As a result of humanity's attempt to fight social ills like police brutality, governmental abuse of power, rape, bullying, genocides, domestic violence, gender discrimination, etc. Many groups of people have come to be regarded as villains. For example, last year there were a lot of protests around the world against police brutality, due to this the police in so many countries became viewed as villains. Then, when it comes to the quest for equal rights among the genders (feminism) many view the male gender as villains. In a quest for racial equality white people especially are being viewed as villains. In a quest for freedom in society many view the government as villains, etc etc.
What is usually at the forefront is the view that these villains are evil and all the various offenses they have committed against their fellow humans are being hammered upon but in this discourse we would come to see that the most important thing is not that they were evil but that they were just in possession of the greater power. Also we would come to see that when talking about villains we tend to point at other more humane groups that seem to be the counterparts of these villains and make it look like their counterpart are better people when all there is to it could just be that their counterpart do not wield much power and that's why they appear humane.
To go further into this examination, we'd be looking at police brutality, rape and gender discrimination, racism and genocides.
Police Brutality
Police brutality is the use of excessive force in law enforcement. Police brutality has been a scourge on the earth for ages, it is as old as policing itself. It is also not limited to a few countries but a widespread problem affecting so many countries of the world. You can view this Wikipedia article to see some cases of police brutality recorded in history around the world. You can also view this article to see the ranking of countries with the most unlawful killing by police.
Last year the death of George Floyd sparked protests in USA demanding justice and reforms to end police brutality. In Nigeria also mass protests were carried out too against police brutality. During all these, American rapper Snoop Dogg posted this meme:
This here demonstrates the view this write-up seeks to examine; when people talk against real life villains they usually make the villains look like they are worse people in comparison to their arguable counterpart without really considering the fact that these villains do they evil they do mostly because they have powers and their counterparts who seem more humane are only so because they lack powers.
Look at this police brutality case now, this meme seeks to portray the police as bad people, yes they have earned their reputation and are rightfully the villains of this campaign but why compare them to the fire department? When compared with the fire department it starts to look like the fire department are made of better people but how much can that be true? The fire department has no power in relation to the police. All they do is put off fires, make rescues and things like that, they haven't been presented with the kind of powers the police have so how can we be certain they're better people when they haven't been presented with this sort of ability to do grievous things? How can we be certain they wouldn't do worse things if they had powers?
Take a minute to imagine how much of villains police can be without the powers they currently hold...
Rape and Gender Discrimination
Feminism is a movement that seeks to achieve the goal of equality among the sexes, to fight laws and social tendencies that seek to promote inequality among the sexes. In doing this feminism looks extensively into laws and social trends that promotes inequality laws like those prohibiting women from voting, requiring them to have the permission of their husbands before carrying out certain acts, etc. Trends they look at are rape, sexual assault, bullying, prevention of women from getting into top positions, inequal pay/promotion in the work place, etc. (Remember that feminism first gained full throttle in the 19th century when women were so unrecognized by the law that women could not vote and placed below men by society's standard and that's why the feminist movement was and continues to be more about women than men in their bid to equalize the sexes).
In having an extensive look into these issues, men have come to be viewed by many feminists as villains, due to the fact that men have been found to carry out the most acts that seek to undermine women and put them below men. Men made the laws, men controlled the workplace, etc. But in looking at this case can men be said to be worse people? Can women be said to be better than men? Or is it not simply a case of the one with the most power would carry out the most harm on the other?
Biologically we all know that men have more physical power than women. In the past when mankind were mostly farmers, hunters and warriors physical power was too crucial, men were bound to dominate women. Men dominated and kept it that way. Further, when it comes to rape physical power plays another crucial role here so men are sure to dominate again when it comes to it.
Men are quite the villains in comparison but does that mean women are just better people? Would they have acted differently if they had the powers nature bestowed upon men? Luckily we can answer these questions. All the time women have been in situations where they were the ones with the power they have proven to do things just like men do. Of course in some instances women are in positions where they wield power, positions like being the more physically stronger person (some women are stronger than some men or stronger than some other women), positions of authority, etc.
Take a look at this article cited by Wikipedia that shows that Female prison officers commit 90% of sex assaults on male teens in US juvenile detention centres. Other facts drawn from a Wikipedia article called Rape by Gender shows the cases of Mary Katherine Letourneau and
Debra Lafave American female teachers who pleaded guilty to rape and assault of underaged male students. On rape of females by females it says:
A telephone survey conducted in 2010 for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 43.8% of lesbians reported having been raped, physically abused or stalked at some point by an intimate partner; of these, 67.4% reported the perpetrator or perpetrators as being exclusively female.
Etcetera.
Also, when it comes to false rape accusations women have been known to make them, sometimes putting men in jail for years before the truth comes out. This is them exercising another sort of power order than physical.
Racism and Genocides
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When it comes to racism and genocides, the crimes of the white people are usually mentioned most. Slavery is being mentioned, apartheid and segregation is being mentioned, colonization, especially the evils of colonization of Africa and Asia and the genocides of native Americans is being mentioned. And white people become the villains here. But again what determined their villainousness? Are they the cruelest set of human beings? Or are they just the most powerful?
I have come across the argument that when Northern Africans made of Blacks, Bebers, etc called Moors invaded Europe and conquered Italy and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) beginning from 711 AD, they introduced Education to Europe, built schools and libraries but they did not oppress the Whites like the Whites did when they conquered Africa and other parts of the world. My reply to this was that how much power did the Moors have over the Europeans? Yes, they were the most educated, they could fight and all, but their weapons wasn't it about the same weapons as the Europeans used? Note that firearms were not well developed at the time. If these Africans had firearms and could easily overwhelm the Europeans and defeat them and their crude weapons with ease how would these Africans have treated Europeans?
When Europeans conquered the world they did it with the aid of some great power - the gun and other firearms. Firearms were invented by the Chinese in about the 10th century. From China it went to the Middle East and from there it entered Europe in about the 14th century. By the time Europe started conquering the world they had further improved on the firearms more than the Chinese or any other peoples had improved on it and they started conquering the world quickly before anyone else could improve it to that level. So, they conquered the world with this new found power and so dominated the world. The following can be seen in Christopher Columbus's Journal when he had just discovered the West Indies and while he terrorised the native inhabitants:
Sunday, 14 October. . . . I do not, however, see the necessity of fortifying the place, as the people here are simple in war-like matters... I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased. . . .
That was the power of the firearms.
With this domination who was going to dominate and discriminate against others?
In Conclusion
There is an important question we all have to ask ourselves, and that is: how am I treating the people I have power over? While we talk against the villains of the real world, let us not forget that most of us are just one powerful position away from being villains ourselves. While condemning immorality and oppression let us look back into our own spaces and ascertain we are not oppressing the weaker ones amongst us. Looking at power like this should even be taught in schools, because like Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton said:
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Studies you can check out here and here shows how much power affects us and tend to make us inconsiderate and arrogant. If we are taught as kids to know this and meditate on it regularly we can have a tool to work against the effects of power on us and curb the use of power for evil. We'll watch all our powers more, from stopping bullying, sexual predation, abuse of policing powers and governmental powers, etc. We could stand a good chance to keep changing the world as absolutely all of man's inhumanity to man can be traced to wrong usage of power.
Furthermore, reduction of powers of some bodies should be done as much as possible. That's why nuclear disarmament is such a good thing and defunding the police too. Remember defunding the police is not a complete shutdown of police but spending the money on reducing the job of police by letting other more well trained human relations establishments to handle some of the problems the police responds to and to spend the money on social services like mental health, housing, employment, enlightenment, etc that would help curb crime.