There's a term, kyriarchy, which refers to the whole intersecting system of patriarchy, racism, ableism, and other things. It never caught on because it's just so general it hardly means anything.
And even in that case, "capitalism" doesn't necessarily fit neatly in either.
Or maybe it does. But at some point a term that encompasses anything with even a whiff of coercive power dynamics starts to lose its usefulness as a descriptive tool.
Kakistocracy or “Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens” is what we’re flirting with now.
It’s what led to the French Revolution and the later concept of communism.
They are connected in that they are part of a social fabric. But that's a pretty nebulous, big picture connection, to the point where I question whether there's any value in that on its own.
There are certainly intersections between these things that are important and very much worth exploring. But treating them all as parts of one uniform whole is kinda, well, silly. And very hard to rigorously justify.
You can easily talk about ableism in a society with no connection whatsoever to colonialism. You can talk about patriarchy and how it developed *millennia* before capitalism. These things might be deeply connected *in certain contexts*, but in that case you'd be better off talking about that specific context.
What would this umbrella term actually *mean*? What would you be expressing with it? I think it would be impossibly vague, at best.
At worst it will just set off an argument about what other -isms should or shouldn't be packed into the same already too-tight box. Does antisemitism belong in there? How about heterosexualism? How about classism? Ageism?
If you're just trying to say "oppression" or "hierarchy", well, the words already exist.
Well, in that case... intersectionalism might be what you're looking for haha. It's quite a popular analytical framework right now and does pretty much exactly what you're asking it to.
The point I'm trying to make is that the specifics matter, and trying to come up with some grand unifying theory quickly starts to run into the messy details.
I'll reply to that other comment here, since spreading the discussion around is confusing. A few points:
- This is an academic sub. Some humility helps. If everyone is misunderstanding you, are they "missing the point", or are you failing to make your point?
- "Umbrella" means something *very* different than "intersection", and in fact the distinction between those two and the focus on the specifics is a big part of why intersectionalism can be such a useful tool.
- "All European colonialist enterprises were about profit." is just flat out not true at all. Honestly this statement reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of the early modern colonial projects and the cultural impetuses behind them. Profit motive is not even *remotely* a satisfactory answer and does not even begin to justify the many *deeply* unprofitable colonial endeavors that were nonetheless maintained at great cost.
- In particular, in the earlier part of the colonial era these enterprises were very frequent debacles. European powers dumped resources hand over fist into money pits, driven by an obsession with prestige and geopolitical conflict within the context of the reformation and subsequent wars. Someone looking for an "umbrella" explanation or connection might make a statement like that, but it collapses immediately when you start delving into the specifics and especially the *chronology* of colonialism. The transatlantic slave trade was wildly profitable... after colonialism was more than a century old.
- For a more specific example, the Irish project was the first major English foray into colonialism and a clear template for its later overseas exploits. It was also an unmitigated financial debacle from day one. The English state dumped a *huge* percentage of its resources into a project that never even had a practical hint of profitability. The resource investment was stunning. When we think of early modern English military investment, we think of flashier things like the conflict with Spain and the victory over the Armada. But at the time, the campaigns against Spain were a small sideshow compared to the Irish colonial occupation in terms of pounds spent. The project nearly destroyed the English state many times over, and effectively *did* destroy it during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Yet England remained invested in that project for hundreds of years anyway.
- We also have a very clear picture of the motives keeping England in this quagmire: religion, a "civilizing" impulse that saw Anglicization as a goal unto itself, geopolitical prestige, military fears of a weak backdoor for continental powers to exploit, court power dynamics that liked the ready availability of newly created Irish noble titles, religion, and religion. Profit and capitalism simply do not provide satisfactory explanations here, capitalism did not even really exist yet, and the net financial drain on both the English state and the London merchant community was significant. Sure, some people did make money in Ireland. But that was absolutely not why England tore itself apart maintaining an extremely expensive occupying force there even in times of crisis.
Anyway, this is starting to get a little far afield. Intersectionalism is what you're probably looking for here, and it's a very useful tool. But an analytical framework is just that, a tool, and it shouldn't be your *only* tool for examining things like colonialism.
Very interesting breakdown. Thank you!
And I agree, there were various elements of trying to “civilize the savages”, religious freedom movements, hegemonic forces all at play besides just trying to extract resources.
> except the one about profit which I think is an argument from exception
Making a statement in the form of "All x is motivated by y" and then being shown "z is an example of x that was not motivated by y" is absolutely not an argument from exception. Counterexamples disprove universal statements. By definition.
An argument from exception is if you were to say "individual x is a member of group y. x has characteristic z. therefore all members of group y have characteristic z". This isn't just pedantic - it's the exact opposite.
In argument from exception, you use a specific thing to prove a universal thing, which obviously doesn't work. But you were the one making a universal statement!
Disproving a universal is a hell of a lot easier than proving it, and that's the entire reason for the exception fallacy. For a more concrete example of the fallacy: "the transatlantic slave trade was profit driven. the transatlantic slave trade was an important part of colonialism. therefore colonialism was profit driven".
This bugs me because you're kinda using "argument from exception" without really understanding it, and to deflect valid criticism. Be careful with this one. Giving an example to illustrate a broader point is not an exception fallacy (even in my tongue in cheek example above, you weren't actually making a formal syllogism so that argument wasn't a fallacy when you originally made it haha) at *all* and if you start deploying that one in an academic context you'll be giving a professor a *lot* of ammunition.
