16 Liberation Theory

1. Liberation is both the undoing of the effects and thetransformation of the causes of social oppression. Theundoing and transformation must occur at the institu-tional level and at the level of group and individual inter-actions. Liberation involves changing oppressivebehavioral patterns and eliminating oppressive attitudesand assumptions.

2. Oppression is the systematic and the pervasive mis-treatment of human beings on the basis of their mem-bership in various groups. Oppression includes bothinstitutionalized or “normalized” mistreatment as well asinstances of violence. It includes invalidation, denial, orthe non-recognition of the humanness (the goodness,smartness, powerfulness, etc.) of individuals and groupswho are the targets of that form of mistreatment.

3. The perpetration of oppression is made possible by theconditioning of new generations of human beings into therole of being oppressed and the role of being oppressive. In asociety in which there is oppression everyone (at one timeor another) gets socialized into both of these roles. Thusthis conditioning happens both to people who are the tar-gets of a specific form of oppression and to people who arethe non-targets of this particular oppression.

4. The conditioning of both groups, the target group andthe non-target group of any given oppression takes placethrough a specific form of oppression, the oppression ofyoung people. In a society in which there is oppression, allyoung people will be the targets of this systematic mis-treatment, i.e. all young people will be oppressed.

5. Biological/cultural/ethnic/sexual/religious/age differ-ences between human beings are never the cause of oppres-sion. The use of these differences to explain either whycertain groups of people are oppressed or why certaingroups of people behave oppressively functions as a justi-fication of various forms of oppression.

6. Differences in class, in social and economic power, ineducational opportunity and achievement, in health andphysical well being are the expression and result of anoppressive system. Such differences perpetuate andincrease the social imbalances in power. These differ-ences serve to perpetuate oppression.

4

Liberation Theory: Axioms and WorkingAssumptions about the Perpetuation

of Social Oppression

Ricky Sherover-Marcuse

Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, a leader in the Re-EvaluationCounseling Movement who led workshops and classes to healthe injuries of racism and other forms of social oppression, wasalso author of Emancipation and Consciousness (BasilBlackwell, 1986). Also see her article “A Working Definitionof Racism” in Chapter IV. For more on Re-EvaluationCounseling, see Harvey Jackins, “The Art of Listening” inChapter X and Suzanne Lipsky, “Internalized Racism”in Chapter IV.

“Liberation Theory: Axioms and Working Assumptions aboutthe Perpetuation of Social Oppression,” by Ricky Sherover-Marcuse. Reprinted by permission.

DEMOCRACY AND LIBERATION

Liberation Theory 17

7. No one is naturally or genetically oppressive; nohuman being is born as an oppressor. No one is naturallyor genetically destined to be oppressed; no one is born tobe oppressed.

8. The “positive re-enforcements” and social rewardsthat people get for going along with their conditioningwould not in themselves be sufficient to secure theiracceptance of the social roles of oppressor or oppressed.The “acceptance” of these social roles is first made possi-ble as a result of the individual’s own experience ofoppression, originally as a young person.

9. Being socialized into the oppressed role is a painfulexperience for young people of the target group. Beingsocialized into the oppressor role is a painful experiencefor young people of the non-target group - in spite of thepositive re-enforcements and material benefits that goalong with this role.

10. Part of the conditioning experience is the misinfor-mation that socialization into these roles is not painful. Insome cases the pain of the conditioning is recognized forpeople in the target group. It is seldom recognized forpeople of the non-target group. The conditioning expe-riences are portrayed as “a normal part of growing up”.Often the original awareness that this socialization waspainful gets obscured, or forgotten.

11. The perpetuation of any particular oppressionrequires that the pain of being socialized into either theoppressed or the oppressor role be forgotten, or dis-counted. The discounting or “normalizing” of the painfulaspects of the conditioning process thus becomes ameans for perpetuating all forms of oppression.

12. People who are the targets of any particular form ofoppression have resisted and attempted to resist theirsocialization into the oppressive role. The fact that thisresistance is not generally recognized is itself a feature ofthe oppression.

13. People who are the non-targets of any particularoppression have resisted and attempted to resist theirsocialization into the oppressive role. The fact that thisresistance is not generally recognized is also a feature ofthe oppression.

14. In addition to force and the threat of force, oppres-sion is perpetuated through the generation and recyclingof systematic misinformation about the nature, history,and the abilities of the target group. Because this misin-formation is socially empowered and sanctioned, it func-tions as the justification for the continued mistreatmentof the target group.

15. Each group targeted by oppression inevitably“internalizes” the mistreatment and misinformationabout itself. The target group thus “mis-believes” aboutitself the same misinformation which pervades the socialsystem. This “mis-believing” expresses itself in behaviorand interactions between members of the target groupwhich repeat the content of their oppression.Internalized oppression is always an involuntary reaction tothe experience of oppression on the part of the target group.To blame the target group in any way for having inter-nalized the consequences of their oppression is itself anact of oppression. �