[Are “benefits” in a capitalist society really just incentives to perpetuate oppression? Doesn’t this make everyone miserable? Is a benefit or a privilege, as we experience it, akin to consciously stepping on others in order to remain comfortable? Is this why we feel such a strange mixture of hatred and guilt towards “others” who do not share our values? Is anything in our society a benefit or a privilege, or is it all just different forms of oppression?]

Whenever there is an “us” and a “them”, everybody suffers, and they suffer at different degrees of intensity — wherein the more distanced from the "norm" one is, the worse off for their well-being.

Let’s go back to Caitlin Jenner and the white family. Both parties experience privileges and oppression of all kinds: the oppression and the incorrect assumptions of Jenner/LGBTQ community is reinforced by biased media and by the volatile social reactions of oppressed whites: and, visa versa, the oppression and incorrect assumptions of whites is reinforced by biased media and volatile reactions from the LGBTQ community. When one side gets benefits, the other side feels threatened in their social standing, and, so, reacts: visa versa.

Elements of privilege, power, and oppression are the basis of our entire society, and, so, we are all guilty of feeding the monster we claim to hate so much. From the most lowly member, to the most esteemed; from the most loyal to the most anarchistic: the collective society is made up of all of us, and, if we are failing, all of us are to blame. Maybe to different degrees: but, then again, what is the difference between creating a dangerous ideology, and upholding one? Is there no difference? And if there is, how should we treat it? Just as we contribute willingly or unwillingly to privilege oppression, the willingness of participants in a capitalist society is negligible: survival is contingent upon participants who simultaneously provide capitalism its resources and act as its consumers; you are either one of the .01 percent who control the country, or you are oppressed to one degree or another. You can either try hard, and stomp on a bunch of other people: or give up, and get stomped out.

We are convinced that the present system is necessary in order to survive: what's funny, is that the system is at the root of our unhappiness, and now moving us towards our collective demise.

The whole conservative/liberal argument over whether or not systemic oppression exists, and if so to what extent, is so muddled for a very clear reason: people want to maintain positions, not actually find out what’s wrong. Liberals are correct in saying there is, within our country, a system of organized and sometimes violent oppression which is designed to make the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer. That is a completely valid and, in my opinion, true statement: it is a very normal, predictable outcome of capitalism. The problem is with the way the argument has been framed: the idea that it is white people alone who benefit from and perpetuate this system. The problem with this: it wasn’t just “any” white people, it was the people who were already rich, who wrote the laws, who were the intended beneficiaries of this system. Certain white people spread ideologies which supplemented people’s natural fear of the Other in an attempt to divide people along lines of race, sex, et. al. That white people are the conscious maintainers of, and participants in, this system of oppression is not only false, it also causes wave of backlash from poor, disillusioned whites, who cannot see the truth that lies within this semi-correct statement.

It happens unconsciously, in small ways: ideologies become second-hand, and go unquestioned by-and-large for generations. Have you ever said something you've heard, and then wondered for a second if you really believed it? The reason this is allowed to continue, unconsciously, is because of the greater issue of wealth and power inequality, which cause segregation, which causes extreme variations in ideologies within close distances.

Capitalism, and its subsequent wealth inequality, causes a new form of segregation: private schools versus public schools. Public schools in wealthy areas, versus middle class areas, versus poor areas. Homogeneously grouped neighborhoods, counties, regions, and states. Rigid, niche interest groups. A dozen different subgroups for each of the millions of different social movements. And it's great that we have so many different ideas going on, it's kind of amazing: the problem with having this many differences is that the groups are all very inclusive, and generally homogeneous: they do not, cannot, experience outside themselves; the world they know is painted by the people around them, the media they receive, the information they choose to pay attention to or ignore.

So only if Every Person was able to give their input on an event, would coverage become more equal and less biased: even if everybody was biased in their observation, you would be able to receive a picture of the whole from pieces of each person’s perception. But when a select group of people (politicians, celebrities, media, etc.) are the agenda setters, the idea generators, the masses begin arguing within limits that do not apply to real life: arguments either become abstract and meaningless, or resort to emotion and bias. This is the worst possible thing. Think about it: if instead of a select few, Every Person had a say in the laws of their community, maybe the laws could be written in ways that would benefit everyone. If big changes began to occur on smaller scales, maybe policy would not fail to do what it set out to do. Maybe if Every Person in a community began to take responsibility for the change they wish to see in their community, Every Person in other communities would begin to follow suit: maybe Every Person could help one another. Maybe this could be a unifying goal: to work with one another to actively improve society.

