Okay, this is a bit of complicated topic. First of all we live in a world now where people are supposed to live for their own purposes. This is called freedom, and an equalization of chances to achieve them is called equality and these two are the defining features of modernity. But it all boils down to individualism, of individual goals and choices. When people are denied parts of it, that is defined as oppression.
But it was not so in the past. People did not live for self-actualization but for more socially prescribed roles, which ultimately came from competition for scarce resources and for group level status (“glory”). It can be demonstrated that gender roles boil down to war. Slavery and racism are the the end of the day are how more technologically developed people used other people in their system of production who were weaker in this sense. Grow cotton, make uniforms, go to war. Disability has a lot to do with people’s actual utility for social purposes. If you see a society as something like a war machine with everybody being some sort of a cog in the machine the whole thing begins to make sense.
Then with the Enlightenment, all this “live for your own goals” thing was invented. However it started at the highest ranking members of society and moved slowly down on the ladder, with all kinds of fights.
We still don’t see the end of this process. I am fairly pessimistic / conservative about it . Perhaps if one day really everybody lives for doing what they like, no social coercion to fill predetermined roles, things will stop working. Because, I guess, we still need a machine even if it is perpetual peace. We see the reproduction part breaking down. If for example having to work for a living will also been seen oppressive things may grind to a halt.
Multidimensional notions of oppression are easier to defend intellectually, but poorly optimized for politics. Politically, you need to be able to say that your group has all the oppression so Utilitarianism gets all the spare resources,
Even if this is true, why were people historically oppressed according to one set of criteria but not the other?
Okay, this is a bit of complicated topic. First of all we live in a world now where people are supposed to live for their own purposes. This is called freedom, and an equalization of chances to achieve them is called equality and these two are the defining features of modernity. But it all boils down to individualism, of individual goals and choices. When people are denied parts of it, that is defined as oppression.
But it was not so in the past. People did not live for self-actualization but for more socially prescribed roles, which ultimately came from competition for scarce resources and for group level status (“glory”). It can be demonstrated that gender roles boil down to war. Slavery and racism are the the end of the day are how more technologically developed people used other people in their system of production who were weaker in this sense. Grow cotton, make uniforms, go to war. Disability has a lot to do with people’s actual utility for social purposes. If you see a society as something like a war machine with everybody being some sort of a cog in the machine the whole thing begins to make sense.
Then with the Enlightenment, all this “live for your own goals” thing was invented. However it started at the highest ranking members of society and moved slowly down on the ladder, with all kinds of fights.
We still don’t see the end of this process. I am fairly pessimistic / conservative about it . Perhaps if one day really everybody lives for doing what they like, no social coercion to fill predetermined roles, things will stop working. Because, I guess, we still need a machine even if it is perpetual peace. We see the reproduction part breaking down. If for example having to work for a living will also been seen oppressive things may grind to a halt.
Multidimensional notions of oppression are easier to defend intellectually, but poorly optimized for politics. Politically, you need to be able to say that your group has all the oppression so Utilitarianism gets all the spare resources,