Dialogue on the Meaning of “Oppression”

Tallahassee Civil Rights protests (Photo credit: Village Square)

It always feels weird to be a white, cis-gendered, middle class male talking about the meaning of social oppression. I tend to end up on the good side of that social phenomenon, so anything that I say about it risks sounding self-righteous or distracting from the concerns most central to social justice: the needs of the least well-off and the perspectives of the most socially and politically marginalized. Understanding that my expression can draw attention away from the nuanced engagement of those needs and perspectives, I have held off on publishing this transcript for some time, until I could formulate a good understanding of how it would fit into the broader context of social change. I ultimately hope that my brief reflections will interest social justice advocates reflecting on the a conceptual framework of social oppression, as well as to those more distant from the movement who might lack some or part of the theoretical background needed to understand how micro-aggressions (and overt discriminatory actions and remarks) depend and build upon a culture of perceived superiority. I certainly do not and can not articulate complete or faultless answers to these questions, but as the role of the philosopher (and, by extension, of this philosophy blog), is to contribute something to our understanding, I take it to be within the bounds of decency to share my reflections, however imperfect they may be. If you think that I am wrong, right, or incomplete, I would love to hear in the comments what you think about the theory of oppression.

Aside from the above, I feel that only two further comments are required. First, this conversation is taken almost completely unedited from a texting exchange with a friend of mine, so the style, though philosophical, is also somewhat abbreviated. If any ideas seem as though they need explanation, leave a comment about it!

Second, there is one part in the conversation where my interlocutor responds with disbelief to an example (as will you, in all likelihood). I ask that, after expressing any appropriate shock, you stop to consider it in light of its theoretical implication, namely, that oppression has its roots not in inherent personal characteristics, but in the historical differentiation and power structures built around those characteristics, and the following comment, in which I draw out that distinction and acknowledge that those historical relationships can become engrained in the meaning of certain gestures irrespective of the express intent of the speaker.

Enjoy!

(In the context of a discussion on social justice…)

J: Woah I just found a cool quote… :
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

…

Me: Doesn’t count: it was written by a white guy. 😛

J: Dammit, you’re technically right…

Me: …[W]e can nuance it and say that “persecuted” is different than “oppressed”, most plausibly by being very deliberate and concentrated.

J: So there are some sentiments people can express. And they are oppressed, even persecuted, when they’re contradicted.

Me: But both oppression and persecution carry differ from contradiction because to contradict requires that one engage the speaker’s argument or opinion. It seems that a key piece of both persecution and oppression is that speaker’s positions are disregarded because of some identifying characteristic of the speaker, without even considering that position on its own merits. To contradict can only be to oppress if one is contradicting because of the identity of the speaker. (Of course, ignoring, demeaning, or mitigating a point can also be oppressive if done based on the speaker’s identity).

J: What if I say
“Trans*men are men”
Or “women deserve equal respect”
Or “rape jokes aren’t funny”.
Could contradiction be oppressive to some groups regardless of my identity?

Me: That depends on whether a belief can be oppressive or whether that belief requires particular manifestations to be oppressive. Since oppression is conceived as a relationship between elements of society, I am tempted to accept the latter, that oppression is the conscious or unconscious manifestation of beliefs that dismiss opinions based on the identity of the speaker and not on their substance. Hence, holding an opinion contradictory to any of your propositions is not in itself oppressive, though if it causes me to deny the opinions of other people on face, without behaving towards them with respect for their rational agency, which demands substantive engagement, then I have oppressed them by denying implicitly that they possess equal dignity as humans. It may of course be immoral without any manifestation, but it seems to only become oppressive when it confronts you with my contempt for your dignity. Hence black people calling each other “N*****” is not oppressive because, the label applying to both speakers, it cannot elevate one above the other. Nor would the label be oppressive if used in a private conversation between two white men, though it would become so if it came to breed in them contempt for black people, even were that contempt subtle and subconscious.

J: … I’m inclined to agree with your analysis, up until you say two white men can use the n-word. That word is steeped in such oppressive history, that someone without the cultural context to reclaim it can’t use it without implicitly perpetuating the oppressive culture that coined the term.
…

Me: It’s the implicit manifestation of derision, not the mere existence of the word itself [that makes it oppressive]. Consider, for instance, if two non-native English speakers in an isolated, non-Western society learned the language through an old book and thought that “N******” was just the English word for “black person.” You could hardly say that they were expressing or even implicitly perpetuating racism by using the word between them, since they lack the cultural context that imbues the word with degrading connotations.

