peculiar prose', an apparent contradiction between form and content has been resolved, and coherence established at a new level. In fact, his language reflects a theory of relations rather than of discrete objects; his use of words carries within it an epistemology that is dialectical rather than linear.
Given Freire's relational method, it is fruitless to pull fragments out of his writing and criticize them in isolation. Such an exercise may help to demystify individuals who are infatuated with the elegance in Freire's turn of phrase, but it does little to help serious and progressive educators to advance their understanding. Those who engage in such 'debate' with Freire have simply missed the point of his language. And thought will be taken as the essential form of Freire's writing. Criticisms which are raised, then, would hove to do with failures to integrate specific elements into the relational framework, or cases where Freire distorts or truncates a particular relation.
On the understanding that Freire's exposition is relational, one is enabled to level criticisms that are relational, to tackle Freire on his home ground. Only in this way can one avoid the fallacy suggested in the popular Latin American saying that 'one does not ask the elm tree to produce pears'. The internal relations among Freire's ideas can be found in a six-point summary reproduced in an adult education journal:
1. Education must help the individual to become a subject, beginning with everything that constitutes his own life.
2. Man becomes a subject by reflecting on his situation and on his concrete environment.
3. Man is able to lift himself to a higher level of awareness and become a subject in proportion to the extent to which he intervenes in his society, reflects on its context and commits himself to it.
4. Man creates culture in the extent to which he integrates in his social and cultural environment, reflects on it and responds to its challenges.
5. Man makes history by his response to nature's challenges and his relationships with others.
6. Education must be - in its content, curriculum and methods - adapted to the desired end, which is to enable the individual to become a subject, to transform the world, to relate to other human beings (to establish reciprocal relationships), to mould his culture and to make history.
This synthesis is totally stripped of jargon, and concise to the point where the interrelated and interdependent nature of Freire's ideas is made clear. The six principles build on each other, yet scarcely in a linear way. Rather, the pattern of logic is one of concentric circles, moving from an individual's "own life" out to "history" at the broadest level, and then returning to the point of departure. It could be said that the whole constitutes a definition of education, but other points of entry could be selected which would make the whole a definition of consciousness, of man or of history. In the content of Freire's theory, then, no less than in the form of his language, it is a relational approach which proves most fruitful. Here each of the principles is internally related to the other five, in that it implies the other five and can only be fully understood in relation to the whole. To pull any one of these principles out of context, out of the set of relations which gives it meaning, might still leave it 'intelligible' in common-sense terms, but would drain it into a formulation which would indeed be abstract.
By uncovering the relational nature of Freire's language, then, a good deal of explanatory power can be developed for study of his ideas. It is in this perspective that comments such as the following, rather than exclusive appear as illuminating:
An explicit relationship has been established between cultural action for freedom, conscientisation as its chief enterprise, and the transcendence of semi-transitive state of consciousness by critical consciousness. Critical consciousness is brought about not through an intellectual effort only, but through praxis - through the authentic union of action and reflection." (emphasis added)
From this consideration of Freire's language, then, it would follow that Freire's theoretical task is one of establishing connections among phenomena often seen in isolation (e.g. agricultural extension and literacy). It is in relational or dialectical terms that Freire's theoretical work, quite simply, makes the most sense. In the remainder of this thesis, therefore, it is this approach which will be adopted, both for inquiry and for exposition.
Such an approach of course, cannot pretend to be objective. For once Freire's theory and practice are considered as an interrelated and coherent whole, one is forced to define one's own relation in theory and practice to the challenge which it represents. As Freire repeatedly insists that there can be no neutral education, so too in a relational framework there can be no neutral study of his ideas. In recognizing that the internal relations of Freire's praxis would be analysed and presented differently by others acting in a different context and with different values, one is not prevented from an intellectually valid study of his ideas. Rather, one is enabled to undertake it in the same critical and practical spirit as that of Freire's own writing. It is on the basis of sympathy for Freire's value commitments and acceptance of his relational method that some theoretical problems will be explored in the next chapter.