Proxies and Redeemers
This dispatch describes two ways in which the oppressed endeavor to escape their oppression without deconstructing the deathly world of suffering that conditions their oppression.
This dispatch serves to connect the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project back to the post-Nietzschean project in philosophical psychology that has been central to all of my books.
One.
Imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy is an ethnocidal and ecocidal concatenation of racist, sexist, and economic power formations that have enabled white men who are profitably engaged in capitalist relations of production to subordinate and exterminate others, especially black, brown, and indigenous women who are engaged in relations of production that primarily provide for social subsistence.
Two.
Imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy maintains itself by exercising ruling, disciplinary, normalizing, and optimizing powers that prevent confluences of creolizing, queering, and communizing processes from occurring.
Creolizing, queering, and communizing processes are processes wherein and whereby racial, sexual, and economic differences come to defer to one another so as to become black and blurred or, to borrow Édouard Glissant’s terminology, so as to become opaque. Confluences of creolizing, queering, and communizing processes prevent racial, sexual, and economic differences from being used to characterize and maintain social stratification.
Three.
The aim of the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project is two-fold. On the one hand, the project aims to deconstruct the statements, implements, and environments that furnish people with motives, means, and opportunities to become complicit in the ethnocidal and ecocidal projects of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. On the other hand, the project aims to (re-)construct statements, implements, and environments that constitute living worlds, furnishing people with motives, means, and opportunities to become confluent with creolizing, queering, and communizing agents.
Four.
White men profitably engaged in capitalist relations of production are the principal beneficiaries of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy, but there are too few of them to maintain its power formations on their own — they are always in need of proxies. This is to say, in other words, that white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs must enlist non-whites, non-men, and the unprofitable as proxies in their efforts to maintain their privileges.
Five.
Why do those belonging to the oppressed mass — non-whites, non-men, and the unprofitable — become proxies for white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs? Activist and journalist Chris Hedges suggests the following:
[Imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy] forces the vast majority into the mass, but it allows a selected few, willing to do its dirty work, to rise above the multitude. These privileged few are given the license and authority to carry out the acts of sadism that have become the primary forms of social control. These enforcers do this work vigorously, for their greatest fear is being pushed back into the mass. The more these foot soldiers for the elite insult, persecute, torture, humiliate and kill, the more they seem to magically widen the divide between themselves and their victims. This is why Black police and corrections officers can be as cruel, and sometimes crueler, than their white counterparts. […] [Their] sadism eradicates, at least momentarily, [their] feelings of worthlessness, vulnerability and susceptibility to pain and death. It imparts feelings of omnipotence. It is pleasurable.
[...] [The most banal and, simultaneously, the most cruel among these sadists are] the colorless bureaucrats and technocrats churned out of business schools, law schools, management programs and elite universities. […] These systems managers carry out the incremental tasks that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death work. They collect, store, and manipulate our personal data for digital monopolies and the security and surveillance state. They grease the wheels for ExxonMobil, BP and Goldman Sachs. They write the laws passed by the bought-and-paid-for political class. They pilot the aerial drones that terrorize the poor in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan. They profit from the endless wars. They are the corporate advertisers, public relations specialists and television pundits that flood the airwaves with lies. They run the banks. They oversee the prisons. They issue the forms. They process the papers. They deny food stamps and medical coverage to some and unemployment benefits to others. They carry out the evictions. They enforce the laws and the regulations. They do not ask questions. They live in an intellectual vacuum, a world of stultifying minutia.
Six.
The recruitment of proxies for white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs is carried out by way disciplinary, normalizing, and optimizing powers that engage in profiling. Of all the powers that serve this purpose, the powers that engage in educational and financial profiling are of paramount importance. These powers serve to filter out the atypical and outlying members of oppressed races, genders, sexes, and classes who are best suited to serve as effective proxies. These powers work by offering distinctions to individuals who serve as proxies — often in the form of educational, financial, and professional credits and credentials. They incrementally elevate some members of oppressed groups to the status of honorary white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs in order to encourage them to serve as proxies.
Seven.
But the very same disciplinary, normalizing, and optimizing powers also serve to filter out the members of oppressed groups who are liable to become atypical and outlying “dangers” — that is to say, in other words, they filter out those most liable to become confluent with creolizing, queering, and communizing agents. These “dangerous” individuals filtered out from the mass are subjected to deprivation and to communicative and corporeal violence, insult and injury, and this subjection takes place in such a manner that these “dangerous” individuals come to serve as examples. The mass learns from these examples that becoming confluent with creolizing, queering, and communizing agents means subjecting oneself to higher than usual risks of deprivation and violence framed as the unintended consequences of disciplinary action, or as normal(ized) accidents, or as the collateral damage of society's pursuit of progressive optimization.
Eight.
