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CHAPTER 5

Toward a Transformative Model

for Ethics Education in the First World

As noted in Chapter Two, experience can be used as a subversive tool of critical

reflection, particularly in social settings where experience has been suppressed,
appropriated, or denied. This chapter will explore how the First World middle-class can
reflect upon both their own experience and that of the alienated as an important stage
in a perspective transformation that contributes to overcoming oppression. It will also
explore the ethical and pedagogical dilemmas associated with strategies designed to
shape experience, such as structured programs which expose participants to situations
of oppression, suffering, and resistance. The intent of this chapter is to encourage
ethics educators to examine further how the First World middle-class can re-interpret
the contradictions, dilemmas, and doubts which arise from a greater understanding of
their social location. It is hoped that such re-interpretation leads people of relative
privilege to increase their responsiveness to suffering and their commitment to
transformation. By affirming some guidelines and priorities for ethics education in the
First World, this chapter aims to contribute to the ongoing development of what an
increasing number of authors and practitioners are calling a `pedagogy of the
oppressor'. The oppressed, in this context, are "those persons who suffer as innocent
victims of the structure of a society that protects the privileges of the non-poor." The
oppressors are those people whose place in society is systematically built on the
disadvantage of others (Evans, Evans & Kennedy, 1987: 275).

Playing on Paulo Freire's (1972b) idea of `a pedagogy of the oppressed', a pedagogy

for the oppressor attempts to give people in the First World new insights into the source
and consequences of their privilege - or, as Freire himself would have noted, a deeper
capacity to `read' or reflect critically upon their situation. Freire wrote:

Discovering himself (sic.) to be an oppressor may cause considerable

anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the
oppressed...Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those
with whom one is solidary; ...The oppressor is solidary with the
oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract
category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with,
deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor...(1972b: 34).

Developing a pedagogy for the transformation of the oppressor has been identified by a
number of authors as imperative for human liberation (for example, Letty Russell, 1981;
Evans, Evans & Kennedy, 1987; Nel Noddings, 1989; Myers, 1994). Many of these
writers are themselves activists of some kind working for liberation. Each of these
author-activists has tried to stress the importance of recognising the potential positive
role of a well-intentioned and re-educated oppressor (Noddings, 1989: 176). The `re-
education' of the oppressor occurs by listening to, and reflecting upon, the experiences
of the oppressed. But it will be shown in this chapter that it is important to supplement
this process with one of listening to, and reflecting upon, one's own experiences - in all
their ambiguities, that is, as both oppressor and oppressed. It will also be shown that
the practical dimensions of a pedagogy of the oppressor have not been sufficiently
elaborated for practitioners attempting to encourage specific goals of transformation.
This process of re-education tries to give those with greater freedom, including those
not yet committed to total solidarity, a more thorough understanding of how they should
behave so as to de-escalate their harmful role as oppressors (Noddings, 1989: 162).
Within the process of being educated for solidarity, the oppressor can learn something
of the suffering and longing for freedom which oppressed people experience. However,
this process of listening to and `re-presenting' the experience of the oppressed
requires, as Maddox (1992) has shown, an awareness of the ease with which it can be
appropriated by the privileged for their own validation. Nel Noddings has warned of the
limits of empathy with the oppressed:

There is an understanding of suffering that only the sufferer can

achieve, and there is a longing for freedom that only the unfree can
know deeply (1989: 161).

Similarly, Sharon Welch regards the capacity of the oppressor to perceive the suffering
of the oppressed as being intrinsically limited. She also identifies the limited ability of
the oppressor to define the transformation being sought (such as freedom or universal
rights):

In the struggle for liberation, the understanding of the nature of freedom

that is held by the oppressors who wish to renounce their oppression of
others must change (1985: 83).

Perspective transformation amongst oppressed peoples has invariably begun with their
indignation, both personally and collectively, at the impoverishment imposed upon
them by unjust distributions of power, wealth, and status (Fox, 1991: 76). Is there a
similar form of indignation that can transform the perspective of people who are both
oppressed and oppressor? Is it ethical to manufacture such indignation in order to
provoke reflection? Finally, how can the experiences of the privileged and the alienated
become sources of ethical reflection which can transform attitudes of insularity, self-
preservation, and individualism towards greater solidarity, empathy and partnership?

5.1 Shaping experience for perspective transformation

An increasingly used approach to transforming the moral perspective of the middle-

class is to attempt to shape their experience by connecting them directly with the
experience of the oppressed. There are a number of pedagogical practices derived
from this approach. However there has been little reflection about the assumptions or,
indeed, the ethical implications of manipulating experience (and suffering in particular)
to achieve a predetermined goal (such as a transformation in perspective). Some of the
implications of structured exposure programs designed for the transformation of
Western middle-class people will be particularly examined in the discussion which
follows. It has been noted that models of transformative education should try to be both
experiential and dialogical within a cycle of critical reflection (Evans in Graybill, 1989:
49). But how can such dialogical education happen on a large scale - that is, beyond
the direct dialogue of an interpersonal encounter? There is some debate about the
strategic and ethical use of direct, as opposed to indirect, experience in perspective
transformation. Invariably, direct experience is seen as more effective in providing the
disorienting dilemmas which lead to perspective transformation. However, there is a
need to balance this use of direct experience with greater consideration of the relative
safety of the learning space. Indirect experience - or forms of exposure which can
stimulate reflection in the absence of the `other' - may be one way of creating safer
learning spaces without diminishing the effectiveness of perspective transformation.
Some of these matters will also be addressed in this chapter.
The transformation of the moral perspective of First World middle-class people is
enhanced by three distinct phases of engagement. This cycle of perspective
transformation - through critical reflection upon experiences of identity, estrangement,
and re-presentation - draws upon a praxis approach of critical reflection on practice
which leads back into reformed practice. This kind of reflection is most effectively done
within a community which shares common ethical commitments (Moore, 1991: 172).
This cycle recognises that certain experiences are formative in moral development.
Furthermore, it was argued in Chapters Three and Four that formative experiences of
suffering can either transform or galvanise perspective depending on the extent to
which the narrative expression and interpretation of such experiences is respected in
its totality - that is, both its content and its context. A sustainable cycle of perspective
transformation which engages formative experience will, therefore, emphasise the
following:

identity - a recognition of one's own moral tradition and experience (both as a

community and as an individual);

estrangement - a personal encounter with the narrative tradition and experience

of the alienated;

re-presentation - an integration of (1) and (2) within a renewed relationship of

critical engagement with the oppressor while sustaining solidarity with the
oppressed.

5.1.1 identity

The process of encouraging the middle-class to recognise the contradictions of their

experience and to act transformatively involves nurturing and expanding what Erica
Sherover-Marcuse calls `emancipatory subjectivity' - or the "forms of subjectivity that
tend towards a rupture with the historical system of domination" (1986: 1). Pedagogies
for the oppressor often begin with the distinctive experience of the middle-class: people
who may be both beneficiaries and casualties of a social system. The ambiguity of their
social location is characterised by experiences which both sustain and challenge
oppression. Therefore, a key starting point for transforming the perspective of the First
World middle-class is to analyse the contradictions apparent within their own
experience as both oppressor and oppressed. This process provides an opportunity to
empathise, to some extent, with another's oppression from one's own experience of
oppression. It also provides an occasion to recognise and accept a greater degree of
shared responsibility from a social location that is paradoxical in its relationship to the
sources of power and oppression. This relationship is characterised by Katrina Shields'
description:

We are the fortunate minority who are best placed to initiate many of the
solutions. We are also living the western lifestyle which has created the
problems (1993: 4).

