A highlight from the Conscious politics II video - oppression

[Elisabeth]

This is a point I appreciated very much in Leo's video (loose transcript of the video segment starting at 1:57:37):

Quote

Society is grossly unfair, selfish, exploitative and barbaric. Today. People are in denial about how unjust society is. If you are selfish, as most people are, you don’t care about other groups of people are being exploited. What’s worse, the oppression becomes so internalized in one’s own worldview, that those being oppressed do not even fully recognize that they are being oppressed. Because their society tells them that’s how it should be. A lot of Islamic women will say that covering up is not oppression, just being a good religious citizen. We have millions of wage-slaves which are brutally economically oppressed, but they don’t even know. And their employers are in denial about it. ‘Hey, this is just how capitalism works. If you don’t like it, go get a better job.’ This is considered totally normal. Oppression is not thought of by some evil genius – oppression is just brute survival happening blindly. Systemic. Cultural. It’s only cool if you’re the one benefiting from it. And, the system is so out of control that even the CEO’s have limited means to change it.

Responsibility has to be taken not only personally, but at a collective level. There are systemic problems, which we need to recognize and take responsibility for, even if “you’re not the one doing that bad thing”. Right now, people are mostly oppressed economically. We have people in our society that have billions of dollars, much more than they can ever use – but at the same time we have mothers working two jobs and barely can sustain themselves and their child. They are not poor because they don’t work hard – they are poor because how the whole system is structured.

The poorest people can’t self-actualize, because they don’t have the resources, the education, time and money. And this regresses us as a whole society. Billions of people are not reaching their full potentials, becoming the great speakers and teachers and inventors and artists they could be, because their family is hardly able to come by. This would improve the life of everybody. That is what we’re losing by not having a better distribution of resources.

Correcting oppression and inequality ironically makes the oppressors feel oppressed. If I own 100 slaves and a movement comes up and says that slavery is immoral, I’m not going to want to give up my slaves. In fact, I’m going to act as a victim. How dare you take away my slaves. I need them to pay for schools for my children. Besides, they are not human, it’s only natural I own them. This is devilry, this is how it works. The people profiting from the system manufacture narratives which will justify the system.

Replace slave owners by CEO’s (or yourself, if you’re privileged). They are in denial. By definition.

Selfishness is unsustainable in the long run. If things are too unbalanced, there are protests, civil disobedience, and eventually violent revolutions – many revolutions are about equalizing gross injustices – because the people doing the oppression are so stuck in their own rationalizations, that there is no other way then through violence.

The government, ideally, is about reducing these inequalities. If it’s not doing that, then it itself is corrupt and needs reform. Definitely government can be corrupt

For me this dovetails with the concept of privilege (whether you like the term or not, this comic explains it rather well) https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate  The blatant or unnoticed advantages that some people have over others. 

Let's think about the topic out loud. 

How are you oppressed? What's your privilege?

How much are you willing to give others to compensate for their disadvantages?

What systemic oppression do you see in your society, that's perhaps not commonly commented on? Do you see any solutions to known problems?

Edited July 24, 2019 by Elisabeth

[Elisabeth]

To start, 

I'm privileged in many a way. Middle class, intelligent, educated, European, from a whole family, supported by parents and teachers. Mostly able-bodied. Having found actualized.org. 

I'm also at a disadvantage in some ways. Most notably having mental health problems with anxiety, depression and mood swings, that I've been fighting for ten years now, rooted partly in genetics and family history. With some minority sexual needs. Some chronic health problems. 

I'm not sure whether I should list being a woman as a disadvantage. I don't view women as being in a disadvantage per se, but I see how both our natural cycles and the break forced by motherhood puts us at a disadvantage in competitive careers, including science (which has been my career so far).

The female cycle... there's these two days in a month where you just can't perform that well. But there's an extremely unrealistic expectation in our society for an even performance at all times. It would be nice if society acknowledged that people just don't perform perfectly every day. Just imagine you have to write your entrance exam to university at one of these days. As one suggestion, it would be more fair if people who have done badly, but believe they can do better, could re-take the exam two weeks later (this would also help if you were sick or any number of other causes why you performed sub-optimally).

