[Xmca-l] Re: What is a Pedagogy of the Oppressors?

[David Kellogg]

Andy:

Actually, Mary Wollstonecraft died about twenty years before Marx was born,
so she wasn't exactly contemporary. But she certainly did use the word
"man" as you say.

We often assume that previous ages had stunted, oppressive language while
of course our own is somehow completely liberated; not too far down in this
assumption is the assumption that it is possible to have an ungendered
language while we still have a highly gender-oppressive society.

Similarly, Annalisa seems to be assuming that compassion and feeling is
what needs to be taught, and that teaching it will somehow change the
exploitation rate, and the violence of the status quo. Actually, if we were
to look for an innate feeling on which higher psychological functions might
naturally build, compassion and feeling are a good place to start. I  have
seen no evidence that "teaching" love and compassion to fellow human beings
is either possible or necessary.

It is curious how many people in New York City, for example, are wlling to
pay the price of occasional black deaths through overpolicing simply
because the crime rate has fallen there. It is not that curious, though,
because so many of the people who feel this way are white. Nothing kills
like leaving things alone.

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

On 6 January 2015 at 16:44, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> The quote is of course a translation. Marx wrote in German. In any case,
> the 19th century concept of "man" which he references, was used also
> without qualification by the great feminist, and English-speaking
> contemporary of Marx, Mary Wollstonecraft. The discovery of the oppressive
> function of gendered language was a gain of Second Wave feminism of the
> 1960s of which we are all the beneficiaries.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
> Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>
>> Hi Andy!
>>
>> With regard to this:
>>
>>  "The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and
>>     upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed
>>     circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who
>>     change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated.
>>     Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one
>>     of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of
>>     circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived
>>     and rationally understood only as **revolutionary practice**."
>>
>> First I'd ask, what about the women? Where are they in this scheme?
>>
>> Second, does this education that Marx considers (educating the educated)
>> concern the care of others? Where is the feeling? How is compassion taught?
>> What is the view on the pain of others? How is that "rationally understood"?
>>
>> Third, revolution frequently is bloody. How does Marx answer for that? Or
>> is that just an inconvenience?
>>
>> Also, I'm not certain how this defines the pedagogy of the oppressor. It
>> certainly identifies a need for "re-education," but what IS the education
>> that the educator must let go?
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Annalisa
>>
>>
>>
>
>