Consequently, the transformation which educators for social responsibility encourage is

based upon a recognition of the paradoxes within experience, and a commitment to
reaching some degree of resolution in which there is movement from the role of
oppressor to one of alliance with the oppressed. The assumption that only the
experience of the oppressed provides critical insights into oppression may lead the
non-poor into believing that there is nothing of any value to be gleaned from their own
experience. Their own everyday contradictions may be considered merely to be forms
of `false consciousness' with no relation to the everyday contradictions of the
oppressed.

Ethics educators aiming to enhance shared responsibility should, therefore, attempt to

provide forums for people who are both victims and beneficiaries of a social system to
express the ambiguous truths of their experience - especially that of one's own
suffering and one's complicity with oppression. Erica Sherover-Marcuse (1986) has
developed such a forum through what she calls diversity training workshops, in which
people name the contradictions and implications of their double identities as oppressor
and oppressed. The aim of these workshops is to contribute to an awakening of new
sensitivities and empathies which enable people to temper any oppressor mentality by
remembering their own experiences of oppression and by attending to the voices of the
oppressed. They also try to enhance the capacity to identify and transform habits of
domination and exclusion and, thereby, germinate the seeds of liberation amongst the
beneficiaries of society (Welch, 1993: 175).

Such a forum is endorsed by Ched Myers' (1994) critique of First World strategies of
perspective transformation. Basing his work on liberation theology, he notes that in the
process of drawing upon the experience of oppressed Third World peoples in order to
develop a pedagogy of the oppressor, First World people have forgotten to reflect upon
their own experience. Myers urges these people of `entitlement' to discern the features
of their own context and critically reflect upon their own experience in order to respond
with authentic practice. He observes that:

theologies of liberation claim to be reflection on practice, and mere

commentary on someone else's practice deftly sidesteps the question of
our own. Even if we sympathize with theologies of liberation, we are in
constant danger of expropriating their rhetoric without engaging their
methods (1994: 20).

Irish-American Christian educator Thomas Groome is another practitioner who

encourages people of privilege to explore their own experience as an entry point into
understanding the experience of the oppressed:

I am convinced that for middle- and upper-income Christians, or other

people of social privilege, it also helps to recall personal experiences of
some form of poverty, injustice, or violence; surely everyone has had
such experiences. From the 'dangerous memories' of personal suffering
people can draw empathy for others whose lives are more threatened
than theirs. For example, if the wealthy and well-fed do not recognize
some form of deprivation or `hunger' (albeit a more privileged one than
physical hunger) in their lives, the physical hunger of the poor is less
likely to move them to empathy and action (1991: 405).

Furthermore, within this process of identifying ambiguous experience as a step towards

empowering the middle-class, Terence Anderson (1988: 131) has observed that
middle-class people tend to respond more energetically to models of awareness-raising
about social location which begin with personal reflection (and self-knowledge) rather
than abstract principles of social analysis (and social knowledge). "Critical
appropriation of one's own people and self" is more likely to permeate the middle-class
through the use of individual and psychological language rather than politically-charged
forms of social description about cultural power, exclusion, and identity - forms which,
he argues, are more easily appropriated by minority groups (1988: 131). Another
Christian educator, Russell Butkus, endorses this perception by suggesting that:
 any hope of sponsoring people to critical consciousness and social
action is directly related to their capacity to reflect on experience and
situations that deeply touch their lives (1983: 155).

A further important characteristic of critical reflection upon the identity of entitlement is

that the experience of membership of a privileged group in society, unless challenged,
is unlikely to lend itself to a commitment to social change. As Sharon Welch, who
acknowledges her own identity as being both oppressor and oppressed, writes: "It is
easier to give up on long-term social change when one is comfortable in the present"
(1990: 15). In other words, the experience of comfort and privilege by itself would not
appear likely to prepare an ethical environment for transformation. Oppressors as
oppressors cannot liberate the oppressed. Russell Butkus identifies this dilemma of
developing `oppressor consciousness' by asking the question "How will critical
reflection motivate people to liberating action when they have so much to lose" (1983:
154)? The middle-class need to interrogate their own stories, as well as those of the
oppressed. This is an important stage in the educational process. Without such a stage
of personal reflection, a call for empathy - and shared responsibility - can be
overwhelming rather than liberating. An experience of another's situation without any
personal insights into one's own experience can distort the interpretative and dialogical
processes of transformative education, leading to feelings of alienation, resentment,
and suspicion of extended relationships of solidarity and partnership. For example,
Joanna Macy's model of perspective transformation attempts to connect people with
the collective suffering of the planet and its creatures. Although she makes a passing
reference to the importance of connecting the global predicament to one's own
personal pain, there is a very real danger that the well-rehearsed processes of despair
and empowerment education used within a structured workshop setting can, if adopted
uncritically or without a supportive community, submerge people under a mass of
unidentified distress and disempowering obligations.

Indeed, individual accountability to another social grouping without an understanding of

one's own community's system of values and heritage of action (and inaction) may, in
the long run, be counterproductive and disillusioning. As Anderson observes, it may
lead to a commitment towards an ideology rather than an enduring relationship of
loyalty to people (1988: 136). Working with indigenous communities in Canada,
Anderson warns against the tendency of middle-class students to ground their
commitment to the dispossessed in guilt or personal alienation rather than in response
to a relationship of care. He writes:

those allies who offer genuine solidarity believe that their own well-being
and destiny is bound together with the Native people who are involved in
the struggle (1988: 137).

Consequently, he argues, it is vital for middle-class people to critically appropriate their

own personal and traditional story alongside, if not prior to, an encounter with the
stories of the dispossessed. Anderson recalls his first meeting with a Cherokee elder
who tactfully tested his commitment to Native land rights by inquiring about his
European ancestry and the role of his people in recent history. Knowledge about - and
critical ownership of - one's own people provides a foundation for mutual relationship
across cultures (1988: 132). Developing a pedagogy for transformation of the
oppressor, therefore, requires an initial process of moral formation that prepares for
acts of solidarity with the oppressed by first understanding one's own tradition, identity,
and social location. Experiences of oppression and alienation may facilitate the
discernment of these features. But it is unwise to set up opportunities for direct
exposure to the experience of the oppressed until some reflection about one's own
moral identity has taken place. Furthermore, the processes by which critical
pedagogies create space for those voices traditionally suppressed by historical forces
should also recognise the suppression of internal voices of contradiction amongst the
oppressors.

5.1.2 estrangement

The second phase within a sustainable cycle of perspective transformation occurs with
an experience of alienation or estrangement, primarily through the intentional
development of a relationship with those who are either alien or estranged. Exposing
the middle-class to the excluded experience of the stranger, oppressed, or the poor
has been a major emphasis of ethics education in First World Christian Churches in the
past three decades. Overseas study tours, cross-cultural field programs, inner-city
orientation courses, `freedom rides', `reality tours' (to use Myers' term, 1994: 225),
`immersion experiences', and volunteer placements have been a feature of both
denominational and ecumenical educational projects in Australasia, North America,
and Europe. As reported in Chapter 1, the author, in the course of this study,
participated in one such solidarity/exposure program run over two weeks by a North
American Protestant development and human rights group in the Central American
countries of El Salvador and Guatemala. A description of this particular type of program
is contained in the Appendix. For example, exposing the privileged to situations of
unjust suffering has been adopted by the Uniting Church in Australia as a specific
strategy to transform the moral perspective and commitments of young adults in their
20s and 30s - particularly perspectives relating to one's obligation to the oppressed and
commitments to appropriate forms of social action. Some of these cross-cultural,
human rights, and development centred programs are described in the Appendix.

