Revolutionary leaders themselves fall into banking methods when planning top-down

Evidence

Unfortunately, however, in their desire to obtain the support of the people for revolutionary action, revolutionary leaders often fall for the banking line of planning program content from the top down. They approach the peasant or urban masses with projects which may correspond to their own view of the world, but not to that of the people. They forget that their fundamental objective is to fight alongside the people for the recovery of the people’s stolen humanity, not to “win the people over” to their side. Such a phrase does not belong in the vocabulary of revolutionary leaders, but in that of the oppressor. The revolutionary’s role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people—not to win them over. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 273

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s stated worry about the new vanguard — Freire admits even revolutionaries lapse into banking.
• SEED: Essay angle: the vanguard critique applied to modern facilitators, consultants, and designers who ‘already know the correct consciousness.’