Paulo Freire Versus Walter Ong

When Walter Ong declares that "Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought," I can't help but agree. There is no doubt that print literate people structure language into radically different forms than the non-print literate. But when he also cries that "literacy is imperious," I can't help but be haunted by the ghost of Paulo Freire. This twentieth-century Brazilian educator and revolutionary dedicated his adult life to liberating his country's poor through literacy. His "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" makes clear that if the poor (i.e. the illiterate) are oppressed, it is only through literacy that they can be liberated. If writing is what keeps you down, then (by God!) it is in writing that you will raise yourself up.

At the bottom of it, Freire believed that the only true liberation for an individual comes from her ability to take command of her own, authentic words in order to comprehend and then denounce reality. This all happens by learning to read and write just as the imperious ones do - but in a way that is self-empowering. The ideal educational process is one of dialogue between teacher and student. As equals, they engage in conversations on authentic subjects (most importantly the student's life and her oppression), and she learns to use these words as she shapes a broader consciousness of herself and society. He called this conscientization, and made a sharp distinction between this method and the "banking" method, whereby teachers "deposit" meaningless knowledge into "empty" heads. The student who is newly aware of her position - both through her conversations and her new command of her own language - can arrive at a state of praxis, or informed action. And this will undoubtedly be a denunciation of The Way Things Are.

In his own, more eloquent words:

"[...] to be utopian is not to be merely idealistic or impractical, but rather to engage in denunciation and annunciation. Our pedagogy cannot do without a vision of man and of the world. It formulates a scientific humanist conception that finds its expression in a dialogical praxis in which the teachers and learners together, in the act of analyzing a dehumanizing reality, denounce it while announcing its transformation in the name of the liberation of man" (Freire 13).

How else to understand - and combat - the oppressors, but with their own weapon?

To be fair, Ong seems to concede on this point, as well. "As the digital computer can be to a degree," he says, "so writing is self-corrective to a degree [...] writing can distance us from writing itself [...] writing is a consciousness-raising and humanizing technology" (Ong 47-48). Suddenly, what is imperious and dangerously transformative is also the most powerful and wonderfully human tool we have. In light of Freire's amazing thoughts and work, can't we also say "literacy is consciousness," or "literacy is freedom"?

When considering what all this means for media literacy and youth, I can't help but come to the defense of writing - of the special and empowering literacy of language. We can't let the authentic words of our youth be lost to bullet points and "txt" speak and 140-character tweets. We can't let them be exposed uncritically to what the popular media (and the other Powers That Be) tell them is True and Right. We can't let them merely consume and assume. This is no better than the Brazilian illiterate! They need to use their own words, to express their unique realities, and to challenge and denounce what seems out of synch to them. And it all needs to be loud-and-clear, long-winded, and real. It needs to be in their language, and in a medium that already commands attention and respect. It needs to be in writing.

Freire, Paulo. "The adult literacy process as cultural action for freedom." Harvard Educational Review; Cambridge; Winter 1998; Volume 68.

Ong, Walter J. "Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought." In The Written Word: Literacy in Transition. Ed. Gerd Bauman. Clarendon Press, 1986.