The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire’s Critical Marxism and The Theft of Education
Lindsay, James (Orlando: New Discourses, 2022)
Among the Reformed Evangelicals of our day, many have bought into the idea that the West is currently plagued by something called “expressive individualism.” According to Robert Bellah,
Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized.1
This idea has been spread far and wide by parachurch organizations like The Gospel Coalition and 9Marks, and more recently by Carl R. Trueman in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Ask the legions of popular Reformed Evangelicals why identity politics has seen such a dramatic rise in our day, and they will undoubtedly say that it is because our age is saturated with expressive individualists.
But what they mean is that individualism, derived ultimately from Biblical Christianity and further developed by Enlightenment philosophers (in some cases better than others), is bringing about the destruction of the West. Individualism destroys the nuclear family unit, separating it from the larger social organism, and fragmenting it into atomistic individuals in order to capitalize on the labor of each individual. Because of individualism, they argue, man is alienated from the labor of his own hands, driven to despair and meaninglessness, tradition is torn asunder, and thus the social fabric of society erodes.
Problematically, if Western civilization is collapsing because of individualism, and individualism is a core component of Western civilization, then would this not make the West not worth saving? Then why all the fuss? Some have, indeed, argued this, making the claim that Western civilization is fundamentally fraught with contradictions that show us the need for a new form of civilization that keeps the good elements (e.g. human rights) and negates the bad elements (e.g. individualism).
What is ironic, and deeply troubling, about those claims is that they are very close to the criticisms of Modernism that one finds in Hegel, Marx, and their successors. For these thinkers, Modernism is fraught with contradictions that need to be overcome by means of keeping what is good and negating what is bad. Individualism for these thinkers is the rotting fruit of the Enlightenment which has spread its spores on traditions, culture, the family, and the natural social organism — the collective body of humans comprising a single humanity in which all individuals are interdependent, not independent.
In order to remedy the problem (namely, individualism), both parties prescribe a return to collectivism. Collectivism undermines the individual’s ability to think for himself, and thus rationality and morality themselves, as it is no longer what can be epistemically justified which is taken to be true and, therefore, the ground upon which one does or does not take a certain course of action, but what has been collectively predetermined to be the common good which determines what can or cannot be thought and, therefore, what can or cannot be done. Education is not of primary importance in this scenario, but the method of education. Education is to be utilized as a tool for creating those who will reproduce the underlying ideology of both groups, not for training individuals in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, logic, history, and so forth.
Although he does not deal specifically with Christian education, in The Marxification of Education James Lindsay explains why it is that government funded schools have gone in this direction, replacing actual teaching with ideological radicalization. He also explains why it is that identity politics is currently saturating the West. The reason is not expressive individualism, but the propagation of Marxist Paulo Freire’s “Critical Pedagogy” by Neo-Marxists in the American educational system.
Lindsay succinctly explains this in his closing chapter titled “The Short, Short, Short Version,” writing —
The Freirean approach to education is based off the work of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, who is most famous for his 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book is the third most-cited source in all of the social sciences and humanities and enjoys pride of place and curricular centrality in virtually every college of education in North America. The Freirean method, called “Critical Pedagogy” because it makes a Critical Theory (Neo-Marxist Theory) out of education itself, lies beneath, behind, or relevant to virtually every pedagogical trend in education over the last 20 to 30 years, including Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Culturally Relevant Teaching, Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and project-based learning schemes. Culturally Relevant Teaching is unambiguously and unapologetically a direct repackaging of the Freirean approach into the context of “cultural competence” and American identity politics. Freire’s pedagogy is a disaster for education and our children and has no place in our schools.
What Freire did, in short, was to “Marxify” education and knowing. That is, he created a Marxist Theory in which being educated, literate, or considered someone who knows (thus also what is designated as knowledge) operates in perfect parallel to the “bourgeois” class scapegoated by Karl Marx. Those who are considered uneducated, illiterate, or ignorant represent a lower class that can be made “class conscious” of their circumstances so that they will seek to initiate and complete a cultural revolution that moves them from the margins of society to its center, from which they can transform it. True education, for Freire, is a process of gaining “political literacy” through a process he describes as “conscientization,” the gaining of critical (that is, Marxist) consciousness with activist commitments. Freire positions all genuine education as an imposition of the existing social and political order onto students so they will be “domesticated” by it and learn to reproduce and maintain it.
