Is it possible to measure oppression?
One of the things I have been thinking about in the wake of the very long Gaza thread is that in some situations you have two parties who regard themselves as oppressed, and the other as oppressor. There are even situations where people claim both parties are oppressed, but one is more oppressed than the other.
My question: is there any reliable and general way to assess such a claim? If so, are there 'degrees' of oppression? Can oppression be measured and compared? If so, how? If not, why not? (Another possible stance: it's possible to measure oppression, but not desirable/ethical to do so. Yet another stance: it's possible but not relevant to anything important.) If context matters, which contexts are important? Which can be excluded?
Or is it just ad hoc: "I know it when I see it..."?
My question: is there any reliable and general way to assess such a claim? If so, are there 'degrees' of oppression? Can oppression be measured and compared? If so, how? If not, why not? (Another possible stance: it's possible to measure oppression, but not desirable/ethical to do so. Yet another stance: it's possible but not relevant to anything important.) If context matters, which contexts are important? Which can be excluded?
Or is it just ad hoc: "I know it when I see it..."?
Comments (41)
If a country's leaders does not support the lives and wellbeings of its people then that is oppression.
If a country's leaders show favour to its ideology or defends it with force over its people's well being or lives then that is also oppression. (Ideology = social construct)
Ultimately it is the collective majority of a countries people that owns the country, a leader only represents it.
More problematic is, I think, establishing the factors causing the oppression. Is it because you're poor? a woman? Black? etc. and they will most likely not carry over from one culture to the next and since cultures aren't monolithic...
So I guess, to an extent we can look into it but better staticians should do the leg work.
Though it's probably all a distraction. Evil is real, false spirits and prophets on their way out who..in an at first hilarious yet in the end truly sad fashion believe they can take others with them. But who knows really.
The things we need to survive are space, air, water, food, clothing, shelter, health, and protection from oppressors. When there is an overwhelming abundance of any of these things, then they are “free”. So long as anything is free, we have determined that, while one does not own all of these things to the exclusion of others, one does own what one avails himself of in the pursuit of survival. For instance, I don’t own all space, but I am accorded ownership of the space I occupy. Likewise, the air I breathe.
However, just because something is “free” does not mean it lacks value. All of these things are not only valuable, they are essential. Knowing this, some capitalists will endeavor to reduce the amount of a thing to a point where demand is such that a profit can be made on the sale thereof. Even if they don’t personally reduce the amount for mercenary reasons, the amount may be reduced naturally, or by others. In either case, the question is, how did anyone who claims ownership of anything for sale come into ownership of more than they personally need to survive? Usually they put “work” into gaining ownership. Work involves strength utilized in derogation of weakness. Strength utilized in derogation of weakness is oppression.
“First in time” often means “first in right.” Thus, you might work hard, but you may only be oppressing yourself if you are working for someone else who got there first, or who put in the work to take what you would work for. Might will make right if might makes right.
Sometimes might is in numbers. So, while I might own my next breath of air, the collective may have decided that it is okay for Cletus to pump tons of poison into the air without first having to negotiate with me for my next breath. The collective knows some stick-in-the-mud might refuse to sell, in which case Cletus couldn’t pump poison into the air and make money. So, the collective will tell me to go piss up a rope. That is might. Might will make it right with all kinds of gibberish excuses that the collective will swallow, hook, line and sinker. That is oppression.
With that foundation laid, let me try to answer the question:
A reliable and general way to assess a claim of oppression is to ask the person who claims they are being oppressed how much they would charge to assume the costs they are forced to assume against their will, for free, or for less than they want. The degrees of oppression can be measured in the difference between the dollars willing to receive, and dollars willing to pay. If there is an agreement, then there is no oppression. If there is agreement, we have free-market capitalism. It is ethical to measure that way, but might does not deem such measurement to be desirable. Might wants it's activities to be free to itself. Cost externalization is oppression and it takes might to oppress. Oppression is fascism, communism, monarchy, etc.
To paraphrase Seneca:
Treat those 'less secure and worse off' than you the way you would like to be treated by those 'more secure and better off' than you.
Quoting coolazice
Yeah and nah. I gave it a go with this challenge but so far no contrarian takers. A shorthand comes to mind now (sort of borrowed from Rawls): oppression is socioeconomic inequality forced by stronger communities on weaker communities that does not benefit the weaker communities.
How can you oppress people that don't exist? Life is oppressive and freedom is illusory.
In nature animals produce trillions of offspring most of which get eaten as some other organisms food source. The human narrative of oppression is an ideological exercise to shift the balance of power. No power over another is justified.
