the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house
Isn’t this just obviously, trivially, literally false? On a literal level you can, in fact, just use carpenter’s tools like saws and hammers to destroy houses. On a figurative level, religion, state violence, written language, legislation and ships were used to enforce chattel slavery, and the exact same tools were used by abolitionists to combat chattel slavery in Europe and the US.
This is the same pattern we see in pretty much every successful attempt to dismantle oppression throughout history. The most successful wins of feminism wins came from co-opting sources of patriarchal power, not from women going their own way or imaginative new paradigms. Gay rights came from rhetorical activism, public acceptance, court battles and patient legislation; they did not primarily flow from novel innovations in queer theory. Animal rights and welfare improvement will probably come from wins in legislation, public opinion, and technology, not the invention of truly novel cultural paradigms.
Indeed I struggle to think of examples where genuinely novel paradigms were used to dismantle oppression, perhaps Gandhi’s Satyagraha and Non-Violent Resistance is a decent example, but a) much of it is still embedded in the existing paradigms and b) one example does not a trend make.
Isn’t this just obviously, trivially, literally false? On a literal level you can, in fact, just use carpenter’s tools like saws and hammers to destroy houses. On a figurative level, religion, state violence, written language, legislation and ships were used to enforce chattel slavery, and the exact same tools were used by abolitionists to combat chattel slavery in Europe and the US.
This is the same pattern we see in pretty much every successful attempt to dismantle oppression throughout history. The most successful wins of feminism wins came from co-opting sources of patriarchal power, not from women going their own way or imaginative new paradigms. Gay rights came from rhetorical activism, public acceptance, court battles and patient legislation; they did not primarily flow from novel innovations in queer theory. Animal rights and welfare improvement will probably come from wins in legislation, public opinion, and technology, not the invention of truly novel cultural paradigms.
Indeed I struggle to think of examples where genuinely novel paradigms were used to dismantle oppression, perhaps Gandhi’s Satyagraha and Non-Violent Resistance is a decent example, but a) much of it is still embedded in the existing paradigms and b) one example does not a trend make.
Communist revolution? American independence?