J: Okay, yeah your second example is better. I assumed when you said “two white men” that you meant two men that understood the context of the word.

Me: I did [mean that]. I think the manifestation condition still holds, but there are background conditions that make manifestation nigh inevitable. [No doubt there exists a cultural background that makes the use of “N*****” between white men inherently degrading and hence oppressive, but nonetheless it is that background, not the mere arrangement of letters or sounds, or the denoted meaning of the term, that breeds contempt for the described class.]

A Case for “Big Government”

“Whereof we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

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In a previous post, I alluded to political action being a public act of persuasion. This is so first because the hallmarks of humanity are rationality and spontaneity, and second because only in a public space can rationality be conditioned or spontaneity acknowledged and recorded. I hold with Hannah Arendt that acts taken in a void are essentially meaningless – it is the interaction of one’s creative will with others that gives it substance. Moreover, politics must be uniquely interpersonal in that it takes humans as its primary object, whereas labor and work are concerned with natural resources and physical capital, respectively.

One consequence of viewing politics as persuasion is that only that which can be communicated can be political. Communicability, in turn, is simply the ability of one person to make himself or herself understood to another person, which is dependent upon a shared language through which we exchange ideas. Thus, a shared language defines the outermost bounds of the political realm that can exist within any given society.

This ability of social activity to create space for politics enables human excellence, but can just as readily restrict the potential for action. We can exclude communicable ideas from politics by declaring them private opinions. For example, religion in the United States (at least in the case of Christian denominations, less so with Islam since its re-politicization after 9/11) is now broadly considered a private issue, not fit for public critique and certainly not a matter on which others will publicly attempt to change your mind. Calls in the wake of the Aurora shootings that “Now is not the time to talk about gun control” similarly remove subjects from persuasive (ergo political) discourse and therefore from the potential for excellent human engagement. If one person decides not to buy a gun for the sake of principle, it will have little or no impact on other people and certainly will not garner public remembrance. Were the same person to organize a successful movement to reinstate America’s assault rifle ban, then he would create a permanent and public legal record of political achievement. Thus, while there may exist some moral or even practical case for a particular subject being excluded from political discourse, we must weigh all such cases against the lost capacity for human excellence in the field.

A large number of topics available to political discourse draws people into political activity, courtesy of the well-documented tendency to care more about issues directly relevant to one’s own experiences. When someone feels that the prevailing public discourse excludes the topics most important to him, it stands to reason that he will be less likely to participate in that discourse. For example, if I am an ardent believer in transparent school boards, but nobody else thinks the issue is important, then I cannot easily engage in political activity to attempt to enact my agenda. At best, the opportunity cost of creating a dialogue where none exists could dissuade me from pursuing political excellence in the area of administrative accountability. My beliefs about transparency are, albeit innocently, marginalized and therefore privatized: I can believe that, but I should not attempt to persuade anyone else to join me in acting on it. Thus can social priorities limit political activity even without intent.

The ultimate triumph of the social over the political occurs when there ceases to be a plurality of persuasive voices. Tyranny achieves this singularity via propaganda and centralized control. The most extreme plausible example of this is George Orwell’s Newspeak, which goes beyond simply excluding topics from discussion but actually makes it impossible to discuss complex ideas by removing the vocabulary needed for their communication. However, radical liberty can also eradicate politics by emancipating people from persuasive activity and employing government purely as a mechanism for supporting the private sphere.

It may be argued that market transactions, being based on individual choices, can constitute a form of speech. However, merely economic forums, like markets, or social forums, like the Church of Scientology, cannot replace politics. Money is not speech, and economics is not persuasion, because economics is fundamentally the science of necessities, and it follows necessarily causal laws. Markets do not allow for creativity or persuasion, only accounting. Likewise, purely social forums, those that are self-selected and cannot enforce law, lack the elements that drive political activity, namely, divergent opinions and an incentive to guide the institution’s use of force by influencing its agenda. The lack of heretics within the Church of Scientology is precisely the evidence that it is an apolitical institution.

Deciding what to purchase or what groups to join can, of course, be connected to political action, as in boycotts, but only insofar as it conveys a recognizable and persuasive message. A boycott sends a recognizable message only when publicized alongside the reasons for the boycott; publishing reasons, of course, is political speech. The boycott itself adds no substance to the speech, it merely adds pathos by conveying the actors’ willingness to sacrifice economic benefits for the sake of moral sentiment. This, in turn, presupposes the primacy of economic, apolitical interests in our decision-making process, and so is itself an apolitical, or even anti-political gesture.

