This essay continues my review of Part III of Christopher F. Rufo: America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything (Broadside Books, 2023). My previous essay introduced the problem with which Rufo deals in this section. We will now consider the career and influence of the Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire (1921-1997).*
Paulo Freire: Master of Subversion
In 1969 the Brazilian political exile Paulo Freire spend six months at Harvard University, during which time he translated his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed from Portuguese into English. According to Rufo, the book has sold over a million copies and is the third most cited book in social science literature. Pedagogy of the Oppressed presupposes the Marxist analysis of society, which divides the world into the masses of oppressed and the minority of oppressors. A truly just and free society cannot be realized within the capitalist system. The oppressors’ success relies on a series of myths (private property, individual rights, hard work and merit-based rewards) that justifies their superior status and enables them to maintain their dominance. Freire’s innovation, however, lies not in the area of Marxist theory but in developing a way to use the educational system to further the revolution. Freirean educational philosophy has come to be called “critical pedagogy.”
In contrast to what most people think is the purpose of education, that is, to teach young people the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the dominant culture, Critical Pedagogy aims to debunk the myths that justify capitalist society and awaken the oppressed to their oppressed status and oppressors to their oppressor status. Instead of the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics, the emphasis falls on social criticism and activism in service of “liberation.” Like many Marxist theorists, Freire justifies using violence in service of the socialist revolution. He explains:
Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons—not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized…Consciously or unconsciously, the act of rebellion by the oppressed…can initiate love. Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the [violent] response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human (Pedagogy, Chapter 7; quoted in Rufo, p. 150).
“We Must Punish Them:” Marxism Conquers the American Classroom
In this chapter, Rufo describes how Freire’s American disciples led by Henry Giroux disseminated Freire’s ideas. First, Giroux initiated a series of publications that introduced Freire’s ideas to American educational theorists. Giroux did not attempt to hide his Marxist leanings: “The neo-Marxist position, it seems to us, provides the most insightful and comprehensive model for a more progressive approach for understanding the nature of schooling and developing an emancipatory program for social education” (Teachers as Intellectuals, 1988; quoted by Rufo, p. 162). The next step, according to Giroux, was to secure tenured positions for 100 likeminded professors in American universities. Over the next 40 years, these educational theorists published thousands of articles and books exploring ways to use critical pedagogy in schools and colleges to further the cause of the socialist revolution. As an example of the influence of critical pedagogy, Rufo details ways in which the State of California has incorporated it into its public educational program. In its Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, California declares that school children shall learn to “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs…[and critique] white supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression.” Schools need to teach students to join in “social movements that struggle for social justice…build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic racism society” (Quoted in Rufo, p. 164).
Engineers of the Human Soul
In this chapter, Rufo documents the now familiar transition from social analysis focusing on economic class to that focused on race. In America, Freire’s American disciples recognized, the Marxist oppressor/oppressed paradigm could be more effectively applied to the White/Black or People of Color distinction than to the owner/worker distinction. Speaking of the second generation of Freire’s disciples, Rufo says, “Their primary pedagogical strategy was to pathologize white identity, which was deemed inherently oppressive, and radicalize black identity, which was deemed inherently oppressed” (p. 173). According to Barbara Applebaum and other critical pedagogists, whites must become conscious, confess and repent of their white supremacy and white privilege. Whiteness is a disease that masks itself in appeals to rationality, the rule of law, capitalism, liberalism, secularism, merit, hard work and other myths. Whites need therapy and a program of reeducation. They need to commit “race suicide” and abolish the “white race.” Black children, on the other hand, need to be taught how to see through the myths and systems of whiteness.
The Child Soldiers of Portland
In this chapter, Rufo pursues the irony that Portland, Oregon one of the whitest cities in America, is also the “headquarters of race radicalism in the United States” (p. 189). “The city’s loose network of Marxist, anarchist, and anti-fascist groups have turned the street riot into an art form” (p. 196). According to Rufo, the young rioters educated in the Portland school system are simply putting into practice the vision of society they were taught.
*See also my January 15, 2023 review of James Linsey’s book The Marxification of Education, which focuses on Freire.
Next Time: We will look at work and influence of Derrick Bell and the origins of Critical Race Theory.