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And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."

It's precisely when no one has any idea how to deploy something that people have to start experimenting with it, in order for the surplus to get integrated, and the course of that integration can transform society.

At least they're doing something. Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

But media is actually a triathlon, it 's three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share.

One per cent of that  is 100 Wikipedia projects per year worth of participation.

I think that's going to be a big deal. Don't you? Well, the TV producer did not think this was going to be a big deal; she was not digging this line of thought. And her final question to me was essentially, "Isn't this all just a fad?" You know, sort of the flagpole-sitting of the early early 21st century? It's fun to go out and produce and share a little bit, but then people are going to eventually realize, "This isn't as good as doing what I was doing before," and settle down. And I made a spirited argument that no, this wasn't the case, that this was in fact a big one-time shift, more analogous to the industrial revolution than to flagpole-sitting.

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others.

If I do not love the world — if I do not love life — if I do not love people — I cannot enter into dialogue.

dialogue cannot exist without humility.

Dialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in their power to make and remake, to create and re-create, faith in their vocation to be more fully human

the “dialogical man” believes in others even before he meets them face to face.

Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is the logical consequence.

naming of the world

Whereas faith in humankind is an a priori requirement for dialogue, trust is established by dialogue.

Nor yet can dialogue exist without hope. Hope is rooted in men’s incompletion, from which they move out in constant search

critical thinking — thinking which discerns an indivisible solidarity between the world and the people and admits of no dichotomy between them — thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity — thinking which does not separate itself from action, but constantly immerses itself in temporality without fear of the risks involved.

We must never merely discourse on the present situation, must never provide the people with programs which have little or nothing to do with their own preoccupations, doubts, hopes, and fears — programs which at times in fact increase the fears of the oppressed consciousness. It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours. We must realize that their view of the world, manifested variously in their action, reflects their situation in the world. Educational and political action which is not critically aware of this situation runs the risk either of “banking” or of preaching in the desert.

Often, educators and politicians speak and are not understood because their language is not attuned to the concrete situation of the people they address. Accordingly their talk is just alienated and alienating rhetoric.

he dialogue of education as the practice of freedom

oncept of a generative theme

t is as transforming and creative beings that humans, in their permanent relations with reality, produce not only material goods — tangible objects — but also social institutions, ideas, and concepts

Generative themes can be located in concentric circles, moving from the general to the particular.

I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination — which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved.

For example, underdevelopment, which cannot be understood apart from the relationship of dependency, represents a limit-situation characteristic of societies of the Third World.

I must re-emphasize that the generative theme cannot be found in people, divorced from reality; nor yet in reality, divorced from people; much less in “no man’s land.” It can only be apprehended in the human-world relationship.

For precisely this reason, the methodology proposed requires that the investigators and the people (who would normally be considered objects of that investigation) should act as co-investigators.

Actually, themes exist in people in their relations with the world, with reference to concrete facts.

We must realize that the aspirations, the motives, and the objectives implicit in the meaningful thematics are human aspirations, motives, and objectives.

a common striving towards awareness of reality and towards self-awareness,

As a process of search, of knowledge, and thus of creation, it requires the investigators to discover the interpenetration of problems, in the linking of meaningful themes.

the comprehension of total reality

Thus, the process of searching for the meaningful thematics should include a concern for the links between themes, a concern to pose these themes as problems, and a concern for their historical-cultural context.

Just as the educator may not elaborate a program to present to the people, neither may the investigator elaborate “itineraries” for researching the thematic universe, starting from points which he has predetermined.

That is, they must consist of communication and of the common experience of a reality perceived in the complexity of its constant “becoming.”

Human beings are because they are in a situation. And they will be more the more they not only critically reflect upon their existence but critically act upon it.

One of these basic themes (and one which I consider central and indispensable) is the anthropological concept of culture. Whether men and women are peasants or urban workers, learning to read or enrolled in a post-literacy program, the starting point of their search to know more (in the instrumental meaning of the term) is the debate of the concept. As they discuss the world of culture, they express their level of awareness of reality in which various themes are implicit. Their discussion touches upon other aspects of reality which comes to be perceived in an increasingly critical manner These aspects in turn involve many other themes.

I am more and more convinced that true revolutionaries must perceive the revolution, because of its creative and liberating nature, as an act of love

This affirmation contains an entire dialogical theory of how to construct the program content of education, which cannot he elaborated according to what the educator thinks best for the students.