Unlike markets or social clubs, democratic government is an institution based entirely on persuading others to act together towards some common purpose. Such persuasive activity is the paramount human behavior. Therefore it is through democratic institutions that we express our humanity. The hastened emancipation of personal choices from public debate limits the accessibility and relevance of this forum and therefore marginalizes truly human activity. To best enable human excellence, we must expand, not contract, the scope of topics assailable in the public sphere.

We can start by recognizing that nearly all of our choices impact other people, therefore nearly all of our choices are worth considering in an unselfish manner. This does not mean that we must abandon our principles to the whims of the majority; indeed, defending one’s convictions politically is itself an excellent act. Nor do I believe that “big government” means lots of red tape, high taxes, and expansive welfare, but rather that any given regulation, tax law, and welfare program be subject to reasoned and public discourse that shapes the prerogative of the relevant authority.

Finally, recall that politics depends not upon the government, but upon persuasive speech. If one acts through persuasive speech to limit or remove government involvement in one area or another, that is itself a political act. One must merely be prepared to defend that limitation ad infinitum in further political discourse. The problem of small government arises from the categorical rejection of discussing government action in one area or another, in the deliberate exclusion of whole subjects from public debate. Insofar as broad governmental prerogative brings these questions back into the fold, we might consider a potentially expansive state as a worthwhile opportunity to fulfill our unique human potential.

Maybe government is really just about the same size as its citizens.

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(Photo courtesy of political-humor.org)

Why Americans Hate Politicians (And Why We Can’t Live Without Them)

“We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.” – Frank Hubbard

“Take our politicians: they’re a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize.” – Saul Bellow

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” – Ernest Benn

“Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.” – W.C. Fields

…

“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” – Plato

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Plato seeded the Western political tradition that treats political action as a necessary evil. After seeing his mentor, Socrates, sentenced to death for revealing his fellow citizens’ ignorance, Plato founded the Academy as a refuge from the hostile, anti-philosophical public. To Socrates and to those before him, political engagement was the highest human activity, enabled by the material surplus that granted freedom from striving for sustenance. From Plato onwards, politics became a subordinate realm to academia, itself a way of organizing society such that philosophers could escape the necessity of politics, experience truth, and find intellectual fulfillment.

In modern America, we have instead subordinated the political to the economic, with the consequence that many of our brightest minds find more attraction in investment banking than in politics. Our accepted measure of success is no longer areté, Greek “prowess,” by which one became worthy of public remembrance, but accumulated wealth, the monetary value assigned to your actions by market forces. Indeed, though we may each consider ourselves as beholden to non-economic values, we consider other people’s finances as distinctly separate from and superior to public considerations. So-called “social issues,” like same-sex marriage, religion in schools, medical marijuana, and physician assisted suicide are considered valid political questions, because supposedly who one loves, which god (if any) one worships, which pain relievers one uses, and one’s very continued existence are matters on which society ought have a say. How one disposes of an amassed fortune, on the other hand, is a largely secretive affair, even among otherwise public figures, as Romney’s ongoing tax return saga attests. At the same time, we view government as essentially a steward of the economy, with personal real income growth the best predictor of presidential vote tallies and highly correlated with presidential approval ratings.

The nexus of the cult of wealth and its emancipation from political action forces politicians to adopt a strange double life. They are private, economic individuals, judged largely on their professional success. We tend to elect disproportionately wealthy politicians not only because they have more time and resources for campaigning than other candidates, but also because we attach implicit respect to the accumulation of wealth over the course of a professional career. We relate to, partially envy, and understand the private, quiet figure cut by the economic side of the politician. At the same time, however, we elect our representatives into institutions that are designed with Athenian-style prowess in mind, to speak and persuade and act in a public. What it takes to govern is different than what it takes to earn money: government is a luxury, money-making is essential for survival. Governance is noisy, messy, and unpredictable. In contrast to the economic laws of animal necessity, the political laws of spontaneity embody and lay bare the very essence of humanity.

A person can stand in one of three relations to a democratic system: an agent of action, a voter for action, and an observer of action. The entire voting population falls into the second category, and does not often engage in politics in the proper sense of persuasion in a public forum. Instead, this second category elects from amongst its own willing members agents of government who act as the sole actors the political system, debating, issuing, enforcing, revising, and repealing laws. We simultaneously respect and detest these individuals’ uncommon tenacity. We hold them to the standards of economic behaviors in which we ourselves engage while demanding that they handle the distinctly non-economic affairs of politics. Faced with this impossible double-standard, politicians can do nothing but attempt to please their constituents as best they can by reinforcing the image of government as a primarily economic agent, by bragging about their achievements bringing money to their districts, creating local jobs, and supporting local businesses. By removing government from politics, they further the dissolution of human spontaneity and the broader acceptance of economic standards of behavior.