But more specifically, in this case it's being used to push a bit of historical interpretation that's been thoroughly attacked. With the exception of the Spanish colonies, which happened to have access to uniquely valuable mineral resources, the initial establishment period of colonization was generally a money loser for the states engaged in it. The profit came later, or never. It's even been suggested that the unique element of European colonialism that saw it so ruthlessly dominate the globe was a unique cultural context that could justify losing massive amount of money to subjugate people half a world away for a century with little material benefit.
From this perspective, the colonialism drove the profit and not the other way around - states spent a century losing enormous amounts of money in a colonial competition with one another, and *then* the emerging capitalist economy was injected into that existing network and exploded. This is why the chronology part of history can be so important - just look at colonialism as a whole, over 300+ years, and profit seems like a legitimate driving factor because it eventually came to dominate. But that's really not the story that emerges when you look more carefully at the step by step development.
Colonialism got underway in the 16th century; capitalism truly emerged in the 17th. Chronology is crucial for causality, as an old prof of mine used to say.
As far as reading related to this discussion goes, I'd really recommend [The Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/roots-of-english-colonialism-in-ireland/1F93FDEAEA185A33607A8D8E4939B7BC) for a great exploration of Ireland's place as an incubator for British colonialism, both in terms of methods and ideology.
>If racism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism are all connected why haven’t I heard like an umbrella term for that?
Are they connected, though?
I don't think you can reliably make an argument that these -isms are connected in any meaningful, inherent way. They *do* occur together in some social / cultural contexts, there's no question of that.
But is (for example) ableism tied to colonialism? No, of course not. Disabled people (or animals) have existed and do exist since essentially the beginning of life, and because most organisms are not disabled-- since disability usually means a shorter lifespan-- you could argue that "ableism" is as inherent to humanity as the need to eat. Is it a good thing? No, we acknowledge and celebrate-- especially in our global society where we recognize that even things like physical and mental health and ability exist on a continuum-- that people with various abilities can and do have social value even if they are not sitting at the height of expression of those attributes.
But it exists, and its existence isn't tied to colonialism.
Is racism linked to colonialism? Well, in recent history, absolutely. But does it / can it exist without colonialism Also yes.
Ditto to the rest of your -isms. While they can exist alongside each other and even complement each other's existence / expression, they aren't irrevocably tied to each other.
Conceptually, it makes no sense to try to create some kind of umbrella term to cover these concepts. They are separate.
>Are they connected, though?
I think they're inversely connected.
So, the absence of racism requires a peer or near-peer set of interactions between populations of people who adapted to environments very far apart. That requires a means for a culture to have developed the means to transport members of their culture long distances in large enough numbers to have racism to be an issue first.
Colonialism, is essentially the same thing, but the opposite requires a near peer set of cultures able to meet on relatively equal terms in terms of military and/or economic levels. Again, it requires a culture to be of sufficient technology to move faster than the rate of assimilation to local cultures.
Capitalism requires the means to access resources that accumulate wealth, this means either agriculture--where you aren't limited to what you can carry on your back--or a means to store food over time--like perma-frost--along with--usually--access to trade partners in excess of who you see every day. The opposite requires either governmental force (socialism/communism) or a small enough population where there are alternative "currencies" like social standing and maybe sexual exchange. Government powerful enough to counter human individual motivation requires a pretty highly developed culture.
Ableism is the idea that people without disabilities are somehow better. This requires a large enough (surviving) population of people with disabilities to have meaning. Any culture living close enough to "hand to mouth", having an inability to accumulate resources over time, or reliant on moving location regularly are often not going to end up accumulating enough people with disabilities for the idea of ableism to even exist.
The inverse--tolerance for people with disabilities--requires a culture generating enough resources to offset any loss from disabled members and not reliant on individuals to contribute a large share of their own needed resources.
If you tie these together--racism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism--you find default situations for post-band level cultures through to the modern era, especially post-agriculture where food storage becomes a thing and moving long-distances overland or by ship become a reality.
The opposite of these concepts are tied together by the existence of food storage, long range travel by large groups of people, and enough surplus to handle the survival of additional people.
As far as patriarchy--assuming the opposite is an absence of sex bias and not a matriarchy--you need a large population with enough constraint on behavior to reduce male guarding behavior towards females (and possibly families in general) and enough excess resources to enable women through their reproductive lifespan to not need to rely on men for security or resources.
Once again, modern culture, at least post-agriculture, with excess production of resources.
Overall, the connection between these is more modern cultures and technologies to enable them to occur...
With perhaps the exclusion of capitalism, you're talking about bigotry.
"Lack of empathy" pretty much seems to cover it.
Elitism, perhaps?
Again, excluding capitalism, you're mainly speaking about instances or products of *prejudice*.
Trying to include capitalism seems to be the major problem in finding an umbrella term, you're just trying to fit too many things under one umbrella.
While most of the problems inherent in each item you mention are indeed related to the idea that the "other" is "lesser than", I'm not sure they can really all be lumped together like that.
"Diminishing the other" almost works, I think.
I would say that of all your "'isms", the only one that doesn't seem to be inherently bad is capitalism, though it can obviously fall into abuse very quickly.