There is no need to help people organise a pissing contest to see which group is the most oppressed. Oppression is created primarily through the deprivation of resources, be they political or economic. Complete oppression would mean no political or economic resources, which could be observed in slavery. The greater the access to political and economic resources, the more free someone is and therefore the less oppressed they are. To measure whether someone is oppressed or not, we should evaluate their resources. To be clear, by political resources, I mean things such as rights and protections. Economic resources could mean access to wealth, employment, and so forth. In the case of the Palestinians, they are oppressed because Israel restricts their access to many fundamental political rights and protections, through their poverty and disproportionate lack of resources. Some people will talk about oppression in smaller environments than the state level, don't know how I feel about that.
I think economic and political resources are the main ones but I'm not objecting to other kinds of resources and access being part of the discussion either, just to make that clear.
:100: :up:
:100:
This brings up the question of subjectivity: If the stronger community sells it to the weaker community as a benefit to the weaker community, and the weaker community actually swallows that swill, does it cease being oppression?
Back when Dennis Miller used to be human, he said something to the effect "If trickle down isn't fair warning you are about to get pissed on, then I don't know what is." I guess many of the proletariat are into golden showers, just like their Dear Leader.
But sure, there are aspects in which one can be subject to oppression more than others. Like if a person were black, Jewish and gay simultaneously, then such a person would likely be subject to more oppression than if that person were "only" gay, at certain periods and countries in human history.
Why is oppression only about access to political and economic resources? What about the disabled? They get oppressed by people's preconceived attitudes and treatment. Nature oppresses the sick or those with various conditions. Societies place standards on jobs and behavior and that can oppress the disabled. Standards oppress.
Sure black, gay, and jewish does beat out only being gay on the oppression scale. How about the guy's family though? How about wealth? How does someone who grew up black, gay, jewish and wealthy compare with someone who grew up middle class, hispanic, and straight and cisgender? Who is more oppressed? Moreover, what does it mean for the more oppressed party: should we be taking some sort of action in response?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Bitconnect, is this forum turning you? This sounds like something banno or streetlightx would say...
How do you define oppression? What does it mean to be "oppressed" by attitudes and treatment? And are you calling social convention a system of oppression?
Sure, those are factors too. Wealth will shield or help out in many circumstances, so in this respect in today's society having more money rather than less, would mitigate the circumstances to some extent.
I think each issue should be taken in turn. If a person is homophobic but not racist, then one deals with that. But if the person is racist but not homophobic then that is the issue to work on. I think education, exposure and rational arguments are the best way to deal with these issues.
Some people will never change the way they view the world. Some may lessen the intensity of such feelings over time.
It's not about giving out a medal to those who are most oppressed. It's about pointing out that some people deal with more issues than others. Which does not make any persons particular grievance therefore invalid.
Standards exclude certain types. Whether it's standards for a job, beauty standards, standards for a parent, for a student... all of these roles carry expectations. The expectation is that you meet those standards and that you don't drop below and there can be real social costs to dropping below. Do you see how standards and attitudes could be said to "oppress" in this way? They create pressure, fear, anxiety, psychological consequences.
I understand what you're saying but you're leaving the door open for people to say that oppression can actually be a good thing. I'm not sure if I want to agree that things like social convention, manners, parental expectations are all forms of oppression... Expectations is a very low bar to be setting for oppression.
[delete]
So a side-effect of competition is oppression? If a person has a low sexual market value and nobody wants to date them, that's a form of oppression? Oppression requires a group with power to abuse that power to restrict the political and economic resources of others.
Jobs and positions in society represent political and economic resources, so that fits nicely into my explanation of oppression. However, I don't accept that just any old reason which is outside of one's control constitutes oppression. We need someone, a group, a system or something to be doing the oppressing. "Nature" doesn't cut it.
Quoting 180 Proof
The obvious questions this raises: and how do you measure which is the strong and which the weak? Is there always a strong and a weak? Is political reality a zero-sum game? Even if a strong and a weak, what happens when the roles swap over time - does oppression then change hands as well? What is the ultimate source of this strong attacking the weak?
Quoting Manuel
So oppression affects individuals as well as groups. This would seem to make measuring it more complicated, because the particular individual could be less oppressed than the group they represent - in which case what does the group represent? A moving average?
Quoting Judaka
Ok, but consider: you can be a well-fed slave or a slave who is being starved and tortured. Are these two slaves facing the same level of oppression? Or put another way: is oppression based on the lack of potential good, or the existence of actual bad?
I think there's a strong case to be made that being low SMV or just being socially undesirable in general is a form of oppression by society (as well as arguably nature.) Socially undesirable people certainly face discrimination across a wide number of areas.
