A Human Rights Paradigm Understanding of the Psychosocial Identity Dynamics of Oppression and Liberation

• In Event: Oppression, Injustice and Inequality - Theorizing Mechanisms

Abstract

A multidisciplinary neo-Kuhnian contract understanding of human rights guides analysis of contrasting neuro-psychosocial processes that shape learned identity dynamics underlying oppression and liberation. Framing links the empirical traditions that Minsky (1975) cited: Kuhn’s (1962) study of paradigms and Bartlett’s (1976/1923) schema research. This synthesis frames paradigms in the non-disciplinary context of schema research on literacy regarding principled meanings of critical notions, e.g., person (human nature), democracy, harm, law, ethics, and justice. Analysis using paradigmatic human rights contrast sets (cf. Kuhn, 1993) evaluates oppression’s neuro-psychosocial dynamics and unjustified harm. Lacking the standards of a reliable person prototype, learned stereotypical attitudes falsely legitimate polarizing oppression by glorifying oppressors and dehumanizing the targets. Oppression’s neuro-psychosocial motivation stems from activating the primitive brain that in past eras facilitated survival by eliciting rapid responses such as fear, fight, flight, anger, and hate. In contrast, democratic motivation for liberation of oppressed individuals, groups, and nations stems from well practiced understanding of our genotypic human-rights dignity, freedom, and equality (Preamble and Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Neurobiological evidence supports this understanding of our normative, inborn human rights potential for developing empathetic egalitarian ethics, judgment, behavior, and institutions (Keysers, 2011, The Empathetic Brain).

Author

• Thomas Edward Reed, Eastern Kentucky University