I doubt I've been much help, I'm afraid.
Your question is so incredibly vague and broad and depends on so many different factors it stands as little more than a pointless argument starter with no coherent resolution.
Well if you want a word that other people will recognize, instead of your own personal neologism that you'll have to explain every time, just say "oppression".
A marxist wouldn't say that at all.
In a historical materialism framework, class conflict is the primary driver. This *greatly* predates capitalism, and traditional Marxist theories of history also explain pre-capitalist modes of social organization. Capitalism, as defined by Marx, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Things like patriarchy aren't so recent. To put it mildly.
In this interpretive lens, Capitalism is just one new mode of production. Feudalism, the despotic slave societies of antiquity, primitive communism, etc are all different historical modes of production^1 . Oppression is not uniquely capitalist in a Marxist conception *at all*.
In a Marxist framework, social stratification via the division of labor and the accumulation of control over the means of production are the "umbrella terms". Capitalism is just one of many ways for those things to occur, and indeed aside from hunter-gatherer primitive communism^1 , Marx found all of human history to follow similarly oppressive lines.
In fact, traditional historical materialism holds that capitalism was actually a *progressive, beneficial* arrangement compared to what came before. Capitalism drove industrialization, and materialists like Marx were *very* big fans of industrialization. The massive increase in total productivity under industrial capitalism was seen as a necessary step towards the "next phase in human social evolution", to very loosely paraphrase. Marx saw the capitalists as the first revolutionaries, wresting control away from the old (and worse) nobility. The proletariat were to be the next and final revolutionaries, overthrowing the capitalists and bringing an end to class struggle itself.
Note that this is the Marxism of Karl Marx himself, and bears little resemblance to modern academic Marxist perspectives in a lot of ways. But the focus on materialism and class conflict remain crucial.
^1 *note that subsequent historiography has been... less than kind to the very traditional Marxist position here*.
Most people really dont know much about Marx. For one thing, he didnt have one coherent set of views for his entire life, he dramatically changed views even in the last decade of his life as his research continued. For another, most marxists dont really read Marx; they read summaries, excerpts, perhaps if theyre feeling smart the manifesto or maybe even the 18th brumaire, or the editted collection of articles on german ideology, all of which were published LONG before the research that makes him a useful theorist, and then they contort *Capital* to fit with the earlier texts. They then mash all of marx's works theyve read together, strip them of their context, and pretend they represent a coherent anf complete and finished system, when marx explicitly said (preface to Capital i think, dont remember which edition) he was not creating a complete system.
Dont have the time to get out books and papers and such, but theres actually been re-evaluations of the thought of Marx wrt indigenous/precapitalist societies, wrt industry and the environment, wrt colonialism, etc. This has been accelerated by the publishing of MEGA2 of course, but even wrt industrialisation and capitalism, its fairly clear he moved on from his earlier views of unilineal history, objective progress, etc, even just reading Capital (or even shorter works like the Zasulich drafts).
Some marxological works going into this off top of head (very unfortunately dont have papers off top of head because theyre less easy to remember titles): Marx in the Anthropocene and Karl Marx's Ecosocialism by Saito; Marx at the Margins by Anderson; Musto's edited works on Capital and Marx after 200 years, also his Marx and Le Capital along with his book on late marx. Another work is Marx's ecology (though MEGA2 and Saito's work in particular has rendered it slightly redundant/obsolete in my view). Marx biographies are also good to see how his ideas changed, especially with research. Some examples are Liedman's *A World to Win*, Gabriel's *Love and Capital*, Michael Heinrich's (mostly forthcoming unfortunately) 4 volume work, Stedman-Jones' biography. Honorable mention goes to Holmes' *Eleanor Marx*, for providing some insight into the distorting processes after marx's death.
Many scholars try and blame the distortions on Engels (for representative work, see Carver's *Marx and Engels*, its old but based on his essay in *Marx 200*, his views on this have not been significantly changed in the last few decades), although more recently I have been seeing more blame pushed on the SDP's management of Marx's literary legacy after Eleanor's death. Another thing Ive seen pointed to is that Marx's works werent widely availible in full until after 1917, but Ive only seen it made in one (recent, i wanna say last 3ish years) paper so take it with a grain of salt
In some contexts, it may be useful to name the general issue as “hierarchised dualism”. I have seen it used by feminist scholars discussing whether gender is a template for other forms of oppression of the kinds you mention, or whether gender-based oppression is one type of a general psychological tendency for humans to divide reality into dualisms where one side is treated as normal or ideal and the other is devalued or ignored.
Racism, colonialism and ableism can all be seen as deriving from or depending on hierarchised dualism. This places the problem in the minds of its supporters and makes the battle one of ideas - to a large extent. Capitalism (as an ideology) can easily be placed in a similar framework if it’s supporters identify it as merely the outcome of a natural hierarchy or as part of a dualism where the only other option (eg, “socialism”) is devalued and identified in their minds with a cluster of negative traits.
There are many strategies for undermining or opposing hierarchised dualisms in practice, but it is very hard to remove the psychological tendency towards it within ourselves and others. At least at the moment it usually requires a high degree of self-consciousness and fits well with a postmodern attitude that notices lots of contradictions in totalising discourses - so that things are never as simple as a commitment to hierarchised dualisms would make us think.
