Tag: oppression

The “Just Enough” Policy: Behavioral Control of Collective Protest through Minimum Reward, Part 1 of a 3-part series

Posted on by kathiemm
Author: James Montgomery Flagg. 1917. In the public domain.

By Anthony Marsella, Ph.D.

What does it take?

What does it take to awaken the American (USA) people to the egregious political, economic, and moral abuses and violations of their Constitutional rights and privileges? What does it take for the American people to demand changes in existing government and corporate political, economic, and social policies and actions limiting accountability, transparency, and participation?

What does it take for the American people to successfully reduce the concentration of power, wealth, and position favoring a few and denying equality and opportunity for the masses? Why are American people failing to respond to the numerous crises in American society that reveal widespread corruption, cronyism, and incompetence in public and private institutions and organizations?

Why are Americans savoring the fruits of consumerism, materialism, commodification, competition when the consequences of these institutionalized values are destructive for individuals and the social fabric? These questions are but a few of the many questions being asked daily across America and the world. At issue is the disproportionate presence of silence and passivity, and the absence of activism.

I am not discussing, nor am I advocating, widespread rebellion or revolt, even as some voices have called for these as solutions in the face of a creeping oppression. Rather, I am seeking an understanding of why so few protests have emerged and been sustained across time and place?

No one can deny the existence of protests from both “liberal/progressive” circles, (e.g., Occupy Wall Street, Wisconsin Teacher Unions, LBGT organizations) and conservative/tea party circles (e.g., regarding border immigration, abortion rights, gun ownership rights). Yet, in my opinion, these protests have been focused on specific causes, often informed by narrow ideological reasons. I am seeking an understanding of sources that could undertake a broader and unified protest, seeking to re-claim and to improve upon America’s inspired heritage of human rights — a protest to reclaim “moral authority,” “national identity,” and “social and civic responsibility,” not through guns, violence, and anger, but through virtue.

It must be asked whether current divisions across gender, racial, ethnicity, social class, political, wealth, regional, and religious boundaries have limited any collective citizen response challenging the concentration of power, wealth, and position that seeks national and global domination. In my opinion, the concentration denies citizen participation by controlling means, motives, and consequences of national activism, especially by creating divisions across diverse population sectors. Although developing diverse identities is to be encouraged because diversity is the essence of life itself, a sense of unity is lost as too many are denied equality.

And how does the fractioning of a society lend itself to external control and domination by those with wealth, power, and position? For me, the answer is simple: “A society can assume unlimited diversity, as long as it provides equal access to opportunity.”

It is the disproportion in opportunity, rights, and freedoms that lead to resentment, struggle, and violence. The USA needs a national vision identity that recognizes and accepts the conditions required for civility and citizen accommodation in our global era, including (1) an appreciation of the value of diversity, (2) a willingness to accept an interdependence ethic, (3) the commitment to nonviolence/nonkilling, and (4) a belief in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Unfortunately, what has emerged in the USA is a “limited good” mentality1 in which gains by one group or sector are considered losses by another, because there is only so much “good” to go around. But while this may be, in part, an accurate appraisal of our global situation, there are forces at work that seek control stemming from the age-old divisions rooted in concentrations of power, wealth, and position. Choose your century, country, or cause, and “concentration” will always be the root of problems.

In today’s global era, filled with challenges that defy solution (e.g., population increases, poverty, violence, wars, environmental pollution, crime), “control” by a few (e.g., 1%, bankers, dictators, corporate royalty, Davos faction, monopolies) has become the means and the end. In the USA, which leads the world in military force, financial wealth, corporate cartels, and exportation of popular culture, “control” is essential to preserve an existing state of affairs that denies equality, and promotes homogeneity.

The USA has the world’s largest military budget, highest medical costs, greatest number of prisons and prison inmates, and greatest divisions of wealth (e.g., 1% versus 99%). What this enables — indeed ensures — is the opportunity to implement a “Just Enough” approach to keeping collective control.

NOTE:

  1. George Foster (1965). Peasant society and the image of limited good. American Anthropologist. Limited good refers to the concept that in peasant societies the world is seen as a “competitive” place in which “goods” are limited, and so distrust, envy, jealousy, and resentment are fostered. Hmmm?

 

Anthony Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

This is the first in a three-part series originally published on https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/06/the-just-enough-policy-behavioral-control-of-collective-protest-through-minimum-reward/

Building a Racially Just Society: Paths to Progress

Posted on by kathiemm
UnlearnRacism
UnlearnRacism

 

Note from KMM: On November 18, 2014, I posted the first few paragraphs of an essay on Building a Racially Just Society, written with my two colleagues, Roy Eidelson and Mikhail Lyubansky, with a link to the whole article at www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dangerous-ideas/201411/building-racially-just-society-psychological-insights). Here are the suggestions we provided at the end of that paper. To what extent are these suggestions applicable to all forms of violence in the US today?

Conclusion to Building a Racially Just Society: Psychological Insights

By Roy Eidelson, Mikhail Lyubansky, and Kathie Malley-Morrison

…. Conquering the racism and racial inequities so deeply embedded in U.S. history and institutions will require serious and sustained commitment by individuals, organizations, communities, and our nation as a whole.[33] That commitment will need to be multifaceted: to listen deeply to the experience of those who suffer most from racism and racial injustice; to learn about and acknowledge our own individual and collective contributions to maintaining the oppression of racism in all its societal manifestations; to be open to transforming our understanding of the system of racism and what keeps it in place; and to be ready to make choices in many aspects of our lives that will help reduce racism and racial injustice.