What are the major assumptions of this approach to ethics education? Mary Elizabeth
Moore argues that this approach tries to encourage a particular encounter with the
world, subject to subject, which begins with listening - especially listening to the poor
and oppressed whose voices may be the hardest to hear. She writes:

The focus on listening is not based on a naive optimism that every voice
is equally true but, rather, on an assumption that more evil is usually
done by not respecting truth in the voices of others than by taking those
voices too seriously (1991: 181).

Dieter Hessel argues that direct exposure to the estranged motivates local
communities to transform their collective perspective:

Congregations that are open to or directly exposed to strangers - that is, strikingly
different people or deprived groups - are most likely to become justice-oriented and
active (1988: 108).

Christian educator Thomas Groome describes the pedagogical assumption which

many non-poor churches are using:

When one's daily life does not readily lend such relationship and
opportunity (to work with the poor), it is wise to create the occasion (e.g.
volunteer work in a soup kitchen). Volunteer occasions should not be
equated with fulfilling the social responsibilities of Christian faith; rather,
they can serve as a personal source of empathy and of critical
consciousness that can permeate one's life and sustain commitment to
a faith that does justice (1991: 405).
North American Christian Educator, Karen Lebacqz argues that the formation of
solidarity and the recognition of one's social location requires a personal encounter
with the dynamics of oppression. She contends that:

some experience of injustice may be an important learning tool because

the pain that it evokes can result in genuine appropriation of an
understanding of oppression as a personal reality. It facilitates those
deep structural transformations which are the distinctive feature of
learning...The pain that causes metanoia and recognition that I am
oppressor is the pain of self-recognition. It is the recognition that I who
am oppressed have become oppressor. It is the recognition that the very
things I would least like done to me are the things that I do every day to
others (1989a: 177 & 173).

There may only be an intellectual appreciation of oppression 'out there'

until it is connected to a personal experience of oppression. Pain, in this
sense, becomes a moral catalyst - "it is pain that often moves something
from being `out there' to being `in here'" (1989a: 167). At that point
responsibility can be taken at a deep level to change the patterns of
living:

My experience suggests that this deeper understanding of oppression,

one in which oppression becomes a lived personal reality, may require
experiences of injustice and pain. The shock of recognition that one is
oppressed and the shock of recognition that one is oppressor both are
accompanied by pain (1989a: 170).

Within these structured exposure experiences, there is a recurring emphasis that

interaction with marginalised people is in some way vital for the proper expression of
faith and the moral restoration of the privileged. As North American Christian activist
Ched Myers wrote: "Only when we have gazed into the human face of the oppressed
will we undertake the long journey toward genuine solidarity" (1994: 202). The
`stranger' is the term which many Christian theologians use to describe those
marginalised people who can provide the redemptive ingredient to one's moral tradition
and community. Darrell Fasching's (1992: 3) goal of a liberating community requires an
experience of estrangement - through intimate contact with those have least call on
one's conscience (that is, acquaintances and strangers as opposed to family and
friends). Hospitality to the stranger becomes the measure of a just society and a `holy'
community. Parker Palmer (1983: 74), another Christian educator, argues similarly that
hospitality to strangers is an epistemological imperative as well as an ethical one.
Strangers introduce us to the strangeness and possibility of truth. A pedagogy based
on this premise will develop an ongoing dialogue between one's own narrative tradition
and the narrative tradition of the stranger.

First World theologies of liberation invariably combine this emphasis on connecting with
the stranger with a recognition that the privileged are morally accountability to the
oppressed or the estranged within society (Harrison, 1985; Fasching, 1992). It is often
assumed, moreover, that if the community to which one is accountable is not
marginalized, then it is most likely that one's accountability will implicitly gravitate
towards the dominant centres of power and privilege (Costa, 1992: 19). The oppressed
are consequently portrayed as carriers of divine revelation and, thereby, intrinsic moral
authority. For example, Darrell Fasching, who calls for such moral accountability to the
strangers in one's midst, expresses this view:
 The strangers who are sent into our lives and our dreams come bearing
the invitation to self-transcendence...When we wrestle with the stranger
we wrestle with God (1992: 178 & 192).

Critical thinking about various forms of oppression such as racism, classism, sexism,
heterosexism and handicapism, grow out of an identification and interaction with
persons who are paying for the benefits of the privileged. This process of identification,
which theologian Letty Russell (1981: 131) calls `learning to think from the other side',
involves transferring one's own experience of victimization and alienation to that of the
experience of others. Russell describes such an experience as a prerequisite for
developing a `curriculum of subversion' designed to help people learn to think critically.
She writes:

Opportunities for action should be designed to open up as much

exposure as possible to situations of oppression and need...In order to
challenge the culture of the oppressors in a critical way it is necessary to
experience the results of that culture among those who must pay for it.
For most people this direct exposure to `culture shock' in a different
culture or subculture causes new awareness of self-identity and testing
of prejudices (1981: 130).

The experience of alienation or estrangement in relation to the majority creates an

environment which can stimulate the questions necessary for the growth of critical
consciousness. The stories of the oppressed reveal the `contradictions of everyday life'
which contain the seeds of transformation for the middle class. Consequently, to be
actively engaged in liberation the middle class need the stories, or `strategic
reflections', of the oppressed. Beverley Wildung Harrison, another First World
theologian who argues that genuine solidarity involves concrete answerability to
oppressed people, writes that:

the critical interpretations of the most marginated must be accepted as

`correcting' the subjective blind spots in our (the middle class's) own
experience (1985: 250).

Such a relationship with the alienated provides the perspective needed to identify and
counteract the power of the dominant culture's deceptive and oppressive myths. The
stories of the stranger also encourage the doubts necessary for the growth of
responsibility. This responsible self or, what Robert Lifton calls the `embodied self':

affirms not only its interdependence with its neighbor who is the same
but also with the stranger who is different and whose presence keeps it
open to self-transcendence and self-transformation (Fasching 1992:
184).

Although the experiences of estrangement (or the estranged) may be helpful in

analysing social structures of power and coercion, they may not necessarily provide the
strategic empowerment required to mobilize the middle-class into long-term action and
commitment. For example, Hessel qualifies his own assumption noted above:

This is not to say that exposure to injustice and dire human need
automatically leads to socially repositioning results. Exposure to `others'
may only increase natural tendencies to withdraw into familiar enclaves
of homogenous community and to make apartheid arrangements that
 insulate ourselves from difficulties of social pluralism or transforming
action (1988: 108).

Furthermore, Anderson emphasises that exposure to the unorganized poor or victims

may evoke certain feelings such as pity, compassion, or righteous anger, but may not
challenge the rescuing mentality of religious charity. He continues:

Likewise, relating to those organized to pursue justice but who

themselves are not poor may strengthen the rescuer style rather than
solidarity. A relationship with organized poor, on the contrary, brings one
face to face with larger economic and political institutions and provides
possibilities for impacting them in a context that also facilitates critical
reflection on one's operative posture toward the current system (1988:
142).

The manipulation of experience is justified on the basis that the privileged First World
public is consistently denied exposure to opposing worldviews because they live in a
state of perpetual cultural and ideological captivity of the political superstructure
(Graybill, 1989: 334). This controlling ideology is so powerful and pervasive that it is
virtually impossible for the non-poor to educate themselves on issues of peace and
justice - to pierce the ideological cocoon - apart from a direct encounter with the poor
(Evans, 1987: 275). Consequently, direct encounters try to provide an "experiential
shock that challenges previous assumptions, reduces one's resistance to change, and
requires the exploration of alternative patterns of living" (Evans, 1987: 276).