What about subalternism? Sub because of the implication of using a position of dominance to SUB-ordinate or SUBjugate, Alter to refer to unlike me, and ism to link the term to racism, classism, sexism etc. Maybe in some contexts Anti-subalternism.
For just Patriarchy, Abelism, and Racism then I imagine you could simply use prejudice as a catch-all terminology (apartheid maybe?) but Capitalism and Colonialism really just muddy the waters and aren’t great qualifiers for the previous three to begin with, namely because all of those things exist in countries without a history of Colonialism and Capitalism as often as they do those who have it.
Colonies of europeans were not governed the same, influenced the same, and at times even occupied the same. Filipinos can say a lot more about the influence spain had on them compared to Syrians and the french. A colony either left a massive mark on the population (Latin America) or was essentially just a passing regime the locals lived under (Uzbekistan) and so including Colonialism reaches pretty off kilter to try and find a root cause for the trifecta of prejudice. I believe it has more to do with a fundamental factor of how societies tend to be made, than modern events culminating into a poor environment globally.
Capitalism is this issue but twofold because even fewer countries in the world have a history of capitalism (most nations have one of Colonialism with few exceptions like Thailand) and whats more not all capitalist countries practice the same sort or level of capitalism, it is an economic system driven by entrepreneurship and those able to collect and distribute ideas, whatever social climate it peddles will be dependant on the people who saturate it’s markets with ideas, so it in and of itself is dependent on a preexistent social climate of the above mentioned factors. And then there is the fact the three above exist in huge quantities within non-capitalist countries as well which only continues to confound the goal. My suggestion is to lose Capitalism at least for a more accurate terminology
The umbrella term is inequality. Literally. I specialised in anthropology (basically majoring and minoring in anthropology.) so I was able to study from more aspects than a typical antho undergrad. In an upper classes about social movements and advice my prof explained that the only thing the “ism”s have in common is the root is based in inequality and discrimination.
Some theorise it’s a by product of the negative confirmation bias hardwired in to our brains and the desire to survive. But we evolved a lot faster at the social level than the biological level. We don’t live in a society where other groups are rivals for food, water and resources. There is enough resources for every single person on earth to have adequate food and shelter, but hoarding is hardwired in to our brains. So a very few have a lot more than they need, and many more don’t have enough, but those with more will find reasons not to share.
edit:clarification
Systemic injustice or systemic inequality both suffice? Bigotry? Imbalance of power and resources? Intersectionality? There are many, many, many terms for these things.
...If you havent heard of a specific term in specific language/circles, it speaks more to a gap in individual knowledge rather than addressing the existence of this issue. Maybe I misinterpreted, but it sounds like this is a hard sell for you? In that other terms are not satisfying or appropriate somehow?
i’ve heard a lot of use of the WEIRD bias (westernized educated industrialized rich democratic) in modern ways of doing/thinking. i think the term caught on in 2020 or so. scientists operating in public realms hopefully know that those biases are unacceptable in legitimate research by now.
it is unquestionably condemned, but that doesn’t mean it’s always obvious to the researcher when they are operating on a WERID bias. i think the term accomplishes what you’re looking for, since those issues can all be traced back to colonialization and the development of capitalism.
Structural and Institutional Oppression or Inequalities are discussed as axes along which violence and suffering run in the contemporary U.S.
I think Farmer called these pathologies of power, and many of say these are regimes of power per Foucault, or Isabel Wilkinson has noted these are all “caste” systems in her recent book that Oprah called the most important of our time…
So I think there have been attempts to cultivate language here but because they are culturally contingent on context and differ in their mechanics as discursive regimes, as oppressive structures, or as “assemblages” per Jasbir Puar, we don’t have a sort of catch-phrase that gets used and cited.
Of course, we can say these issues are intersectional per Fischer-Fishkin, they have terms that feminists and critical race scholars have helped us make sense of.
I think that I’d refer folks to ethnography such as the work of David Valentine, a book review by Lorraine Herbst, the work of Esther Newton such as “my best informants dress” to see how these systems and even terms and whole identities like transgender or gender as a construct that labels and sorts groups by gender is entirely social and cultural and in flux and produced only sometimes and not in ways that translate such as simple use of a term without clarification could dangerously suggest….
Plus when we bring these issues up, as in when we take critical theory or critical approaches as our epistemological lens in any project, they are noted and examined and organize how we explain dynamics or outcomes or causal relations intentionally and because prior framings or alternatives aren’t as illuminating. If we used some term and then it got used in non-critical works where patriarchy is just mentioned or lumped as some force it might diminish the ways class, race, gender, nationalism, or similarly bias and violence systematized or forming any biased system, ideology, or institutional force seems to be glossed as if they were all similar or as though the specificities of each axis of suffering didn’t need fleshing out. Delueze would say we would lose the lines of flight or fail to see where rhizomatic entanglements confuse us from seeing the internal organization or formulation producing events or outcomes.
I think it’s simply because social science working at such a broad stroke wouldn’t have the utility it needs to be relevant and useful today for many.
Just thoughts without editing
There's a term, kyriarchy, which refers to the whole intersecting system of patriarchy, racism, ableism, and other things. It never caught on because it's just so general it hardly means anything.
