The Sublime Art of Making Reparations
Kintsugi, Psychoanalysis, and the Sublimation of Disturbing Realities
Reprinted below is the first of my Four Essays on Reparations from July 2021.
I will be transferring each of my Four Essays to this blog, one by one, over the course of the next month, as I prepare to retire the stand-alone site for the Essays. In the process, I will be making minor revisions to each of the Essays and cross-linking passages from them to other dispatches published here on this blog, building out different points from the Essays.
This particular essay is an important one for me because, in effect, it was after writing this particular essay that I conceived of the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project. Re-visiting this essay now, I find it as inspiring as when I first wrote it, and even more relevant to where we are today. I remain convinced that the making of artful reparations for genocide and slavery would be the un-making of the Settler States as global hegemon, as primary beneficiary and organizing force behind the twin scourges of global apartheid and planetary ecocide, and this would make worlds of difference possible.
“In the last period of his work, Freud […] noticed something new, the strange phenomenon he called the splitting of the ego. In this phenomenon, the ego, when faced with a disturbing reality, neither represses it nor denies it. Rather it simultaneously accepts and rejects it, thereby splitting itself into mutually incompatible states. The “side” of the ego that rejects the disturbing reality replaces it with a wish fulfilling fantasy. Here, we see the basic operation of primary process – wish fulfillment and defense working in tandem to get rid of a disturbance. But the new angle on this process is that the ego clearly would not undertake such a complex defensive manoeuvre if it did not in some way know exactly what it appears not to know. [...] [W]hat the ego knows, but defends against, is on the “side” of increased tension, the pain of life. The “side” of the ego that rejects the disturbing reality is self-destructively using wish fulfillment and defense to maintain inertia, the reflexive withdrawal from certain kinds of pain. In other words, the ego attacks its own knowledge of precisely what it needs.”
– Alan Bass from The Work of Psychoanalysis: Play
The more that I consider my facticity — my thrownness in space, time, nature, and culture; my being a black man living in the Settler States of the Amerikaners four-hundred some years after the docking of the White Lion, not being a descendant of enslaved Africans but a descendant of peoples who survived the Belgian genocide in the Congo and the depredations of German and British imperialism in East Africa — that is to say, in other words, the more that I wonder at the world in which I must make my home, for better or for worse, the more and more compelled I am to articulate my position on the matter of reparations.
I do not imagine that my position on reparations is of great significance to my world: I am a black man lacking in stature and authority, who can only speak for himself. Yet I feel compelled to speak on the matter of reparations precisely because few care if I speak, precisely because of my lack of stature and authority, precisely because I am only able to speak for myself and for no one else. It is not that I would gain stature and authority by speaking, nor that I would have the ability to speak for others. To the contrary, above all else, it is because I can only speak for myself that I feel I ought to speak on the matter of reparations. You see, I would like to inspire others who know what I know to do as I am doing, to speak for themselves on the matter of reparations.
Indeed, I am very much speaking to you, my friend and fellow traveler. I am inviting you to speak in chorus with me on the matter of reparations, in spite of the fact that no one has asked us to speak and so few care if we do. As I see it, all radical cultural transformations begin when those who are supposed to remain silent and be spoken for begin to stand up and speak for themselves, taking great care to articulate what they know, as best they know how. Ay, and reparations, as I imagine them, would be the most radical of cultural transformations.
So, here goes nothing, I shall speak for myself as best I know how...
The Settler States of the Amerikaners appears to be in the midst of a low-intensity civil war. This apparent civil war is being fought between two rival factions: let us call them the white nationalist faction and the liberal globalist faction. As I see it, both of these factions are expressions of the unraveling of Amerikaner capitalist supremacy.
The Settler States were founded on white supremacy, on the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of black peoples, and the white nationalist faction in Ameriker’s apparent civil war embraces white supremacy as the central pillar of Amerikaner identity. Against the white nationalists, the liberal globalist faction repudiates white supremacy, not because white supremacy is a bad thing in and of itself, but because white supremacy no longer offers Amerikaner capitalism the meaningful advantages that it used to. The liberal globalists would ditch white supremacy for an ethno-cultural pluralism that is more compatible with capitalist globalization. This is not to say, however, that the liberal globalists mean to make meaningful reparations for any atrocities committed in the name of white supremacy. Rather to the contrary, liberal globalists hold that making meaningful reparations would disadvantage Amerikaner capitalism far more than the maintenance of white supremacy would. Indeed, rather than making reparations, the liberal globalists want to put the atrocities of white supremacy behind them as quickly as they possibly can.
