Liberation Ideologies

1. Liberation Ideologies • Characteristics • Main features/tenets • Conception of freedom

2. Liberation ideologies • Black liberation • Women’s liberation • Gay liberation • Liberation theology • Native people’s liberation • Animal liberation

3. Common features • Directed to particular audience who share common identity as members of oppressed group • Sometimes also directed to bystanders and oppressors • Seek to emancipate from external constraints imposed by oppressors and internalized constraints • “Raise consciousness” and alter outlook of oppressed people, empower to take fate into own hands • Liberate oppressors from illusion of superiority, help recognize former victims as fellow human beings or beings

4. Black liberation • Directed to blacks; seeks to overcome obstacles to freedom for blacks • Blacks long discriminated against by white people • Seeks to address external forms of oppression • Seeks also to expose and overcome often subtle ways blacks have internalized “white” norms and values • Articulates and defends alternative “black” standards of beauty, appropriate behavior, as way of instilling self-respect and “black pride” • Main variants • Civil rights (integrationist, assimilationist) emphasizes external barriers; seeks to remove obstacles to equal opportunity • Black power (separatist, nationalist) stresses spiritual and cultural barriers; seeks to promote identity, pride, self-sufficiency

5. Women’s liberation • Directed at women long oppressed by men, who have participated in their oppression • Objectifying themselves as sex objects, child-bearers, to detriment of full and free development as whole human beings • Main variants • Liberal feminist places more emphasis on external barriers (discriminatory laws, hiring practices) • Radical feminist gives greater weight to internalized beliefs, attitudes, stereotypes that make women less willing and able to empower themselves

6. Gay liberation • Directed at gay men and lesbians • Attempts to help homosexuals come to terms with, feel comfortable about, homosexuality • Instill sense of shared identity, gay pride to overcome homophobia, stereotypes, and attitudes held by many heterosexuals and homosexuals (i.e., internalized oppression) • Seeks to empower homosexuals by helping them overcome fears and crippling attitudes • Seeks to repeal discriminatory laws, gain access to opportunities denied

7. Native people’s liberation • Concerned with well-being of Native or indigenous peoples • Native Americans (U.S., Central and South America), Aborigines (Australia), First Nations (Canada), Maori (New Zealand), Hawaiians (Hawaii) • Lands conquered and cultures demeaned by white European settlers • European domination undermined pride and identity • Aim to recover identity and restore pride and dignity • Seek political power, restoration of lands, enforcement of fishing, other rights guaranteed by treaties

8. Liberation theology • Religious or theological orientation • Offers emancipatory interpretation of gospels • Jesus helped people liberate themselves from sin, evils of exploitative money economy • Criticized Pharisees, others who think themselves morally and socially superior • Showed how to “exercise the option for the poor” by choosing to live among them, taking ordinary workers as his disciples • Scriptures convey emancipatory message: dignity of labor, human equality, and empowerment of poor and powerless

9. Liberation theology, 2 • Addresses several audiences (most influential in Latin America) • Main audience is poor, powerless peasant or worker • Also addresses wealthy and affluent, appealing to follow Jesus and “exercise the option for the poor,” take their side in struggle for social justice • Poor are oppressed externally (by landlords, powerful corporations) and internally, by defeatist (self-fulfilling) beliefs, attitudes about inferiority, powerlessness • Attempts to expose, break through self-imposed shackles, give poor dignity, power, purpose, and potential

10. Animal liberation • Addressed to humans who hold unexamined assumptions about innate superiority of species • Attitudes toward animals: we can, for profit or pleasure (without worrying about pain), eat flesh, use fur or skin for clothing, and perform painful experiments • Speciesism is harmful to animals, human beings • Gives us false picture of species’ real and proper relation to other species and environment that makes mutual existence possible • Only when we overcome deep-seated prejudice will our full humanity be realized • Hopes to liberate animals from human oppression by appealing to human beings to examine previously unexamined beliefs about and attitudes toward animals

11. Discussion questions • All of the liberation ideologies try to promote freedom for a particular group of people -- or, in one case, of non-human animals. Choose three of these liberation ideologies, and use the triadic model of freedom to explain how it proposes to free its particular group. • Describe how liberation ideologies can be seen to be promoting, or at least to be consistent with, democracy. Use examples from at least three of the liberation ideologies to illustrate your answer. • Why are liberation ideologies sometimes associated with “the politics of identity” or “the politics of difference”? Is the emergence of this kind of politics something to be welcomed or feared? Explain your answer in detail by referencing three liberation ideologies. • In what ways is the politics of identity/difference consistent with and/or contradictory to liberal democracy? Can the two coincide or are they mutually exclusive? • Describe the ideological functions of liberation ideologies (explanation, evaluation, orientation, and program).