The members of oppressed races, genders, sexes, and classes who are best suited to act as effective proxies often turn out to be the very same individuals who are most liable to become “dangers”. When power makes one suffer early and often, one is taught early and often how power works and how power might serve one better if one were to serve power. As a result, one is often faced with a stark choice in life: either (i) become a proxy and subject others to deprivation and violence, or (ii) endure deprivation and violence oneself. Alternatively, to riff on Hedges by way of the existential dilemma that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of in Being and Nothingness, the stark choice is this: sadism or masochism?
Nine.
Returning to the main point of this dispatch, we have seen that white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs are too few to be the only ones complicit in the perpetuation of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy: many non-whites, non-men, and the unprofitable must also be complicit. Members of these oppressed groups often loathe the prospect of being (mis)taken for “just another member of an oppressed group”, and they seize upon motives, means, and opportunities to serve as proxies and to incrementally become honorary white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs. It has almost become a cliche observation that poor white men who find themselves unable to profitably engage in capitalist relations of production will gladly serve as proxies for white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs in spite of the fact that capitalism has done them more harm than good. It is perhaps less of a cliche but still widely observed that the “talented tenth” culture of “respectable” Black meritocrats and the “lean in” culture of women climbing the corporate ladder have both lent themselves to the sadism of proxy-hood and complicity in the ethnocidal and ecocidal projects of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
Ten.
White-supremacist capitalist patriarchs and their proxies call themselves “conservatives” (or, alternatively, “traditionalists”) when they seek to minimize diversity, equity, and inclusion in the recruitment of new proxies. There are racist conservatives who believe that non-whites should be discriminated against by the powers that recruit proxies. Then there are sexist conservatives who believe that non-men should be discriminated against by the powers that recruit proxies. Finally, there are fiscal conservatives who believe that the unprofitable should be discriminated against by the powers that recruit proxies.
White-supremacist capitalist patriarchs and their proxies call themselves “liberals” when they seek to maximize diversity, equity, and inclusion in the recruitment of new proxies. This is to say, in other words, that liberals are those who believe that non-whites, non-men, and the unprofitable should all be given equal motives, means, and opportunities to serve as proxies for white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs.
Riffing on Hedges and Sartre again, to choose between liberalism and conservatism is to choose between a softcore sadism and a hardcore sadism, respectively.
Eleven.
There is no point in naming and shaming people for choosing proxy-hood and sadism over and against masochism and persecution. Instead, let us name and shame our deathly world of suffering and the ways in which our world compels people to choose between proxy-hood and persecution, to choose between sadism and masochism. Let us not only deconstruct those statements, implements, and environments that furnish us with motives, means, and opportunities to engage in sadistic power-plays, but let us also deconstruct those statements, implements, and environments that furnish us with motives, means, and opportunities to engage in masochistic passion-plays. Let us undermine both choices, robbing sadistic power-plays of their glorified pleasures and robbing masochistic passion-plays of their glorified sufferings.
Twelve.
Having already said enough about the glorified pleasures of sadism, let us turn to the glorified sufferings of masochism. For me, this means attending to those curious organs of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that, following Teju Cole, I call the white-savior industrial complex.
One of the primary activities of the white-savior industrial complex is to coordinate the great spectacles known as the “Suffering Olympics”. In the “Suffering Olympics”, those who choose persecution over proxy-hood, who choose masochism over sadism, are compelled compete against one another for the title of “redeemer”. A “redeemer” is a person who, by and through enduring and overcoming persecution, is said to “redeem” the “sins” of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The title of “redeemer” is awarded to those suffering masochists who have mass appeal and who are ripe for co-option and patronage by white-supremacist capitalist patriarchs and their proxies. “Redeemers” are celebrated during the major festivals of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy, like the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.
Thirteen.
We mustn’t be too hasty in criticizing those suffering masochists who accept the title of “redeemer” when sadists offer it to them. For one, we must recognize that many of these “redeemers” have suffered for profound causes in a manner that has made a significant difference in people’s lives. Going further, however, we must also recognize that those suffering masochists who reject the title of “redeemer” when it is offered to them are effectively claiming a higher title for themselves: they would be “redeemer of redeemers”. By refusing the title of “redeemer” when it is offered to them, these suffering masochists "redeem" the choice of masochism for those who have accepted the title of “redeemer”; in so doing, these suffering masochists make choosing masochism into an end in itself.
Fourteen.
The choice between proxy-hood and persecution, between sadism or masochism, is a bad choice. When asked to choose between them, it is best to reply, Bartleby-like, “I prefer not to."
Let us have done with the choice between proxy-hood and persecution, done with the choice between sadism and masochism.
Instead, let us (re-)create ways of living otherwise than becoming proxies for power, otherwise than becoming redeemers for power, otherwise than becoming redeemers for power's redeemers, otherwise than becoming common victims of power, and otherwise than forming rival powers that can compete for supremacy.
In other words, let us engage in fugitive planning so as to flee from sadistic power-plays and masochistic passion-plays and so as to live radically everyday lives.
