Re: [pf] Repost: SEEING past brainwashing

by Betsy Barnum

20 December 2000 03:01 UTC

Kaleopono wrote:

> > Finding a skilled action teacher is probably necessary to disentangle
> > oneself from this whirlpool.

I have to respectfully disagree, Kaleopono. I don't think a teacher is required
at all. If it were so, very, very few people would ever escape from cultural
brainwashing, since there are certainly very, very, very few people capable of
being a teacher of this sort, and most people wouldn't or couldn't engage in
such a relationship. We already know that millions of people (all those cultural
creatives) have succeeded in at least cracking the shell of culturally imposed
thinking. *I* feel that *I* can "see," as you put it, and I have not been in a
disciplined student-teacher relationship such as you describe. In fact, I'll go
further and say that I think the idea that people need a human "teacher" is part
of the cultural programming we need to break out of! (Heirarchy, someone else
has the answers or at least the means, we need to spend huge amounts of time and
struggle to become free, etc.)

Paulo Freire developed a very powerful educational method out of teaching people
to read--we call it popular education. There is (sometimes, sometimes not) a
teacher in a group of people, but most of the learning happens from their
interactions with each other. This kind of education is empowering because
people find that they already have a great deal of knowledge and wisdom
inside--under that cultural programming, their vital, connected, aware humanness
is still there. They are then able to determine what they need to know that
isn't already within them, and where to get that knowledge. They don't need
anyone to tell them, or to give them non-logical puzzles or personally-adapted
tasks to shake up their thinking.

There are other ways that reality can break in, too--from spontaneous
experiences in nature, reading books or articles, solitary meditation, a single
conversation with another person, a long slow shift in consciousness. Any of
these experiences or practices, or many, many others, can be the "teacher" that
helps us see clearly.

Betsy

--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
The Constitution was designed to ensure that the majority of
citizens (without property) would not have a real voice in
political affairs and it is no coincidence that that is the case
today. And the Constitution was designed to ensure that real
political power in this country would always be held by the
handful of very large property owners and it is no coincidence
that that is the case today.

--Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution