Whether one is an Anthropologist or Psychologist, a Historian or Political Scientist, there is an imbued recognition of one’s self as some how inferior and others being superior.
It is done over time, and by various ‘proofs’.
Once a person is taught to see themselves as ‘powerless’ , as slaves or second class, it is not a matter of breaking a chain which automatically renders the oppressed equal.
When a person is to be enslaved the choice, once they have lost the fight, is to be a slave or to die. People have killed themselves, many in groups, to avoid being enslaved.
When a person opts for life over death, and that life being a slave, the idea might be that escape is possible, and thus attempts will be made, some successful, many unsuccessful. Others might resign themselves to their fate.
Over time, another generation is born into the oppression. They know nothing else and so outside of memories transmitted by the previous generation, this is all they know.
By the 3rd generation, the inferiority is internalised and the acceptance of status is without conscious effort.
One of the most significant and overlooked sections of the story of Exodus is where Moses had the Children of Israel remain in the wilderness for forty years.
This allowed those who were over forty to die and/or be removed to the fringes. The first generation would have known only slavery, their children would have been born free, and the third generation would not know what slavery was.
Alone in the desert, without the ex-slave masters available, they could develop their own sense of self.
As long as the Oppressor is present, the past is available for review. The now ‘freed’ has a constant reminder of what was, and hence has a difficulty in grasping full freedom.
History is full of slaves and other oppressed, fighting for their Oppressors. Fighting against those who would free them. Usually suppressed and perhaps reduced to a footnote, many do not know that it does not take a coordinated effort to have one who was oppressed or second class, to tap into that mentality and revert.
In all liberation struggles there have been those who fought against their own interests. They may feel being unliberated is more ‘normal’. Being second class is right.
Although many of us may view with shock that people can vote against themselves, it is not phenomenal.
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Putting people in grooves is wrong as everyone has a right to be happy whether superior, inferior or mediocre and so this struggle to gain positions according to me is a waste of time.
The point is, if one sees themselves as second best, as inferior, that controls them. No one has to do anything to 'oppress' them. They do that themselves.