Chris Dillow: The errors of the oppressed

Chris Dillow explores The errors of the oppressed.

It is of course true that one of the great problems for Marxism has been that the working class has not developed the class consciousness that Marx hoped for. But why should other oppressed groups fare any better?

Now, this is NOT to say that such groups should not be heard and should instead be represented by wiser heads such as um, well white male PPE graduates. For one thing, the more privileged have weaker incentives to fight inequality. And for another, they/we too are also prone to cognitive biases: one of the sillier if unintended implications of the “nudge” agenda has been the idea that rulers are free of cognitive error.

Instead, we much distinguish sharply between two questions: “what do you think?” and “what do you know?” It’s the latter that matters. For example, the everyday sexism project has awakened me to the troubles that women face far more than windy feminist theory has done.

Which brings me to the problem. The institutions that might give voice to the lives of the most oppressed — the poor both here and globally; women and gays in backward communities and so on — are to say the least under-developed. One of the symptoms of genuine oppression is that one’s voice is not heard. When this absence is combined with the lack of mechanisms to counter false consciousness, it is small wonder that injustice is perpetuated.

Emphasis Mine

This is why an alternative media, such as Green Left Weekly, is so important as it allows the voices of the oppressed to be heard.