Two Radically Different Perspectives on How the World Works
Domination and oppression vs. hard work and personal responsibility
Imagine two people sitting across from each other in a diner having a discussion about politics.
Person A says the following to Person B:
“You want to know what’s really going on here? I’ll tell you how this whole thing works. You see, life is all about…”
Person B listens intently to what Person A has to say.
Once Person A finishes their explanation, Person B responds with this:
“No, no, you’re way off! You’ve got it all wrong! Let me tell you how the world actually works. So,…”
The pair then spend the next hour passionately debating one another, each one convinced the other is mistaken about their particular world view.
Eventually, the discussion runs its course: the reasoning becomes circular and new ideas fail to emerge.
The two individuals part ways for the night and then get on with the rest of their lives.
In this article I’m going to lay out for you the essentials of each of our fictional character’s world views.
As you read through them, ask yourself which of the two outlooks on life you believe to be
- more accurate, i.e., more reflective of reality
- more likely to lead to a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life.
You can think of this exercise as a sort of thought experiment.
My goal is merely to present these ideas and encourage you to consider their potential implications for your life and the lives of others.
Disclaimer: I have no interest in offering an endorsement of a particular world view or in expressing normative judgments of any kind.
World View 1: Life Is About Power, Domination, and Oppression
Virtually everything that happens in life can ultimately be traced to the fact that we live in a hierarchically organized society in which some groups possess more power than others.
None of us exist on an even playing field.
The dominant — those with a disproportionate amount of political, economic, social, and symbolic capital — rule over and subjugate the dominated.
People in positions of power have an inherent interest in protecting the status quo and in pushing back against efforts to alter structures of oppression.
In one way or another, life is nothing but a game.
Whether they realize it or not, each ‘player’ is doing everything they can to ascend to the next ‘level’ — or at least to prevent themselves from being stripped of their current position.
Success in life is a product of one’s ability to accumulate as many resources — social connections, academic credentials, professional qualifications, money, skills, physical abilities — as possible.
Life is a zero-sum game: like playing the stock market, one person’s gain is always another person’s loss.
Powerful corporations exert tremendous influence on politicians and lawmakers, effectively steering the latter towards policies and laws that the former favour and away from those that the former consider harmful to their interests.
Often, actions that appear to be selfless and undertaken for the good of others turn out to be motivated by greed and selfish desires to improve one’s own position in life.
A wide range of oppressive structures exist, operating in such a way that those with little or no political, economic, or social power inevitability experience discrimination, marginalization, and structural violence.
Ideology permeates society. Ideology is a tool the dominant uses to confuse lay citizens and to keep the crimes of the powerful hidden from plain sight.
Businesses, governments, international organizations, political parties, and professional associations all must be thoroughly regulated and closely surveilled in order to prevent them from harming innocent people.
Capitalism is inherently destructive: the pursuit of endless growth leads to the ruining of the environment, the depletion of the earth’s resources, and the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.
In many situations — but by no means all — people share more in common with those who are culturally, economically, ethnically, and/or politically similar to them than they do with strangers who act, look, and/or think differently than they do.
Genuine change within this system is possible but extremely difficult to achieve.
It’s only when masses of similarly oppressed people come together to actively resist their subjugation that structures of dominance finally give way to more equal forms of social organization.
Those with comparable experiences of marginalization must work together to facilitate the redistribution of power and wealth and thereby help bring about a more equitable social order.
On the whole, life is a struggle between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’.
World View 2: Life Is About Hard Work, Personal Responsibility, Effective Decision-Making, and Cooperation
Virtually everything that happens in life can ultimately be traced to the fact that each one of us is personally responsible for the direction our life takes — good or bad.
Success in life — economic success, meaningful relationships with others, mental and psychological well-being, spiritual fulfillment — is a product of dedication, effort, hard work, and cooperation with others.
People have the power to change circumstances they don’t like and from which they want to escape.
No matter how grave the situation, an individual always has the ability to choose what action to take next.
People often make decisions in the absence of a full understanding of the various circumstances at play, but the freedom to choose remains intact all the same.
In general, people ‘get ahead’ in life because they work hard and make necessary sacrifices along the way.
The ability to prioritize the pursuit of long-term success over short-term enjoyment separates the successful from the unsuccessful.
All people — even those who currently find themselves in conditions of poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion — have the capacity to improve their station in life and to help those around them succeed.
A basic truth about life is this: how we react to things that happen to us is just as important, if not more important, than those things themselves.
It’s not always possible to shield ourselves from dangerous, threatening, or otherwise unwanted situations, but what we can do is choose how to understand the meaning and react to the outcomes of such situations.
In most cases, people in positions of power — business leaders, entrepreneurs, judges, lawmakers, police officers, politicians, state representatives — are honest folks who try to do the best they can given the sets of constraints and pressures to which they’re exposed.
Corrupt officials, shady businesspeople, discriminatory law enforcement officers, deceitful politicians, and others just like them are ‘bad apples’ — not the norm.
Law exists not to protect the interests of the dominant but rather to ensure equality for all.
The Rule of Law demands that all citizens, regardless of the amounts or types of power they possess, be treated fairly and impartially.
History evidences the fact that real change is not only possible but also a regular, albeit still far too uncommon, feature of human life.
From the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, and the Environmental Movement to the Women’s Rights Movement, the #MeToo Movement, and the Transgender Rights Movement, it’s clear that ‘the people’ have the power to change society for the better.
Existing power structures are neither permanent nor impermeable: society can, and in fact has, become more equal and less oppressive over time.
Moreover, life is not a zero-sum game; competition is the wrong frame of reference for understanding how the world works.
There are many examples of individuals, groups, organizations, and even entire countries working together to help each other in mutually beneficial ways.
People who dedicate themselves to helping others tend not to suffer consequences for doing so but rather usually accrue even more success (and satisfaction) in their own lives.
Groups thrive whenever they work together — not whenever they each try to divide and conquer.
Superficial differences between people are ultimately far less significant and meaningful than the characteristics, desires, and experiences that members of the human species possess in common.
How Do You See the World?
I’m genuinely interested in knowing which of these two world views — or which elements of them — you find more accurate, compelling, helpful, informative, inspiring, or powerful.
- Which of the two perspectives is more attractive to you? Why?
- Which do you believe is more likely to produce a happy and fulfilling life?
- Which is better suited to encouraging you to help others and to do good in this world?
- Is one of the world views more reflective of reality than the other?
- Does one provide more insight into what’s needed to bring about positive change? If so, what kind of positive change? Personal change or social change or both?
- Do both of these perspectives strike you as flawed, incomplete, or otherwise problematic? If so, what is your particular outlook on how the world works and on the purpose of life?
There comes a point — if not several points — in each of our lives when we must confront difficult questions of this sort and decide which grand narrative to use to structure how we see the world and how we participate within it.
The stories we tell ourselves about our fundamental political, economic, and cultural structures and about the essence of human nature deeply affect our relationships with others and, indeed, with our planet.
If, as some relativist philosophers insist, perception is everything, what do you perceive when you look out into the world and ask yourself how things really work?
One last thing: Get more stories like this one here.
