In a previous post I said that building an "organic, grassroots, bottom-up society by the oppressed and for the oppressed" starts when the oppressed start organizing themselves into local, small groups to provide the things they need for themselves which the rulers and owners of their society refuse to provide, or which they will only provide by charging a price which ordinary people can't afford. These groups which are formed by the oppressed become the parallel institutions of the parallel society by the oppressed and for the oppressed. And organizing these groups is like organizing a potluck - not like hosting a free lunch for free riders. As they grow, these parallel institutions become a base of strength for the oppressed which enables them to organize the sustained collective withdrawal of economic and political cooperation from the oppressor's society. It is this sustained, collective withdrawal of cooperation which shatters the oppressor's power and control.
I also mentioned that this kind of organizing was key to many of the successful liberation struggles of the past. Yet we see far too little of this kind of organizing nowadays. It is good to ask why this is so. As I mentioned in the post I have cited, a partial answer can be found in the writings of Paulo Freire, specifically in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In that book, Freire posits that the oppressed are conditioned by their environment and by the education imposed on them by the oppressor. This education (which takes place in all areas of society and not just the classroom) teaches the oppressed that they are merely passive victims of a fate that is imposed on them and which they must merely accept. On the other hand, the pedagogy which leads to liberation opens the minds of the oppressed to see their situation as a problem which can be critically examined. Critical examination of this problem leads to the realization that the problem can be challenged, changed and overcome. Seeing the problem as something that can be changed leads to the realization that the oppressed have the power to make that change. The outcome of this realization is that the oppressed begin to live in freedom - that is, they begin to make the changes which they see as necessary to change their situation.
In other words, Freire treats the problem of oppression in a certain sense as a problem of cognition, a problem whose solution starts with the oppressed becoming first free in their minds. And yet freedom can be somewhat frightening, even though it begins only in the mind first. For a free mind begins to lead to free actions. And those who choose to begin to live in freedom will almost always begin to bear the costs of their choice, for their oppressors will begin to make the choice of freedom costly. Those who are frightened by the cost of freedom will often therefore reject the dawning awareness that freedom is possible in order to continue their submerged existence as oppressed people without being bothered by their consciences. So we have two kinds of oppressed people: those who are not free because they don't realize that freedom is possible, and those who are not free because they are unwilling to pay the cost of becoming free. What is to be done for this second group of oppressed people?
I believe I have stumbled on what is at least a partial answer. It is found in some of the writings and teachings of a European psychiatrist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries named Dr. Alfred Adler.
Adler was an interesting character, who made much metaphorical hay from the simple realization that people always have reasons for the things they do - even when the things being done are dysfunctional or cause self-harm. The experience of being oppressed tends to lead to dysfunctional behavior by the oppressed. But this dysfunctional behavior has a goal, namely, to compensate psychologically for the damage done by the oppressive situation. I suggest that this dysfunctional behavior often consists of what looks like passivity, fatalism, and apathy, and that it is an expression of "exaggerated self-protection, self-enhancement, and self-indulgence." According to the Adler Graduate School, the objective of Adlerian therapy is "to replace exaggerated self-protection, self-enhancement, and self-indulgence with courageous social contribution." What the organizer is trying to bring about is the "courageous social contribution" of oppressed people coming together into groups to achieve their common liberation.
Thus one part of an organizer's work is to help his or her people begin to see their own motives and the role of these motives in their continued enslavement or oppression. For it is these motives which motivate the continued passivity of the oppressed and their continued refusal to live in freedom. Adler used a graphic word picture to describe the process of getting patients to see both the dysfunction and the consequences of certain motives, namely the idea of "spitting in the patient's soup" in order to make the dysfunctional behaviors less palatable. This notion of spitting into someone else's soup conjures images of organizers going to their people and telling those people what is wrong with their ongoing passivity. However, the best and most skillful Adlerians get the patient to spit into his or her own soup - that is, they use respectful Socratic dialogue to get their people to admit to themselves out loud what are the motives, goals and consequences of their choices. From that admission can spring the discussion of better ways to meet the goals of their people.
So it is that Adlerian dialogue can be seen as a component of Freirian problem-posing education of the sort that turns passive, fatalistic, atomized members of the oppressed into purposeful, united, interdependent people laboring together for their common liberation. There is more that can be said about this, but I need to do some further reading both of Freire and of Adler! Stay tuned...
