I agree with Nelson Mandela that the oppressor is a prisoner just as much as the oppressed. I believe the arrangement is like a teeter-totter where it takes two to keep it going. I've been with couples in abusive relationships and see both parties as oppressed and both parties as keeping it going, even though one is called victim and gets all the sympathy and the other is called violent and perpetrator and is condemned. I have felt connected to and sympathetic with both parties, and have made an effort to get them both to get off their teeter-totter and develop a different arrangement. Some do and some don't. What helps me live a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others is reminding myself that we are one -- I look across the divide of me and them and see me -- we have had different circumstances, but we are basically alike, and with kindness and compassion we could get back to realizing that. I believe we are born loving, we learn to hate, and we can relearn loving.
On Mar 27, 2016 david doane wrote :
I agree with Nelson Mandela that the oppressor is a prisoner just as much as the oppressed. I believe the arrangement is like a teeter-totter where it takes two to keep it going. I've been with couples in abusive relationships and see both parties as oppressed and both parties as keeping it going, even though one is called victim and gets all the sympathy and the other is called violent and perpetrator and is condemned. I have felt connected to and sympathetic with both parties, and have made an effort to get them both to get off their teeter-totter and develop a different arrangement. Some do and some don't. What helps me live a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others is reminding myself that we are one -- I look across the divide of me and them and see me -- we have had different circumstances, but we are basically alike, and with kindness and compassion we could get back to realizing that. I believe we are born loving, we learn to hate, and we can relearn loving.