"... sound-bite understanding of oppression is that you have a class of people somehow distinguished as "different from the norm" in some clear way, who have in general less access..." Ayup: fundamental is something to make explicit an "us/them" attitude.
"The contentious part of talking about oppression is [...] talking about who is doing the oppression." "Tyrrany of the majority" is one of our time-tested concepts; we can't lose that sort of plank!
"Then you have "unwitting participants": those who follow oppression-contributing ideologies without questioning them, and those who take advantage of privilege without realizing it." "Willful ignorance" is a basic concept in ''engaged buddhism''.
"Oppression is traumatic, and trauma installs "emotional triggers" in the brain that can be tripped intentionally or unintentionally." Uhhhhh ... I'd suggest caution here; you're speculating concerning mechanism and that can get self-validating real quick when the subject matter is hot. The more recent cog- and social-psych on "in-group / out-group dynamics" is heart-warmingly thorough. Stuff like how the out group may take onto itself as aspects of identity slanderous characterisations by the in-group.
""the conscious mind exists in part to create a filter that allows us to pretend that certain things don't exist"" see "schema theory" ... we're cognitive misers; when we can cobble together a heuristic that allows us to make snap decisions (i.e. the plumbing used by dogma and ideology) then we can deal with fight/flight situations with more agility. It's adaptive, yuh know?
"Many ideologies look favorably upon certain kinds of oppression. It is not uncommon for abusers to cite these as justification for their abuse." I strongly suggest Erich Neumann's "Depth Psychology and a New Ethic" ... written in the late '40s, the book is his effort to make some sense of how Germany was taken over by nazi anti-semitism. What I value most in the book is how he describes the way scape-goat dynamics require individuals to deny / ignore their complicity, their shared guilt ... their "dark side".
I have to leave off now ... but thanks for this.
p.s. you might want to wrap <lj-cut> around the body of long posts like this.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 11:23 pm (UTC)Ayup: fundamental is something to make explicit an "us/them" attitude.
"The contentious part of talking about oppression is [...] talking about who is doing the oppression."
"Tyrrany of the majority" is one of our time-tested concepts; we can't lose that sort of plank!
"Then you have "unwitting participants": those who follow oppression-contributing ideologies without questioning them, and those who take advantage of privilege without realizing it."
"Willful ignorance" is a basic concept in ''engaged buddhism''.
"Oppression is traumatic, and trauma installs "emotional triggers" in the brain that can be tripped intentionally or unintentionally."
Uhhhhh ... I'd suggest caution here; you're speculating concerning mechanism and that can get self-validating real quick when the subject matter is hot. The more recent cog- and social-psych on "in-group / out-group dynamics" is heart-warmingly thorough. Stuff like how the out group may take onto itself as aspects of identity slanderous characterisations by the in-group.
""the conscious mind exists in part to create a filter that allows us to pretend that certain things don't exist""
see "schema theory" ... we're cognitive misers; when we can cobble together a heuristic that allows us to make snap decisions (i.e. the plumbing used by dogma and ideology) then we can deal with fight/flight situations with more agility. It's adaptive, yuh know?
"Many ideologies look favorably upon certain kinds of oppression. It is not uncommon for abusers to cite these as justification for their abuse."
I strongly suggest Erich Neumann's "Depth Psychology and a New Ethic" ... written in the late '40s, the book is his effort to make some sense of how Germany was taken over by nazi anti-semitism. What I value most in the book is how he describes the way scape-goat dynamics require individuals to deny / ignore their complicity, their shared guilt ... their "dark side".
I have to leave off now ... but thanks for this.
p.s. you might want to wrap <lj-cut> around the body of long posts like this.