Donald Graybill has studied the impact of an international exposure program in Mexico
on middle-class North American participants (1989). The Cuernavaca Center for
Intercultural Dialogue on Development (CCIDD) tries to produce a structured
experience for participants that is both informative and transformative (1989: 126).
CCIDD aims to "invoke, deepen or reinforce an experiential conversion...that will
ultimately benefit the Latin American poor" (1989: 127). The program is deliberately
designed to:

(a) add meaning and depth to experience;

(b) create a disjuncture between past experiential knowledge and the existential
moment;

(c) bring reflection to bear on experience;

(d) achieve learning which is integrated into a new experiential knowledge

framework (1989: 316).

This perspective transformational approach begins with a focus on personal

experience, using the testimonies of the local population, followed by a gradual
broadening of analysis to more global and conceptual frameworks (Graybill, 1989:
137). Emphasis is placed on allowing the voice of the poor to be heard directly and
from within their own realities (1989: 125). These encounters enable participants to see
the poor as individuals unique in their life histories, situations and aspirations. Poverty
is portrayed throughout the experiential curriculum in highly personal, affective terms
(1989: 135). CCIDD staff members use facilitation to help penetrate and enter the
dramatic depths of a presenter's life experience - including the facts and raw emotions
that surround poverty and oppression, and their thirst for freedom and commitment to
liberation. In so doing, it is assumed that participants can empathize with and
vicariously experience the other person's life circumstance across psycho-socio-
cultural boundaries (1989: 146). Graybill concluded from his study of CCIDD that the
travel model of transformation education is a very potent strategy for conscientising
and activating the middle-class non-poor into "more progressive, politically informed
lifestyles and situations that reflect increased solidarity with the global poor" (1989:
339).

Hajek and Evans (1987) made a similar study of an exposure program, organised by a
group called Plowshares Institute International which leads travel seminars to East
Africa and Latin America. They concluded that while preparation is important (bridging
between old and new perspectives through films, stories, seminars), the actual
immersion experience is critical to initiating transformation. Such immersion
experiences strongly encourage participants to confront the unjust suffering caused by
current social structures and to expose them to the human courage required to combat
such injustice. They concluded from their observations that energy for a sustainable
commitment to transformation comes from such direct experiences (1987: 166).
However, this thesis argues that ethics educators need to move beyond a reliance
upon programs of exposure to oppression to a process of deepening relationships with
the oppressed. While such relationships may be initiated by exposure programs, they
require an additional array of both direct and indirect encounters. A capacity for
responsible action is enhanced by a clearer perception of, and commitment to, ongoing
relationships with the casualties of the social system in which one participates.

5.1.3 re-presentation

The third stage of perspective transformation involves integrating the experience of

estrangement or alienation into one's moral identity. This process of sustaining
solidarity with the oppressed while returning to the privileged is called representation -
literally re-presenting the outcomes of a structured experience to one's own moral
tradition and community. Often participants in such programs report that what they
learn most from exposure to an oppressive situation is not so much a clearer
understanding of the Third World as a more sophisticated analysis of their First World
social context. Participants return home to become new interpreters of global realities.
For example, one travel participant reported:

It was not so much what I learned about Africa or Latin America that
caused change in my life, but rather what I learned about the United
States. It puts the priorities of our nation, the church and myself in a new
light (Hajek and Evans, 1987: 166).

This is sometimes experienced as a form of reverse culture shock and, if not

processed, can soon lead to disillusionment. For example, a 1989 survey of twenty
volunteers working within the Methodist Church in the USA was conducted by Trudie
Preciphs (cited in Mezirow, 1991) to determine how they came to change their beliefs
and actions in relation to positions taken by national church leadership. The volunteers
participated in a structured perspective transformation program, involving dialogue,
storytelling, sharing significant experience, and linking personal struggle or pain with
social issues. In an intimate context of shared vocation, emotional encounter, and
community building, transformative learning appeared to flourish. However, the
volunteers in this national program encountered stress and resistance when they took
their new perspectives on social issues back to their local groups. Mezirow concluded:
 The program nonetheless provided many of the volunteers with the
strength to take stands on social issues that were at odds with the
conventional viewpoints in their home communities (1991c: 182).

This final stage of perspective transformation is enhanced by a number of pre-

conditions:

(a) Sustaining solidarity with the oppressed therefore requires the validation of a moral
community and an opportunity to reflect systematically on one's changing experience in
the light of the experience of the estranged.

It may be that such validation occurs through a social movement which can affirm a
newly-formed alternative perspective and provide relief from the stress generated by
the disorienting dilemmas of estrangement. Mezirow writes: "Identifying with a social
movement provides perhaps the most powerful reinforcement of a new way of seeing
our own dilemma" (1991: 188). However, there is also a danger in this process of
reinforcement and group validation that perspective transformation will only serve to
replace one form of dogmatism with another. Mezirow warns against this hazard on the
path to perspective transformation. He gives the example of people who
enthusiastically embrace a consciousness-raising group and proceed to abandon
further reflective critique of their relationship with the group and so become
impermeable to alternative points of view. By giving such a group one's unconditional
allegiance there is an immediate abrogation of responsibility (1991c: 191).

(b) In order for members of a moral community to reflect critically upon their own
experience of alienation in light of the experience of the alienated there needs to be
some form of supporting analysis or theoretical framework.

Mechthild Hart notes from her analysis of the model of perspective transformation
adopted by many First World women's movements:

If consciousness-raising is to remain a radical program for

transformative education, a theoretical distance to personal experience
has to be gained. Theoretical knowledge must at some point become an
explicit concern because it supplies the general tools that can make
transparent the relations that obtain among isolated and fragmented
incidents of personal experience...personal experience can only be the
necessary points of departure for gaining socially valid knowledge
(1990: 67).

Within the Christian community there has been a movement to develop this theoretical
knowledge through attempts to translate Third World experiences of resistance to
oppression into a First World strategy of resistance and solidarity. Some have not so
much been `translations' as parallel reflections emerging from the struggles of
oppressed groups in First World countries - for example, women (Harrison, 1985), gay
and lesbians (Goss, 1993), blacks (Cone, 1972), and abused children (Pais, 1991).
Other attempts have drawn upon liberation themes from within existing social
movements concerned, for example, about ecology (Fox, 1991), peace (Sider and
Taylor, 1982), development (Neal, 1977), consumerism (Kavanaugh, 1991), urban
poverty (Sheppard, 1983), and `radical discipleship' (Myers, 1994). Many of these have
much to offer the ethics educator within the Christian tradition and community. Indeed,
many of the emphases of Third World liberation theologies are widely used by First
World ethics educators - though not always with widespread success. The use of such
`exotic imports' has not always proved empowering for First World audiences.
Disempowerment usually occurs when the dynamics of oppression are presented
without any corresponding expression of hope and resilience that may be present
within the original context. The moral narrative is consequently truncated and
disarmed. Habits of resistance to injustice are more likely to be sustained by the
dignified example of those who endure, survive, and transform the cycles of injustice
(Welch 1993: 182). Glimpses of a community where people have freed themselves
from imposed and oppressive identities become a source of hope. An experience of
freedom, however brief or limited, will sustain ongoing work for freedom. Welch
elaborates:

My hope for fundamental social change is grounded in the incredible

resilience I see in the lives of people who continue to work for justice:
the ability to accept the costs of change, accepting the fact that our
strategies, or visions of what can heal us are partial, fluid, always
growing and changing, a dance of failure and hope, growth, risk, and
pain (1993: 193).