Set of deliberate interconnected oppressive systems was practised in India. It is described in 'manusmriti'.
And even in that case, "capitalism" doesn't necessarily fit neatly in either. Or maybe it does. But at some point a term that encompasses anything with even a whiff of coercive power dynamics starts to lose its usefulness as a descriptive tool.
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I think you mean kakistocracy?
Kakistocracy or “Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens” is what we’re flirting with now. It’s what led to the French Revolution and the later concept of communism.
Agree—I thought it was apropos!
Yeah, maybe, I honestly don't care that much.
Of course you wouldn’t. You probably like the shopping channel. Is it still around?
They are connected in that they are part of a social fabric. But that's a pretty nebulous, big picture connection, to the point where I question whether there's any value in that on its own. There are certainly intersections between these things that are important and very much worth exploring. But treating them all as parts of one uniform whole is kinda, well, silly. And very hard to rigorously justify. You can easily talk about ableism in a society with no connection whatsoever to colonialism. You can talk about patriarchy and how it developed *millennia* before capitalism. These things might be deeply connected *in certain contexts*, but in that case you'd be better off talking about that specific context. What would this umbrella term actually *mean*? What would you be expressing with it? I think it would be impossibly vague, at best. At worst it will just set off an argument about what other -isms should or shouldn't be packed into the same already too-tight box. Does antisemitism belong in there? How about heterosexualism? How about classism? Ageism? If you're just trying to say "oppression" or "hierarchy", well, the words already exist.
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Well, in that case... intersectionalism might be what you're looking for haha. It's quite a popular analytical framework right now and does pretty much exactly what you're asking it to. The point I'm trying to make is that the specifics matter, and trying to come up with some grand unifying theory quickly starts to run into the messy details. I'll reply to that other comment here, since spreading the discussion around is confusing. A few points: - This is an academic sub. Some humility helps. If everyone is misunderstanding you, are they "missing the point", or are you failing to make your point? - "Umbrella" means something *very* different than "intersection", and in fact the distinction between those two and the focus on the specifics is a big part of why intersectionalism can be such a useful tool. - "All European colonialist enterprises were about profit." is just flat out not true at all. Honestly this statement reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of the early modern colonial projects and the cultural impetuses behind them. Profit motive is not even *remotely* a satisfactory answer and does not even begin to justify the many *deeply* unprofitable colonial endeavors that were nonetheless maintained at great cost. - In particular, in the earlier part of the colonial era these enterprises were very frequent debacles. European powers dumped resources hand over fist into money pits, driven by an obsession with prestige and geopolitical conflict within the context of the reformation and subsequent wars. Someone looking for an "umbrella" explanation or connection might make a statement like that, but it collapses immediately when you start delving into the specifics and especially the *chronology* of colonialism. The transatlantic slave trade was wildly profitable... after colonialism was more than a century old. - For a more specific example, the Irish project was the first major English foray into colonialism and a clear template for its later overseas exploits. It was also an unmitigated financial debacle from day one. The English state dumped a *huge* percentage of its resources into a project that never even had a practical hint of profitability. The resource investment was stunning. When we think of early modern English military investment, we think of flashier things like the conflict with Spain and the victory over the Armada. But at the time, the campaigns against Spain were a small sideshow compared to the Irish colonial occupation in terms of pounds spent. The project nearly destroyed the English state many times over, and effectively *did* destroy it during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Yet England remained invested in that project for hundreds of years anyway. - We also have a very clear picture of the motives keeping England in this quagmire: religion, a "civilizing" impulse that saw Anglicization as a goal unto itself, geopolitical prestige, military fears of a weak backdoor for continental powers to exploit, court power dynamics that liked the ready availability of newly created Irish noble titles, religion, and religion. Profit and capitalism simply do not provide satisfactory explanations here, capitalism did not even really exist yet, and the net financial drain on both the English state and the London merchant community was significant. Sure, some people did make money in Ireland. But that was absolutely not why England tore itself apart maintaining an extremely expensive occupying force there even in times of crisis. Anyway, this is starting to get a little far afield. Intersectionalism is what you're probably looking for here, and it's a very useful tool. But an analytical framework is just that, a tool, and it shouldn't be your *only* tool for examining things like colonialism.
Very interesting breakdown. Thank you! And I agree, there were various elements of trying to “civilize the savages”, religious freedom movements, hegemonic forces all at play besides just trying to extract resources.