The liberal globalists claim that the white nationalists are backwards looking reactionaries and they denounce the white nationalists for holding the Settler States back. In turn, the white nationalists call the liberal globalists traitorous opportunists and hypocrites, and they denounce the liberal globalists for turning their backs on their nation’s white supremacist past while reaping the rewards of this very same past. The white nationalists, protesting against ethno-cultural pluralism, berate the liberal globalists, “You would be nothing without us and we will not be so easily forgotten! You owe us everything!”
Those who have been oppressed by white supremacy in the Settler States are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one front, oppressed peoples must protect themselves from white nationalists, who would compound past oppressions with further oppressions in the present and future. On the other front, oppressed peoples must confront the liberal globalists, who believe that they can continue to capitalize on past oppressions without contributing to further oppressions in the present and the future. These liberal globalists refuse to admit that to capitalize on past oppressions in the present and future is to further oppressions in the present and future. Indeed, oppressed peoples who see through liberal obfuscations agree with the white nationalists on one fundamental point: the liberal globalists are hypocritical opportunists.
The liberal globalists are smug in their hypocrisy. The liberal globalists tell oppressed peoples that they only have two options available to them: either (i) seek protection from a progressive global capitalism and endure its hypocrisies or (ii) fall prey to a regressive white supremacy and its atrocities. Either way, the liberal globalists tell us, reparations are not an option, “You need to move on. What’s done is done. What has been broken either cannot be repaired, or, if it can be repaired, doing so is not worth the effort.” Indeed, from the perspective of the liberal globalist, the oppressed peoples of the world who seek reparations are even more backwards looking than the white nationalists.
What the liberal globalists refuse to understand, of course, is that abolition and decolonization without reparations is a misnomer, a “non-event”, a contradiction in terms: the Settler States will remain a white supremacist nation, a nation defined by genocide and chattel slavery, until it makes reparations. The liberal globalists who say otherwise are either white supremacists in denial or apologists for white supremacy. To put a very fine point on the matter, until the Settler States makes reparations, to be pro-Amerikan without pronounced reservations is to be pro-genocide and pro-slavery.
The white nationalist hears the word “reparations” and understands the word to mean “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”: they fear that the tables will be turned on them and that white peoples will be re-educated, enslaved and/or exterminated by black and indigenous peoples. The liberal globalist hears the word “reparations” and understands the word to mean “compensation”, sums of money paid by the oppressor to the oppressed for their oppression, like the paying of back wages. Neither of these cold and calculating notions of reparations are what I have in mind here. When I use the term reparations, I am referring to an art of making amends rather than a science of finding equivalents. Indeed, I am referring to a very specific art of making amends that eschews the finding of equivalents: the sublime art of making reparations, as I imagine it, is the art of kintsugi writ large as a metaphor for radical cultural transformation.
sublime (adj.) - from Latin sublimis "uplifted, high, borne aloft, lofty, exalted, eminent, distinguished," from sub "up to" + limen "lintel, threshold, sill".
reparation (n.) from Latin reparare "restore, repair," from re- "again" + parare "make ready"
kintsugi (n.) - unadapted borrowing from Japanese 金継ぎ, from 金 (kin, “gold”) + 継ぎ (tsugi, “repairing, mending; joining”). Referring to the practice of repairing broken ceramics by gathering their fragments, re-assembling them, and gluing them together using a lacquer mixed with powdered gold. “There should be no attempt to disguise the damage, the point is to render the fault-lines beautiful and strong. The precious veins of gold are there to emphasise that breaks have a philosophically-rich merit all of their own.”