Within the re-presentation phase of perspective transformation, the process of

integrating an experience of estrangement into one's moral narrative involves a
reassessment of one's identity as both oppressor and oppressed - thus, beginning the
cycle again. In re-forming relationships with the privileged in one's own social location,
there is a temptation to integrate an experience of alienation by attributing blame and
alien-status to those who have not engaged in a similar process of perspective
transformation.

(c) Models of perspective transformation should try to adopt processes of mourning

followed by celebration rather than appeals to guilt.

Effective strategies of empowerment have often involved some form of celebration,

before and after ethical action, to provide an ecstatic ritual of connectedness that
brings individual stories together into a communal story. Ritual theorist Tom Driver
writes that:

The ritual (of celebration) is the home and matrix of the shared values,
and it shelters the fellowship that ethical action both requires and
produces (1991: 124).

Such narrative and celebratory rituals have enabled oppressed people to articulate
where they belong - a placement in history and society. Driver calls this process of
clarifying identity as a `confessional performance':

an early, necessary step in the liberation of any oppressed people (is the performance
of) acts in which people openly proclaim their identity as members of an oppressed
group, and confess loyalty to the cause of liberation (1991: 116).

Perhaps those committed to developing a pedagogy of the oppressor can learn from
the confessional performances which oppressed people have traditionally used to
proclaim individual and communal identity through an alternative culture. James Cone
writes about the embodiment of liberation in African-American music in his book, The
Spirituals and the Blues: "I grew up in a small black community in Bearden, Arkansas,
where black music was essential for identity and survival...Black music is unity music. It
unites the joy and the sorrow, the love and the hate, the hope and the despair of black
people; and it moves the people toward the direction of total liberation" (1972: 1& 5).
However, the dangers of appropriation which apply to drawing upon the stories of the
oppressed, as identified by Maddox (1992), remain valid in relation to drawing upon the
artistic expressions of the oppressed.

(d) Ethics educators should try to enable people who are re-forming their ethical
identities to identify the obstacles to change which are intrinsic to being an oppressor
and/or which contribute (perhaps unconsciously) to oppression.

The failure to identify the specific conditions and powers that perpetuate oppression in
one's own society can muffle the enthusiasm and insight of the change agent. Those
who have had their perspectives transformed need to continue the process of critical
reflection in their engagement with the experience of the privileged. Liberation
theologians in the developing world have certainly tried to address these conditions.
Invariably, they:

do not analyse the nature of love in itself, but examine concrete social conditions that
subvert the possibility of love being expressed...Instead of merely articulating the
demand for justice, the theoretician analyzes the concrete conditions that deny justice
(Welch 1985: 64- 65).

(e) Ethics educators should encourage those experiencing the representation phase to
maintain some kind of dialogue with the privileged - as an act of solidarity with the
oppressed.

For example, North American Christian Educator, Mary Elizabeth Moore writes that:

Encountering the world also includes listening to those people who are
more oppressor than oppressed, for even their voices are heard very
little at a deep level. Even their oppressive acts come in part from their
own internal cries and prejudices that lead them to meet their own
needs by using others. Those internal cries and prejudices need to be
heard. Although these people are not able, according to Freire, to free
the economically oppressed, they may well be able to free themselves,
insofar as they are oppressed by other forces. This may, in turn,
contribute to eliminating their oppression of others (1991: 183).

After developing greater relationships with the oppressed, the middle-class can bring
their transformed perspectives into renewed relationships with the oppressor. The
newly-formed change agent can become a bridge between the privileged and the
oppressed. Straddling the chasm between the oppressor and the oppressed has, at
times, been perceived by the oppressed as an act of compromise with the oppressor.
However, there is a difference between keeping lines of communication open and
using the rhetoric of reconciliation or universal goodwill to divert attention from
fundamental structural inequalities. If the dialogue with the oppressor is put in the
context of an additional act of solidarity with the oppressed, it is less likely to become
co-opted by the dominant culture as another way of placating the oppressed. In other
words, transformed First World people should see themselves as ambassadors for the
oppressed rather than the oppressor in the relationship with the dominant culture.

Given that the connection with the privileged is part of the change agent's social
location, there is a particular need to monitor the relationship with those who are not
readily part of their social location - that is, the estranged and marginalised. This is
especially important because oppression is often maintained by concealment,
dehumanisation, and a separation (by distraction or comfort zone) of the beneficiaries
of the social relationship from the victims. The presence of another is a physical
reminder of their humanity. Psychologist Stanley Milgram's (1974) experiment about
conformity to authority showed that people are less likely to continue harming another
person if they are physically closer to them than if they are kept further apart.

(f) Ethics educators should note that the power of relatedness or connectedness is
valuable as both a principle of and strategy for perspective transformation.

Rather than separating themselves from the oppressors, those working for social
change should saturate them with their presence (Noddings, 1989: 222). This power of
relatedness, rather than guilt or duty, provides the most enduring motivation for acts of
solidarity (Welch 1985: 67). As community organiser, Fran Peavey wrote:

If we aren't connected to the people we think we're fighting for, there's

an emptiness, a coldness at the center. It's the same coldness that's at
the heart of prejudice - the coldness of separation (1986: 8).

To reconnect with the oppressor may require a re-evaluation of one's attitude - moral
behaviour often depends on the moral worth assigned to others. Ethical concern must
dismantle the traps of scapegoating, stereotyping, typecasting, and projection. As Nel
Noddings wrote: "We find it easier to hate enemies if we can attribute evil motives to
them" (1989: 193). Connecting people either with the stranger or the enemy reminds
people of one another's presence and realities, thereby creating the preconditions
needed for the growth of empathy and tolerance.

5.2 Ethical and pedagogical dilemmas of shaping experience for transformation

There are dilemmas in the shaping of experience for perspective transformation, to

which we now turn. Does direct exposure to suffering always equip one for a sustained
and compassionate response or for enhanced responsibility? Creating shock
experiences in order to increase the vulnerability of potential change agents may
catalyse the conversion process, but how much exposure to oppression is enough to
convince and enlighten about the interrelated realities of oppression? Under what
circumstances does exposure to injustice encourage and empower sustainable action
and under which ones does this kind of vulnerability, in fact, mitigate against
transformation?

5.2.1 direct vs indirect encounter

There is some debate about the imperative of a direct encounter for perspective
transformation. Perhaps this is more a strategic question about the point at which the
direct encounter takes place rather than whether it should occur at all. This study
recognises the transformative value of direct encounters with the alienated or
oppressed - particularly with those communities who have organised themselves to
confront their oppression. Such a direct encounter should expose the non-poor not only
to the consequences of oppression, but also to the strength, resources, and
imagination of the poor as they challenge their own oppression. However, care needs
to be taken to avoid a form of reliance upon the alienated which leads to appropriation
or sycophancy. The direct encounter should enhance a deepening relationship - rather
than merely objectify (or even deify) the marginalised as a source of enlightenment.
Even direct encounters, such as exposure programs, have the potential to involve
learners in rather passive learning situations characteristic of the `banking' education
model which Paulo Freire associated with oppressive education (Graybill, 1989: 336).
There are, of course, obvious limits upon the extent to which the relationship can be
mutual, honest or open. At the very least direct encounters should enhance a
relationship between subjects that encourages dialogue and critical reflection.