Freire’s pedagogical method firstly identifies “generative themes,” which “are usually negative and pick at points of potential political grievance that have been data-mined out of the students.” Secondly, it presents those “generative themes in ‘codified’ form—In this step, the contents of the generative themes are fed back to the students in an ‘abstract’ or ‘codified’ form” (e.g. pictures). This is done in order “to spur dialogue about the politically sensitive topics after presenting them in a way that might facilitate the goal of conscientization.” After this, the third step taken by Freire’s pedagogy is that of a Marxist analysis of the “codified” themes. Lindsay explains that
In this step, the codifications from the previous step are “problematized,” which means subjected to Marxist analysis in a dialogical format between learners and educators (acting as facilitators), and then made personal to the students. This process is done in a way that always tends toward conscientizing the students, which is to say teaching them to interpret their circumstances through a Marxist perspective, to apply them to their own lives, and to become activists to change those circumstances.
Underlying the identity politics movements, in other words, is collectivism, an identification of the individual with his group, wherein his individuality only exists insofar as he serves as the group’s representative, a flesh and blood symbol of the whole. The individual exists to serve the purpose of gaining “justice” for their “oppressed” group. This is a far cry from “expressive individualism.” Unlike Trueman and the others who see “expressive individualism” as the central philosophical mood driving identity politics, Lindsay accurately identifies the source: Marxist, collectivist, anti-individualist thinking that has saturated the West at the most foundational level, namely that of pedagogical methodology.
This is why I’ve been recommending this book to Christians who are interested in understanding what is taking place in the West. In America, Christians are being told by Trueman, his ilk, and many within the putatively Reformed evangelical world to aim their spiritual weapons at individualism, capitalism, and classical liberalism. We are being told that what Christians need is a new concept of the self that is not independent but interdependent. We are being told that Christians need to submit their intellect to the governing authorities, and stop being individualistic in our reasoning and decision making because that is what the world is promoting when it promotes identity politics. We are being told that it is the community which takes priority over the individual, who exists only to serve the needs of community, and for whom rational self interest is a vice. We are being told that the solution to the cultural, sociopolitical problems plaguing the West is a return to a more spiritual, kinder, and traditional collectivism following in the steps of the Romanist-influenced, spiritual compromiser Abraham Kuyper’s doctrine of “sphere sovereignty.” Therefore, we need to hear another perspective that is not already pre-committed to a Kuyperian/Neo-Kuyperian/Truemanian/Wilsonian sociopolitical agenda that is barely distinguishable from the technocratic agenda already underway at the command of the World Economic Forum, the Roman Catholic Church, and their respective and collective cohorts. That is what one finds in The Marxification of Education.
Lindsay’s commitment to the truth, the inestimable value of actual education, and his concern for what is happening to children in the West shows throughout the book, and given that it comes from a man who is, I believe, a hard agnostic/atheist, it puts the popular Reformed evangelicals promoting the myth of “expressive individualism” to shame. If you want to understand why it is that the LGBTQIA+ movement has gained in momentum, read Lindsay’s book. His argument is scholarly, substantial, and logically coherent. Not only this, but he offers a practical solution — resistance in the name of truth and concern for our well being and that of our children.
—h.
Hi Hiram,
I just reread this post and this sentence jumped out at me:
"Education is not of primary importance in this scenario, but the method of education. Education is to be utilized as a tool for creating those who will reproduce the underlying ideology of both groups, not for training individuals in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, logic, history, and so forth."
I began my research several years ago in order to figure out a curricular FRAMEWORK used in my son's Christian school called "Teaching for Transformation". It's not a curriculum, it's a way to teach that is "integrally and authentically Christian." It minimizes individual accomplishment and actual knowledge, borrowing its theory from postmodern philosophy professors James K. A Smith and Nicholas Wolterstorff
Here is a quote from the materials:
"Christ’s redemptive act touches all things, redirecting them to
their God-designated purposes. Someday, all things
will be fully restored, but the work of renewal begins
now, and we are privileged to be coworkers with God
in this process. That’s where Teaching for Transformation (TfT) comes in!
The TfT program, as developed by Prairie Centre for
Christian Education and partner schools, provides a
frame-work for the development of authentic and
integral Christian learning experiences that are
grounded in a transformational worldview with a
focus on seeing and living out God’s story. The TfT
program’s design practices and tools are being used
by over 50 schools worldwide (Canada, United
States, Africa, and Central America) to develop
powerful Christian school learning experiences.'
Further on, the TfT material quotes James Smith (who got his Ph.D. at Villanova under John D. Caputo, who specializes in postmodern christianity and Derrida. Smith is the Author of Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church )
'James K. Smith writes in Desiring the Kingdom that
“Education is not primarily . . . concerned with providing
information; rather, education most fundamentally is a
matter of formation, a task of shaping and creating a certain kind of people. These people are distinct because of what they love and desire – the kingdom of God.”