Quoting Judaka
Alright, but those in powerful positions in society can also set or change standards, agree? Beauty standards, fashion, etc. Art can refashion messages and help people view issues in new ways.
Do you consider fighting oppression as something that's more about changing other people's attitudes, or do you see anything in yourself or your peers that maybe contributes to the issue in the form of reinforcing or upholding certain standards?
Cui bono? the Romans said. Who suffers more in blood and humiliiation than whom – the weaker. Who effectively controls the lives and livelihoods of whom – the stronger. Isn't the slaveholder stronger than the slave? Aren't slaves in bondage weaker than the those running the slave-system?
Probably not "always"; when overwhelming strength meets (sniffs out) vulnerable weakness, human history teaches that oppression – military aggression (predation), conquest ("spoils of war" ~ captive/occupied populations), exploitation & domination – is far more likely to occur and re-occur than not.
Politics, like commerce, is nonzero-sum (i.e. negotiated, regulated, contractual trade); warfare & gangsterism, however, are zero-sum (i.e. organized crimes).
Slave revolts sometime succeed. Former slaveholders have been known to find themselves in somebody else's chains sooner or later. Pendulums swing, slave-states rise and fall. Fuckers gorged on murder & misery forget in their sanguine stupors that 'the status quo' never lasts. Anicca, panta rhei, yinyang, bitches! Irie. :fire:
There is no "ultimate source" that I can see, cool; bondage takes two ... and opportunity ... and murderous violence ... and inhuman greed & power lust ... and "the banality of evil" of slave-system functionaries-beneficiaries ... and acquiescent victims ... and excruciatingly patient survivors ... for the stronger to attack the weaker for "profit & glory". Feral wolf packs will always attack sheep unguarded, or unguided, by disciplined sheepdogs.
Histories are written in the blood of the vanquished by the victors, and after too many millennia now all blood is mixed thickly, compromised, "equal". Thus, the original sin of Abrahamic religions: the scriptual exclusion of commandments such as THOU SHALL NOT TAKE OR HOLD ANY SLAVES and THOU SHALL NOT RAPE ANY ONE. Why this oversight? Such sacred prohibitions do not profit or glorify the stronger.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MSAWWePAGWA :fire:
Even the "weak" have responsibility and can be atrocious, sometimes even rivaling levels of the "strong" abusers -- Jewish policemen during WWII, for instance could be quite brutal. Weak does not mean good; strong does not mean bad. Yes, there were truly innocent victims in the Holocaust but all too often the reason these people became victims was because of decisions made by numerous authorities at many different levels of the decision-making process who let the orders pass down because "they had no choice" because they were simply "victims." Hitler personally murdered no one. The Holocaust could not have occurred with the cooperation of those at lower levels.
Those who consider themselves powerless victims are often the most vicious and the least inclined to accept responsibility. If you don't believe me consider look into the story of Chaim Rumkowski who led the Lodz ghetto, and there were other Jewish community leaders like that.
You'd have to arrive at quantifiable criteria to measure that establishes a certain definition of what constitutes oppression in order to avoid subjective evaluations.
A good example of that would be the misery index:
You're making @Andrew4Handel's case :lol:
Isn't that Hannah Arendt's main argument? "Just doing my job" should not be an excuse. Of course, the people who end up in those kind of positions are selected (or rather "naturally selected) because of their ability to follow orders.
Good call - I'm reading Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem right now and it's an amazing account on this phenomenon. She makes the point that these people - these functionaries somewhere in the chain of command -- always had some independent decisions to make that influenced how quickly or efficiently the process went. The main point she makes is that moral responsibility is pervasive at every level throughout these kind of events.
But man does she give it to those Jewish community leaders. But also the fact that distinctions were able to be drawn between foreign and non-foreign Jews and distinctions like these were able to go unquestioned. It's just a fact of life that when people's lives are at stake you should not expect the best from them - some, absolutely... but most, no.
Quoting coolazice
Oppression is not the aggregate of all the bad things that happen to you, but since food is a resource, the deprivation of food can be considered oppression in the appropriate circumstance. That circumstance is the purposeful, politically motivated withholding of food by a group abusing its power. Maybe you can construe torture as oppression in the right circumstance, for me, it depends on how we characterise or categorise torture in the particular circumstance. I've given a roadmap for determining whether something is oppression or not but there is room for interpretation.
Discrimination is not oppression, it needs to be an abuse of power, a judicious use of power shouldn't be described as oppression. For example, I don't think jailing murders is oppression, however, I might consider disproportionately imprisoning a type of person as oppression or a certain type of crime as oppression. Jailing political dissenters or on the basis of race for example.