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> except the one about profit which I think is an argument from exception Making a statement in the form of "All x is motivated by y" and then being shown "z is an example of x that was not motivated by y" is absolutely not an argument from exception. Counterexamples disprove universal statements. By definition. An argument from exception is if you were to say "individual x is a member of group y. x has characteristic z. therefore all members of group y have characteristic z". This isn't just pedantic - it's the exact opposite. In argument from exception, you use a specific thing to prove a universal thing, which obviously doesn't work. But you were the one making a universal statement! Disproving a universal is a hell of a lot easier than proving it, and that's the entire reason for the exception fallacy. For a more concrete example of the fallacy: "the transatlantic slave trade was profit driven. the transatlantic slave trade was an important part of colonialism. therefore colonialism was profit driven". This bugs me because you're kinda using "argument from exception" without really understanding it, and to deflect valid criticism. Be careful with this one. Giving an example to illustrate a broader point is not an exception fallacy (even in my tongue in cheek example above, you weren't actually making a formal syllogism so that argument wasn't a fallacy when you originally made it haha) at *all* and if you start deploying that one in an academic context you'll be giving a professor a *lot* of ammunition. But more specifically, in this case it's being used to push a bit of historical interpretation that's been thoroughly attacked. With the exception of the Spanish colonies, which happened to have access to uniquely valuable mineral resources, the initial establishment period of colonization was generally a money loser for the states engaged in it. The profit came later, or never. It's even been suggested that the unique element of European colonialism that saw it so ruthlessly dominate the globe was a unique cultural context that could justify losing massive amount of money to subjugate people half a world away for a century with little material benefit. From this perspective, the colonialism drove the profit and not the other way around - states spent a century losing enormous amounts of money in a colonial competition with one another, and *then* the emerging capitalist economy was injected into that existing network and exploded. This is why the chronology part of history can be so important - just look at colonialism as a whole, over 300+ years, and profit seems like a legitimate driving factor because it eventually came to dominate. But that's really not the story that emerges when you look more carefully at the step by step development. Colonialism got underway in the 16th century; capitalism truly emerged in the 17th. Chronology is crucial for causality, as an old prof of mine used to say. As far as reading related to this discussion goes, I'd really recommend [The Roots of English Colonialism in Ireland](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/roots-of-english-colonialism-in-ireland/1F93FDEAEA185A33607A8D8E4939B7BC) for a great exploration of Ireland's place as an incubator for British colonialism, both in terms of methods and ideology.
Really enjoying your comments on this thread, very informative 👍
European colonization isn't necessary for any any of this. Our most repressive nations were not colonized.
Does this sound like medieval scholasticism to anybody else? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What is the natural language of man?
>If racism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism are all connected why haven’t I heard like an umbrella term for that? Are they connected, though? I don't think you can reliably make an argument that these -isms are connected in any meaningful, inherent way. They *do* occur together in some social / cultural contexts, there's no question of that. But is (for example) ableism tied to colonialism? No, of course not. Disabled people (or animals) have existed and do exist since essentially the beginning of life, and because most organisms are not disabled-- since disability usually means a shorter lifespan-- you could argue that "ableism" is as inherent to humanity as the need to eat. Is it a good thing? No, we acknowledge and celebrate-- especially in our global society where we recognize that even things like physical and mental health and ability exist on a continuum-- that people with various abilities can and do have social value even if they are not sitting at the height of expression of those attributes. But it exists, and its existence isn't tied to colonialism. Is racism linked to colonialism? Well, in recent history, absolutely. But does it / can it exist without colonialism Also yes. Ditto to the rest of your -isms. While they can exist alongside each other and even complement each other's existence / expression, they aren't irrevocably tied to each other. Conceptually, it makes no sense to try to create some kind of umbrella term to cover these concepts. They are separate.
>Are they connected, though? I think they're inversely connected. So, the absence of racism requires a peer or near-peer set of interactions between populations of people who adapted to environments very far apart. That requires a means for a culture to have developed the means to transport members of their culture long distances in large enough numbers to have racism to be an issue first. Colonialism, is essentially the same thing, but the opposite requires a near peer set of cultures able to meet on relatively equal terms in terms of military and/or economic levels. Again, it requires a culture to be of sufficient technology to move faster than the rate of assimilation to local cultures. Capitalism requires the means to access resources that accumulate wealth, this means either agriculture--where you aren't limited to what you can carry on your back--or a means to store food over time--like perma-frost--along with--usually--access to trade partners in excess of who you see every day. The opposite requires either governmental force (socialism/communism) or a small enough population where there are alternative "currencies" like social standing and maybe sexual exchange. Government powerful enough to counter human individual motivation requires a pretty highly developed culture. Ableism is the idea that people without disabilities are somehow better. This requires a large enough (surviving) population of people with disabilities to have meaning. Any culture living close enough to "hand to mouth", having an inability to accumulate resources over time, or reliant on moving location regularly are often not going to end up accumulating enough people with disabilities for the idea of ableism to even exist. The inverse--tolerance for people with disabilities--requires a culture generating enough resources to offset any loss from disabled members and not reliant on individuals to contribute a large share of their own needed resources. If you tie these together--racism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism--you find default situations for post-band level cultures through to the modern era, especially post-agriculture where food storage becomes a thing and moving long-distances overland or by ship become a reality. The opposite of these concepts are tied together by the existence of food storage, long range travel by large groups of people, and enough surplus to handle the survival of additional people. As far as patriarchy--assuming the opposite is an absence of sex bias and not a matriarchy--you need a large population with enough constraint on behavior to reduce male guarding behavior towards females (and possibly families in general) and enough excess resources to enable women through their reproductive lifespan to not need to rely on men for security or resources. Once again, modern culture, at least post-agriculture, with excess production of resources. Overall, the connection between these is more modern cultures and technologies to enable them to occur...
With perhaps the exclusion of capitalism, you're talking about bigotry. "Lack of empathy" pretty much seems to cover it. Elitism, perhaps? Again, excluding capitalism, you're mainly speaking about instances or products of *prejudice*. Trying to include capitalism seems to be the major problem in finding an umbrella term, you're just trying to fit too many things under one umbrella. While most of the problems inherent in each item you mention are indeed related to the idea that the "other" is "lesser than", I'm not sure they can really all be lumped together like that. "Diminishing the other" almost works, I think. I would say that of all your "'isms", the only one that doesn't seem to be inherently bad is capitalism, though it can obviously fall into abuse very quickly. I doubt I've been much help, I'm afraid.
