From Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Yung Suk Kim

Paulo Freire, the writer of From Pedagogy of the Oppressed, summarizes what true dialogue should be like in relation to social and educational transformation in the real world. Before his main exploration of the true dialogue, Freire properly reflects on the word –which involves its two dimensions: reflection and action. He includes in the true word verbalism (reflective speaking) and activism (committed action); one cannot be separated from the other. Furthermore, the writer connects this holistic two-dimensional word with essential human existence. That is to say, desirable human existence is none other than naming the world (speaking), acting it out and further reflecting on it, to transform the reality of the world, with other people.

Freire now moves on to the discussion of true dialogue. First of all, he talks about the importance of an equal level of dialogue, in the way that dialoguers cannot have dominion over others by imposing their ideas onto the other people, even under the name of liberation of the people or under any good cause. The writer affirms that, in order to transform the world among them, dialoguers have to work together from naming the world to acting it out, while respecting one another. Second, Freire talks about the several conditions that allow true dialogue to take place. The first condition is love, without which true dialogue itself will not come to the world, because "love is commitment" to others. The second condition to true dialogue is humility, opposed to arrogance or self-sufficiency. To transform the world together, dialoguers have to approach humbly in their dialogue, opening their minds. The third condition is an intense faith in the person. The important thing is faith in the human, in the sense that ultimately humans must coexist by struggling together, without excluding anyone. Thus without faith in the person we cannot work together as dialogue partners. The fourth condition is hope, which is relentless hope for the ultimate good, no matter what happens in reality. Freire is not so naïve as to give specious hope without talking about patience or struggle. For him, hope produces enough energy and a goal so that dialoguers can move forward to transform the world under any circumstances. Such unyielding hope is closely related to active waiting, because, sometimes, the struggling efforts to transform the world do not bear fruit, fast enough to the expectation of the dialoguers. The fifth condition is engagement in critical thinking, without which the transformation efforts would be ending in vain and naïvely. Critical thinking is important to Freire’s framework of the world and humanity, because it can "discern an indivisible solidarity between the world and men." In other words, his framework of critical thinking is based on the sheer realization that human beings live within the world, whose playground is given not as fixed reality but as transformable reality. So, his framework of critical thinking seeks transformation of reality in the world.

Finally, Freire smoothly moves to the discussion of education as an extended aspect of true dialogue. He states that the dialogical pedagogy model is representation of true dialogue, through which teachers/students understand their "objective situation and their awareness of that situation."

This article makes a clear contribution to our understanding of true word and dialogue, with the writer’s balanced sense of word and action. In reality, as is often the case, we say one thing and do another, whereas not thinking critically about the world and fellow human beings as essential partners to transform the world. In this way, Freire challenges to us to live holistically in dialogue with others to make better the world. To show some holistic examples in our tradition, I resort to Chinese four- word phrases compared to Freire’s picture of the word, and those phrases demonstrate the intrinsic relationship between the word and action. Un-hang-il-chi (????) means that the word must accord with action; ji-hang-il-chi (????), meaning that knowing must accord with action. Similarly, the book of James also emphasizes the practical side of faith, clearly rejecting the idea of mere verbal faith (saying one thing) without action, as we see an example of such emphasis from that book: faith without deed is dead.

His another excellent contribution can be found in his suggestion of the dialogical pedagogy model, in which the so-called multicultural education can be fruitful if we employ and practice that model in the classroom inside and outside as well. Rather than giving one way instruction, teachers can have dialogue with students, not just between them but among the students as well, to come to know of different cultures and reality.

Notwithstanding Freire’s strong points as mentioned above, one weak point at least must be pointed out, that is to say, his conviction about logocentrism, upon which he builds his discussion about true word and dialogue. Logocentrism is a belief that language or word can be a true conveyor of meaning and hence that every reality can be represented by/with word. As such, Freire believes that we can rightly name the world by word and communicate with others about it as well. However, postmodernism thinking rejects logocentrism because word or language cannot be a conveyor of truth and further rejects the agreement between the signifier and the signified. For instance, the meaning of love (the signified) is not the same as the word love itself (the signifier); there is a fundamental gap between the signifier and the signified. So, the question is, By what and how will this gap be filled?

The flip side of the aforementioned weak point in logocentrism entails sacrificing of the silence or of a bigger reality beyond our word or thought. Because of too much emphasis on the word and the human capacity to articulate the situations and the reality, the writer somehow did not consider those who did not articulate well or did not want to speak up. In fact, in one wing of Buddhist tradition, silence is preferred to the word. Silencing is another way of close access to the reality. This kind of tradition embraces and reflects on a reality that is indescribable and that is bigger than our articulation or thought. So, our attempts to cement reality by forming our consciousness and to verbalize logically might fail, no matter how hard we analyze situations or reality in the world.