Revolution is fundamentally an act of love aimed at humanization.
Evidence
- I am more and more convinced that true revolutionaries must perceive the revolution, because of its creative and liberating nature, as an act of love. For me, the revolution, which is not possible without a theory of revolution—and therefore science—is not irreconcilable with love. On the contrary: the revolution is made by people to achieve their humanization. What, indeed, is the deeper motive which moves individuals to become revolutionaries, but the dehumanization of people? The distortion imposed on the word “love” by the capitalist world cannot prevent the revolution from being essentially loving in character, nor can it prevent the revolutionaries from affirming their love of life. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 368
Categorization
- XREF: The claim that revolution is loving directly challenges the vanguardist reading the reader worries about; connects to critiques that Freire’s romance of the people can mask the facilitator’s authority.