I think Lubomir was saying that under Lenin people were "actually"
oppressed while under contemporary society people don't know what
oppression is.  That's not to say Freire is at all like Lenin.

On Sunday, April 25, 2004, at 01:02 PM, Kari-Hans Kommonen wrote:
> My feeling about Freire is that he was not so interested in defining
> oppression, but instead in figuring out how to deal with it, and how
> to get rid of it. I think this is in sync with the needs of design.

This may be one of the mistakes of his theories.  If we are developing
our theory on a negation of something then we have to be specific about
what we are negating.  Otherwise the term can become a loose cannon.
Is this what you are saying in this next part of your post?

Rosan wrote
>
> the power of oppression lies in the very fact that the oppressed do not
> realize they are being oppressed. when a person
> realizes/recognizes/acknolwedges s/he is in an oppressive situation,
> it is
> the beginning of hope for emancipation. and this recognition doesn't
> require a scientific, abstract or general definition of what
> oppression is,
> but rather a tacit understanding/judgement of the good, the just, the
> beauty and the truth of life in a particular historical moment and
> place.

I agree that identifying and getting out from under oppression can be a
process of intuition and action on many levels, but I also see people
using the language of liberation as a means of further oppression.
Cults often use this process.

Obviously we can consider cults in a different category than someone
leaving an abusive spouse, but I think to consider the range of uses of
the language of liberation we need to consider both ends of the
spectrum.

In Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics the author Frederic Spotts
explores a number of things we have talked about.

First, Hitler spoke in the language of liberation, talking about
creating a "true" "free" and "pure" Germany liberated from those who
were tainting it.  Second, he never defined exactly what the things
oppressing Germany were.  Oppression, or the enemy, was redefined in
each speech and only spoken of vaguely except in that it was located in
the life of the city, in modernism, in the Jewish people, gays,
Gypsies, and the mentally handicapped.

Right now I'm only making a guess, but my intuition says that to avoid
having the word "oppression" manipulated for the purpose of tyranny it
is better to define what it is.  I would make the stipulation that in
the definition of "oppression" should be included the use of words like
"liberation," "oppression," "utopia," and "freedom" for the purpose of
oppression.

I hope I'm making sense.  I feel like I might start thinking in
Eduardo's Portuguese, which would be a beautiful thing, but  I wouldn't
be able to understand myself!


Alan