I recently came across this article where Arundathi Roy mentions how she sees Gender as a spectrum. It made me wonder about oppression in general and how oppression also happens over a spectrum. All the “isms” look at oppression in a very closed boundary and all the “ists” conveniently choose to ignore the oppression when it does not suit them. Communists for long have been criticized for ignoring the caste oppression and choosing to talk only about class oppressions. They themselves again blame feminists for being too narrow minded and not fighting to uplift the poor. Atheists again blame others to not look at how religion is being used to create unrest and divide amongst people and why feminists/communists are not fighting it directly.
Amongst all these is an act of oppression and it comes in various shades. Oppressor does not choose his style of oppression, he chooses whom to oppress and for what benefit/profit. Then why is it that all the “ists” choose their oppression to fight against. How is it that we choose to ignore one form of oppression on one human to other while we choose to fight another form of oppression.
Ofcourse choosing to fight atleast one form of oppression is better than becoming an oppressor ourselves. Because on the other side, you have people who justify one form of oppression by giving example of another form of oppression. Nature is definitely very harsh, cruel and merciless. It treats living beings as equal as dust but that no way justifies what we do to each other. Human society has evolved fighting the harshness of nature, right from warm clothes we wear to food we cultivate and store.
It’s so hard to fight one form of oppression – taking on all of it at once is unrealistic and impossible. I would stick to praying. To god of course. Most of them are doing it anyway. What you’ve written makes sense. No doubt. But I would disagree with you on this sentence – “Nature is definitely very harsh, cruel and merciless”. I wouldn’t call nature harsh or cruel or merciless. I would simply it’s trying to protect itself from us destroying it. Us humans are undoubtedly more responsible for causing chaos in this world. Natural or human.
I’ve always argued that if one could take the best pro’s of all “isms” and from all “ists” – it would probably be a better world.
Would it?
P.S: I’m kinda a naturalist. 😀