Week 10 - Analysis

In the Weight of the World, edited by Pierre Bourdieu, a closer look at some of the sociological issues faced by common and marginalized citizens (in France) is described. Issues including education, housing, the family, and others are investigated by a team of sociologists. In a particularly poignant article about housing projects that are the homes of several marginalized communities, issues of race, class, patriotism, nurture, and other things are discussed. The populations of marginalized people cannot relate to each other.

Each population has unvoiced cares and gripes about the municipal government. They all feel like life has been unfair but they do not understand each other and do not understand the ways in which the other handles the cares of life. It was interesting to note that while all the populations of people faced some of the same issues, they each had vastly different ideas of how to react to their situations.

All people, regardless of their backgrounds, education, training, or opportunities will react to tough situations in different ways. Some will continue to live within the laws and mores of society, silently without visible signs of unhappiness or protest while others choose a more active kind of protest, acting out in violence or breaking laws. Although the latter expresses the dissatisfaction with current circumstances where the former does not, the latter does not present arguments for reform or future change.

More often than not, the use of violence or breaking laws does not encourage a positive look at those who are under oppressive conditions but rather strengthens stereotypes about them. Statements like ‘they do not deserve…’ result from behavior that scares and threatens others. Others, especially those outside oppressive conditions, will not seek to understand when chaotic and unruly behavior characterizes those who do not want to live under those conditions. Negative stereotypes are reinforced and others do not question those stereotypes when they are presented with these kinds of archetypes.

What then is the way for oppressed people to respond to circumstances that are unfair or seemingly unfair? Recent history has only produced one powerful example of what people can do to effect change under oppressive conditions—and that was a large number of people for a sustained amount of time: the civil rights movement in the United States. Only with a non-violent, mass protest…and lots of bloodshed was this movement taken seriously by those who were not oppressed. Can any other way work? A violent overthrow, like the French Revolution, did eventually bring lasting change but also brought about a much more turbulent situation than existed before, some may argue.

No matter what, transformation is always difficult to bring about.