Politics and education in Paulo Freire

The threats to democracy in the falsification of truth

Abstract

The craft of the art of philosophizing is to issue value judgments, which are capable of putting pressure on phenomena that take place within the common world through critical reflection. In order for the duty to criticize to be exercised with “honesty”, it is necessary, as a priority, not to distort the reality on which our criticism is focused. If, as asserted by Paulo Freire, criticism is a duty that helps lay the foundations of democracy, this criticism cannot be built from a credible image of a “someone” or “something” because, in that way, we would be contributing to attack democracy in its constitutive bases. It is in this way that referring to March 31, 1964 as a “revolutionary” act, that saved Brazil from a communist threat, is a complete way of “criticizing” reality based on its falsification. The objective that we intend to achieve in this article is to reflect on the contribution of Paulo Freire's reflections to the construction of an authentic and healthy relationship between politics and education, at the same time I will point out the threats that exist for democracy when a falsification is carried out. of truths. To do so, I will use as a priority theoretical contribution the essay by Paulo Freire “On the right to criticize – On the duty not to lie when criticizing”, compiled in the book Politics and Education: essays.