Thus, without government, our economic system suffers, but against government our economic impulses rebel. Perhaps the best man is never a candidate, and the dumb engage in politics, only because we prejudge political worth and acumen by definitively apolitical expectations.

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(Photo courtesy of house.gov)

Why Conservatives Are (Partially) Right About “Marriage Equality”

We are all biased by the particular experiences of our lives, experiences that shape our social roles, our self-perceptions, and our political agendas. Educated and socialized within a preexisting human context, we are at best only partly in control of our underlying beliefs. It should thus come as no surprise that I, studying at a notoriously leftist college preaching above all equality of condition, and taking for granted equality before the law, should favor the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

We are not, however, automatons, and our perceptions of one another are as limited as our perceptions of truth. Presuming others’ motives risks fundamentally misjudging their characters. To collapse pro- and anti-marriage equality advocates into the broader categories of “liberal” and “conservative” is to devalue the subtlety of human thought and action. While we cannot all express it, we do in fact share a common humanity, a common perspective, insofar as our modes of experiencing and shaping the world remain much the same across space and generations. I therefore urge against this bifurcation, this belief in inherent difference based on political categories, which, in truth, reflect only a fundamental tension evident in all of our lives.

The push for “marriage equality” is misnamed, for true and universal equality of marriage rights would require the abolition of all institutions that govern marriages, both social and legal. Efforts to legalize same-sex marriage generally do not recognize the legitimation of polygamy or of repeated divorce. Rather, they denounce these practices as aberrations, which disgrace and de-sanctify marriage, in an attempt to justify the inclusion of same-sex marriage within the existing legal and social institutions of marriage. Their mission is not to destroy the “sanctity of marriage” as such, but rather to revise popular and legal conceptions of “sanctity” such that it no longer excludes same-sex couples but continues to exclude other forms of relationships. In other words, the movement towards legitimating same-sex marriage is not an effort to emancipate socio-legal institutions from intimate relationships, but rather an effort to emancipate marriage from sexual orientation.

Such emancipation challenges the institutional norms that provide reference points by which we constitute and through which we express our identities. The relation of a powerful institution to a particular behavior or characteristic provides such a reference point, as, for example, the denial of same-sex marriage both draws on and reinforces the naturalization of the nuclear, heterosexual family. Thus, members of nuclear families are described as such in part due to the powerful influence of the heterosexual marriage norm, and also can point to this norm to legitimize their particular familial structure and to firmly ground their social identities. As these reference points are eroded, either by elimination or by evolution, so too must social identities shift and change. The expansion of marriage rights is thus more than the extension of certain social privileges to a previously excluded group; it is also a direct challenge to the entrenched self-perceptions of an entire section of society raised with and judged by the standards of heterosexual marriage norms.

All emancipation of choice from institutional judgment similarly challenges traditional identity constructs, and the legitimate conservative fear is that the ultimate emancipation of institutions from all personal choices will eliminate all universal reference points for social identity, splintering society into only so many atomistic individuals with little or no sense of membership in, or responsibility to, a larger community. Common values and beliefs constitute the public space through which we relate to one another; social institutions are the permanent fabric against which our individual accomplishments are stenciled out. Without these permanent structures, the achievements of any one individual are as mortal as their creator, and each successive generation must start from scratch with the menial labor needed for mere survival. With a public space, we can transmit progress – in science, capital, or thought – across time and space. As the technological interconnectedness of humankind increasingly globalizes both our highest and our lowest potentialities, such communal bonds appear increasingly necessary at least to preserve our existence as a species, and at best to attain a higher plane of existence and a better life for each individual.

