The Wheel of Power And Privilege & Beauvoir’s Revolt

It is Thursday, the 18th of November 2021. Today, I want to you ask yourself an important question: 

Whose freedom did you infringe on today? 

Before jumping to say no one, think deeply. Did you prevent someone from doing something they wanted? Did your presence impose restrictions on others? 

The answer is most likely yes. Humans are relational beings and it is part of our facticity to be restricted by other people. 

Now ask yourself this question. 

If you had to relive your day, but this time your aim was to maximize the freedom of those around you in addition to your own, what might you do differently? Try to think of an example. 

This kind of question pushes our imagination, because it is one that we might rarely consider. However, this project of maximizing collective freedom is one that Simone De Beauvoir in The Ethics of Ambiguity states should be a project undertaken by us all. She says that the cause of freedom is “universally human” and should be taken on by each one of us. 

When you genuinely become invested in the freedom of others, however, you start to go beyond the ways that you restrict others and start to understand the other ways in which they are restricted — by people other than you, but also by systems, institutions, and necessities. This is known as “oppression,” and is the central theme of Part III of  The Ethics of Ambiguity. People are oppressed in several different ways, and the oppression in the United States today can be understood through the lens of power and privilege – as demonstrated in this wheel. 

Each layer of a wheel represents a level of power and privilege, with the innermost layer representing the most power and the outermost layer representing the most marginalized. There are 36 different possibilities of where one could fall on the power wheel. This means that of all these identities, only 1 is not oppressed at all, and 35 are. Additionally, only 1 has little to no power in society, and every other intersectional identity includes some level of being the oppressor. 

According to Beauvoir, the only way to eliminate oppression and replace it with freedom is through a revolt. But who is this revolt against? Is it against the 1/36 that amass the most power? Or against the 35/36 that limit the freedom of another group in some way or the other? Who and what should be “destroy[ed]”?  

Here is what Beauvoir says: 

“We are obliged to destroy not only the oppressor but also those who serve him, whether they do so out of ignorance or out of constraint.” 

Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

This is confusing to me. The challenging part of the capitalism system within which we live is that it creates an inherent paradox where we criticize systems that oppress us and others while continuing to participate in them. This includes academia, for-profit organizations, marriage, etc. So how does one exist without serving the oppressors? 

But Beauvoir acknowledges that her vision presents a paradox where “no action can be generated for man without its being immediately generated against men.” To revolt against oppression is to destroy in the process the lives of the oppressors, all those who serve him, and even the oppressed whose lives may be sacrificed at battle. 

Thus, although Beauvoir leaves us with a clear route to combat oppression – to revolt to maximize freedom for all – she leaves us with a lot of questions of who should revolt against who and how layers of intersectionality complicate the oppressor/oppressed binary. 

So, it makes sense to culminate by asking ourselves some questions, just like we began. Where do you fall on this wheel or power and privilege? Where do you see yourself in a revolt – on which side? Do you believe that “serving” the oppressor is enough grounds to destroy someone in a revolt? What about the role of violence? 

To continue to discover Beauvoir’s views on these issues, read The Ethics of Ambiguity!