Oppression vs Action: a Sorcerers View.
A lot of people are watching the new movie about Tony Robbins this week: Not Your Guru. I have very mixed feelings about Robbins myself so please don’t read this as any kind of apologetics for 
him. I am not here to write about him. A student of mine sent me an article about Tony Robbins as a somantic bully. While he makes a few good points most of the article is garbage, and I am not here to write about that either. I am here to write about 1 line in the article that encapsulates an idea that has been brought up to me three times this summer, an idea that is insidious and should be ejected from the thinking of anyone that calls themselves a Sorcerer. The quote is this:
” the prosperity gospel in general distracts its adherents from their actual material conditions, allowing them to misattribute both successes and failures to their juju rather than the intersection of their privileges or oppressions.”
Now, if you pay attention to this blog, and definitely if you follow me on facebook where I post about politics and social issue you know that I believe in privilege. I certainly have it. I am a white, cis-male, straight guy, so I basically benefit from the privilege trifecta. I have a few areas where I am not privileged: parents don’t have college degrees, mother could be described as mentally ill, etc. The idea that privilege and oppression impacts your material conditions for me is a given and its yet another thing I am not here to discuss, so do me a favor and don’t comment on it. Do something truly radical on the internet: disagree and seethe in silence 🙂
What I want to discuss is the idea represented in the quote above, because when you are trying to change your life; not society, not “the system”, but YOUR life – it is the worst possible thing to think.
Everything that happens to you in life is impacted both by your own actions and “juju” as well as the privilege and oppression you receive in society. It is impacted by BOTH. But there is a big difference between the two: you can change and skillfully adapt your own actions, you can’t do shit about the the intersection of privilege or oppression.
In short: if you are looking for a person to blame: by all means attribute your success or failure purely to privilege and oppression.These things are real and impactful. It takes a certain amount of privilege just to find yourself reading this post.
If however you are looking for something to do, then you have to focus on the stuff you can do, not give up any hope of a better life because of forces beyond your control. The idea that you should attribute all of your success or failure removes all responsibility from you, but it also robs you of your agency to do anything about it. A Sorcerer is way more interested in what he or she can do about a situation than he is in attributing blame.
In fact, there is no reason you can’t do both. As I have said before, advice for a society should be different than advice for an individual. Work on making the world less opppressive by moving yourself forward with your own juju.
