Subtle Oppression717

[Adam Blatner]

Dear All,  the following is a somewhat lengthy contemplation of the nature of oppression. You may well prefer not to bother reading it. Those who do, I welcome specific corrections and number the items to make it easier. 

       Contemplating what is and is not "oppression" is interesting--- it's a word with fluid meanings.

      This morning, also contemplating role dynamics (my name for applied role theory), several different groups of ideas converged:

  1. Our culture has become more sharply aware of the difference between merely complex systems and highly complex systems---the latter being of a type in which it is impossible for anyone to know all relevant variables.
         a. the mathematics and theories of chaos, fractals, and the like become most relevant in highly complex systems.
  
    2. The systems theory principle in which feedback is a necessary component becomes ever more relevant in proportion to the increase in complexity of the system. 

     3. A paradigm shift has occurred from an era in which mature expertise was a role that assumed mastery; to an era---the postmodern era-- in which it is becoming increasingly apparent that mature expertise, authority, and leadership recognizes that mastery is only a limited component; equally important is the ability to evoke and utilize corrective feedback from a supportive team or larger system. Businesses and other complex organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to create and "upward" flow of information in a system and a corresponding openness, receptivity, and sensitivity to being corrected based on new input. 
            a. In current situations, this includes a sense of time and change, the recognition that circumstances at the periphery indicate a need for changes in not only tactics (more small-unit adjustments) but even strategy (larger system-level shifts in goals and plans). How to get the optimal level of feedback from the periphery in order to make such adjustments?

     4. The nature of communication is similarly changing: It becomes important to generate social and personal norms so that:
               a. Receivers of messages---even those with higher status, rank, or sociometric position---become genuinely open to being corrected, to changing their minds. 
               b. Senders of messages---even and especially those with less status, etc., feel empowered to offer suggestions for corrections, feedback information about feelings, satisfactions, frictions. 
               c. Receivers communicate effectively that they will not be either offended, angry, indignant, and inclined to retaliate, nor will they be hurt, overly crushed, inhibited, inclined to withdraw. 
               d. Senders of messages be adequately reassured by (c) and also empowered, role trained, reinforced in daring to send those messages.
               e. Senders of messages need to learn the skills of identifying their feelings, experiences, in a sharper way so as to report on them in ways that are not overly reproachful or catastrophic. (Because sending overly strong negative feedback tends to make it difficult for a & c to happen).
               f. Oppression might be operationally defined as a system in which many people at different levels are unwilling to risk giving feedback, and often unable to even get clear about (1) whether they are uncomfortable; (2) whether the system can change; (3) what the discomfort is or is about.
               g. Another function within human systems is that of helping those who tend to be de-voiced to become more clear and to clarify their voice.

     5. A problem with the idea of oprression is that the word tends to imply a simpler system: Often it is assumed that the oppressors know what they are doing and can choose to stop it. In fact, in many systems, neither those who seem more privileged nor those who experience less privilege often realize that there is anythng amiss.
           a. Speaking also to 4 f and g above, people need to come to some capacity of distinguishing between that which can be changed and that which is truly built in to the basic difficulties of being alive.
           b. This distinction is not easy. Many difficulties in life arise out of the continuation of childish desires and motivations. A few of these are noted on : http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/innerbrat.html
           c. Some difficulties that we take for granted as part of life, though, could be ameliorated, though, and the exploration of this frontier of what can and can not or should not be changed is a dynamic field. 
           d. However, it is the responsibility of those who perceive themselves as having no power or less power to challenge their own powerlessness, to develop assertion skills, and to practice or take risks in the activity of self-assertion. 
           e. Similarly, those who perceive themselves as having more power should endeavor to work with others to re-distribute the power; yet those with more power, rank, status cannot do this by themselves---they need to collaborate with those with less power to make these arrangements. 
           f. In other words, the oppressors and privileged in many cases cannot on their own or by themselves give away their privilege and power---both oppressors and oppressed must collaborate, work together, assume equal power. 
           g. To complicate matters, those who may be more powerful or have higher status in some roles may yet feel lower power or feel oppressed in other roles. Even in situations in which it may seem as if the same role is being addressed, it turns out that a given role often has both more and less powerful role components. This is reflected in family therapy-based systems in which the seeming power of the parents is frequently trumped by the actual power arising from the dysfunction of the identified patient or other seemingly less-powerful or invisible roles---e.g., the passive sibling.  Another example: Conflict resolution programs now include not only the bully and victim, but also note the power of the passive onlookers! 

