What is Empowerment?

As Flower demonstrates, empowerment is not simply a matter of distribution or attainment.  So much of it has to do with perception, as well.  In a society where domination and oppression seem to conquer most relationships, the problem of empowerment is a serious issue, and a rather delicate one at that.  And for a society that tries to embrace a "colorblind" appearance, and thus consequently avoids confrontation, the struggle to gain (or to maintain, or to display) empowerment can often take on a hostile, defensive, or offensive tinge.  The struggle for empowerment appears to be a real battleground.  In the context of expressivist and cultural-theory approaches, endeavors labeled ""serious and rigorous critical exchange" (128), "aggressive critique [of] the present" (128) "a lightning bolt of critique" (130), "intense personal and political agendas" (130) embody this battlefield persona.  But just as Flower and others point out, an aggressive single sided call against oppression can often exacerbate the situation with which it it is engaging.  Flower says this happens because "in 'speaking up,' we are often in a dialogue with ourselves, our past, our assumptions" (130) and thus neither solicit nor engage in a conversation with the "Others."  This further isolates and alienates the oppressed and does not offer a solution the problem.

Once Flower has identified the problems with various "scripts" of empowerment, she begins to outline what would make an effective theory of empowerment, one that identifies and addresses who is being empowered, to what end, and by what means.  The script adopted by the CLC sought to empower its students to take rhetorical agency, which means, in Flower's words, 1) "taking initiative as a writer to create a negotiated, dialogic understanding of a shared problem," and 2) "to go public with that understanding in live dialogue with an expanding set of communities" (139).  This end-in-view and the approach that the CLC took in accomplishing it lead to some incredible evidence of empowerment in its subjects.  Very encouraging and uplifting, I'm amazed at how a stable environment that gives voice to these kids can make such a big difference in their viewpoints, and thus leads to their attainment of higher aspirations, loftier goals and thus stronger self-worth.  As Flower keeps alluding to throughout the book, literacy is power.  To cultivate literacy in oneself is to strengthen oneself.  To give someone literacy to empower him.  But how do we define literacy?  In the context of the CLC, literacy is the ability to read and write and to communicate with those tools effectively.  But is it oppressive to impose our definition of literacy upon others?  When we command a person to "take initiative as a writer," are we undermining their abilities as speakers or thinkers?  Is it less valuable to implement musical skills or artistic skills as means of communication?