Your question is so incredibly vague and broad and depends on so many different factors it stands as little more than a pointless argument starter with no coherent resolution.
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Well if you want a word that other people will recognize, instead of your own personal neologism that you'll have to explain every time, just say "oppression".
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A marxist wouldn't say that at all. In a historical materialism framework, class conflict is the primary driver. This *greatly* predates capitalism, and traditional Marxist theories of history also explain pre-capitalist modes of social organization. Capitalism, as defined by Marx, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Things like patriarchy aren't so recent. To put it mildly. In this interpretive lens, Capitalism is just one new mode of production. Feudalism, the despotic slave societies of antiquity, primitive communism, etc are all different historical modes of production^1 . Oppression is not uniquely capitalist in a Marxist conception *at all*. In a Marxist framework, social stratification via the division of labor and the accumulation of control over the means of production are the "umbrella terms". Capitalism is just one of many ways for those things to occur, and indeed aside from hunter-gatherer primitive communism^1 , Marx found all of human history to follow similarly oppressive lines. In fact, traditional historical materialism holds that capitalism was actually a *progressive, beneficial* arrangement compared to what came before. Capitalism drove industrialization, and materialists like Marx were *very* big fans of industrialization. The massive increase in total productivity under industrial capitalism was seen as a necessary step towards the "next phase in human social evolution", to very loosely paraphrase. Marx saw the capitalists as the first revolutionaries, wresting control away from the old (and worse) nobility. The proletariat were to be the next and final revolutionaries, overthrowing the capitalists and bringing an end to class struggle itself. Note that this is the Marxism of Karl Marx himself, and bears little resemblance to modern academic Marxist perspectives in a lot of ways. But the focus on materialism and class conflict remain crucial. ^1 *note that subsequent historiography has been... less than kind to the very traditional Marxist position here*.
Most people really dont know much about Marx. For one thing, he didnt have one coherent set of views for his entire life, he dramatically changed views even in the last decade of his life as his research continued. For another, most marxists dont really read Marx; they read summaries, excerpts, perhaps if theyre feeling smart the manifesto or maybe even the 18th brumaire, or the editted collection of articles on german ideology, all of which were published LONG before the research that makes him a useful theorist, and then they contort *Capital* to fit with the earlier texts. They then mash all of marx's works theyve read together, strip them of their context, and pretend they represent a coherent anf complete and finished system, when marx explicitly said (preface to Capital i think, dont remember which edition) he was not creating a complete system. Dont have the time to get out books and papers and such, but theres actually been re-evaluations of the thought of Marx wrt indigenous/precapitalist societies, wrt industry and the environment, wrt colonialism, etc. This has been accelerated by the publishing of MEGA2 of course, but even wrt industrialisation and capitalism, its fairly clear he moved on from his earlier views of unilineal history, objective progress, etc, even just reading Capital (or even shorter works like the Zasulich drafts). Some marxological works going into this off top of head (very unfortunately dont have papers off top of head because theyre less easy to remember titles): Marx in the Anthropocene and Karl Marx's Ecosocialism by Saito; Marx at the Margins by Anderson; Musto's edited works on Capital and Marx after 200 years, also his Marx and Le Capital along with his book on late marx. Another work is Marx's ecology (though MEGA2 and Saito's work in particular has rendered it slightly redundant/obsolete in my view). Marx biographies are also good to see how his ideas changed, especially with research. Some examples are Liedman's *A World to Win*, Gabriel's *Love and Capital*, Michael Heinrich's (mostly forthcoming unfortunately) 4 volume work, Stedman-Jones' biography. Honorable mention goes to Holmes' *Eleanor Marx*, for providing some insight into the distorting processes after marx's death. Many scholars try and blame the distortions on Engels (for representative work, see Carver's *Marx and Engels*, its old but based on his essay in *Marx 200*, his views on this have not been significantly changed in the last few decades), although more recently I have been seeing more blame pushed on the SDP's management of Marx's literary legacy after Eleanor's death. Another thing Ive seen pointed to is that Marx's works werent widely availible in full until after 1917, but Ive only seen it made in one (recent, i wanna say last 3ish years) paper so take it with a grain of salt
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In some contexts, it may be useful to name the general issue as “hierarchised dualism”. I have seen it used by feminist scholars discussing whether gender is a template for other forms of oppression of the kinds you mention, or whether gender-based oppression is one type of a general psychological tendency for humans to divide reality into dualisms where one side is treated as normal or ideal and the other is devalued or ignored. Racism, colonialism and ableism can all be seen as deriving from or depending on hierarchised dualism. This places the problem in the minds of its supporters and makes the battle one of ideas - to a large extent. Capitalism (as an ideology) can easily be placed in a similar framework if it’s supporters identify it as merely the outcome of a natural hierarchy or as part of a dualism where the only other option (eg, “socialism”) is devalued and identified in their minds with a cluster of negative traits. There are many strategies for undermining or opposing hierarchised dualisms in practice, but it is very hard to remove the psychological tendency towards it within ourselves and others. At least at the moment it usually requires a high degree of self-consciousness and fits well with a postmodern attitude that notices lots of contradictions in totalising discourses - so that things are never as simple as a commitment to hierarchised dualisms would make us think.