At the individual level, learning more about the hardships, abuses, accomplishments, and resilience that characterize the long struggle against racial injustice can provide a pathway to better understanding the current circumstances, adversities, and structural violence that need to be overcome.[34] Working to recognize and transcend our own biases is also essential; for some, this may begin by participating in challenging conversations about race, even when those interactions are uncomfortable. It is also important for all of us – including those in positions of influence and advantage – to demonstrate solidarity with the direct victims of racial injustice through concrete engagement in advocacy and other forms of collaboration.

In many workplaces and volunteer organizations, there is a need for a stronger commitment to specific actions aimed at increasing diversity and promoting respect for differences, especially in the ranks of leadership. Where appropriate, public service and other organizations – including police departments[35] – should adopt training programs that demonstrate how contemporary racism operates, including how implicit bias works and how it might be consciously overridden. Policies and procedures assuring that instances of workplace racism and discrimination are recognized, taken seriously, and addressed directly should be instituted as well. In some contexts, sustained, dialogue-driven learning opportunities can be more effective than strictly punitive responses in reducing racist and discriminatory behavior and building a culture of acceptance and mutual respect. In our schools, teachers and other educators should receive support[36] in developing the skills and educational materials necessary to make both historical and contemporary racial injustice an integral part of the curriculum and restorative justice a first option when disciplinary problems arise.

When law enforcement personnel kill unarmed black teenagers or commit other violence that punctuates the daily oppression suffered in African American communities, they should be held accountable. To the extent that attempts to enforce this accountability fall short, as they too often do, there are other ways to lay the foundation for more just interactions in the future. Community-wide restorative dialogue initiatives can be effective in establishing trust and connection when one party has inflicted violence on another. Independent of criminal proceedings, these approaches create conditions where all those impacted have an opportunity to express themselves fully and honestly in a way that others can truly hear and understand. While some types of harm inflict individual and collective wounds that are irreparable, such interventions can interrupt the cycle of violence, turn destructive anger into constructive energy, and lead to both individual and community healing and significant structural reforms, including in policing practices and policies.[37]

As a nation, we must all commit to joining together to transform the entrenched systems that, almost invisibly at times, obstruct progress toward racial equality. Toward that end, genuine intercultural, pluralistic living – rooted in horizontal, intentional, and cooperative engagement – can help to further foster respect and empathy across boundaries that too often divide people from each other. But fifty years after the Civil Rights Act was signed and Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize, it is clear that much work remains to be done. The urgency is undeniable. Building a more racially just society is the shared responsibility of all of us.

Can hatred be an ideology?

Posted on by kathiemm

The Ideology of HatredIn her book The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, Niza Yanay argues that conflicts formerly identified as struggles for national autonomy or self-determination are now being viewed as products of hatred. We heard a lot of that after 9/11: “Why do they hate us?”

Perhaps the answers would have seemed too embarrassing if the media had asked questions such as, “Why do they want control of their own oil, of their own territory?”

Yanay argues that hatred is not the opposite of love but rather is intricately intertwined with it. Think about it. On a personal level, how often do husbands, wives, lovers, and children say “I hate you” to the people they love and need most?

Yanay categorizes hate into two types:

  • Hatred by the oppressed toward an oppressor
  • Hatred by the oppressor toward the oppressed.

The first, she points out, can be easily understood. The second type, however, requires the development of an ideology to support it—an  ideology that portrays you and your particular group as moral, good, and just, and any “Other” as hateful and dangerous.

While political-military leaders and the media may reinforce such an ideology–for example, referring to an “Axis of Evil” or “Muslim terrorism”—people have an unconscious desire to connect with the “enemy.” For example, sometimes Israelis refer to Palestinians and Arabs refer to Jews as “our cousins.”

Yanay offers a way out of the sort of hatred promoted in the Middle East and elsewhere: form friendships, even in the face of conflicts, just as we do in our personal lives. Most of us have good friends who occasionally frustrate us, anger us, refuse to see that we are right and they are wrong. In general, though, we value those personal friendships enough to work things through.

Nations can do that too.

Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Majed Ashy

An earlier version of this two-part review was recently published in the American
Psychological Association journal, PsycCRITIQUES, August 2013.

Religions as revolutions

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Majed Ashy, Ph.D.

Moses and escape from Egypt
Israel's escape from Egypt. Image in public domain

From the time of…

  • Moses, who helped guide the Israelis out of slavery and oppression to freedom, to
  • Jesus, who preached equality and love and changed the whole human understanding of power structures, to
  • Mohammad, who fought tyranny and oppression in Arabia and preached for justice and human dignity …

… one can see that these religions were in some ways revolutions, forces against existing oppressive power structures and traditions.

No doubt, some of the followers of religions established their own oppressive power structures and committed violence, but violence and oppression can be committed by non-religious as well as religious individuals and forces.

What did any religion have to do with the 20 million people killed in WWI, or the 60 million killed in WWII?  With Vietnam, Korean, or Japanese wars, the Cambodian or Rwandan genocides, or the dropping of the nuclear bombs over Japanese civilians?  Or the oppression and killing of millions in Russia and Eastern Europe by Stalin and other dictators, or the oppression committed by military dictators in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, among many others?

Linking violence to one religion or another reflects:

  • Selective attention and reading of the history of violence and oppression that existed before and after any of these religions were established
  • Overlooking the role of religions and religious people in fighting oppression and contributing to humans’ well being in many areas of life
  • A dangerous way of offering unexamined answers that feed popular cultural prejudices and fears
  • A simplification of the problem of human violence,l which transcends race, culture, or religion

Instead of falsely attributing violence to religion, we need a serious scholarly non-ideological discussion to find the real roots of violence and the way toward greater peace.

To achieve peace, we need courage to look in the mirror and see our own faults before we point fingers at others, and we need courage in our struggle to be fair — even with those with whom we disagree.

Dr. Majed Ashy, assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School