Standpoint knowledge of the oppressed is achieved through struggle, not automatic

Evidence

To have one’s consciousness raised is not merely to become aware of facts of which one was previously ignorant: it is instead to have one’s whole relationship to the world shifted. The consciousness in question is not a consciousness of an already-existing state of affairs. Rather, consciousness-raising is productive. It creates is a new subject — a we that is both the agent of struggle and what is struggled for. At the same time, consciousness-raising intervenes in the “object”, the world itself, which is now no longer apprehended as some static opacity, the nature of which is already decided, but as something that can be transformed. This transformation requires knowledge; it will not come about through spontaneity, voluntarism, the experiencing of ruptural events, or by virtue of marginality alone. Hence Hartsock’s concept of standpoint epistemology, which maintains — following Lukács and Marx — that subjugated groups potentially have an access to knowledge of the whole social field that the dominant group lacks. Members of subjugated groups do not however automatically possess this knowledge as of right — it can only be accessed once group consciousness is developed. According to Hartsock, “the vision available to the oppressed group must be struggled for and represents an achievement which requires both science to see beyond the surface of the social relations in which all are forced to participate, and the education which can only grow from struggle to change those relations.” — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1376

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Threads Lukács, Marx, socialist-feminism, and Hartsock into the claim that raised consciousness is productive, creating a new subject and transforming the world — dense, layered, and resistant to one-sentence summary.
• XREF: Directly builds on the wider political theory in K-Punk’s corpus (notably Fisher’s reading of capitalist realism) and presses against voluntarist/rupturalist left politics Fisher elsewhere criticizes. — connects to: The oppressed must reach conviction as Subjects, not receive it as objects — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 171; Liberating perception of oppression arises only through praxis, not reflection alone — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 489; The pedagogy is forged with, not for, the oppressed and remade in struggle. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 113

Broader Connections

• The pedagogy is forged with, not for, the oppressed and remade in struggle. #expands (0.90) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 113
• Liberating perception of oppression arises only through praxis, not reflection alone #corroborates (0.88) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 489
• The oppressed must reach conviction as Subjects, not receive it as objects #expands (0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 171