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Sarah's picture

I think reframing of "giving

I think reframing of "giving back" into helping ourselves is essential. Freire talks about antidialogical and dialogical action and I think focusing on how to work with oppressed groups in order to help oneself may be a good way to go about things, even if it sounds counterintuitive.  This type of dialogue, "I want to help, because I realize helping you will also be beneficial to me and those I care about, such as my family”, does not fall under the categories of “conquest,” “divide and rule,” “manipulation,” or “cultural invasion,” but they do fall under the categories of “cooperation,” “unity for liberation,” and hopefully “organization,” though, I am not certain that is given. 

 

I can think of a few reasons this type of framing is uncommon.  One is the connotation with being “selfish”.  No one wants to be described as someone who cares about just him/herself or him/herself primarily.  Also, I think people tend to think of the world through a zero-sum lens; there are people on the top and people on the bottom, there is an order.  That order can be shifted, but never in a way where people are on the same level.  The example I think of is school funding: it would seem to make logical sense if schools were funded fairly equally, but no one wants to give up their own school’s funding; having one really well funded school and one poorly funded school is better than two average schools, but who is to say leveling the playing field in terms of funding would level out quality of education?

 

Although I do think the zero-sum mindset is detrimental, I also do wonder what it would be like to be a person at the very top.  As someone who is both an oppressor and oppressed, I can see value in different social movements.  But if you really aren’t oppressed in any way (at least, from your perspective), what is the value for you?

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