Response: "Other"

[jhameia]

Here's another quote from my calendar:

"The 'otherising' of women is the oldest oppression known to our species, and it's the model, the template, for all other oppressions." ~ Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful scribe

While I hesitate to call the otherising of women the oldest, seeing as I don't want to presume on human history, I could say, yes, 'otherising' is definitely the model for oppressing others.

To make someone the Other is to make them different - since difference frightens the normal human, the proper reaction is to attempt to make this Other inferior, so that there is an excuse for oppression and imposition of one's own ideals. Making someone else the Other, and hence inferior, also gives one a sense of control - "I am the True One, they are the Other and must be made True, or close to it."

As a child from a colonized country and having studied my own history (Yes, you little Malaysian runts, I liked Malaysian history), I understand being an "Other". The British made Others of the Malays, Chinese and Indians, even to each other. Even today we see each other as Others, even though we don't care to admit it (that's why affirmative action is in place).

When I came here to Canada, I was the Other as well, and hung out with other Others until it became quite apparent due to my language skills and thought-patterns that I was not quite so Other.

It is the idea of Otherising that makes so many people forget that we are all, in the end, human.

But what do we do? The idea of the "us" and "them" makes people so comfortable, they sit in their comfort zones and forget to acknowledge one another until their neglect of understanding turns into fear which breeds hatred.

It takes so much effort to care about the world, because there's so much to care about. It's just easier to dismiss the rest of the world - it's someone else's problem, it doesn't concern me. That's a kind of oppression too - failure to take action against oppression breeds even more oppression.

If we recognize we are all someone else's Other deep down inside, what then? Do we feel adrift from the rest of the world? The rest of humanity? Do we not have one common shard deep inside, that even though we are all Others, perhaps - perhaps it's the Otherness we each and all individually own that we have in common?

Are we such an Other then?

Comments

[predream.livejournal.com]

I don't think compassion comes from a sense of similarity. Looking into history, we can see that individualistic states are neither more nor less compassionate, at the individual level, than socialist ones. Compassion comes from a sense of ethics and personal responsibility. It also seems inconsistent to argue that we are comforted by something that causes us fear.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Familiarity is comforting even if fear accompanies it. This is why abused women stay with their bausers even when they have sure-fire ways out without chance of retaliation from their SO. It's why abused children defend their parents. When you suffer badly and are deeply afraid, consistency is less frightening than uncertainty, even if there stands a better chance of positive outcome with the uncertain path.

I don't think it's possible to say anything about human compassion based on the actions of governments. Government programs often miss the mark substantially, but those in charge seem to think that making the effort is the important thing, not the result.

[predream.livejournal.com]

Not to be contrarian, but I don't think your first point is factually corret. What the literature on spousal abuse (at least in sociology) shows is that the most important reasons abused women stay with their SOs have to do with concerns for the raising of their children and financial dependence.

Second, even if you were correct on familiarity and spousal abuse, it doesn't serve as a defence for the claim that's actually being made here, which is that we create an "us" vs. "them" mentality because we are comfortable with it and yet are fear "them." To the extent that we concetualise "them" as an unfamiliar entity, it's actually in contradiction. More importantly, there is no particularly reason we should be more comfortable with "us" vs. "them" than with anything else.

On your second point, I think government policies shape societies and culture and so saying things about people and their compassion isn't problematic. While communist governments made the greatest efforts to make people the same in every possible way and capitalist governments made every possible attempt to make them self-reliant individuals. In many ways, though not all, they were both successful. Both ends of the spectrum turned out to be equally uncompassionate. So, it serves to reason that neither individuality nor commonality correlate very well with compassion.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Could you please provide cites for your claims?

I have been an abused child (inside nuclear family), as well as a battered spouse, and have known literally hundreds of both. I've never heard one of them say anything about staying because of economics or money, and only one or two said something about staying because of the kids. Most were happy to escape with their lives, money notwithstanding; most of them would rather have risked their own safety to get their kids OUT of the house, as well (and quite a few actually did).

I also have some cites around here somewhere, and can dig them up if you want to read them. I doubt you can find a psychologist who treats abuse and trauma survivors who would disagree with my point. I've had several openly agree with it, as well as the core factor generally being lack of self-esteem (figuring they don't deserve any better).

