51. "Oppressive"

 

When should we help oppressed people and when should we tell them, "Get used to it"? The question can tie us in moral and practical knots but an understanding of the word "oppress" might loosen things up a little.

The root form in Late Latin, opprimere, meant "rape" (from Latin ob "against" plus premere "to press, push," then, in oppressare, "pressing against, crushing") and we wouldn't have any trouble if that's what we still meant. We'd rush to help whoever cried the word.

But the meanings have expanded and softened, on to what rulers do to their people and what humidity and heavy traffic do to everybody. Guilt and feelings of inadequacy are "oppressive." The word fits any constant or repetitious annoyance — as we might have expected it to start doing. Oppressare was a frequentative, a verb indicating repeated action, not as common with rapists as with rulers.

We can tell each other more with an expanded word. A friend complains of the "oppressive joviality" of an uncle. I see more haw-haw than a child can respond to. A homosexual finds an "oppressive conjugality" in his relationship. I see a full daily life and the sensibility responding to it. Wonderful for both friend and homosexual to be able to convey so much in one word.

Still, it's fundamentally a complaint word, meaning that it's unidirectional. We hear "I'm oppressed" but never "I oppress." And the complainer is always for freedom. Even in art criticism where, for example, a 36-meter steel wall can be found "oppressive," we hear a cry for it. We autonomous viewers ought not be subject to intimidation.

If in every cry for freedom we hear "Help, I'm being raped" our knot in the stomach tightens. We loosen it only by deciding if the complaint is justified. Sometimes it's easy (the Jews of Germany, the Syrians of Hama, the slaves of the South) but most of the time it's hard (the Muslims in Bosnia, the Albanians in Kosovo).

In domestic politics the word really gets hard. One side applies it to taxes, gun laws, and environmental controls, the other to what's done to deny mainstream benefits to those on the margin. Before an American audience it's always an advantage to be heard crying for freedom.

When bank executives complain of "oppressive tax and regulatory policies" they are crying for freedom. Staying close to the root meaning we wonder if they're really getting screwed or if they're just crying rape.  After the collapse of 2009 it looked like the latter.  Rape, however, was not far from what Ponzi schemes (Bernie Madoff) had done to trusting widows.

Our answers are colored, I think, by our knowledge of the people around us. If we have a friend who finds things like joviality in uncles oppressive we tend to say, "Get used to it." If we have a friend abused by a spouse I think we tend to say, "I'm here to help."