“such inner Manichean dualisms that led to the realities of overt violence and war in the first place. The outer dualisms that explode into cruder physical violences in particular spaces and times, in other words, are only volcanic eruptions of world-historically enduring dualistic structures fragmenting the inner realities, the geographies of selves, of humankind.” (Tamdgidi, 2007, p.115)
Another subtle yet powerful form of oppression ubiquitous in society comes in the form of formal education. Social critics have often pointed out how what passes for education today is nothing more than systematic indoctrination of the young. They contend that obedience and obtainment of grades supersede the ability to think critically. As a result we have the forging of young minds on an industrial scale so as to make them well-adjusted adults in a consumerist society. But this need not have been the case. Educationists such as John Dewey have held that education is an end in itself without any bearing on their value in the labour market. In this view, education would equip children to explore their innate talents and contribute to the progress of humanity in the realms of art, architecture, culture and technology. (Nicholson, 2006, p.340) The education system in place today is a far cry from this ideal. In many ways, oppression through education is more drastic than other physical, social or economic forms of oppression for the usurpation of critical thinking ability pre-empts any possibility for emancipation.
Oppression in the field of education can be reduced if educators take moral responsibility for moulding the next generation of leaders. Educators such as Richard Cavell have already attempted some innovative methods of engaging with students. For example, Cavel “pushed students to engage in a dual practice of reading whereby they respond to both the historical context of the work and to the moment of localized, materialized reading, such that through our readings we locate ourselves in a series of discontinuous histories”. (Sullivan, Eyre, & Roman, 1998, p. 233) At first the students in his history class resisted his endeavour to give neo-colonialism a new perspective. They soon got round to his point of view and began to deal with “categories of difference as mutually exclusive, and they relied on a linear notion of historical progress. These strategies of reading thus allowed the students to understand themselves as unimplicated in the global machinations of systems of oppression. Cavell regards this experience as reflecting the contradictions of performing postcolonially within the academy.” (Sullivan, Eyre, & Roman, 1998, p. 233)
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