Because right now, we are not unified.

Not only that: as things stand, the whole “white men are the cause of all problems” comes off as shallow in its simplicity, and belittles the very people the statement is trying to affect. A part of being Politically Correct, if you really want to get into what that means, is realizing that even ideas that you loathe must be treated with understanding: you can’t brush off someone because you hate their idea, or that person will have the incentive to exact revenge. It causes a chasm. Being Politically Correct is something that we desperately need right now, but something we have not even come close to achieving: think about it, if you are a conservative and you are voting for Donald Trump, and you think that Hillary Clinton, and her voters, are idiots. All of em. And Hillary Clinton voters: yes, you. You most likely think that Trump and his supporters are absolutely brain dead. But the truth is that broad political statements like these sacrifice any true reconciliation, and more importantly make it impossible to achieve a legitimate intersectional analysis of how social relations actually operate. If you ignore somebody else because you "know" they are wrong, you have created another problem. By ignoring dissenters, one ignores the role that you play in the broader social discourse. It ignores vast numbers of the population, and turns humans into statistics and polls. Most importantly, it dehumanizes: if we cannot believe that there is depth and reason and wisdom of some sort beneath every human experience, then what do we have to believe in?

Absolutely nothing.

During what discourse we have had in this country about oppressive power structures, there has been a trend of simplifying real issues of class, gender, sexuality, social status, and dozens of other social groups, in order to create talking points and spread one-sided [divisive] beliefs [dogmatism]: this is done by both liberals and conservatives. Although breaking this multi-sided struggle into smaller sections is important in terms of analyzing and discoursing on the real idea of systems of privilege/oppression, and for spreading the debate out towards the general consciousness, it also, obversely, causes hatred between the myriad of rapidly proliferating discourse communities, providing the final link in total alienation: categorization of human beings negates humanity and truth in order to illustrate a point, and, so, is not an accurate representation of who we are as a whole.

I was listening to the radio the other day, and heard Michael Savage talking about the liberal media, and Donald Trump’s position towards the liberal media. “I’d like to talk to Trump myself,” he said, “Talk to him about the liberal media and ask him what he plans to do to take these guys down. I mean, they got to go. Liberalism is a mental disorder, it needs to be erased, defeated, Trumped.” (He actually emphasized the ‘Trump’ part of ‘Trumped’, so you could tell it was a neologism).

Now here’s the first thing to point out: people like Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, et. al., do not really believe anything they are saying. Maybe they do to an extent, but if they do it’s because they haven’t actually thought about it; or their character has taken over who they are. These are tactical moves they are making: none of these thoughts hold up to scrutiny. The point of these thoughts are to entertain the darker side of human consciousness, trying to get people all worked up. Just like the tactical moves that liberal celebrities and politicians make. They give a bit of truth, edit the clip to fit into the context of the point they are making, and then twist that truth until it turns into a happy little half-lie half-truth.

The problem is both sides: the problem is capitalism.

(Short interruption: then again, remember that for the conservative talk show radio listener, capitalism is what gives them whatever they have in the first place: it’s what makes their lives more patriotic, more meaningful, what makes their life possible in the first place. And then, for liberals, this is also true: we are weaned into submission through biased media and material privileges (products of capitalism); and all of the division is reinforced by the perceived “inherent” differences between liberals and conservatives.)

This is how extremism occurs.

Who cares whether it was the fault of the day and age or the fault of the person: if you can’t even operate outside of an inherently oppressive system, then aren’t we all guilty? Then, wouldn’t it follow that if people are oppressed to different degrees, then they are also guilty to different degrees? The majority of people were and still are working class: it is the same for all races, religions, genders, etc.

Let that sink in: most of America is working class (over 50%). WORKING CLASS.

If you’re working class, you’re already oppressed by wage slavery: if you are in the middle class, you have more economic freedom, but you are still restricted by the prejudices of those richer and more powerful than you, and the prejudices of those who are less (only slightly) economically powerful, but greater in number, than you.

The Privileged and Semiprivileged classes hates the Working/Oppressed classes. The Working/Oppressed classes hate the Middle and the Upper classes. The Middle class hates the Upper classes and the Lower classes.

