Can activism be oppressive?
Liberating from the Injustice triad
Dear Readers,
I’m gathering my thoughts about activism, resistance, oppression and liberation. My job as a facilitator and narcissism hacker involves the disruption and change of the mental models people hold while sustaining my connection with them and their engagement with me. Far too many people who want to change people’s minds ASAP use blunt verbal force as their main strategy. It’s not only ineffective at helping people shift their thinking, the approach tends to push people away.
I see this approach used as a form of activism on both sides of the culture war and the American political spectrum such that both sides are mirror reflections of each other with different clothing choices. One person barking their view at another is not only annoying but can be experienced as overpowering, domineering and also oppressive.
So here’s my issue. I know what I mean by oppression, resistance, liberation and activism but each of us might be using these same words to mean different things. I’d love to know from you how you define these words, based on your own worldview/ethical principles/philosophy/values.
I know I’m asking you do to some work for me (thank you) but if I’m to write about resisting being oppressive while trying to facilitate change in ways that challenge and resonate with you, I need to gauge your ideas about these words.
What does…
Activism
Oppression
Resistance
Liberation
…in today’s world mean to you?
Feel free to ask me any questions you have about overcoming oppression in relationships (professional or otherwise) or narcissistic relationships in general.
Thanks for reading, supporting, subscribing, commenting and sharing,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker
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I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting and overriding our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
I’m dedicated to helping people understand all the ways narcissistic traits infiltrate and taint our interpersonal, professional, organisational and political relationships, and provide strategies for narcissism hackers to fight back and find peace.
Here’s how you can help.
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Unfortunately, Liberation has become an absence of Oppression to me. I associate Oppression with the discovery from within a system that it has been constructed to create predictable outcomes, and that there is no "way out," by design. Whether it's a system of unspoken norms and codes that prevents certain people from excelling, or something as overt as discriminatory laws, the defining feature of oppression for me is the labyrinthine structure that appears to present choices while actually preventing most possibilities. I suppose that makes Liberation into an state in which outcomes are not foreseeable. Yes, I think that also addresses the inherent fragility of Liberation, and its vulnerability to disruption by those who misuse their freedoms to make unpredictability unsafe for others.
Activism has also transformed its associations for me in recent times. I think the word itself simply means to make time in one's life to raise an objection to what one disagrees with, on the understanding that activism exists within systems that give some kind of countenance to objection. Lately, it seems to be an aggressive form of insistence that demands be met immediately, predicated on the expectation that raising an objection is insufficient to being heard and considered, and also predicated on the narrative that all other forms of communication have failed.
I have always understood Resistance to mean the physical manifestation of Activism, i.e., that Activism is still by en large advocacy work, and that Resistance is a refusal to physically be or do what is expected or required. That's how I am able to divide Resistance into Passive and Active categories. Passive resistance is non-cooperation or non-participation, and Active resistance would be the physical doing of what is disallowed. Both are not ends in themselves, but aim at some change beyond the act of Resistance itself. The word Resistance has changed as well for me recently, as it has been used to mask acts of violence that can have no possible conduit for a preferred outcome, but appear to be an expression of animus.
If we speak to Justice then we often missing the legal framework. From teaching and advising schools, Govt, corporates, NGOs individuals. The law is a good starting place. Human Rights are often missed and becoming less respected but is a neutral place to help us. Secondly history. Imagine how this has helped school children form an informed perspective and remain empathic and connected.