Pensive Perspective: Part II - The Pyramid Pit

In Part I, I showed how my commitment to issues of injustice comes from my greatest fear of helplessness. Despite recognizing my inability to stop the greatest tragedies of our time, I would rather dedicate my life trying to change the system than to hide in practiced ignorance of how I affect the world. I have struggled with, and still struggle with, recognizing my position in this world and the large-scale implications of that.

It is not easy to see ourselves when we can no longer be judged solely on how we immediately and intentionally affect those around us. In the end, our position in this world is not determined by ourselves; we are inherently a part of a global system that operates above the individual level. In order to see how I truly affect the world, I had to open myself to a perspective that is not easily digested. It requires humility and an acceptance that much of what I have is undeserved and was/is gained through the denial and oppression of others. This is because I, as a wealthy, white, tall, Christian, physically capable, United States citizen, cannot escape the privilege that inherently comes with those and other roles I hold.

For example: my position now as a successful college graduate, with a Fulbright grant to research in a foreign country is commendable on an individual scale. I worked hard in school, and I earned this grant through the US State Department, which provides me with more than enough funds to accomplish my work. Yet as soon as I back away from my personal experience, I begin to see how my “merit” was given to me as a result of the roles I fell into at birth.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction 

- Newton's 3rd Law of Motion

It would be naïve to think that the positive positions I have gained have not come at a negative cost to others; have not come through the oppression of those who come from any number of backgrounds not sanctioned by our white, male, heterosexual, wealthy, Christian, non-disabled patrons.

As I have come to learn more about the intersectionalities of my own identity I have begun to see how that has been created and is maintained by a standard world order.

It isn’t easy to look, and it takes a great deal of time and reflection – time I have as a result of my privileged position. I do not claim my perspective to be truth, merely a manner that I currently make sense of the world I see. If you chose to continue reading my philosophical ramblings, I will take you on a journey through the “Pyramid Pit,” as I have come to call it. This metaphor is what I now use to organize my understanding of the human injustices in the world: how they exist and how they are maintained. I see it as relevant to understanding how the evils of the world are justified in the minds of the perpetrators: from war lords, to politicians, to playground bullies. It also helps me to understand how good people can be a part of so much evil.

In short, the Pyramid Pit is the system of oppression that was founded in fabricated ideas of superiority that have become so widely accepted that they no longer require active enforcement.

It is a pyramid because it is based in ideas of an increasingly exclusive hierarchy, yet the multiple facets of identity and ideas of superiority contort and stretch each member of the human species so that the clean structure of a pyramid is shambolic in its form. Instead of clear delineations of power, our identities throw us into this massive pit of human fear and loathing.

Originally created by the musings of the privileged few who fit their self-proclaimed position of authority (typically men of social status), ideas of superiority were flexible to some degree throughout history. But over thousands of years, ideas of human delineation are now a self-propelled system of oppression through shared values that translate almost universally.

The man on top of the pyramid does not need to force those below into their place. Those who embody some aspect of created inferiority validate their existence by pushing their shame on those whose “faults” they can prey upon in turn: “I may not ever be able to see the top, but I can look down on those heads I stand on. I suffer the weight of my sex, but at least I can hold myself above all these races/above those whose bodies don’t function like mine.”

And those who bear the burden of never matching this world’s ideal, turn on one another in self-loathing. Pushed to the point of collapse by the pressure they can never escape, they fight and claw at those they touch. Sure they hate the white, males whose wealth and power they support with their weakened bodies, but that hatred, like those men, is something vague and out of reach, too far above this current position. How can they direct their hatred toward some illusive body when they face the real and physical pain and hunger in their immediate position? So they direct their hate and anger toward themselves and others, as they grab and jerk and pull themselves in the futile attempt to find peace from the pressure.

At the top of this human pit,

a jumbled pyramid of broken and crushed, mangled and bruised bodies.

