Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Miroslav Volf on the need to imagine a new order:
The most seminal impact of envy consists … in transforming “the ideas of the dominant” into the “dominant ideas.” Once the link between the privileged position and certain values has been socially constructed, the disprivileged are prompted to seek redress for their humiliation through demanding such values for themselves—and thereby further enhancing those values’ seductive power. (Zygmunt Bauman, commenting in Postmodern Ethics, 1993, 216)
Bauman’s astute observation about envy applies equally well to enmity. The most seminal impact of enmity, we might argue, using Bauman’s vocabulary, consists in transforming the violent practices of the dominant into dominant practices. Once the link between violence and social status has been established, victims are prompted to seek redress for their oppression with violent means. The social impact of envy and enmity, singly and in combination, is to reinforce the dominant values and practices that cause and perpetuate oppression in the first place. Envy and enmity keep the disprivileged and weak chained to the dominant order—even when they succeed in toppling it! All too often, of course, they do not want to topple the dominant order; as Bauman says, they “demand the reshuffling of cards, not another game. They do not blame the game, only the stronger hand of the adversary” (216).
Exclusion and Embrace, p. 115
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