There's nothing contradictory about what I said. It's entirely possible to focus all your fear and negativity on someone or someones outside your immediate vicinity/neighborhood/what have you, shoring up your sense of solidatiry with people who are from the same background. Externalizing fear of the unknown while building up a sense of strength and partnership with those one wants to believe understand them is a pure illustration of the point that us/them can bring safety and comfort to those indulging in it, while at the same time oppressing the "others".

[predream.livejournal.com]

See Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence by Linda Gordon which, itself, cites a number of other studies. This might be saying the obvious, but if you're referring to people who were happy to escape with their own lives and did, then it seems you're actually talking about the people who didn't stay.

There are two problems with your argument: it's circular and/or it begs another question for which there isn't an answer. It's circular because you're saying that we create an unknown (them) to make an unknown known. But where does the unknown fear come from in the first place? If it comes from the unknown we are about to create, then it's basically a fear that creates itself out of nothing.

Second, how does replacing one unknown with another solve the problem of fear of the unknown? If the answer is that it presents the fear in a familiar format (us vs. them) then there needs to be an answer to my previous question: why should this format be more familiar than any other?

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I don't think I was thinking about compassion while writing that.

And I know it sounds inconsistent, but post-modernly speaking, seems that anything black might possibly be white too. (And that's why I hate my Post Modern Novel class.)

[predream.livejournal.com]

But isn't that what it comes down to? The we/them dichotomy is important because it determines whether we emphathise with people, which determines whether we are compassionate towards them. If the we/them dichotomy doesn't manifest itself in compassion or lack thereof then it's not clear to me how it would be a form of oppression.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

So you're saying it is impossible to empathize if you are aware of and acknowledge the differences between people, perhaps moreso in very broad generalities of limited applicability? I think that being aware of differences falls under the scope of "us/them", but it does not have any particular moral imperative. You could be curious and engaging in response to an us/them sense, instead of vilifying those who are different.

[predream.livejournal.com]

No, I actually don't think that us vs. them is a valid theory to explain oppression.

It is the presumption of the us vs. them theory that we have difficulty empathising with people we think are different and that vilification and subjugation are our only responses to different people. In that way, we agree that us vs. them doesn't serve as a very good explanation for oppression.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

It's not an explanation of oppression, perhaps - but a justification (albeit a lame one) of it and a method. Which probably no one buys into these days.

[predream.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the implied distinction is between explanation, justification, and method. As I see it, the description of the method and the justification are all part of the explanation of a phenomenon.

The trouble, I think, is that this is a sort of "folk theory" about oppression. I think that our understanding of oppression has evolved a good deal beyond this.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in the system of oppression yes. Lack of empathy lending to fear?

Just because I understand something doesn't necessarily mean I emphathize. Perhaps it does for you, but I come across personalities which I can see the reasons for their actions, but don't necessarily agree with.

[predream.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people in philosophy of the mind wouldn't agree with defining "understanding" as knowledge of other peoples' motives (or intentional states in philosophyspeak). On one hand, there is no requirement that you agree with someone in order to empathise with them. On the other, most people in philosophy of the mind take understanding to include a qualitative sense of "what's it like to be x." There is a provocative piece on understanding other people by Nagel called "What is it like to be a bat?"

Under that view, empathy isn't so much the cause of fear as its correlate. If we can't empathise with someone then we don't understand them. That lack of understanding can also cause fear.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

It's been too long since I've read that particular piece.

Most of the paradigms I work with usually involve some form of the "Other", and as for it being a "folk theory", perhaps it's because it comes from a different viewpoint.

We could argue until the cows come home about what's sophisticated and what's not, but the main point, I think, is to come to a coherent understanding of wtbfh is going on.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

I have had the oddness of appearing to be a typical white male, but having gotten the short end of a number of sticks, all of which has left me on the wrong side of the fence, as it were. I get to be an outsider to nearly everyone on some level. and in my experience, there is not a lot of compassion in the world, and what there is that functions that way comes from disparate desires and beliefs on the part of the giver(s). I don't think there is any accurate way to categorize generosity or lack thereof based on motivation; motivations are so personal and unique they cannot be broken down so simply.

I was actually having a rather similar conversation with a friewnd of mine, where I was saying that yes, it is possible for us to understand each other, as long as we each take the time to communicate and to listen, and to help each other understand. Her argument was that we are all different and all have our own motivations, and since we all live very different lives, we can never understand each other, and are doomed to a lifetime of misunderstandings. I'm not entirely sure who's right, or if either of us really is.