The power to define
The power to define.... is the ability to manipulate our ideas—to limit our agenda, to mold how we see, and to shape what we look at. It is the power to interpret the picture we see when we look at the world. It is the power to place a frame around that picture; to define where it begins and ends—which is the power to create our collective consciousness. And that is after all, what pictures, what paintings do—they define what we see. They give us the painter's interpretation of reality. They give us illusion. The difference is that when we look at a painting of the ocean, we know we are looking at a painting—and we know that there must have been a painter. We don't think we are looking at the ocean itself. But when we are not looking at a painting, when we are looking at society, we've been convinced that the interpretations of society that we've been taught are not interpretations—we think they are the real deal; that is, the truth. That kind of social propaganda is not only tremendously powerful, it is also mostly invisible—and we can’t fight what we don’t see. Most of us accept the images and the definitions that we have been taught as true, neutral, self-evident, and eternal; so the power to paint the picture—to define what is right and wrong, what is lawful and what is criminal—is really the power to win the battle for our minds, And to win it without ever having to fight it.
Sabina Virgo, “The Criminalization of Poverty,” in Rosenblatt, ed., Criminal Injustice: Confronting the Prison Crisis