Motherhood... There are real systemic obstacles put in front of people who do want to master something but need to take a career break, or just don't want to go as fast. 

Relative to my work in science, I can also see that academia is in practice a very oppressive system build on hierarchy. And very ineffective one on top of that. You must climb the academic ladder, thinking of prestige half the time, to get to be an independent scientist, and when you do, you usually stop doing science because you have to deal with so much administration. Then you have to exploit other younger researchers to work on your chosen topic. It's insane. It's basically a pyramid scheme. I don't know how to make academia more human, but changing the financing from time-limited grants back to a more continuous one, and giving more permanent contracts to young academics instead of forcing them to job-hop from postdoc to postdoc for ten years would surely help.

I realize that being employed and relatively well paid as a phd student despite my mental health issues is totally a function of my privilege. Were I not to have supportive parents, free education and available psychotherapy, and good genes in being intelligent, I would probably fall through the cracks of the social system into some-low-paying-job or unemployment. Knowing I'm this close  to not being able to support myself with my work... gives me a lot of empathy with those who are worse off in my society. 

I also realize this empathy is still limited. I feel like a European, but my circle of concern doesn't extend all the way to Africa, I'm not willing to give up a whole lot of my income to charity to correct gross and visible inequalities in the world. Part of it is this scarcity mindset, where I'm afraid of getting sick and not being able to support myself. 

Uh. Just wanted to write that. Interested if anyone else is interested. 

[Jamie Universe]

27 minutes ago, Elisabeth said:

What systemic oppression do you see in your society, that's perhaps not commonly commented on? Do you see any solutions to known problems?

If your a parent or guardian don't assume your child is straight, or even a minority, sexual preference can be super fucking different than expected, there are groups for people attracted to anthropomorphic animals, people attracted to robots, and porn for many tv shows or movies, not to mention groups that are still commonly seen as 'evil rapists and predators' which include but are probably not limited to - Pedophilia - Incest

If your like most people, most of those probably make you vomit at the thought of having a normal conversation about, which is honestly fine, you don't have to make it your mission in life to talk about uncomfortable sex stuff, but seriously having one awkward conversation with your kid can save them years or potentially a life time of pain, and possibly prevent them from committing suicide, anxiety, and beyond, and it doesn't even have to be an awkward talk, just don't have a conversation where you assume they're straight or allude to them that you 'know' they are straight.

Also in one of Leo's videos he talked about society still being stuck in the dark ages, and believe it or not, being qualified as a pedophile or incestual does not mean that person has done anything illegal, or with other people. Maybe question your assumptions of why you think that, its likely that many of those people are just like how gays were back In the day, no one talked about it, no one cared and thought it was wrong, and support systems are limited. Therapy isn't a huge option because therapists are legally obligated to report this kind of information to the government, a government which still believes pedophilia = child rapist or incest = rapist.

Anyways thats just one little area, the best you could do is just become more conscious of it, knowing is an important action.

 

[Emeline]

2 hours ago, Elisabeth said:

How are you oppressed? What's your privilege?

How much are you willing to give others to compensate for their disadvantages?

What systemic oppression do you see in your society, that's perhaps not commonly commented on? Do you see any solutions to known problems?

Except for the fact that I am a woman I do not think I am oppressed, I have a good job well paid and kind of ethical, and lot of free time, so basically I do not feel too much oppressed myself but I think as Leo said that the worst systemic oppression is economic oppression... Most people who are economically oppressed do not even realize it ... And most people in the world are economically oppressed and don’t know it ... It’s not only in the third world countries economic oppression is systemic worldwide ( some places are better than others for sure ) ...

Educate people to make them aware that they are economically oppressed might be a start ... Then worldwide economic regulations, a better redistribution system, and better democratic systems all over the world (like direct/pure democracy)would be great ...