Evans, Evans and Kennedy (1987: 275) concluded from their study of models of
perspective transformation that a direct encounter with the poor or oppressed is
essential if the non-poor are to make an initial revision of their map of reality. They
argue that change cannot be initiated by indirect or secondary processes of
confrontation because the poor and oppressed themselves are the indispensable
teachers and eventual liberators of the non-poor:

every educational model that hopes or claims to be transformative must give priority in
time, energy, and resources to direct, personal, and sustained encounters between the
poor and the non-poor (Evans, Evans, & Kennedy, 1987: 276).

However, such an assessment seems to downplay the role of secondary processes of

confrontation. It also seems to downplay the preparatory and debriefing stages which
are so important to examining one's moral identity and social location. Without such a
contextualising process, a direct exposure does not respect the moral narrative of the
participants and therefore discourages an authentic relationship. Mary Elizabeth Moore
offers such an alternative assessment:

Direct person-to-person interaction can bring forth human qualities of

compassion and understanding, and it can allow individuals to reflect
honestly together on their different social situations. On the other hand,
it can also be threatening and can foster further alienation. Printed and
other media resources can introduce individuals and issues in a less
threatening way and can allow them opportunity to reflect on their own
reactions outside of the presence of those people who would be most
affected by those reactions (1991: 184).

This is a more balanced approach. It affirms the need for a safe pedagogical space in
which to question, reflect and react. A learning space, Parker Palmer notes, requires
carefully defined and defended boundaries:

A learning space cannot go on forever; if it did, it would not be a

structure for learning but an invitation to confusion and chaos (1983:
72).

In using experiences of suffering, in particular, it is important to recognise how

threatening a completely open pedagogical space can be. Indirect or secondary
processes of confrontation are necessary to prepare a learning space with clear
boundaries. Such preparedness respects, for instance, the vulnerability of guest
speakers in an exposure program who may be sharing very painful stories of
oppression. For example, an Australian ecumenical student movement held a
conference forum on racism which included an indigenous guest speaker. This incident
occurred at the 1987/88 National Conference of the Australian Student Christian
Movement near Melbourne. It soon became apparent following the lively speech that
the participants had not done enough preparatory work about important questions of
identity (especially their own) and history (especially that of their own communities).
The forum quickly became chaotic as the formal processes of facilitation failed to
identify the range or type of responses being expressed. The learning space had
become ineffectual - contributed to, as well, by the visible anxiety of the forum's
organisers who struggled to protect the guest speaker from what they felt were
inappropriate questions. The direct encounter with the marginalised had been negated
by the unpreparedness of the participants and the insecurity of the organisers. This
incident revealed the need for carefully planned processes that take into account the
affective responses to stories of oppression and confrontation, the participants' fears of
making mistakes (such as `saying the wrong thing'), and the consequences of
presenting alternative voices of moral authority.

The need for care in creating pedagogical experiences is particularly important with
exposure programs which attempt to maximize the learning gained through
participants' risk and vulnerability. The deliberate creation of `disorienting dilemmas' is
often designed in such programs to instil a sense of alienation from the dominant
middle-class values of the participants. Graybill writes: "It is assumed that within the
vulnerability created by (a sense of) dissonance a participant becomes more receptive
and open to program messages" (1989: 344).

A further pedagogical question needs to be considered at this point: must there always
be a moral elite to ignite social change and ethical reconsideration? The depth and
nature of unjust suffering certainly gives unique wisdom to those who endure it unfairly.
The oppressed could, in fact, be portrayed as experts about their own experience of
oppression (Noddings 1989: 161). However, this does not necessarily mean that the
oppressed can or should always be expected to identify both the causes and remedies
of that oppression.

5.2.2 dangers of commodifying suffering

It has already been noted that without an initial phase of reflection about one's own
experience, the experiences of oppressive and massive suffering can dominate and
stifle considered ethical reflection. Stories of suffering are powerful and can rarely be
ignored. Indeed, the impact of such stories cannot always be neatly measured or
predicted. For example, consider the contrasting impact of the following injunction:

We must help individuals to understand that one person's lack of justice

or peace today is everyone's problem and that activity on behalf of
justice and peace is no longer an available option but an urgent
necessity. Concern for a dying eight-year-old in Guatemala must
penetrate our hearts and minds in the same way it would if the child
lived next door to us or was a member of our family (Walsh, 1990: 109).

This may be a concerned statement in itself, but because it is almost totally unrealistic
at an individual affective level, it is unlikely to be a word of empowerment for those not
yet committed to, or equipped for, long-term action. In other words, it may be a worthy
goal to eventually achieve such empathy but this injunction does not, by itself, provide
a mechanism for empathising. Indeed, an attempt to take personal responsibility for the
total suffering of the world may in fact be counterproductive. Sharon Welch warns:

Solidarity may be impossible: full empathy with the suffering of all people would surely
lead to insanity, to the collapse of all conventional structures of meaning. I do not even
know what the results would be if a person or community acknowledged with total
seriousness the suffering of those people within their immediate field of vision (1985:
91).

In other words, there are practical limits to recognising painful experiences

simultaneously - particularly during pedagogical processes in which such experiences
are often made more acute. That is why it is important to process the scope of suffering
within a context of supportive relationships that can withstand arbitrarily imposed
systems of prioritisation. Sharon Welch writes: "we all have been deeply wounded by
systems of oppression, and the pain of each group cannot be fully honored
simultaneously" (1993: 192). This is a real risk of the despair and empowerment rituals
of Joanna Macy, outlined in Chapter Four. By encouraging participants to embrace
suffering as a pathway to enlightenment, there is a potential danger of detouring people
who have few, if any, social supports into a maelstrom of indiscriminate suffering
(sometimes of an apocolyptic nature) for the sake of a rejuvenated planet.

Such rituals which deliberately expose its vulnerable participants to life's risks and
dangers may be appropriate in the well-defined learning space of an empowerment
workshop but may be harmful in the public arena if conducted without thought to the
consequences of social action. Ritual theorist Tom Driver warns that educators ought
to consider and communicate the potential dangers of critical consciousness to change
agents before conducting transformative processes (1991: 108). Jack Mezirow also
raises ethical questions about facilitating perspective transformation when its
consequences may include dangerous or hopeless actions (1991c: 200).

Another consequence of embracing suffering for its own sake can be an overwhelming
sense of responsibility which may eventually give way to a tendency to avoid
responsibility altogether - or to create a constant `state of emergency' mentality. For
example, Peter Berg writes about this tendency within the environmental movement:

Classical environmentalism has bred a peculiar negative political

malaise among its adherents. Alerted to fresh horrors almost daily, they
research the extent of the new life threatening situation, rush to protect
it, and campaign exhaustively to prevent a future occurrence. It's a
valuable service of course, but imagine a hospital that consists of only
an emergency room...Rescuing the environment has become like
running a battlefield aid station against the killing machine that operates
just beyond reach and shifts its ground after each seeming defeat (Berg
quoted in Shields, 1993: 122).

That is why there is a need to develop strategies within models of perspective

transformation which can safeguard against the dangers of overidentification with the
world's suffering. Such strategies should attempt to develop a political consciousness
which considers what imbalances of power are, in fact, exacerbating suffering and what
steps can be taken to address the root causes of such oppression. Developing
empathy amongst the oppressor is insufficient, by itself, as a form of liberation and
may, in fact, as Freire notes , "Rationalizing (the oppressor's) guilt through paternalistic
treatment of the oppressed, all the while holding them fast in a position of dependence,
will not do" (1972b: 34) leads merely to forms of dependency and charity rather than
justice and transformation.

