This is incredibly well written and I agree with you on so many levels.
Nelson Mandela wrote in 1994, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” and the moment I read that as an adolescent something flipped. As I’ve grown I’ve just watched it be proven true again and again, and I’ve watched as the people I love and respect and even myself, unknowingly trampled on someone else’s freedom. It’s as small as talking over someone, not talking about a friend making a concerning joke that dehumanized someone else.
We’re born free, but the world works pretty hard to put us in a trance, to inhibit our sense of autonomy and to make us afraid of vulnerability. I strongly believe the people who maniacally try to control others and kill their autonomy are ones who have had their own autonomy stripped away or ridiculed into submission at some point.
Their idea of freedom is not actually freedom, it’s having the freedom to control someone else’s freedom as they please. But it doesn’t work that way, and I believe the moment I try to control someone else I give up some of my own freedom in doing so. Because now my joy is external. It’s sad and it’s evil at the same time.
Countries (especially colonised and systematically traumatized ones) around the world have extremely repressive family systems that work to inhibit the child’s sense of autonomy, to make them more obedient. This can come across as parents being ‘helicopter style’, ‘overprotective’, ‘strict’, ‘disciplined’ or ‘pious’ even really. And they’re mostly considered good things because you’re keeping your kid safe and teaching them life skills, right? But I don’t think most people realize just how much damage they’re actually doing, because the kids don’t know it’s the fault of the generations before them, the kids will mostly believe it’s theirs. And in turn, this actually leaves them unprepared and alienated when they do get out into the world. Sometimes they turn the rage of themselves, sometimes on others, or they find another way to cope. My reason for saying this is because this really isn’t an individual problem that you can solve by the one eye for another method, it’s deep rooted in all of us. “Not all men, but all men benefit from the patriarchy”. Not everyone who’s ever done a bad thing is a bad person per se, but we all benefit from the things bad people do. And we mostly don’t realize it or notice it.
This is incredibly well written and I agree with you on so many levels.
Nelson Mandela wrote in 1994, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” and the moment I read that as an adolescent something flipped. As I’ve grown I’ve just watched it be proven true again and again, and I’ve watched as the people I love and respect and even myself, unknowingly trampled on someone else’s freedom. It’s as small as talking over someone, not talking about a friend making a concerning joke that dehumanized someone else.
We’re born free, but the world works pretty hard to put us in a trance, to inhibit our sense of autonomy and to make us afraid of vulnerability. I strongly believe the people who maniacally try to control others and kill their autonomy are ones who have had their own autonomy stripped away or ridiculed into submission at some point.
Their idea of freedom is not actually freedom, it’s having the freedom to control someone else’s freedom as they please. But it doesn’t work that way, and I believe the moment I try to control someone else I give up some of my own freedom in doing so. Because now my joy is external. It’s sad and it’s evil at the same time.
Countries (especially colonised and systematically traumatized ones) around the world have extremely repressive family systems that work to inhibit the child’s sense of autonomy, to make them more obedient. This can come across as parents being ‘helicopter style’, ‘overprotective’, ‘strict’, ‘disciplined’ or ‘pious’ even really. And they’re mostly considered good things because you’re keeping your kid safe and teaching them life skills, right? But I don’t think most people realize just how much damage they’re actually doing, because the kids don’t know it’s the fault of the generations before them, the kids will mostly believe it’s theirs. And in turn, this actually leaves them unprepared and alienated when they do get out into the world. Sometimes they turn the rage of themselves, sometimes on others, or they find another way to cope. My reason for saying this is because this really isn’t an individual problem that you can solve by the one eye for another method, it’s deep rooted in all of us. “Not all men, but all men benefit from the patriarchy”. Not everyone who’s ever done a bad thing is a bad person per se, but we all benefit from the things bad people do. And we mostly don’t realize it or notice it.