This is a question which has been asked for reasons I mostly reject. I do not simply reject the answers, though surely I do for many, but I reject that the question, as posed, be asked. Assuming that a question is intended to be productive, it must be decided upon amongst rival answers. These rivalry of answers implies that an Oppressor may either be Free or Not, or some combination or alteration.
However, by definition an Oppressor is Free. Surely, true statements may be posited as the answer to the question. Yet one of these answers the questions. Rather they are statements regarding oppression or freedom.
Within each sentence is a modicum of scope. The question of, “Can an Oppressor be Free” relates the concepts of Oppression, the Oppressor, and the Oppressed. With the concept of Oppression inescapable, it’d be unwise to assume the scope to be anything other than the oppression which permeates every element of the sentence.
If then, we are talking of the Oppression which the Oppressor enacts, then by definition his is Free of it. An actor is not the action he commits. An actor is not the result of the action he commits. An actor exists before and apart from the action he commits, and is the reason for its existence.
This is not to say that one’s actions cannot bear effects upon the actor; suicide demonstrates this in no uncertain terms. However, their actions contain a temporal aspect. The actor exists before the action. The actor does the act. The Oppressor Oppresses.
The question proposed therefor does not ask whether the effects of an actor may come to involve the individual who committed them, but whether the actor is Free to commit that action. The fact that the Oppressor is an Oppressor indicates success in their venture of Oppression, and answers in no uncertain terms, that yes the Oppressor is Free.
Does the Act of Oppression restrict the Oppressor’s Freedom?
That is an entirely different question, but is no more productive. Undoubtably, yes. Any action, by definition, makes some change to the actor’s enviroment if only psychologically. And, any change alters the situation in which future decisions are made. This is opportunity cost, and not only does choosing Yes prevent you from choosing No at the same time, it prevents you from all things which would require you to have chose No at that time. This limited scope of future decision, is a restriction of the Actor’s Freedom.
How?
Now there is a question. How requires you to analyze relationships amongst choices, actors, and the enviorment. It’s these connections which can provide value.