Therefore, one of the goals of such models should be a greater sharing of responsibility
rather than merely shifting responsibility from one group of people to another.
Therefore, one of the challenges for developing a pedagogy of the oppressor is to
develop ways of processing pain that connect people with their own suffering in such a
way as to enable them to recognise the suffering of others - especially the oppressed -
and thereby to recognise their own social location. One of the major risks associated
with gathering together people's pain is that it may not lead to connection (or empathy)
with, but merely comparison (or resentment) of other people's pain. For example, it is
commonplace in the author's work with conservative middle-class churchgoers to
encounter comparisons of suffering. In trying to invoke, provoke, or inspire a
compassionate response to the suffering of others - and ultimately some kind of action
against oppression - one invariably confronts the pain of the participants. Sometimes
this pain is a product of their own oppression, but it also represents a struggle to
empathise with suffering and all its demanding faces. The struggle to prioritise the
wounds of the world on a social level invariably begins with a personalised struggle to
do the same.

This tension is brought out in the following letter to the editor from a rural female
resident to a major city (Brisbane) newspaper a week after a major fundraising concert
for the refugees of Rwanda, and in the midst of a record drought period across the
state of Queensland:

I have just come back from a meeting of a women's group at which the
subject of Rwanda came up. Someone mentioned the money raised by
the John Farnham concert. I was stunned by the attitude of some of the
women, mostly those over 50, who said they didn't agree with giving aid
to Rwanda when people here were in need - farmers, etc. Where are the
thousands dying in the streets of starvation and disease in Australia?
Where are the orphan children alone and helpless, and where is the
terror and pain like there is in that country? How these women with their
comfortable homes and their big incomes can watch their colour TVs
every day and feel nothing, I will never understand. I had to leave the
meeting in tears before I hit one of them (The Courier-Mail, August 13,
1994).

The tendency to compare sufferings is a common dilemma facing educators attempting

to awaken First World middle-class people to solidarity with the poor and oppressed.
Some educators would urge this correspondent not to separate the pain of orphaned
African children from the pain of drought stricken farming families, their land, and their
animals. Indeed, the following month saw a similar concert for drought-stricken
Australian families with volunteer support co-ordinated by a large international aid
organization, not long after its own national appeal for Rwandan refugees. Or, indeed,
from the pain of Aboriginal Australian children struggling with malnutrition symptomatic
of two centuries of European colonialism and cultural dispossession. Still other
educators would urge that the contradictions identified by the correspondent be
explored - alongside the possibilities inherent in the context: groups of isolated women
meeting together to, among other things, wrestle with the pain of others - be it that of
their own families and communities or the women and children of Africa.

Consciousness of oppression in one situation does not lead automatically to

consciousness of other forms of oppression. Nor does full consciousness arise in one
simple step. However, Paulo Freire noted that when a person sees one oppression,
they may be increasingly open to seeing other forms of oppression as well (quoted in
Moore, 1991: 168-169). Ruy O. Costa has identified this uneven awakening to
suffering, primarily in relation to oppressed groups, and made reference to the dangers
of comparison as a response to suffering :

The dominant totality always wins when the marginalized and oppressed
communities compete among themselves for the status of `oppressed
number one,' that is, for the claim to represent the main paradigm of
oppression, the root cause of suffering in the world, of which all other
suffering is epiphenomenal. To be number one is the obsession of the
powerful. To compete to be number one is to play the monological game
that keeps the dominant totality together (1992: 18).
But what about communities which are not completely marginalized or oppressed? On
what basis can they confront the potential dangers of hierarchies of suffering which
permeate ethical deliberations? Invariably, there is a tendency for comparisons of
suffering to be easily politicized by interest groups seeking to represent the interests of
the aggrieved for their own agenda. Cultivating such a `politics of resentment' often
includes an attempt to affirm one's own suffering as being more imperative than
another's. This form of resentment based upon the prioritisation of grievances - and the
demonisation of the `other' - has been a feature of much of the rhetoric of social
movements such as the New Christian Right in the United States (Diamond, 1989) and
Australia (Woodley, 1990). Ethics educators should try to encourage people to develop
habits of recognition and acknowledgment of one another's suffering, rather than habits
of comparison and denial.

5.2.3 the ethics of confrontation

There is a need for greater understanding about "the role of conflict and dissonance in
creating vulnerability and receptivity to potentially very challenging, emotionally
charged issues and perspectives" (Graybill, 1989: 344). Karen Lebacqz has done
some critical reflection in this area. She examined the ethical and pedagogical value of
a teacher who wanted her class of young children to learn firsthand about the evils of
racism and discrimination. The teacher set up an experiment in the classroom in which
children were discriminated against (for example, deliberately overlooked) on alternate
days on the basis of the colour of their eyes (1989a: 164). Such a pedagogical
technique is based on the premise that certain experiences of injustice and pain may
facilitate perspective transformation for oppressors. Lebacqz notes that injustice and
the pain that it evokes can be a very important learning tool (1989a: 165). However,
while affirming the legitimacy of approaches to education which take seriously both
injustice and pain, she raised some serious ethical questions about the approach taken
on this occasion to confront the students:

What are we to make of an educational method that uses the deliberate infliction of
injustice with full knowledge that such injustice will be a painful experience? Is such a
pedagogical method consonant with Christian community and convictions as presented
here (1989a: 164)?

Lebacqz concluded that in a classroom setting the agent of confrontation and

judgment, and of its accompanying pain, should not be the teacher. She argued that
because teachers occupy a position of power in a classroom there are limits to what
teachers may justly do - particularly in terms of confronting those with less power (that
is, the student). Lebacqz writes: "The one with less power can present the challenge
that causes pain with more moral certainty than can the one with more power" (1989a:
175). Such a principle should be considered for other settings of perspective
transformation. This has often been the premise of ethics educators who expose
participants to confrontational messages through a guest presenter rather than from
their own position of pedagogical authority.

Jack Mezirow has also raised some ethical questions in relation to how learners are
challenged to transform their perspective. He poses the following dilemmas about the
ethics of confrontation:

Is it unethical for an educator to:

* Intentionally precipitate transformative learning without making sure that the

learner fully understands that such transformation may result?
 * Decide which among a learner's beliefs should become questioned or
problematized?

* Present his or her own perspective, which may be unduly influential with the
learner?

* Refuse to help a learner plan to take action because the educator's personal
convictions are in conflict with those of the learner?

* Make educational interventions when psychic distortions appear to impede a

learner's progress if the educator is not trained as a psychotherapist (1991c:
201-202)?

Mezirow's dilemmas emphasise the importance of clearly negotiating the learning

contract and relationship between educator and participant - as well as enunciating the
values, expectations and limitations which underpin the model of perspective
transformation. Confrontational interventions require thorough preparation and
evaluation, particularly when participants are expected to invest time, resources and
energy in their involvement (for example, structured exposure tours).

5.2.4 the ethics of exposure tours

Structured exposure tours designed to transform perspective, particularly in relation to

values of cultural and global understanding, development, and human rights, also raise
a number of ethical questions. For example, Donald Graybill asks:

What ethics are involved in visiting poor people for the purposes of
viewing misery and suffering in order to make an impact on a North
American's consciousness (1989: 336)?

