World War II sent the wrong people wandering. God’s curse on Cain was intended for murderers and not their victims.
Jonathan Wilson, Marc Chagall
No-one told them
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to
Banksy, Wall and Piece
The marks of oppression
As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. … Once a situation of violence and oppression has been established, it engenders an entire way of life and behavior for those caught up in it – oppressor and oppressed alike. Both are submerged in the situation, and both bear the marks of oppression.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Hell
Hell is … a failure of openness, a failure of love and a consequent and dreadful entrapment within the self.
Thus Tony Milligan, in Love, who goes on to note that for Milton love of others and hell, defined as ‘hell within’, are mutually exclusive.
Recognition, misrecognition or non-recognition
… our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Non-recognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being.
Thus Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism
Friendship
Friendship is a basic and vital human relationship that forms the social fabric of our lives. It is in and through friendships that we discover our identity, gain our sense of value and place in the world, and learn what it means to participate in community. … friendships aid the development of our self-identity. Through friendships, we discover where we want to go in life and how we should relate with others and with God. Friends help us to recognize one another and the world.
John Swinton, Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil
Karl Möller 