The Effects of Oppressive Societies
One of the things an oppressive society plasters on us all is that “this is the way it is, and it will not change.” Every society perpetuates the illusion that it is the last and greatest thing possible. And it tries to paste that illusion on anybody who tries to change society—which everyone wants to do at the beginning.
Part of oppression is to make us feel hopeless about what happens in society. We’re told that the inequities and the oppression will always exist: “This is the way society is, and you are small and meaningless, and there is nothing you can do about it.” And alone—small, meaningless, and alone.
These enforced messages create recordings, which get so thoroughly installed that we often stop thinking about them and simply see the world that way. One of our struggles in Co-Counseling is to get a clear picture of reality and a clear picture of the noises that come from our distresses, and to know the difference—to see the hopelessness as a recording from which we can free ourselves, and be able to challenge it.
Refusing to feel bad about ourselves, and daring to be hopeful, challenge the picture oppression has pasted on all of us about what we are like, what the world is like, and what’s possible for us.