"ducation is not primarily . . . concerned with providing
information"--Smith
Here is the link to where these quotes can be found. https://pcce.ca/resources/Documents/PCCE-Educators-Documents/TfT/2017-18%20TFT%20Brochure.pdf
TfT was written at the Prairie Center for Christian Education (PCCE) housed at the King's University (TKU), Alberta, Canada. In the US, it is distributed by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education (CACE) located at Dordt College (university) Sioux Center, Iowa.
It's all Kuyperian postmodernism, because that what has taken over the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) which is a Dutch denomination that places Christian education among its foundational beliefs.
Post WWII, this small, Dutch denomination incorporated 50,000 Dutch immigrants Canada, making the CRC bi-national. (United States and Canada). Sadly, most of those 50,000 were Kuyperian, and a power struggle for the control of the denomination began. Sadly, the Kuyperians have won.
Now they even have control of k-12 education, as you can see, TfT was written in Canada, but brought down to the US to be distributed. Edvance distributes it in Canads.
Here are some more links:
"Dordt launcehs TfT" https://cace.org/cace-launches-new-project-teaching-for-transformation/
Here, it says TfT is used in 100 schools worldwide: https://cace.org/teaching-for-transformation/
The brochure on the CACE website: file:///C:/Users/dlfre/Downloads/TfT-brochure.pdf
Here is a link to their pdf on "Deeper Learning" https://cace.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Deeper-Learning-in-Christian-Schools-9418.pdf
which specifically says:
"Deeper learning in Christian schools recognizes that the
learner does not learn for advancement of self, but as a faithful response to co-create in
establishing the kingdom of heaven - here and now."
The "kingdom of heaven--here and now" sheesh
Here is an interesting article on the CRC's decline called "Burn the Wooden Shoes"
https://www.swierenga.com/BurnWoodenShoesOrigPaper.html
Swieringa's thesis for the decline of the CRC is this:
"The thesis of this paper is that the seeds of secession in the CRCNA were planted at least fifty years ago.[7] After the Second World War, this largely immigrant church experienced a generational change, both at the top, in the pulpits and denominational schools--Calvin College and Theological Seminary--and at the bottom, in the pews. The immediate cause was the return of the mililtary personnel. Thousands of second and third generation Hollanders served with the American military forces in the far corners of the world, and more than twenty ministers in the CRCNA served as chaplains."
But I believe he is wrong. I believe this sentence further on in the paper lists the real reason for the decline in CRC membership:
" In church assemblies the Canadians in the last fifteen years have moved into the "driver's seat" in both the conservative and progressive camps of the CRCNA."
The Canadians are in the driver's seat, and the Canadians are Kuyperian! The denomination has shrunk significantly, and their Christian schools were struggling--until school choice came along and gave them an infusion of tax money.
This is VERY alarming because the CRC is very influential in the theory of Christian education. IMO, it is a travesty what they are promoting as "Christian education."
Abraham Kuyper's embrace of German philosophy (which he loved) can be explained by the ideas of Kuyper's friend and mentor, Guillaume Greon Van Prinsterer. Groen (Groen Van Prinsterer is a double last name) studied the "roots and driving force" (Harry Van Dyke) of the French Revolution for ten years. In 1845, Groens conclusions were delivered in twenty lectures to friends in his home. In 1847, they became a book, Unbeleif and Revolution, which has been translated into English by Harry Van Dyke.
Groen conclude that unbelief causes revolution, and Enlightenment thought causes unbeleif, therefore reject Enlightenment thought:
p. 3 of Unbeleif and Revolution, translated by Harry Van Dyke:
" In order to bring out the nature of this subject it is necessary to explain what I mean by Revolution and by Revolution ideas.
By Revolution I do not mean one of the many events whereby a government is overthrown. Nor do I just mean by it the storm of upheaval that has raged in France. Rather by Revolution I mean the whole inversion of the general spirit and mode of thinking that is now manifest in all Christendom.
By Revolution ideas I mean the basic maxims of liberty and equality, popular sovereignty, social contract, the artificial construction of society by common consent--notions which today are venerated as the cornerstones of constitutional law and the political order."
Groen established the Anti-Revoltionary Movement. When Groen died, he left leadership of the Anti-Revolutionary movement to Kuyper, who turned it into the Anti-Revolutionary Party--the Netherlands first national political party. Kuyper even served as prime minister under it's banner.
