Critical Thinking: Can Someone’s Childhood Set Them Up To Feel Comfortable Living In An Oppressive Society?

In the western world, it has become a challenge for people to speak their mind online or offline. If they do this, they can end up getting into trouble, with what they come out with being seen as ‘hate speech’ for example.

Or to be more precise, it has become a challenge for people to speak their mind if what they have to say goes against what is seen as acceptable. Therefore, as long as they only come out with things that are accepted, they will have the ‘freedom’ to express themselves.

An Analogy

This is then similar to how people in prison will have the freedom to walk around a certain area. In this area, they will be able to move their body freely and to go wherever they want to go.

Clearly, these people in prison are not free; if they were free, they would be able to walk in other areas. Likewise, people in society are not really free to express their views; if they were, they would be able to do so without getting into trouble.

Go Along To Get Along

While there will be people to openly talk about what is going on and even risk their livelihood by saying things that are not part of the accepted narrative (wrongthink), there will be plenty of others who will simply accept what is going on and keep their head down. When this takes place, it can be due to at least two reasons.

Someone like this could believe that they have too much to lose by sticking their head above the parapet, even though they are not on board with it. What could also add to this is that they may work for the government, giving them an even greater need to toe the line.

Another Reason

Alternatively, one might not even question what is going on, being only too happy to go along with it. What this could illustrate is that they feel comfortable with following rules and doing as they are told.

It is then going to be normal for them to listen to authority figures and to see these types of people as being all knowing. Going along with what they say will be what matters, not thinking for themselves and coming to their own conclusions.

A Strong Need

So, whether it relates to being told what they can say or anything else for that matter, they will willingly oblige. One is then going to look like an adult, but they will be acting more like a dependent child.

In the same way that a dependent child will need to be accepted in order to survive, they will need to be accepted in order to make sure that they are not excluded by others. Yet, while a child won’t have the ability to think critically, they simply won’t have the desire to think critically.

Getting Involved

What could also take place is that one could end up trying to keep the people who don’t go along with the accepted narrative in line. This probably won’t be because they have thought through what they stand for and are fully on board with it, it will most likely be a consequence of their need to belong.

Behaving in this way can be a way for them to prove how committed they are to the cause, strengthening their ties to their tribe. One can then live part of their life as a sheep and part of it as a sheep dog that is there to try to round up the malcontents.

The Foundations

It would be easy to believe that someone was just born this way, with them having DNA that makes them submissive and renders their critical faculties useless in the face of authority. However, what this can show is that their childhood years set them up to feel comfortable with this type of behaviour.

At this stage of their life, they may have been brought up by at least one parent who acted like a tyrant. One would then have had to do whatever this person said, not being able to express themselves freely.

An Extremely Oppressive Environment

There would then have been things that they could do and say, and things that they couldn’t do and say. During these years, it may have felt as though they were constantly walking around on eggshells.

Thus, instead of them being able to form a strong connection to themselves and to gradually develop a strong sense of self; they would have lost touch with themselves, remained undeveloped and formed a false-self that would have allowed them survive. Their aggression, the part of them that would have allowed them to break away and to become an individual, will then have been split-off.

Crushed

Ultimately, this parent would have broken their will, setting them up to be a submissive and fearful being in the process. The trauma that they experienced at the hands of this parent may stop them from ever stepping out of line.

This parent would have also given them all the training that they needed to act like a tyrant themselves; that is, of course, if they allow this to happen. If they do, trying to control others can be an indirect way for them to get revenge.

Awareness

It can be hard to understand why someone would treat others in the same way that they were treated, especially as it caused them so much pain. Due to the effect an experience like this can have on someone’s whole being, they can end up being possessed by their pain.

What they went through will have made it hard for their brain to function in the right way and for them to experience self-awareness. The outcome is that the person who was abused ends up becoming the person who abuses.
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As for someone whose will has been broken as a result living in a very oppressive environment as a child, it could take a lot of healing until they are able to become an integrated human being. With the assistance of a therapist or a healer, for instance, it can happen. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk