Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Essay

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.,

People respond to fear through either fight or flight, opposition or consent, rebellion or conformity. In George Orwell’s 1984, we see how fear, if used by the government to exercise its power, can enforce consent, even in individuals whose initial instinct is to fight for freedom, truth, and justice. Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to notice when a government begins to use tactics as such because, after all, using fear as a tool for power can only be truly effective if people don’t notice it’s happening.
The ideas presented in 1984 is just as relevant today as when it was first written because its message can still be applied to today’s society. Its main message is, to find truth. Orwell also shows, however, that the pursuit of truth cannot always be accomplished in an oppressive system, so another message of the novel is: be cautious about keeping your freedom and celebrate the diversity of

The way this rebellion presents itself depends on how the threatened person interacts with his or her own ideas. As Paulo Freire puts in a popular work entitled, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, when someone encounters a powerful educational experience, “he or she comes to a new awareness of self, has a new sense of dignity, and is stirred by a new hope...they are no longer willing to be mere objects...they are more likely to take upon themselves the struggle to change the structures of society” (Freire 33). It is through false ideas spread through propaganda and slogans that Big Brother overtook a society. These falsehoods might have been prevented from becoming so powerful if they had been received by a properly educated population. Individuals, alone, cannot truly evoke change. It requires the spread of ideas to dismantle an oppressive