Power & Oppression
Chapter 5 “Power” gives us the better understanding
and meaning of power. It explains the types and depth of power related terms.
Reading chapter 5 and the article “Five faces of oppression” as well as
watching the video of “Milgram Experiment” gives me the clear understanding of
power and oppression. The video of the experiment relates to the chapter very
well. In chapter 5 Bertrand Russell (philosopher & social critic) said “the
fundamental concept in social sciences is power, in the same way in which
energy is the fundamental concept in physics”. The term “Power” can be used in
so many different ways it works from macro level to micro level. In everyday
life we are sometimes forced and obliged to follow the rules which are set by
the people who are in greater power than us. That goes back to the Milgram
experiment the five main points of video in my point of view are:
i) Obedience: teachers obeyed the researcher even though they didn’t really had to.
ii) Authority: teachers had the authority to stop the experiment but they didn’t use it.
iii) Violence: teachers didn’t really felt the violence of experiment and 9 out of 12 went all the way to the end.
iv) Behavior: a lot of teachers didn’t pay attention to the yelling and shouting of learner next door.
v) Significance: a lot of teacher went on to continue the experiment without thinking of consequences.
The experiment showed different aspects of power. In the experiment the learner was in a separate room and he had electrodes attached on to his arms. Other person (teacher) and scientist went into a room that had an electric shock generator with a series of switches from 15v to 450v (extreme shock). After hearing the voices of the learner next door the teacher kept on asking the researcher if they could stop the experiment. Even though the teacher could stop it anytime he/she wanted it to stop but they looked upon the researcher as a power figure of authority. This experiment also shows the behavior of a normal person how they could easily hurt others the violence in a common person is similar to anyone we label as a violent person. The teacher took the assignment more serious and some of them really gave the importance to the experiment and did not really care about the learner’s shouting and yelling and thought that it was not them who had the authority to stop the experiment they rather focused on the experiment. It shows that they felt they were obliged to obey even though they had the authority to stop the violence or walk away but they didn’t, this was the good example of “culture of silence”. The experiment gives the example of both types of culture of silence. It was shocking for me how 9 out of 12 people went all the way to the end to finish the experiment without even thinking about the learner and consequences. If I was in those teacher’s shoes I wouldn’t have gone that far to hurt anyone because this is like an example of someone giving you poison and telling you to give it to others it is good for them or it is the part of some sort of experiment no one would do it or at least I wouldn’t do it, because you need to think before you act.
i) Obedience: teachers obeyed the researcher even though they didn’t really had to.
ii) Authority: teachers had the authority to stop the experiment but they didn’t use it.
iii) Violence: teachers didn’t really felt the violence of experiment and 9 out of 12 went all the way to the end.
iv) Behavior: a lot of teachers didn’t pay attention to the yelling and shouting of learner next door.
v) Significance: a lot of teacher went on to continue the experiment without thinking of consequences.
The experiment showed different aspects of power. In the experiment the learner was in a separate room and he had electrodes attached on to his arms. Other person (teacher) and scientist went into a room that had an electric shock generator with a series of switches from 15v to 450v (extreme shock). After hearing the voices of the learner next door the teacher kept on asking the researcher if they could stop the experiment. Even though the teacher could stop it anytime he/she wanted it to stop but they looked upon the researcher as a power figure of authority. This experiment also shows the behavior of a normal person how they could easily hurt others the violence in a common person is similar to anyone we label as a violent person. The teacher took the assignment more serious and some of them really gave the importance to the experiment and did not really care about the learner’s shouting and yelling and thought that it was not them who had the authority to stop the experiment they rather focused on the experiment. It shows that they felt they were obliged to obey even though they had the authority to stop the violence or walk away but they didn’t, this was the good example of “culture of silence”. The experiment gives the example of both types of culture of silence. It was shocking for me how 9 out of 12 people went all the way to the end to finish the experiment without even thinking about the learner and consequences. If I was in those teacher’s shoes I wouldn’t have gone that far to hurt anyone because this is like an example of someone giving you poison and telling you to give it to others it is good for them or it is the part of some sort of experiment no one would do it or at least I wouldn’t do it, because you need to think before you act.
the reading “five faces of oppression” gives us a
better understanding of oppression we conquer these five types in everyday life:
Violence:
violence is most obvious and prominent form of oppression. We see violence
everyday all over the world. Violence takes
place when people get xenophobic and hate crimes begin to start.
Exploitation:
it is to miss use labor to benefit one’s own self. It is mainly related to the
power of economy. Even in United States people get exploited by their employers
every day.
Marginalization:
is
like cornering people when you think they are not as good as you or as
compatible as your own race or society. People get marginalized when they are
looking for jobs. Even though we say people get jobs on merit but it’s not
really true.
Powerlessness: awareness
is needed when you have powerlessness. People in power always oppress those who
don’t have power. Powerless are always dominated by those who has power.
Cultural imperialism:
it is the culture of majority.it could be described as values or rules set by
the authority or government. It is the widely accepted culture or language or
norms that a society needs to follow.
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