No matter your race, gender, sexual/gender orientation, etc.: you live within the confines of your greater social class(es), and your privilege is a result of your proximity to not only the “normal” qualities of an American, but also your socio-economic positioning. Caitlin Jenner is rich, but she identifies with two discourse communities: the Celebrity, and the transgender. This does not change the fact of her privileges via Celebrity life: but it does change her privileges within that life. It changes her social standings amongst other individuals in the field, and there are probably other oppressive factors that we are unaware of: but the fact remains that she is significantly better off materially than the starving white family. A starving, white, heteronormative family is privileged in the context of their own social circles: amongst other poor whites. But alongside Caitlin Jenner, or middle class folk, the poor white family is oppressed in their own ways: economically, politically, ideologically. While Caitlin Jenner experiences passive emotional oppression in the form of bigotry towards her, and faces the potential for active emotional oppression in terms of slurs and potential violence due to bigotry, she does not face much active oppression. Whereas the impoverished white family faces active emotional oppression from liberal media (I’m thinking of Trump supporters, in this instance), passive emotional oppression via the followers of that media, as well as facing a lot of active physical oppression in the form of financial disadvantages.

In the end, though, it’s money that divides us all; what keeps whites and blacks, men and women, rich/poor/middle class, gay and straight, disabled and non-disabled, etc., together, yet alienated, from one another.

The heart of this system, its substructure, is money; winning and failing; gaining and losing: it’s the keystone around which the world and its various power structures have decided to operate and construct themselves. If systems of monetary exchange and their inherent flaws (racism, sexism, ableism, et. al.) are the substructure of our modern life, then human beings and their material existence make up the superstructure: everything we are and aspire to be and have built is a result of the restrictions implied in the substructure, whether in accordance with or in reaction to. The superstructure (humankind) represents combinations of different parts of the substructure.

So how do we change the substructure that dictates American life? Better yet, what would a new substructure look like? What possibilities are there for the future? And how can we even think about that when there are still so many problems left to be solved, questions to be asked and answered, new questions to form?

The answer is obvious: get rid of the monetary system, and live for our communities. Decide to grow up: go to work because it helps better us, because it helps others, not because we want to be rich and powerful. It would get rid of so many institutions who don’t do anything at all, even if they mean well: it would get rid of the justice system, lawsuits, courts, and other oppressive institutions, and replace it all with a system of highly empathetic, well-interconnected individuals, who recognize the collective human interest in preserving our human family. If we got rid of useless managers, stock brokers and traders, investors, etc., we would be rid of useless loss of our own material: we would be the sole beneficiaries of our own work. We have the tools now to manage ourselves: I imagine a world where we use the internet in order to stay connected with the wider region, nation, and world; wherein everyone is a journalist, an organizer, a community volunteer, and an activist. Where progress is measured by how much good we do in the world, not by how much money is made or saved: where Every Person’s input allows the communities to take care of Every Person in a truly Equal way.

But this is a dream. This is a fantasy. The reality is far more complex, and people have many too different ideas at this point to be brought together by something that would take hard work.

I also believe, however fantastic the idea, that abolishing monetary and hierarchical systems is our only chance at coming to reconcile all types of xenephobia. Much of Western thought is built on the idea that differences can or should be hierarchically organized into “best and worst”: the reality is that there is no way to equate two human beings; you simply cannot do it.

The fact of the matter is that context is linked inextricably to time and contemporary life, and, so, is ever-unfolding: and, if context is ever-unfolding, we can never truly be sure of the correctness of anything. Keep in mind that the (potential) future generations will see our lives completely different than we are able to. Who knows what we are correct about: in 50 years, we may still be looked at as intelligent, compassionate. But how many years until our ancestors regard us as barbaric, hopelessly lost?

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear when we make a mistake. And it's pretty clear that capitalism, hierarchical values, and the monetary system are some of the big mistakes humans have ever let happen. We allowed a system to be erected, wherein the people who benefit from the system the most, have control over the rules of that system: leaving everybody else to the wind. And until capitalism, the love of materialism, the lust for power, and the love of comfort are thoroughly abolished — until the love of concept and material changes into the love of the physical, one another, our earth — we will be unable to see one another for who we truly are. Only after we erase the ideas that humans should be placed in hierarchical systems, and that land can be owned, will we be able to honestly understand and confront oppression in all of its nuance: until then, we will be lost in this fog, wherever we are.