Carina Alessandro, Period 1, 02/07/2022

Socio-political Consciousness
What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power?
How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?


I believe that inequity is a result of imbalance of power, where one party’s (as in one person/group of people) influence gives them favors in a world where such benefits are not unlimited and therefore manages to oppress another. A common theme I’ve seen in entertainment and other narratives is that power corrupts. I agree to a large extent with this sentiment— though power is definitely often used for good, I feel it’s very easy to toe the line between universally good/neutral and oppressive, especially as so many actions taken in government inevitably takes power from one party and gives it to the other, be it a around corporations, communities, or politicians, making it technically oppression even if it’s to undo another. For example, there’s lobbying from both oil companies and renewable energy sources/advocates in government using their powers to advance or sustain their own cause— something I see myself in agreement on the side of renewable energy because of my own values even though its an action in itself I think to be immoral and devious. In this way I can see the truth that power corrupts because the presence of a corrupting force causes a necessity for its opposition to engage in their same means since that’s how the playing field has been set up. When you fight fire with fire, the intention is to have the chance to regrow where the battle left your grounds slashed and burned. I hope to think if we were able to calculate the amount of power used for good and bad, that there’s be a net positive. However, especially being in a politically divided environment, especially one with such a fraught and disheartening history, it’s hard for me to not be pessimistic on that front. On the other hand, though, when it comes to divergence of points of views, I try my best to see subjects from different lights. I watch educational videos on different subjects and sides, but I always feel dubious on how biased something is, and it’s always too affirming to hear a starkly opposing side. As someone who carries different opinions from those presented on the “news” channels my family watches, I can see both in me and them how one can weaponize an extreme interpretation of a point of view to make their own to look to have greater validity, which isn’t productive nor bares any understanding. If we do this we just assume everyone else is ignorant or immoral, but I notice myself realizing that, since I am aware of this fact and therefore to my knowledge I hold no sense of superiority for such a reason, I have no responsibility to self educate myself on every aspect of a topic just to justify my own beliefs or sympathize with others. Either way there’s no way to become an all-knowing expert on anything because there’s simply always too much nuance and our beliefs are usually too ingrained and strongly held to sway. This is not necessarily a weakness though— it seems to me much of our reluctance in government to make change in inequity and oppression is out of comfort in centralism and fear of displeasing an opposition, but anyone stubborn enough and powerful enough is capable of snuffing out corruption and facilitating justice.