2008 Woodie Awards
Are you being oppressed?
Devin Walls
Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Perspectives
Keeping all the freedoms that a democratic society promises requires a little effort from its people. The threat to our freedom starts at home, of course, with our rule makers. It is our duty to keep them in line. They know that. So they have to get us on their side first.
Conditioning is learned behavior induced usually by therapists, but also by politicians, cult leaders, religious zealots and even mothers and fathers to establish behavioral patterns that are "acceptable."
And while some forms of conditioning are beneficial, like being told as a toddler that sticking your finger in an electrical outlet is a bad idea, there are methods of conditioning that the powers that be use to conceal outright oppression, such as the use of aversion therapy (a type of conditioning) to "convert" homosexuals into heterosexuals.
If oppression was obvious, it would be easy to stop. It is safe to assume that nearly a century ago, before women's suffrage, the majority of American women had no idea that they were being oppressed by a male-dominated society because of the way they had been conditioned. It was just the way life worked, so they believed.
Before the abolishment of slavery, hardly a (white) soul in the South would have argued that slaves were being oppressed. But time and maybe even a little common sense has proven to the contrary, and things once held as universal truths have been condemned to the "ugly pages" of our nation's history. That doesn't mean, despite anyone's suspension of disbelief, that this is over.
Once we accept the idea that oppression is subtle and often in the guise of the greater good, and that there are hardly any loud-and-clear voices out there telling us to wake up, we're forced to wonder what forms of oppression we're ignorantly and idly suffering through today.
How much of our behavior and how many of our "opinions" are conditioned because mama or Uncle Sam said so? Just how bad is it? And if history has taught us this much, why are we still allowing authority figures to blindfold us and then kick us in the ass?
Conditioning is learned behavior induced usually by therapists, but also by politicians, cult leaders, religious zealots and even mothers and fathers to establish behavioral patterns that are "acceptable."
And while some forms of conditioning are beneficial, like being told as a toddler that sticking your finger in an electrical outlet is a bad idea, there are methods of conditioning that the powers that be use to conceal outright oppression, such as the use of aversion therapy (a type of conditioning) to "convert" homosexuals into heterosexuals.
If oppression was obvious, it would be easy to stop. It is safe to assume that nearly a century ago, before women's suffrage, the majority of American women had no idea that they were being oppressed by a male-dominated society because of the way they had been conditioned. It was just the way life worked, so they believed.
Before the abolishment of slavery, hardly a (white) soul in the South would have argued that slaves were being oppressed. But time and maybe even a little common sense has proven to the contrary, and things once held as universal truths have been condemned to the "ugly pages" of our nation's history. That doesn't mean, despite anyone's suspension of disbelief, that this is over.
Once we accept the idea that oppression is subtle and often in the guise of the greater good, and that there are hardly any loud-and-clear voices out there telling us to wake up, we're forced to wonder what forms of oppression we're ignorantly and idly suffering through today.
How much of our behavior and how many of our "opinions" are conditioned because mama or Uncle Sam said so? Just how bad is it? And if history has taught us this much, why are we still allowing authority figures to blindfold us and then kick us in the ass?
Be the first to comment on this story