The mistake of modern conservatives has been their reactionary and populist rhetoric, playing on fears of the absolute destruction of traditional social roles without appreciating the limits and humility of the actual threat. What we today call “liberals” in America are timid relative to their name: they do not seek to liberate anyone from socio-legal institutions, but rather to include in, and therefore subordinate to those institutions, ever larger elements of humanity. At the theoretical conclusion of modern liberalism is the ultimate subordination of all humans to an ideal institution of humanity, the ultimate reference point being the ultimate vision of what a human is and ought be. The conservative can rightly object that this universalism in turn subordinates the human spirit and, totalizing in its vision, is antithetical to the very freedom and equality it seeks to promote. But instead of engaging emancipation on this ground, instead of reasserting the predominant importance of social institutions, modern conservatives turn to the state to defend traditional social roles by means of its monopoly on the use of force, all while imposing a counter vision of the ideal human, especially that of the religious conservative, as one inherently worthy of institutionalized respect. That is, modern conservatism seeks to use political and legal means to enforce societal expectations. This contradicts their populist-libertarian message. There is therefore no self-consistent conservative ideology in the American political mainstream. Instead, we have conflict between liberals (ironically) seeking gradually to delimit institutional power and conservatives (ironically) seeking its expansion, the former totalizing humans as such, the latter totalizing humans as they are seen to exist in the here and now.

At the end of the liberal ideology, however, there exists still room for pluralistic identities. For when the state is delimited, and its use of force confined merely to preventing systemic and societal violence, such questions of identity cease to be political in nature and instead become social, and, in turn, the lines between the two become blurred. The state ceases to be a totalitarian force in waiting and increasingly becomes an impartial referee between social forces, setting the terms of the debate, but having nothing to do with the content. This I find preferable to the enforcement, potentially violent, of a single vision of humanity, and therefore I advise that the emancipation of the law from social identities continue apace, as in the extension of same-sex marriage rights. To be self-consistent, and, indeed, to avoid the ultimate conclusion of a totalitarian regime, conservative movements ought shift their attentions from the legal to the social sphere, arguing not for the state to insert itself into the private affairs of citizens, but convincing citizens that they ought care and identify by a particular set of socially valuable, traditional norms. This apolitical, social conservatism would, true to its name, preach incrementalism, not institutional coercion; caution, not fear. In this way can conservatism engage modern issues at the core, not merely on their surface, and avoid its internal contradiction in ends.

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(Photo courtesy of thinkprogress.org)

Why Blog?

“[A] political question of the first order… can hardly be left to the decision of professional scientists or professional politicians.” – Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

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When the ancient Greeks built city-states, they centered on a public meeting place, or agora, where the citizens (slave-owning males) would meet to discuss the affairs of the city. Indeed, it was the nature of the citizen to own slaves, not because he needed to show mastery, but because only a man so emancipated from working the land could participate in a genuine act of politics. One who must pursue basic animal sustenance cannot, at the same time, transcend selfish needs and address abstract questions of state. It is no wonder that even today, the poor vote less and engage in fewer political activities than their wealthier fellow-citizens. It’s not just that the poor have less money than the rich – they also have less time and energy. For people living from paycheck to paycheck, immediate practical concerns are just more important than long-term, abstract political ideals.

In the U.S. and other wealthy democracies, there exist relatively few people who are incapable of political participation, but the propensity for engagement remains strongly correlated with income and wealth. At the same time, our civilization has stretched far beyond the geographical confines of a small city, incentivizing political hermitage and overcrowding modern political forums. As being heard among the masses has become increasingly difficult, more and more people choose not to try; as the affairs of state become ever broader and more abstract, a class of professional politicians and bureaucrats has arisen to replace the citizen-senators of the past. Put another way, the opportunity cost of efficacious political action has risen beyond the ken of many of our citizens. They have become the political equivalent of Greek slaves – the surplus from the labor of the poor enables the political participation of the wealthy.

The “democratic ideal” presumes that every member of society can be politically efficacious. We now allow most residents of our country the rights of citizenship. However, despite the dramatic broadening of the franchise, some segment of the citizenry may always be subject to de facto alienation from the centers of power. If there exists inequality, then there exist some people who can exercise their disproportionate influence at the expense of others; if the resources of each citizen are exactly equal, then the huge number of modern citizens makes all of politics a giant collective action problem – any single person has approximately zero power and therefore approximately zero incentive to act, even though everyone benefits from an organized polity.

Perhaps a very small degree of inequality is necessary, then, to motivate political action. The Internet has become a political forum as well as an academic, social, and commercial one, and those with a close connection to it, a strong understanding of it, and a healthy respect for it can bring themselves closer to the levers of power. The human mind is at its best when it mutually influences the minds of others (a subject for a later post), and this influence I term political (as distinct from legal or governmental) action. Blogs are one way to engage in ongoing conversations about the abstract interests of a variegated society. My hope is that this blog will serve first as a forum of exchange, second as an organized record of my thoughts for later use. Combined, these two functions both constitute and enhance political action.

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(Photo courtesy of denniskam.blogspot.com)