10. Repression

The essence of repression is conflict. By repressing a part of the universe that is not to his liking, man creates a worldview that is at odds with the real world as well as the worldview of his fellow repressing individuals.

His repressed version is under threat of contradiction from the other realities that differ from it, and he must use conflict as a means of protecting his personal illusion. Conflict may come in the form of overt force, various manipulations, passive aggressive victimhood, or other techniques that are destructive to the world that the repressing man feels alienated from.

Repression is the ego’s way of creating a fictional history that further binds man into a cycle of more repressing and being repressed. Repression is self-perpetuating and requires more repression to keep the repressing ego alive. The repressed man is not able to see the world independently of his ego, and his dependence upon that ego forces him to produce more repression.

In the end, repression creates nothing but victims. For his ego to coexist with others, man must repress those outside of himself, either overtly through force or covertly through his passiveness. But those victims of repression are only the outward manifestation of the ultimate victim of repression – the repressing man who can never be peace with his own nature. See page 42, Being and the End of History.

“We never see that we are the total environment because there are several entities in us, all resolving around the ‘me,’ the self … This separation is the beginning of conflict, inward and outward.”
J. Krishnamurti