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Oppression, Liberation
Dehumanization is a process that oppressors use to prevent human beings from achieving the freedom to understand and change their conditions. In an oppressive society, oppressors use dehumanization to maintain their power over others and prevent them from being more authentically human. Humanization, then, is the opposite process, which oppressed people use to become more free and affirm their identities.
Dehumanization, Humanization Quotes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed quotes below are all either spoken by Dehumanization, Humanization or refer to Dehumanization, Humanization. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
While the problem of humanization has always, from an axiological point of view, been humankind’s central problem, it now takes on the character of an inescapable concern.
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Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes a myth. It is rather the indispensible condition for the quest for human completion.
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Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a new person, viable only as the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is superseded by the humanization of all people. Or to put it another way, the solution of this contradiction is born in the labor which brings into the world this new being: no longer oppressor, no longer oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom.
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Any situation in which “A” objectively exploits “B” or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human.
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Dehumanization, Humanization Term Timeline in Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The timeline below shows where the term Dehumanization, Humanization appears in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...start of the chapter, Freire introduces what he calls “humankind’s central problem”: the problem of “humanization” (the natural human drive to affirm ourselves as human beings) and “dehumanization,” which is a...
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...owned. And because oppressors feel that they can own humanity, they see the fight for humanization and freedom as inherently dangerous. Oppressors also rely on controlling others, to the point that...
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Chapter 2
...support oppressed people’s right to make decisions and ask questions for themselves in pursuit of humanization. It must rely on dialogue at every stage of the process.
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Chapter 4
...direct result of praxis and dialogue among the oppressed and leaders, with the goal of humanizing all people.
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