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| Leafless tree in Monroe |
In The Hunger Games, it appears that the citizens of District 12, to include Katniss Everdeen, are not free, while the citizens in the Capital who rule over District 12 are free. This appearance would be false. Robert Joustra explains,
"Everyone in Panem has lost their freedom, whether through tyrannical suppression in the outer districts or the bondage of novelty and hedonism in the Capital. The same regime causes both, and this is what [Charles] Taylor calls the “double loss of freedom.” It’s two sides of the same coin, foretold by both Orwell (1984) and Huxley (Brave New World). (Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson, How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World, p. 7)
Whether it is a nation, whether it is a marriage, wherever there is oppression both the oppressor and the oppressed are in bondage. Thus, we are not to be deceived by the illusion of freedom cast by "happy" oppressors. The oppressors themselves are not free, they just don't know it.
(See Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity.)
