Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.
Interpretation
Understanding oppression requires personal connection and recognition of those who suffer.
In this quote, Robert J. Shiller highlights the idea that oppression often continues unchecked when there is a lack of direct interaction or visibility between the oppressor and the oppressed. The physical or emotional distance creates a barrier that allows injustice to persist, as understanding and empathy are hindered when individuals do not confront the realities faced by those who are marginalized or oppressed.
In practice
During a community meeting about social issues, this quote could inspire discussion on the importance of understanding marginalized voices.
Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.
Speculative markets have always been vulnerable to illusion. But seeing the folly in markets provides no clear advantage in forecasting outcomes, because changes in the force of the illusion are difficult to predict.
That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics.
Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.
We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters - that is, the outlier events that matter the most.
If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.
I love to talk about cooking and recipes, but I love as much talking about how food and cooking can change the world.
Whether by theft or by artistry or by conquest, when it comes to time, Venetians are the world's greatest experts. They bested time like no one else.
And I'm not a student of religion, but I don't find anything in what the principal teachings of Islam that put us in contradiction at all. In fact, the principles are the same as what-we have a diverse religious culture. But it's kindness, it's be good to your neighbor, it's love, and it's take care of children. It's all these things that-so there's no anti-Islam.
Now I'm an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.
Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.
I believe in reincarnation,β [Bjorn] said. I KNOW. βI tried to live a good life. Does that help?β THATβS NOT UP TO ME. Death coughed. OF COURSE... SINCE YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION... YOUβLL BE BJORN AGAIN.
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