The Oppressed Become the Oppressors

After 14 years on the internet, I have finally decided that it's time to start a blog.  What shall I write about, and what will the purpose be?  More than a smattering of folks I've gotten to know at any depth have told me that I "think too much."  Maybe I have kept too many of these thoughts captive in my cage of a brain for too long.  Maybe a more optimal internal equilibrium may be achieved just through the process of "publishing" and freeing them.  The world wide web of endless musings and blabbing will likely not be bettered in any way by their release, but perhaps I will succeed in feeling like a Pericles in giving a speech above the masses of simple to complex thoughts important to me -- although my "audience" may never turn to me or even know that I'm speaking...Oh well, this blog will affirm my existence, for it will show that I have lived and thought and, at times, thought deeply.  This is a simple goal, but one that I am dedicated towards pursuing in my everyday life.  So here goes with the first post.

Dostoevsky noted that the seemingly inexorable fate of the human condition is that "the oppressed become the oppressors."  Mandela's autobiography cites an easy illustration:  The Afrikaners mightily fought the British for control of South Afrika on an ideological platform of freedom and inalienable human rights.  Once they had secured these rights for themselves, they almost instantaneously began to concoct schemes and statutes (culminating in apartheid) to deprive the native Africans of the very rights for which the Afrikaners had struggled.  On the individual level, a son can lament the way his father held money over his head, neglected, mistreated, and deceived him, always leaving the son to feel defeated and at the whimsical mercy of his omnipotent father.  Yet, when son grows up, has a family, and becomes father--seemingly with the ability to model a much improved relationship by simply inverting everything he had experienced--history repeats itself and our new father is an exact duplicate of his most despised, merciless tyrant of a father.  When I worked as a waiter, I did not have to start out as a bus boy because I was white.  Every Mexican, regardless of his or her English-speaking abilities, had to start as a bus boy.  This system was certainly not fair, and I despised it.  Can you imagine how shocked I was when an English-speaking Mexican rose up to the position of a waiter and decided (1) he would no longer speak Spanish with the bus boys; (2) he would no longer associate with the bus boys; (3) he would speak poorly of the bus boys with the predominantly white wait staff; and (4) he would now poorly tip the bus boys at the end of the night?!!  Similarly, at one's professional white collar employment, there is often a hierarchy by which any incoming employee must "work his/her way up" the ladder, regardless of experience, knowledge, or ability.  In such work settings, do rising employees really yearn for increased competence, responsibilities, and a chance for greater impact on whatever constitutes the ultimate goal of their employment?  Without hesitation my experience sadly tells me that the great majority of rising employees simply yearn for power -- power over another, anyone, anything.  People often assert that money is the great driving force for most people as they rise into adulthood.  I have seen too many people leave positions high in pay and low in power for flip-flopped scenarios for me to so readily believe this as I once did.  Power is dangerous.  I fear what almost anyone will do when they ascend to power; I ever have a slight fear of what I might become if I ever had power.  What happens when good people attain power?

I surmise that systems that allow for power differentials teach people to think, almost unconsciously, in terms of power.  It is a rare person who can "play the game" within the system while truly thinking of everyone around him or her as an equal.  This, though, I think must be the ultimate goal:  I must remind myself every day that I am an equal with everyone around me, and I must make this be the prevalent lens through which I see the world and those around me.  This should be so easy within the family, for what do I believe in more than an egalitarian marriage?  I am sure I will learn that it is not so easy (especially as referred to above), but I remain idealistic for now.  Of greater concern is what power will do to me in the workplace.  My "power system" lens should only be used like sunglasses -- that is, only when absolutely necessary, like when I am driving into work and there's a glare when I turn towards the sun.  The "power system" lens must be taken off at every opportunity -- i.e., I will not be wearing my sunglasses at night, or indoors, or anywhere that they are not absolutely necessary!  Part of me would rather go blind than have to wear those shades, but they appear to be a necessary evil within this world of so many power structures.  A blind man is a man without a job, a home, or a position from which he can be the rare person to actually exert good whence the tables have turned and he has become, at last, a man in power.