It seems to me that you are just broadly giving a condemnation of hierarchies. More precisely, the losers in merit-based hierarchies, as being oppressed by their inability to outcompete or outdo their peers. Whether we're talking about genetics, forms of presenting oneself or other forms of nature/nurture characteristics, essentially, anything that is not one's choice, no matter how unfair it may seem, none of these things constitute oppression.
You have still not given your definition for oppression, you just seem to be describing undesirable outcomes as oppression. I can't imagine what definition of oppression says it's oppression that people don't want to sleep with you. if it's something close to mine then your interpretation needs to be explained.
It's measured in PSI. Pounds per square inch. The higher the PSI number, the greater the oppression.
Just a quick aside, have you seen this sweet JBP mix?
Anyhow, I'm broadly defining 'oppression' as injustice, but it could also just be anything that isn't fair. Often this unfairness is beyond one's control, or beyond anyone's control for that matter.
So I think we're just defining it differently and that's okay because no one has a monopoly on the definition of the word... it's vague. You make solid points and all I can do at the end of the day is state my position and give my take and it's okay if we disagree.
Quoting Judaka
Would you call just a general social undesirability (e.g. someone who is ugly and socially awkward) a form of oppression? If I were to be totally honest, I would. I think people who struggle socially are quite limited, generally speaking.
EDIT: I don't generally process the world in this way, but if we are going to talk oppression then I've got a lot to say. Dark thought: Disability only exists because non-disabled people exist. Everybody is both oppressor and victim.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
lol
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I don't like your definition, I doubt you would even accept describing anything unfair as "oppression". A guy cheats in a race, is that "oppression"? Injustice is oppression? No... nono, I can't. Even you can't possibly use the word oppression as you've described.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Are you asking if I'm saying social undesirability can be unfair? Yes, it is but I don't consider oppression to mean unfair so, according to my definition, not at all.
I'm just going by the way that I've seen it used (generally by leftists) so I'm going along with that.
The left does make a point though...is it fair that we as men (you're male, right?) immediately judge attractive women more positively? Is it fair that we make snap, unconscious judgments on the clothes people wear and how they look? Everyone oppresses other people in a billion different ways... we can't even count all the ways that just through existing and thinking and living we oppress others. We are all complicit in upholding unfair standards. Trust me, I work in a disability community and these judgments and little looks/facial expressions do have real consequences. Nobody is innocent. You can call this "not oppression" but then we're just back to the definitional issue again.
As mentioned I don't usually spend time thinking about all the ways that oppression exists or that I oppress others or that others oppress me, but if those on the left want to waddle into that territory I'm happy to talk.
Leftists describe oppression as unfairness and injustice? I'm pretty sure they use my definition. They just say that the group with the power is white, male, cisgender, ablebodied patriarchy - whatever, and they oppress minorities by abusing their power, to limit access to political and economic resources, as well as other types of resources. On the national level, within businesses, within homes, within political discourse and so on.
I think we could analyse the political and economic resources in a domestic setting. To say that the husband controls the finances, makes all the important decisions, dictates what the wife is allowed to say or wear and so on, and call that oppression.
Oppression can be applied to many different circumstances and we adjust the "resources" to match the setting but it's always based on control and abuse of power. I don't think your definition works at all, unfairness and injustice occur in so many contexts, we can't label all of them oppression. You can't describe discrimination as being synonymous with oppression either. I don't think someone could take your definition and accurately define what is or isn't oppression, it's inadequate.
Do stereotypes or prejudices qualify as 'oppression' to you at all? You really don't think that a standard, like a beauty standard, for instance... can be oppressive? What if we only defined beauty as "whiteness?" Beauty standards, social standards... can definitely be oppressive. They can exclude certain groups purely on their identity.
Is oppression synonymous with unfairness and injustice? Then sure... I don't really understand your definition. If I replace "oppression" with "unfair" then I agree.
Yeah, basically.
These things do matter though: I don't think you'd like it very much if you had a disability that was repeatedly portrayed in books and movies as something to be laughed at or pitied. Especially if that's how many people are getting their only exposure to that disability. Portrayal matters.
I can describe things I don't like without using the term oppression. I just don't agree that oppression means "unfair" and "unjust", if you said those things were unfair and unjust then I might've agreed. We can agree to disagree on the definition, we both understand each other but are at an impasse.
Yeah, that's cool.
I was watching a youtube video today where they interviewed a bunch of asexual people and the majority of them said that they did not feel welcome in the LGBTQ community. They've been marginalized by a marginalized community. I just think issues like this present interesting challenges to the oppressor-oppressed framework.