The oppressed internalize the oppressor’s consciousness into a divided self.

Evidence

The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized. The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 112

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core concept of the divided self/duality that grounds the whole pedagogy — essential for designing a learning situation that must reckon with it.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s critique concern: if the learner already internalizes the oppressor, any facilitator who claims to know the ‘correct’ consciousness simply becomes another oppressor-instance. — connects to: Oppression alienates the subordinate into viewing herself through the master’s eyes — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 674; The same identity-internalizing move can either crush or liberate a person. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 695; The oppressor is himself enslaved to the image women uphold. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1971