Groen's ideas were foundational to Kuyper (that is why Evan Runner called his club at Calvin College the Groen Van Prinsterer Society and not the Abraham Kuyper Society).
One of those foundational ideas is that Enlightenment thought causes unbelief. Enlightenment thought must be rejected. This meant rejecting French, British (Anglo-Saxon) and American philosophy. This just left German philosophy. Kuyper was trained in German philosophy and Romanticism and he loved it and he gladly turned to it and incorporated it into his system of Calvinism (neo-Calvinism) he used to fight liberalism (classical liberalism) and secularism. (His lectures on Calvinism are a good place to see his ideas laid out--small book).
People never seem to make the ironic connection between Kuyper and the rise of secularism in the Netherlands, which is now equal or worse than France. Who would have thought that abandoning reality and truth would destroy a religion founded on truth? (So his ideas came to America and have done the same thing to the CRC--see their yearbook for stats.)
At the ten year anniversary of the club, Runner recalls how it all started. After only one year at Calvin College, he was at risk of being fired and he was in a funk (he was never well liked by staff or American students). Some immigrant fathers came to his home one night during Christmas break begging for help. Here is what they said:
"When I was thus absorbed in my personal situation and my eyes were closed to the wider possibilities -- because God had just at this time wonderfully sent those first Canadian students, who were seeking the very articulation of the Christian religion God had been preparing me to make --, an unexpected knock at my door one evening in the Christmas vacation in 1952 suddenly completely changed the particular direction and the feeling-tone of my life. It turned my depression into the joy of faith.
When I opened the door I found three men standing on the porch who told me that they were [page 20] immigrants from the Netherlands to the United States and that they lived either in Grand Rapids or its immediate environs. Two of the three men are probably known to quite a few of you who are at this banquet tonight. Mr. Steven Harkema and Mr. Boonstra, the father of our Bert Boonstra, who is married to our Jane Horzelenberg and studying theology at the Free University.
What was there in the visit of those men that led to so complete a change in my life? One of the men present told a story of an immigrant boy he knew well who was studying at one of our Christian high schools. "Dr. Runner," this immigrant said, and he was obviously deeply moved, "this boy's father is sacrificing to send his son to this Christian school, but there is much in the attitude he comes home with which we of the older generation feel is not right. In particular, this boy comes home to his parents claiming that America became great because of the liberating democratic ideas of the 18th century." I wish you could have seen the man, as I see him yet, sitting forward in his chair, agitatedly telling me of his and his friends' concern for their children. "Dr. Runner," he concluded simply, "I had no higher formal education, but I went faithfully to Young Men's and Men's Society in a little Frisian city, and I know that those so-called liberated ideas of the 18th century were the corruptions on the part of unbelievers of ideas the Reformation had re-discovered. But if we tell our boys that, they laugh and say, Dad, you never went to one of these big American schools.""
" this boy comes home to his parents claiming that America became great because of the liberating democratic ideas of the 18th century." . . . I had no higher formal education, but I went faithfully to Young Men's and Men's Society in a little Frisian city, and I know that those so-called liberated ideas of the 18th century were the corruptions on the part of unbelievers of ideas the Reformation had re-discovered."
Read the whole thing here: https://www.plantinga.ca/m/MCS.HTM#
The Reformed rejection of the Enlightenment and hatred of the West runs deep.
So Runner ran his club for Dutch Cahadian immigrants. He sent his best students for their Ph.D's in order to become the next generation of professors. And they are. And now "christian" education in the CRC is postmodern. it has suffered it's own long-march through the institutions.
Runner didn't publish much at all besides his Ph.D. thesis. but his students passed on some of what he said. Summer lectures that he gave in Ontario are contained in two books, The Relation of the Bible to learning which you can buy as a book, or read this downloaded copy file:///C:/Users/dlfre/Downloads/the-relation-of-the-bible-to-learning.pdf
and in Scriptural Religion and Political Task, also available as a book or downloadable pdf here: file:///C:/Users/dlfre/Downloads/scriptural-religion-and-political-task.pdf
Poor Runner, he created a monster. As his students moved away from Biblical Christianity, he moved toward it. He became estranged from them, joined a conservative CRC church that eventually became URC. But according to his grandson (who lives in my town, he never gave up on Reformational Philosophy)
Here are a couple of links to articles that his club members wrote (all of these are linked on Plantinga's blog, I beleive). Also, click over to his Myodicy blog
https://comment.org/the-importance-of-h-evan-runner/
https://comment.org/h-evan-runner-and-the-groen-club/
That's it for now.