"I write because I feel politically committed, because I would like to convince other people, without lying to them, that what I dream about and what I speak about and what causes me to struggle are worth writing about. The political nature of the act of writing, in turn, requires ethical commitment. I cannot lie to my readers by deliberately hiding the truth; I cannot affirm that which I know is false. I cannot give the impression that I am knowledgeable about this or that subject if I am not. I cannot quote a single phrase that intimates to my readers that I have read the entire work of the quoted author. I will lose the authority to continue to write or speak about Christ if I, at the same time, discrimi- nate against my neighbor because he or she is black or because he or she is a blue-collar worker.
One should not define the act of writing by alleging that it is a pure, divine act of the angels... There are epistemological, economic, social, racial, and class limits. I should, whenever possible, keep in mind the fundamental ethical requirement of knowing my own limits. I cannot authentically accept a professorship if I do not teach or if I teach by confusing or falsifying. In truth, I cannot teach what I do not know. I cannot teach clearly unless I recognize my own ignorance, unless I identify what I do not know, what I have not mastered.
Only when I fully know what I do not know can I speak about what I do not know, not as an object of knowledge, but as an absence that can be overcome. Thus, I can begin to know better what I do not know".
Paulo Freire (in Foreword of Letters to Cristina)
