News of the World - A battle cry for the Harvard oppressed approaching the end of their eight and half hour hunger strike.
Not totally true, but pretty close
The oppressor vs. oppressed (O v. O) thing is a new life tool, ideal for simplifying and easing pain before we all shuffle off this mortal coil. Nuance is hard; looking at all the variables that affect situations and peeling off layers of motivation, history, and context is time-consuming and following a thread through a thatch of fabric and straw, finding that crucial motivator, that hidden element of causality - it’s bloody murder, really hard. And what joy is there in the end? It is still contextual, and more study is needed; where is the “Look at me, I have found this truth that will ring out, that will shine brightly!” moment?
It never comes.
Finding an oppressor is glorious, and self-righteousness is the weed high (blunt, not edibles) of vanities, a wonderful buzz. You also get the companionship of a scapegoat; there is no reason why it sticks around, probably Stockholm Syndrome, but despite all the abuse, the kicks, the unfair allegations, the staggering simplification, it is a loyal beast, always in front, silently absorbing the blows and kicks.
What is oppression? Let’s not go too deep; oppression might simply be getting what you want or being numerically smaller in a battle of foes; oppression is a rope to pull on, always able to take you back to your basket of grievances. Do those who wear the brave mantle of oppressed ever say they did it because they were angry and wanted undeserved vengeance? No, it is always deserved; there is always a connection to grievances: we have been mistreated; we couldn’t take it anymore; our parents missed two birthday parties, and we had to mow the grass every Saturday; we only got an iPhone 14.
Oh, sorry, those are the grievances of the Harvard Palestinian protestors right after their eight-and-a-half-hour hunger strike.1
The oppressed, the prisons are full of the oppressed. Ask them. Terrorist groups, ISIS, PLO, Jemaah Islamiya, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT), Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Haqqani Network. Are their numbers not smaller than those they fight? Do most not believe that their cause is noble, their desires pure? Do they not believe that they are the tool of an aggrieved God, a people disenfranchised? Are they not oppressed? Are they not pure?
O v. O reductions are convenient. They ensure that one’s identity is comfortably binary, although binary is not allowed if it’s a gender thing. We can’t be in a position where we must worry about people being in two groups at the same time; what can we do with a rich transmale landlord trying to throw out an impoverished white Appalachian at the end of the month? It’s not workable. We must have a list, a hierarchy, and a victimization scoring system. Some have suggested a zero-sum game: if you are black and born into poverty, that’s plus and plus, but if you are pulling down the tampon machines in the guy’s washroom, negative and another deduction if you’re a lawyer. But that gets messy, so we must give them the highest score on the victimization index and pretend the rest doesn’t exit. O vs. O is nothing if not simple and clean.
And if you go with the new O v. O, the benefits keep coming. All this dialogue, all this talking, everywhere someone is yacking, hard on the ears, and a lot of work. It’s easier to park the car, unload the signs, get to the synagogue, and scream at strangers.
O v. O certainly is more time efficient in the short term; in the long term, not as much, but the blame tool is glorious. It’s usually singular. I blame this and that on a bad day, but usually, I blame you; I blame my genetics, parents or teachers. And if things don’t work out or they come back at you, there is always an opportunity for retribution, and then you get to blame more people, so it’s a perpetual motion machine.
Perhaps the greatest gain from O v. O is that if you push it hard enough, you can remove all agency, and then you have the perfect victim; nothing can ever be the oppressed’s fault. It’s like the birthing parent of all pass cards; nothing can be someone’s fault if they are never responsible for anything life lays in their path.
This is surely the fentanyl of vanities, both for the oppressed and for those who are in charge of telling them how deep their oppression is. The tellers have to be sure to keep up their rhetoric; if you start letting some hope through, the oppressed will stop believing that they are fully oppressed. You have to keep the lid down hard.
On the oppressed side, you have the freedom not to take responsibility for anything, but sometimes, people get all weepy about not being able to change anything. Tellers - ignore this. If you find these oppressed, please know that they are better off drunk or high from sniffing gasoline. When you see them lying in a ditch and weeping, remember that those tears are tears of joy.
In O v. O, sometimes, as Alfred in Batman noted, “people just want to see the world burn,” which is related to “let’s just blow everything up and start over; it can’t get much worse.”
The good thing is that most stay focused on the burn and forget the after part. However, the problem is that although it will be exceedingly rare, some get distracted on the way to the burn and may come down off their self-righteous high.
It’s dangerous; it will rob them of the joy of the destruction, the delight of kicking the scapegoat, the simplicity of victimization hierarchies, the stupefaction of hopelessness, the retention of unwanted words, and the assurity that tomorrow will bring them more oppression. Tread carefully.
Not to be confused with a night’s sleep.