Exploitation itself constitutes violence regardless of how gently it is administered

Evidence

Any situation in which “A” objectively exploits “B” or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human. With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 132

Categorization

• DEFINE: Freire’s redefinition of violence as any hindering of self-affirmation — reframes what counts as harm in a redesigned classroom.
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s standing interest: ‘Small acts of decorum toward corpses matter more than practical logic’ — appearance versus substantive harm. — connects to: Instrumentarian power operates as a bloodless taming rather than bodily violence. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1634; Perverted justice under legal forms still constitutes a state of war — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 28