Couple Thoughts

Trying to give someone a voice and release their human potential from its current realization means not just defending (advocating for) this person against structures of oppression, but encouraging them to become a new person, i.e., realizing hidden aspects of life-experience. How we do this without giving ammunition to their (our) oppressors is a real problem. Acknowledging personal weaknesses can create vulnerability in the context of interpersonal interaction, which may make vulnerability worse. Dealing with my own challenges, I would rather fully admit to being pathetic (that I have had my potential limited) and reveal room for development than to affirm my present wounded self as being of equal value to everyone. Shaming the world for this tragedy is one tactic, but it`s not very strategic (especially in the long-term, acknowledging backlash), and it only addresses negative affects usually provoking further unequal confrontations. We need to ask: how can people actually develop in such a way that they avoid falling into these marginal traps over and over again? How can we heal the wounds oppression has left without returning to their marks and licking our wounds? How can we enable meaning-making practices once again, where our interactions have been compressed reduced to grunts and blunt gestures. What good does complaining about the system have when you are afraid to break out of your terrifying condition, which prevents you from embodying the change you admit needs to happen.

Our communication is so weak and ineffective (stilted) at times, not because we need to make it more rational (effective?), but because it`s not firmly grounded in dispositions. Dispositions are the unconscious inclinations that guide people toward certain habits and associations, such as aesthetic ways of perceiving and greeting a familiar person, and then inserting them in the social flow of conversation. There is no formal rule that tells you that you must act as such, but the urge or tendency can still be overwhelming. You may not even notice the non-verbal meaning being communicated. However, I think that people are used to picturing each other as fetishized characters, and that social media further compresses many social interactions to textual info-data, separating people even more from their experience. One the one hand, there is inhibition to speak in social settings, while on the other hand, some unaware people speak completely out of place, ignoring the sense of timing and contextual cues that provide meaning. I notice for the former mass of people, most later talk internally with their clique of friends or acquaintances, while for the latter, the awkwardly social people (socially awkward but not shy) apparently have little depth of thought which they can articulate. Meanwhile, we allow advertising and mass culture to appropriate our popular sayings, gestures, even emotions. Can we have a confident interaction that is not overbearing or instantly spotlighted by mechanisms trying to appropriate it (subordinate it to power), or that must mean something after? The rejection of this ordinary sense (and sensuality) stems from the strained repetitions forced by a state of panic - as well as the larger mood of fear characterizing being hustled and oppressed. We have got to think about our emotional well-being a bit more, if we want to improve the quality of our interactions. But all we think about is our survival, and then we universalize this until it becomes self-interest.