Implicit in his question are some concerns about the authenticity of the relationships
between participants, organisers, and the marginalised communities involved. Also
implicit in Graybill's question is a concern about the objectives of the exposure program
- hopefully, no program is organised purely for the purposes of observing suffering and
misery (as an isolated phenomenon to be viewed dispassionately for its own sake) or
facilitating an altered state of consciousness in the privileged visitor (as a purely self-
indulgent exercise). While the extreme scenarios of these concerns may seem far-
fetched, there are subtle variations of these phenomena - a grain of truth - which
cannot be ignored. For example, Ched Myers writes that although exposure trips have
long been used as a tactic of conscientization, there are some legitimate concerns -
one of which is that they may be perceived as an elite strategy since international
exposure takes time and money that many do not have. However, this is not his most
compelling concern:

This is true; these are strategies for the middle-class. Yet they represent
perhaps the most effective existential challenge to insulated people. The
harder question is this: What does the journey of ap-proximation mean
here at home? Does the long journey to the other side abroad impel us
to make the short journey to the other side nearby...? Or does it excuse
us from doing so (1994: 225)?

Moreover, there is a danger that participants will consider themselves instant experts
after a month long visit to a developing nation. "We must guard against the temptation
to conclude that in our limited encounters we have met the oppressed and now
understand their struggle" (1994: 226). Myers is particularly concerned that work for
justice abroad may distance participants from oppressed people closer to home (1994:
229). Exposure tours need to strive, therefore, to make connections between
oppression in all places - across the sea and across the street. The novelty and
adventure of an exotic cross-culture experience, however confrontational, always
carries this potential hazard. Robert Chambers is a development worker who has
identified some of these hazards within what he calls `rural development tourism'
(1983: 10f). Chambers analyses the constraints and distortions inherent in travelling
programs designed to transform the perspective of the First World middle-class. He
identifies a number of biases built into the process that make it hard for such people to
perceive the most entrenched characteristics of poverty. Firstly, there are the `spatial
biases of tarmac and roadside' - that is, the limited amount of resources, time, and
comfort level mean that, in many cases, only the more accessible places are visited.
The visitor may never see the hidden poverty which exists in remote locations.
Furthermore, it is easy for exposure programs to develop an overreliance on those
locals who are used to dealing with `movement tourists'. Consequently, the experience
may have a permanent filter in the regular personnel it enlists. Graybill also recognises
what Chambers calls the `diplomatic bias' in his own analysis of the CCIDD program in
Mexico by asking whether it is ethical to use privilege to gain access to levels of
national leadership which are normally blocked to the poor (1989: 55). Myers
concludes that such a critique is necessary to disabuse ethics educators and
participants of the illusion that in any given exposure they have witnessed the
unmediated reality of the poor:

The more we are involved in strategies of social relocation, the more

incumbent it is to keep reminding ourselves that we are only ever
approximate to the poor. The journey of solidarity takes a lifetime, and
the longer we are on it, the more modest we will be about the distance
we've covered (1994: 228)!

5.3 A new model?

What implications does this analysis of the cycle of critical reflection within perspective
transformation have for developing a new model for ethics education in the First
World? What role does such a model or, indeed, any model of perspective
transformation play in the wider process of social and political change? Heaney and
Horton note that models of conscientization, such as that outlined below, are only one
step in "the larger drama of social change" (1990: 74). They critique the individualistic
and self-development tendencies of some consciousness-raising programs, and call for
greater attention to "the political apparatus into which the newly released energy of
`transformed' learners must flow" (1990: 85). Emancipatory education requires
additional structures through which action can be undertaken - for example, a reform
government, political party, community organisation, social movement, or the potential
for developing such structures:

Education is a road with successive destinations. It cannot of itself build

a new society but can only accompany and strengthen each newly
identified act of social construction...By investing in education without
social or political organisation to effect change, learners meet with
frustration and failure (1990: 87).

Below is a summary table of the argument advanced so far - identifying the role of
formative experience, responsiveness to suffering, narrative, social location and
political socialisation:
5.3.1 Table:

Perspective Transformation for First World People

Identity ( Estrangement ( Re-presentation

Personal experience as Exposure to the Re-formed personal

oppressor and oppressed experience of the experience and

oppressed relationship to the

oppressor

Interpretation of Identification of Solidarity with

suffering (empathy) suffering caused by oppressed and the

oppression (mourning) re-interpretation of

suffering

(celebration/hope)

Formational moments in Stories of the Retelling, remembering

stories of the excluded experience of stories plus critique

individual and the oppressed communities of the processes of

community (memories) (`dangerous memories') exclusion (critical

reflection on memories)

Identification of one's Identification of Critical reflection on

own social location social location of original social

(place in culture, oppressed (culture, location and

history and society) history, society) ideological dimensions

 or filters of

experience

Identification of Re-socialisation of Critical reflection on

political socialisation political outlook political

(dominant pedagogy) (pedagogy of the socialisation of the

oppressed) oppressor and the

social forces of

oppression (pedagogy

of the oppressor)

TRANFORMATIVE ACTION

Political, social, community organizing

Application of ethical insights to lifestyle, workplace, social context

Advocacy + dialogue + commitment

Continuing education for justice

Erosion of hegemonic culture (through creative expression of excluded experience)

5.4 Summary

This chapter has argued that effective strategies of perspective transformation for the
non-poor should attempt to initiate and sustain a cycle of critical reflection which:

explores and takes responsibility for one's own moral identity, community and
social location;

engages with the excluded experience of estrangement (one's own and that of
the estranged); and

represents the concerns of the oppressed in one's relationship with the

privileged.

Such a cycle - if it is relationally-based, affirms relationships of mutuality with those

who suffer, and avoids comparisons of suffering - can make a worthwhile contribution
to the development of a pedagogy for the transformation of the oppressor. The
following principles have been upheld as important for transformative models:

(a) Sustaining solidarity with the oppressed requires the validation of a moral
community and an opportunity to reflect systematically on one's changing experience in
the light of the experience of the estranged.
(b) Critical reflection upon the experience of alienation (either one's own or that of the
oppressed) requires some form of supporting analysis or theoretical framework.

(c) Models of perspective transformation should try to adopt processes of mourning

followed by celebration rather than appeals to comparison and guilt.

(d) Ethics educators should try to enable people who are re-forming their ethical
identities to identify the obstacles to change which are intrinsic to being an oppressor
and/or which contribute to oppression.

(e) Ethics educators should encourage those experiencing the re-presentation phase to
maintain some kind of dialogue with the privileged - as an act of solidarity with the
oppressed.

(f) Ethics educators should note that the power of relatedness or connectedness is
valuable as both a principle of and strategy for perspective transformation.

Models of perspective transformation should facilitate a greater awareness of external

barriers (for example, unjust laws), internal tensions (for example, the desire to
maintain one's personal security), habits of domination and exclusion which need to be
broken, and generate additional (and sustainable) strategies for social change. The use
of formative experiences, such as suffering, as a moral catalyst should be undertaken
with caution. The processes involved in eliciting painful experiences or challenging the
ideological filters of experience, in particular, should be undertaken seriously as part of
the responsibility that ethics educators have to the ethical standards of their own
professional conduct.

The application of formative experiences within safe pedagogical spaces is more likely
to be effective within a cycle of self-reflection (about identity), critical reflection (about
estrangement) and transformative action (which re-presents the experiences of the
oppressed). A responsible application may, in fact, generate further formative
experiences which are, themselves, worthy of critical reflection. Such reflection, as has
been noted in this chapter's exploration of perspective transformation, requires the
formulation of deeper questions across a range of human interaction - from the
personal, to the institutional, the national, and the global - with the intention of taking
action for a better world. As Hart writes:

relevant questions originate in the world of individual experience, but

neither individual experience nor society as a whole can be understood
by remaining within its scope. Both can only be understood in their
determinate relationship to each other (1990: 67).