Do I donate to that organization? To that campaign? Do I look for a job at that company? What if it’s the only job I can land right now? Should I not buy from this company? Can I even watch TV or listen to music without somehow being complicit in some type of oppression today?

The questions feel overwhelming, don’t they?

Information comes at us at the speed of light in the midst of everyday tasks of survival like cooking a meal, dropping kids off to school, or simply trying to do one’s job.

It might feel like a lot, but I’m going to ask you to ask more questions, not less. Here’s why: there are certain tools that will help us move forward in a world that feels like it’s spinning backwards. But those tools cannot be the instruments of domination. Asking questions is a really good, revolutionary act.  

As Paulo Freire says in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Propaganda, management, manipulation—cannot be the instruments of their rehumanization,” referring to the oppressed.[1] Paulo was a Brazilian philosopher and educator (1921-1997), offering the world clarity around the oppressive nature of traditional lecture-based education. He also offered another pathway for education which he called a “humanizing pedagogy” where dialogue allows both students and teachers, oppressed and leadership, to recreate knowledge and unveil reality together.[2]

After the military coup of 1964 which ushered in a dictatorship, Paulo was imprisoned and subsequently exiled because of his large-scale efforts in teaching farmers to read and write. He understood from his own lived experience just how intertwined poverty and education are, and during his time outside of Brazil, he wrote Education as the Practice of Freedom (1967) and then Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968).

From Paulo’s perspective, education can easily be a tool of domination, and often is, when the traditional style of lecture and memorization gives no room for a student’s own consciousness. As quoted above, the instruments of humanization or re-humanization cannot be propaganda, management, or manipulation.

A dozen years after Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published, Audre Lorde shared one of her most famous thoughts: “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Immediately after she said this, she quotes Paulo saying that he “shows so well in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships.”[3]

So why is curiosity so important in these oppressive times? Because curiosity leads to critical thought, to wonder, to imagination, to revolution. Without curiosity, we cannot imagine a better way, a way that includes neither propaganda nor manipulation.

“We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the royal consciousness that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought,” says Walter Brueggemann in his book The Prophetic Imagination.[4] For Walter, the royal consciousness is the status quo that sacrifices justice and compassion for self-preservation and social order.

If we cannot have critical thought or prophetic imagination without curiosity, we must seek to be as curious as we can during this time. But our curiosity must start within ourselves first. As Audre said above, we cannot arrive at true revolutionary change without asking ourselves: In what ways is oppression planted deep within me? In what ways am I operating in oppressive tactics because it is all I know?

Then our curiosity can move outward toward our neighbors: why does this neighbor believe this way? Why are our worldviews seemingly so incompatible? In what ways do we have the same goals and values in life? Why is this neighbor being oppressed by others who look and live just like me? What can I do to push back against that oppression?

And as our curiosity moves outward, can we ask ourselves new questions about our faith? It’s scary, I know, but it’s so important to the life of the Christian. In what ways does the Good News of Christ look like good news for those who do not look like me? Is my vision of who God is oppressive at all? Are there areas of my theology that are clearly not good news for those in poverty, those who are oppressed, those who are most vulnerable?

If you are someone who is currently curious about everything, please continue to cultivate that curiosity and don’t let anyone take it away. I know that there will be people, organizations, and institutions who try to tell you how dangerous it is for you to be curious, but please do not listen to them. We need you to lead us in curiosity, in wonder, in imagination.

If you are someone who used to be curious, but now it hurts too much because your curiosity was forcefully pushed out of you, I am asking you to take curiosity one minute step at a time. Don’t give up on it.

And if you are someone who has never really been curious, can you start small?

Can we collectively decide to stay engaged in the conversations with people who ardently disagree with us? Can we stop trying to convince or change minds and instead stand our ground with genuine curiosity? Can we decide to actively listen rather than shut down and only talk to people who believe the same way we do?

Curiosity has never been a tool of empire, because every regime is frightened by curiosity, fearful of imagination, alarmed by critical and prophetic thought. So, let’s use it to dismantle hate, propaganda, and manipulation. Let’s use it to be better neighbors, allies, Christians, and friends.

---

[1] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 68.

[2] Ibid, 69.

[3] Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider, 123.

[4] Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination, 39.