Class 9/3

In class, we first talked about what the word "oppression" means to us. The general consensus seems to be that it is a phenomena that occurs in non-consentual situations wherein one party wields power to its own advantage over another party which may be denied rights or benefits due to the actions of the party with the power. 

The tricky part seems to be the "cops in the head" part. What happens when the party wielding the power is your extroverted self and the party that it neglects is the introspective self? It's harder to stop civil oppression within the self than to make an effort to assist with the oppression of others outside the self. Most people I've known seem to want to help others, but it's seen as shameful in our country and society to talk about helping ourselves. It's viewed as a luxury instead of a regular part of surviving as a human. We feed ourselves. We drink water. Why don't we feed ourselves positivity? Why don't we drink light? Why are THOSE things seen as selfish? It reminds me of an Alan Watts quote:

"Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.' "

After our discussion, we played the car game. We each got to drive around our partner and each got to be driven around, blindly. I got to parallel park Sarah, which was pretty cool. The instructions on backing up in a particular right or left direction weren't specifically given, but Sarah seemed to know what I meant. It became very easy and natural to move her--the only problem was when she seemed to not feel me let go or didn't feel me push her back to begin moving. I'm glad I don't have to communicate with my car in real life. I think things would be a lot more difficult--it might be why I get nervous driving a Segway. :P

We then played The Great Game of Power. The set took quite some time to establish. I think it would have been a lot easier to do with children, actually. Adults get into their own heads very much. It was a good way to demonstrate, though, that perceptions can be RADICALLY different from person to person, history to history. Once the set was established, we added our own bodies to the image to take power away from one another and apply focus to ourselves. I enjoyed everyone's interpretations of what it meant to take away power. My own involved removing Dylan's glasses and shielding his eyes. When one is denied sight, I find it very limiting and very oppressive in many situations.