At the top of this human tower,

above the contorted corpses of the “lesser,”

we find the inheritors of the system. They did not climb there themselves. They never had to come close enough to shove others below. History did that for them. But they do nothing to destroy it, and therefore they maintain and sustain it. If they understood the reality of their position; knew that by just being on top, they contribute to the pain of those below, they would freeze in terror and self-loathing. They are not willing to look where it is they stand. They enjoy their pedestal above the fray and they believe that spot to be their rightful place.  They see the bloodbath and the oppression of others, and they wonder why those others don’t pull themselves up to find the peaceful liberty of their “meritocracy.” They look at their position as a direct result of their own self – ignoring the bloody history of their forefathers. They think this way because it allows them to breathe deep the air they are surrounded by. If they were to glance down on what their self stands upon, they would gasp in horror and choke at what is holding up their bootstraps. They would see that their own two feet stand there because of the millions they stand upon – both those living and the corpses of those their forefathers crushed in order to make this summit. They are above the melee not because they are separate from it, but because they contain it. It is their position that oppresses.

We are all born the same, but we cannot be born equal, for we are immediately tainted by the world we live in. Women are painted with inferiority from the instant their “weaker” form is pulled from their mother. “Blacks” are lessened before they are even conceived, their parents having but one genetic outcome; yet the degree of his or her subservience will be determined later by phenotype.

Yet a few have dared to look up, to look down, and to look outside themselves to recognize the role they play in this war of mistaken values. Those within the melee see their anger and the anger of those around them to be misplaced, and a few of them go beyond to recognize it is the system, not its gatekeepers they hate. For the gatekeepers at the top are also victims, though their suffering negligible. The system has been brilliantly constructed to preserve the ignorance of those who maintain it: Disabled blame the “abled”, women blame the men, white Hispanics blame both non Hispanic whites and blacks, atheist blame the devout. The system is not a ladder but an awful pit of anger and putrid bigotry. Those that hold power without validity develop self-righteousness. And those that have no one higher to blame push the fault back on top of the mass they stand on. They push the blame down or up because no one wants to face the possibility that perhaps some of the fault lies within themselves.

But all below feel the pressure upon them, and those that stand at the highest, feel the fragility of the glass ceiling they stand above.

Those that recognize the pyramid pit for what is it are few and far between. Perhaps that is because this recognition cannot change one’s position. There is no nirvana that can be reached. Those below may stop their grabbing and punching and desperate attacks on those around them because they recognize the futility and the self-destruction of the misplaced anger. This does not mean they are removed from the pressure of the pit and it does not remove them from, or make them immune to, the misdirected attacks of others.

Those above who see and recognize where they are and what they stand upon first must free themselves from the debilitating shock and desire to indulge in their guilt. Guilt is something self-inflicted and stifling. The self-created pressure of guilt does nothing for those who still suffocate beneath the privileged feet.

So what are we to do? For we all stand on the suffering of others.

First we recognize and we admit. By admitting our own weight we relieve a little of the pressure. It may be no more than the weight of a straw, but that may save the back of someone you stand on. We admit to place pressure on ourselves by removing it from those below us who do not deserve their position. We admit that we gained our higher position not by pulling ourselves up, but by pushing others down. And by admitting this, we accept the deserved anger of those who have been denied so that we may succeed. And by accepting that anger when properly placed, we help to stop the misplaced anger that causes people to hate themselves and those like them.

When people stop fighting themselves, they can better support the pressure from above. Then they become united and stop contributing to the system that holds them down.

When we stop fighting ourselves and blaming those below, the pyramid becomes easier to define amidst the pit. And only when we can see the system can we work together towards its deconstruction.

But Why would anyone who stands above want to relinquish that position?

This is what is so genius about the system built on believed superiority: everyone has a position to lose. Most would rather keep their place than risk falling, or have another group climb above. And because the deconstruction of this pyramid will take so much work, and trust in one another, we choose instead to focus on ourselves. We push and grab at the smallest breath of air we can get while we accept the pressure above as a given and try not to think about what lies below.

Despite the implications of my own position near the top, I would rather know the full horrors of the system I can’t help but be a part of, than to pretend it doesn’t exist. I would rather struggle with every breath not to support those above, but to instead lift up those around and me. And I would rather do this knowing full well that I will continue to support  and maintain the system, and I will keep my position above others, as I benefit at their defeat. I chose this because I cannot change the system, but I refuse to insult my fellow human beings around the world by pretending that I am not a part of it.