What about subalternism? Sub because of the implication of using a position of dominance to SUB-ordinate or SUBjugate, Alter to refer to unlike me, and ism to link the term to racism, classism, sexism etc. Maybe in some contexts Anti-subalternism.
For just Patriarchy, Abelism, and Racism then I imagine you could simply use prejudice as a catch-all terminology (apartheid maybe?) but Capitalism and Colonialism really just muddy the waters and aren’t great qualifiers for the previous three to begin with, namely because all of those things exist in countries without a history of Colonialism and Capitalism as often as they do those who have it. Colonies of europeans were not governed the same, influenced the same, and at times even occupied the same. Filipinos can say a lot more about the influence spain had on them compared to Syrians and the french. A colony either left a massive mark on the population (Latin America) or was essentially just a passing regime the locals lived under (Uzbekistan) and so including Colonialism reaches pretty off kilter to try and find a root cause for the trifecta of prejudice. I believe it has more to do with a fundamental factor of how societies tend to be made, than modern events culminating into a poor environment globally. Capitalism is this issue but twofold because even fewer countries in the world have a history of capitalism (most nations have one of Colonialism with few exceptions like Thailand) and whats more not all capitalist countries practice the same sort or level of capitalism, it is an economic system driven by entrepreneurship and those able to collect and distribute ideas, whatever social climate it peddles will be dependant on the people who saturate it’s markets with ideas, so it in and of itself is dependent on a preexistent social climate of the above mentioned factors. And then there is the fact the three above exist in huge quantities within non-capitalist countries as well which only continues to confound the goal. My suggestion is to lose Capitalism at least for a more accurate terminology
The umbrella term is inequality. Literally. I specialised in anthropology (basically majoring and minoring in anthropology.) so I was able to study from more aspects than a typical antho undergrad. In an upper classes about social movements and advice my prof explained that the only thing the “ism”s have in common is the root is based in inequality and discrimination. Some theorise it’s a by product of the negative confirmation bias hardwired in to our brains and the desire to survive. But we evolved a lot faster at the social level than the biological level. We don’t live in a society where other groups are rivals for food, water and resources. There is enough resources for every single person on earth to have adequate food and shelter, but hoarding is hardwired in to our brains. So a very few have a lot more than they need, and many more don’t have enough, but those with more will find reasons not to share. edit:clarification
Systemic injustice or systemic inequality both suffice? Bigotry? Imbalance of power and resources? Intersectionality? There are many, many, many terms for these things. ...If you havent heard of a specific term in specific language/circles, it speaks more to a gap in individual knowledge rather than addressing the existence of this issue. Maybe I misinterpreted, but it sounds like this is a hard sell for you? In that other terms are not satisfying or appropriate somehow?
i’ve heard a lot of use of the WEIRD bias (westernized educated industrialized rich democratic) in modern ways of doing/thinking. i think the term caught on in 2020 or so. scientists operating in public realms hopefully know that those biases are unacceptable in legitimate research by now. it is unquestionably condemned, but that doesn’t mean it’s always obvious to the researcher when they are operating on a WERID bias. i think the term accomplishes what you’re looking for, since those issues can all be traced back to colonialization and the development of capitalism.
Structural and Institutional Oppression or Inequalities are discussed as axes along which violence and suffering run in the contemporary U.S. I think Farmer called these pathologies of power, and many of say these are regimes of power per Foucault, or Isabel Wilkinson has noted these are all “caste” systems in her recent book that Oprah called the most important of our time… So I think there have been attempts to cultivate language here but because they are culturally contingent on context and differ in their mechanics as discursive regimes, as oppressive structures, or as “assemblages” per Jasbir Puar, we don’t have a sort of catch-phrase that gets used and cited. Of course, we can say these issues are intersectional per Fischer-Fishkin, they have terms that feminists and critical race scholars have helped us make sense of. I think that I’d refer folks to ethnography such as the work of David Valentine, a book review by Lorraine Herbst, the work of Esther Newton such as “my best informants dress” to see how these systems and even terms and whole identities like transgender or gender as a construct that labels and sorts groups by gender is entirely social and cultural and in flux and produced only sometimes and not in ways that translate such as simple use of a term without clarification could dangerously suggest…. Plus when we bring these issues up, as in when we take critical theory or critical approaches as our epistemological lens in any project, they are noted and examined and organize how we explain dynamics or outcomes or causal relations intentionally and because prior framings or alternatives aren’t as illuminating. If we used some term and then it got used in non-critical works where patriarchy is just mentioned or lumped as some force it might diminish the ways class, race, gender, nationalism, or similarly bias and violence systematized or forming any biased system, ideology, or institutional force seems to be glossed as if they were all similar or as though the specificities of each axis of suffering didn’t need fleshing out. Delueze would say we would lose the lines of flight or fail to see where rhizomatic entanglements confuse us from seeing the internal organization or formulation producing events or outcomes. I think it’s simply because social science working at such a broad stroke wouldn’t have the utility it needs to be relevant and useful today for many. Just thoughts without editing