In analyzing Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, after my close look at just the first chapter alone – I am in complete understanding that it’s breaking apart the way in which humans understand oppression and the roles it plays in society. At least in the first chapter, Freire explores specifically the relationship between oppressors and the oppressed. He identifies combating concepts that play a role in their relationship, and why it’s so superior/inferior based.
One of these concepts is that of dehumanization, which is present within any oppressor/ oppressed relationship. Freire defines dehumanization as the stealing of one’s humanity, on both sides. He describes how dehumanization “marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen but also, those who have stolen it.” In developing this relationship, the oppressor continuously dehumanizes the oppressed while, actually dehumanizing themselves as well because they define their existence solely as the taking away of others’. This is why Freire describes dehumanization as “a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human,” a blurred view or bump in the road within the process of humans discovering what makes them themselves and, human.
He then goes to explain how dehumanization is not one, specific historical event that you can just pinpoint – it’s not just switching a light switch. However, it’s something that occurs over time through inevitable conflicts and mistreatment that arise in this quest for humanity. He goes on to explain that dehumanization is “a concrete historical fact, not a given destiny but the result of unjust order.” I say inevitable because, in a community full of humans trying to define themselves and their role in the world and, in turn, relations to each other – there is no specific rulebook to follow and that inevitably leads to instability. And, in a pool of instability – humans will always crave stability, a set order. This is where the need for an established superior party and inferior party chimes in; humans subconsciously need one to win and one to lose. Freire explains how this mentality amongst humanity in terms of stability is what “engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed,” or, in other words, perpetuates this toxic cycle of oppression.
A real-life, direct example of humans’ natural need for this order is the Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971. This experiment was led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo in attempt to study the psychological effects of perceived power. The subjects of the experiment were paid students who were split in half, one half was established as the officers while the other was established as the prisoners. And, as the groups got their roles, they immediately embodied them in undergoing a process of complete dehumanization of each other. The officers even literally stripped the prisoners of their identity, referring to them as numbers throughout the experiment. Many films and documentaries have been made about this important experiment in psychology and human relation. The officers’ treatment of the prisoners is sometimes hard to watch as it was so inhumane and brutal. The experiment was eventually called off because both parties of the experiment soon lost their concepts of humanity and got lost in the comfort of power/ order, after only six days. Though this is an example of extreme mistreatment and oppression, I feel that it completely encapsulates and exemplifies humans’ need for an established order with a winning and losing party, as misfortunate as that is.
In the end, my view is that humans don’t have to be subject to this unfortunate order in which we have become so dependent on. I say “become,” because a cycle only becomes a cycle because we adjust to routine – we’re not truly dependent, that’s just our perception, what we’re used to. This is actually good news in that it means that cycles can be broken and changed – all with an adjustment of our universal mentality. Even though one party is established as superior and one is deemed as inferior, both parties are really both just humans that are going through the same struggle of defining themselves and finding a place where they fit in this large world. An understanding of this concept is what can help lessen the occurrence of oppression as we’ll hopefully depend less and less on this order we’ve established throughout history. Though there is a level of comfort in an established order, we truly do not need to constantly observe one side win while the other side loses and dehumanize each other as well as ourselves.
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