Oppressed people cannot construct liberating theory alone but only through encounter and praxis

Evidence

The oppressor elaborates his theory of action without the people, for he stands against them. Nor can the people—as long as they are crushed and oppressed, internalizing the image of the oppressor—construct by themselves the theory of their liberating action. Only in the encounter of the people with the revolutionary leaders—in their communion, in their praxis—can this theory be built. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 596

Categorization

• QUESTION: Deliberately highlights the reader’s stated concern: does this justify a vanguard that already knows the correct consciousness? How is the leader’s knowing kept dialogical?
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s contest of Freire with Ranciere’s ‘ignorant schoolmaster’ — equality of intelligences vs. the leader’s indispensable role.