Tag Archives: oppression

In Which Sparks Are Found

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1. Judaism has a magnificent term–tikkun olam. It means “repair of the world.” It was humanized in a 16th century myth. In the myth, God sends light to the world in ten vessels. The vessels, too fragile to hold the light, break on their way to Earth. In order to get the light back, God creates humans. Humans, then, are charged with tikkun olam. They must repair the light of the world by finding these holy sparks.

2. There is a movement in psychology known as social constructivism. Its main tenet is that meaning is constructed rather than discovered. Meaning and truth are created through conversation and interaction. My identity is not so much a steadfast reality as much as a group of stories and characteristics that the people around me and I agree upon.

3. I’m beginning to wonder if the very act of language is intrinsically oppressive. The act of naming something sets it apart from other things. My frustration with words is that they are simplistic. When setting something down on paper, I cannot possibly fairly represent things the way they are in my head. Complex networks of ideas intersect in counter-intuitive ways. And I don’t think I am capable of explaining them.

4. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the oft quoted Bible passage for weddings, reads:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I believe all these things. What this passage fails to mention, however, is that love is the quickest way to get all of these other benefits. Love is patient and kind but it also demands patience and kindness. Impatience and meanness have no room in love. Love forces its opposites out. True love makes us better. It challenges us. One of the ways I know my parents love me is that they hold me accountable when I make a mistake. 

5. When I am safe in my room, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why I would ever do anything I don’t want to do.

Turning the Other Cheek Turns Emotions Into Justice

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I’ve always kind of struggled with the concept of turning the other cheek and all that.

Our God is one of justice, right?

The Lord works righteousness
And justice for all the oppressed (Psalm 103:6)

So why then are we not allowed to help with that whole justice thing?

A lot of people try to explain this away by saying that we don’t really know what justice is – that only God can judge. I don’t know about that. I know that rape, murder, and slavery are wrong. That’s a judgment. I think I am capable of judging. And we forget that turning the other cheek has to do with someone slapping you. Slapping is pretty wrong, I think. I know that I don’t like it when someone slaps me.

I’m in a Psychology of Gender class this quarter. In that class, we are learning about pro-feminist men right now. Pro-feminist men are men who actively support feminist women to push gender equality. I think pro-feminist men are pretty awesome. Feminist women are pretty awesome, too. It takes a lot of courage to stand up against oppression. But I’ve been thinking a lot about pro-feminist men. I’ve been thinking about how they don’t really have a lot to gain from gender equality. Men are on top. In fact, a lot of men fear that gender equality would mean loss of status for themselves. Pro-feminist men have to believe that gender equality is intrinsically more important than having a wife who stays at home or who is submissive.

There are studies out there that show that the shackles of oppression begin to fall off when members of the oppressor group begin to speak out for the oppressed. Sexism is most successfully combated when men correct their friends when they make a sexist joke or when men refuse to take a job that they have obtained based on sexist hiring practices.

Like most things Jesus taught, the turn the other cheek policy shows a keen insight into human nature. It’s easy to be angry when you have been attacked. It’s easy to clamor for justice, then. But mostly, that’s just emotion. When a friend makes fun of me, I am not mad because my friend has violated the intrinsically moral rule that making fun of people is wrong. I am mad because I was the subject of the ridicule. And if I say anything, it is easy for my friends to say that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But what if I never got mad when people made fun of me? What if, instead, I made fun of myself?

Then, when someone was making fun of another friend, I could say something. Because people would say “Hey, Spencer is usually so chill about joking around. We must really be out of line if he’s not okay with this joke.”

That’s what turning the other cheek does. It creates a world in which people know that your emotions are not tied to your sense of justice.