In the eyes of the state, the ill individual is abnormal and the abnormal individual is ill. The individual who acts in contradiction to the state’s oppression is deemed to be unhealthy and requires coercion into the “right” path as if a sane, healthy individual would willingly desire oppression. According to Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, B.F. Skinner, and Mitchel Foucault we are controlled, coerced, and oppressed by the state and societal structures we live in. So much so that our social fabric has almost become dependent on the continued homogenization of individuality in order to function properly. However, as it turns out, even when conscious of oppression and control, people most often do not go against it. To analyze and understand the systems or mechanisms of oppression, it is more appropriate to look not where it first originated, but rather what has enabled its continued existence.
As Reich states in the Mass Psychology of Fascism, despite their harsh working conditions and overall miserable state, the working class does not rebel[1]. The fact that a hungry man steals food is self-explanatory. What is complicated is not why we rebel, but rather why we don’t rebel almost all of the time[2]. We are continually subjected to familial, societal, religious, economic and political oppression –which are not unrelated to each other– of our individualities yet we tolerate it to the most extreme of circumstances. Reich defines this oppression as a diversion of the libidinal energy to be directed towards a goal of the state or the church through the use of abstract concepts of duty to the nation or the love of God[3]. There is a certain factor of fear of the destruction of the social fabric we exist in if we do not give up certain liberties for security both physically and mentally. Mentally as in, to maintain our saneness and sense of the fabric of reality we live in which has been conditioned throughout history by those who hold power, i.e. political and religious institutions.
For example, there is fear in some communities –from my own experience with Muslim societies which might also be applicable to conservatives in the U.S. that enabling free gender identification destroys all social fabric by attacking its essential familial structure and the individuals own place within it. What follows from this destruction of family structures and the previous barriers against non-compliance to gender norms is the facilitation of everyone to will against gender conformity. However, inherently implied in this logic is that they themselves perceive the oppression as a necessity and that they actively accept their own sexual oppression, perhaps aware that they themselves have a natural tendency for sexual attraction to an individual of the same sex. Yet they forsake such desires or feelings for a “greater good” which they cannot grasp but merely assume its existence and essentiality. This is a direct result of having been conditioned as such by the state, culture, religion, etc. to conform to its norms and ideals even when it is in contradiction to one’s own nature.
This ‘conditioning’ and its continued maintenance of control can take multiple forms, most immediately having to do with human behavior. B. F. Skinner defines these behavioral control methods often used by institutions as “Aversive Control”[4], which is the negative reinforcement of behavior to have people submit to its rule. Once a person submits to it, the oppressive behavior is reinforced as a “pattern of social coordination” enabling an endless repletion of the oppression[5]. One example he gives to explain this phenomenon is the slave being whipped to work who ends up reinforcing the whipping behavior when he performs according to the will of the master[6]. Those who wish to escape the system can, but doing so makes them outliers of culture to become hobos, or begin attacking the system to become hippies.[7]
Michael Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, takes on a slightly different focus on the preservation of oppression by looking to the state’s effective use of surveillance to exert systematic discipline in prisons[8]. He aims to use the penal system as an example to the faults in the system since he believes the prison system is no exception to the norm. The “apparatuses of discipline” are always there, the prison is merely the “intensification” of this mechanism of control[9]. “Bentham’s Panopticon” – the architecturally structured prison where one supervisor can see all the prisoners while the prisoners can see neither the supervisor nor any of the other cellmates– is the physical embodiment of the effectiveness of surveillance since the prisoner becomes “the object of information, never a subject in communication”[10]. Effectively getting rid of any possible freedom of the prisoners by making them conscious and anxious by every single action they take, knowing they may be being watched at any given moment.
Foucault adds to Skinner’s idea of ‘aversive control’ by explaining that institutions distinguish the hardworking individual from the lazy and use separate ‘tactics’ of coercion accordingly. Foucault finds that “gratification-punishment” is more effective for the lazy by rewarding their hard work while aversive punishment is better for controlling the industrious so as to maintain the good behavior[11]. This “regime of disciplinary power” distinguishes individuals according to their behaviors by rewarding those that perform according to the hypothetical norm imagined by the ‘regime’ while punishing those who don’t or are going against it. The method of organizing this hierarchical ‘discriminatory’ method of assigning punishment is through examination[12]. Of course, examination could be used in other ways of oppression through it, the regime can standardize knowledge by coercing students. The regime defines what is important by including it in the exam, whatever is not included is decidedly unimportant and thus overlooked by the student who does not question it. What use is attaining knowledge that will not be on the exam? There is no incentive to gain separate knowledge, but there exists coercion into spending time on the assigned parts so as to escape punishment and be rewarded. Thus, thought becomes limited to a sphere of knowledge defined by the regime which is made up of whatever is useful in the progress of itself, not the individual.
Skinner also looks at “gratification-punishment” claiming that positive reinforcement is as much a barrier to freedom and a form of coercion as is negative reinforcement[13]. One of the examples he gives is prisoners who are given better living conditions or other benefits when they volunteer in perhaps dangerous experiments[14]. The prisoners have little to no choice and were put into the conditions they were in by regime in the first place. The same force that enabled their bad condition has the power over them to make it better, no power is at the hands of the prisoners.
