“We had fed the heart on fantasy,
The heart’s grown brutal from the fare.”
-William Butler Yeats
By Taylor Graham
Humanization is the original vocation of the people, affirms Paulo Friere in his formative text, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” Conversely, dehumanization is a distortion of this practice of becoming more fully human. For Freire, however, this does not make dehumanization any less real, for dehumanization is a historical fact. The practice of dehumanizing and the state of being dehumanized stem from an unjust order. In this climate of dehumanization, Freire proposes his pedagogy for the oppressed, a method of humanizing through which "the oppressed liberate themselves and their oppressors as well” (44). Freire’s path for illuminating and changing reality can be criticized as overly idealistic, and, in fact, the author admits as much, affirming that his pedagogical approach stems from his "trust in the people” (40). Yet, the process of becoming, as outlined by Freire, serves as a method for restoring humanity in the structure of domination that exits today in the United States.
In his preface to Frantz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth,” Jean-Paul Sartre named North America the “super-European monstrosity” and anointed what exists there as “racist humanism,” for "the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters” (Fanon 26). Here we have a complication to the traditional notion that humanization within the colonial situation exists in a binary: on one side, the oppressor holds all of the humanity stolen from the oppressed, who exist at the other end of the pole, dehumanized.
Sartre suggests the humanity of the oppressor is distorted, wretched and impure in the ways in which it was obtained and maintained. Freire, it seems, would agree that "no one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so” (85). This stands on a premise that one is not born fully human, but gains humanity "through humanizing actions that, in turn, affirm men and women as beings in the process of becoming”—that they are unfinished and so then is their reality (84). In terms of the United States, two different realities emerge, both resulting in dehumanization: humanity stolen from the oppressed by systems of domination, and a distorted humanism gained by the oppressors through the same structures.
Historic oppression pervades within the United States and affects its citizens in widely different ways. The experience of the indigenous community varies from that of the black community, which differs greatly from that of the white community. Therefore, it is important to make clear that humanity in the United States has historically been stolen from marginalized communities through domination. To deny suffering to anyone or to measure one’s pain against another’s is to deny the other their humanity, and withholding humanity from the other is inherently destructive and dehumanizing to the individual doing the refusing. Therefore, each individual in the United States experiences a wretched form of humanism as a result of the country’s dominating structures.
In its international dealings, the United States has created itself in the "image of a monster” and continues to exist in the midst of its colonial domination. It has risen to such hegemonic power that it might as well have enslaved the entire world, as it continues to enslave and dehumanize those who are lashed to its systems internally. If the colonizer "owes the fact of his very existence to the colonial system,” the United States owes its humanity to the colonization of its land and its continued imperial domination in far corners of the globe.
This false humanity is solidified, in part, because the United States exists as an ahistorical society. It is apparent to those who study the brief and violent history of the United States that a very small faction of its population has constructed its history. This alienates a large portion of the country’s population from its history, an act that dehumanizes those who are excluded. It also separates those writers of history from a truthful historical reality because they have engaged in a process of mythicization. The narrative of the United States has been obfuscated to a degree that no one could name themselves within a truly historical reality, a necessary requirement for someone to exist as a full human, according to Freire.
Freire suggests that the act of humanizing is a collaborative process that takes place through the "naming of the world,” or the defining of reality. Naming the world, for Freire, means gaining the understanding of one’s realistic place in the world in order to transform reality and liberate oneself. He insists that banal monologue and mechanical action bookend the struggle for greater humanity. Hence, his course for regaining humanity takes a path between these two extremes. His process of naming the world takes place in partnership through the act of dialogue, which finds balance between "action and reflection.” In its authentic form, dialogue, as "an encounter between men, mediated by the world,” has the power to transform reality. Through the process of naming the world in dialogue, of revealing it, the various limit situations presented by the colonial superstructure are faced. Dialogue becomes the method for gaining political consciousness and, in a truly revolutionary sense, becomes difficult and painful work.
On his deathbed in Washington D.C., Frantz Fanon lamented that "Americans are not engaged in dialogue; they still speak monologues.” It is true that the very same conditions, which have led to the dehumanization of the people of the United States, also hinder their ability to dialogue effectively and authentically with one another. According to Freire, dialogue requires certain preconditions, notably: humility, faith and a profound love for the world and for people, which is impossible within the structure of domination in the United States.
Yet, there exists a chance for fostering Feirian dialogue in the United States. That chance at dialogue, which in turn is our main hope for renaming a world of domination, resides in love. For Freire, love is the perpetual force animating all processes of liberation. True love takes one outside of oneself into dialogue with the world, and is anti-individualistic at its core. It requires an encounter with the other, and inspires both oppressor and oppressed to exist beyond what the system has given them and has told them to be. This process of loving in order to dialogue serves as our only hope to rename the world in which we are dominated. To love is to meet domination with optimism. Such love does not constitute a naïve, Utopian faith in the future; rather, it indicates a form of active, uncompromising hope in the possibilities of what humans can do in dialogue with each other.
In the face of oppressive domination that has stratified the United States, love, containing a powerful faith in people and the world, is the only hope for liberation. The revolutionaries "must [affirm] their love of life” because it is love that will guide them and exist as the reason they struggle.