      6. All of the above leads to an increased need for greater skillfulness in three realms, self-awareness, communications, and interpersonal problem-solving. These skill sets, addressed in my papers on drama in education, chapter in Gershoni's book, and 1985monograph now being revised, are part of what I call "psychological literacy." Teenagers need to learn these skills and experiential learning (e.g., sociodrama, role training) is the best way to appreciate the subtleties and practice the skills involved.
          a. As above, people need to practice interpersonally the activity of intellectual humility. This hasn't been done before, as we've lived in a shame-based culture in which any vulnerability is an occasion for teasing. This must be radically reversed, as only through being interested in getting corrective feedback can one effectively adapt in highly complex systems. The skills of opening to, inviting, giving, and clarifying together such feedback need to be recognized as fundamental to new-paradigm thinking and operating.
         b. These skill shifts also need to be woven into shifts in social-group functioning, so they are celebrated. At present, most groups are infested with habits of low-grade teasing, putting-down, dealing with the edge of pridefulness. As a repetition compulsion externalized, the game is to explore how much humiliation one can experience and give back at the same level of toughness without precipitating overwhelming counter-action such as being shot and killed for "dissing" (i.e. dis-respecting) too strongly. It's a common and unconscious search for mastery played out in greater intensity in some inner-city cultures, and in lesser intensity in the teasing prevalent in many middle-school cultures. It can be found in many college-level and work contexts, also. All these habits increase the "psychological allergy" to shame and make it difficult to shift into a less ego-sensitive attitude of collaborative exploration in the service of creativity. 

     7. Back to oppression, then. What does it mean to say that "I feel oppressed"?  How does the word "oppressed" serve any constructive function. If you feel oppressed by me, does that give me any hint as to what I could do to lessen that feeling. How is "oppressed" different from "bothered," "annoyed," "hurt," ---other than it takes on the edge of participating in a wider cultural social value---i.e., it is bad to oppress, it is good to not be oppressed, and if I feel oppressed, then that validates my ... it gets vague here-. trying to un-oppress myself...    The point is that the word, taking on some cultural currency as fashionable psychobabble, gets to be thrown around... 

         a. But I suspect that if anyone says, I'm hurt,  I'm offended, or I'm oppressed,  -- I wonder if it is not a cop-out, insofar as the one who is so afflicted is not then expected to articulate exactly how she or he is hurt, offended, or oppressed, and participate as an equal in working that through with those who are accused therefore of doing the hurting, offending, or oppressing.  I'm concerned that the word may bias the conversation, drawing to it a sense of vague sympathy with the underdog.
 
      b. Meanwhile, the one who is specifically or vaguely accused of having done the offense often doesn't know exactly what to make of the situation, what exactly has been done wrong, whether it was a great or slight mistake, whether the degree injury was great or slight, what the mistake was, exactly, and then what needs to be done to work out that mistake. As I discuss in my paper on forgiveness also on my website, this negotiation requires the collaboration of both parties. If either feels excessively blamed, that kicks in the limbic system and they can't think straight, so, returning to the need to evolve more effective communications systems, we need to work out ways of neutralizing blame, reproach, you-should-have-known types of thinking. 

     c. How about this? Might it be possible that 31% of the time that someone feels hurt that this feeling is a product of personal over-sensitivity?  Not that the pain isn't worthy of some sympathy, but neither is it to be automatically assumed that the "other" is guilty of wrongdoing. We recognize that young children will often cry about problems that have to do with the imposition of the reality principle by the parent---e.g., immunizations, having to share, not being able to get away with violence to others, having to take a nap when cranky and sleepy, etc.--- but what if a fair amount of interpersonal stress has to do with people not having learned sufficiently to recognize their own shadow complexes. That is, we nead to learn to challenge ourselves and consider how we may have contributed to the problem at hand. Might our unconscious goals or expectations have been too egocentric, short-range, or unrealistic? 

    8.  Dare we ask such questions and who will support us if we discover that we have been guilty of indulging a neurosis? This is why we need a whole culture that begins to praise and support this kind of self-challenging in the service of self-development, and also that we recognize that everyone---bar none---is in ongoing need of continual personal development. All are neurotic and all deserve support for fighting against their neurosis. (This is a paraphrase from the line from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland in which the Dodo says "All have one and all shall get prizes.")

       Well, that's enough for now.  Warmly, Adam
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