This brings about the question as to whether we are free under such conditions of coercion? In One Dimensional Man, Marcuse asks what constitutes a free individual and whether we are actually free even though we are coerced by state institutions or the commercial system under which what we perceive as our needs are not entirely created by our own will[15]. His conceptualization of freedom is not the ability to be able to do something but instead to be free from its necessity[16]. Which means the freedom from the economic and political system we are continuously subjected to. Our individual needs –which are no longer our own– are preconditioned by society’s “dominant interest” which demands our “repression”[17]. He considers free competition for prices, a self-censored free press, and free choice of goods as being “deceptive liberties”[18]. They all use the word ‘free’, but have no actual freedom in them. A ‘free’ choice of goods that have all been produced by the same conglomerate corporation. The ‘free’ media which prejudices how a story is framed in order to induce certain emotions and thoughts or sets a certain agenda to influence and manipulate what people think about.
In contrast, Skinner has a sliver hope for escape from this system with the existence of a “literature of freedom” which is designed to induce people to oppose this systematic control[19]. The literature contrasts conditions in which people live in, to conditions of a freer world which makes their conditions seem worse in comparison. Perhaps even worse than it actually is, but the amount necessary to create a reaction to it. The actions induced are often aimed at questioning government and religion, overthrowing tyrants, and striking against capitalists. But unfortunately, the government has its ways of going against this by banning travel, imprisoning and killing defectors[20] which can dissuade many from being induced into action in the first place. His claim is that although very little rebellions against mechanisms of control have actually taken place historically, some of these rebellions have actually been able to change aversive practices[21] implying that there could be change in the future as well.
However, according to Marcuse this “literature of freedom” has lost the meaning it once held because of its ‘commercialization’. Society has “depleted” the artistic dimension of works that were made to contradict culture. Instead, these works of literature, art, or music ended up being assimilated into it without decreasing much of the oppressive system’s own power of control[22]. To explain this he gives the example of books once thought to be radical and even banned in many countries to now being sold in drugstores[23]. Perhaps it has depleted in value to a point where it has become another imagined need through the deterioration of the line between social and individual needs. These artistic works, through their commercialization, have become another false need to identify with so as to feel part of a homogenized whole, devoid of real meaning or of a genuine desire to attain the true artistic meaning of the work. What occurs is that people identify themselves and each other by the commodities they own, stereotypes from around wearing a specific type of clothes, having a specific model of a car with people, or in commercialized art and literature. We choose to identify in these items and “find our souls” in them, even when it comes to kitchen equipment[24].
The mechanism of oppression works through the binding of consumers to the products which they have been made to have a false sense of need for[25]. The system is so ingrained to our every day, that it is nearly impossible to escape it, god or religion doesn’t bring any solace either since the system is able to consume and include rebellions against it by incorporating it within itself[26]. An example of this might be the commercialization of once rebellious movements such as LGBTQ+ or feminism. Which was rebellious toward the culture of oppression but slowly somehow became a part of it and became commercialized and turned into a popular culture.
This assimilation and commercialization of movies, music, and literature is especially heavily criticized by Adorno and Horkheimer, who call the production of popular culture the “culture industry” [27] because of the way it produces the same “trash”, and recycles it –which the masses have come to accept. This ‘sameness’ is systematic and works towards the homogenization of society[28]. “Something is provided tor everyone so that no one can escape; differences are hammered home and propagated”[29] The companies work to meet the demand of as many as possible even if it is a bad or indistinguishable product from another. Those who resist this culture industry fail and die out, the only survivors are those that incorporate within the system by being mainstream[30]. What is not mainstream is immediately criticized as inadequate and not up to par with the normalcy that has consumed the culture industry which ends up making everything produced mediocre at best[31]. Movies end up becoming extensions of reality with only a slight twist instead of portraying dream worlds and phantasies[32]. As an example to the ultimate culture industry, Turkish soap operas are immensely popular throughout the Middle East and each episode lasts on average two hours but can be almost four with commercials in between. They are incredibly dull and have no qualitative difference from any real-life situation but are only dramatized to be only slightly more interesting, yet people come back every week with immense enthusiasm.
The culture industry works to shapes our view of the world and define normalcy. The glorification of the heroes in movies[33] is one of the greatest examples of the influence of the culture industry on societies. We come to glorify individuals based on looks or acting skills as if this was the basis of good character. There are many who idolize the Kardashians based on mere looks alone. The same individuals who most likely know little to none about actual heroes that might rightfully be idolized, look instead to buy one of the Kardashian’s lipstick to be more like her.
Under the capitalist system of supply and demand, creating more demand for a film, piece of art, or music and in general producing to adapt for as many people’s needs as possible creates the most profit. However, it has the unintended consequence of producing mediocre work. But the state is also able to benefit by this man produced, mass-produced product to propagate and homogenize society. The danger that arises from the sameness in mass culture is that it emphasizes chance[34]. The consumers are made to believe that it is not necessarily effort that leads to success but rather chance. They become entirely at the will of the system that makes people rise up or fall[35].
None of the authors advocate for a complete overhaul of the current system or imagine utopic ideals of what a society without systems of oppression should be. Some, like Skinner see hope for possible changes to the current system of control while others like Marcus almost reject the possibility of changing the circumstances. Indeed, Reich and Foucault see a certain necessity in mechanisms of control. Foucault is skeptical of the idea that control is evil because it is the opposite of freedom. Not all forms of control are bad and might even be necessary, to a certain extent, for the social fabric of human societies.[36]