Let me put it this way: to make reparations is to make repairs, and repairs can be either made artfully or artlessly. The white supremacists and the liberal globalists would only ever conceive of artless reparations, of artless repairs. Those radicals who call for abolition and decolonization, by contrast, would conceive of artful reparations, artful repairs. The question that follows from this is, of course, “How does one differentiate artful from artless repairs?”
Christopher Alexander, writing in The Timeless Way of Building, answers this question admirably by distinguishing between a commonplace use of the word repair and a more novel use of the word.
In the commonplace use of the word repair, we assume that when we repair something, we are essentially trying to get it back to its original state. This kind of repair is patching, conservative, static.
But in this new use of the word repair, we assume, instead, that everything is changing constantly: and that at every moment we use the defects of the present state as the starting point for the definition of the new state.
When we repair something in this new sense, we assume that we are going to transform it, that new wholes will be born, that indeed, the entire whole which is being repaired will become a different whole as the result of the repair.
In this sense, the idea of repair is creative, dynamic, open.
What Alexander calls “patching, conservative, static” repair is the making of artless reparations. What Alexander calls “creative, dynamic, open,” repair is the making of artful reparations.
Those who call for abolition and decolonization are the exponents of artful reparations. White supremacists are the enemies of all reparations, no matter whether artful or artless. Liberal globalists claim to sympathize with calls for reparations but they refuse to admit that artful reparations are possible and they argue that all reparations are artless. The liberal globalist speaks of brave new peoples for whom the past is dead and the future is a boundless frontier. Exhausted by the liberal globalists’ speeches, those who call for abolition and decolonization retort, "The past is never dead. It's not even past. The past is still alive in the present but it is living in fragments and it is becoming ever more fragmented. Brave are those peoples who (re-)create the past anew, taking great care to piece together every recoverable fragment of the past that they have access to.”
To (re-)create the past anew. — The sublime art of making reparations hinges on this paradoxical phrase. In this essay, I hope to help you imagine what this phrase means, but I must first give you a clear idea of what this phrase does not mean. To be brief, to (re-)create the past anew does not mean indulging in wishful thinking and in defensive rationalizations that cover up disturbing realities.
The student of psychoanalysis will tell you that the psyche disavows disturbing realities in and through the construction of two different kinds of fantasies. To quote Alan Bass, a profound interpreter of the work of Sigmund Freud, “One [way] is to replace something disagreeable with something pleasant – this is wish fulfillment. The other [way] is to eliminate the disturbance by attempting to render it nonexistent – this is defense.” Wish fulfillment is exemplified by the battered wife who says, “He hit me, and it felt like a kiss. Beating me, he teaches me the true meaning of love.” Defense is exemplified by the battered wife that says, “I know, I know: it looks like he hit me, but it isn’t what it looks like. It was an accident. He didn’t really hit me; I ran into his fist.”
A wishful fantasy is a (mis)representation that acknowledges the character of the disturbing event, “He hit me”, but disavows the disturbing affect accompanying the event, substituting a pleasing affect for the disturbing one, “And it felt like a kiss.” A defensive fantasy, by contrast, is a (mis)representation that acknowledges the disturbing affect but disavows the character of the disturbing event, “It was an accident. He didn’t really hit me; I ran into his fist.” Wish fulfillment and defense are together the primary processes that enable a person (e.g., a battered wife) to avoid confronting disturbing realities.
Returning to the subject of genocide and chattel slavery in the Settler States, I want to take some time to recognize the wish fulfillments and defenses that are characteristic of the oppressed and the oppressor in the Settler States. Keeping the example of the battered wife in mind, let us first consider the oppressed, the indigenous and black peoples of the Settler States. You must recognize that it is difficult, extremely difficult, for indigenous and black peoples in the Settler States to acknowledge the disturbing events that have shaped and continue to shape the Amerikan experience for them.
Indeed, for indigenous and black peoples, it is an almost unbearably disturbing reality that the Settler States have refused to make reparations for genocide and chattel slavery and that the Settler States continue to reap the rewards of genocide and chattel slavery. This reality is most unbearable for those indigenous and black people who would “get ahead” as proxies and redeemers in the service of Amerika’s most powerful political-economic institutions.
To “get ahead” in the Settler States, many indigenous and black persons engage in wish fulfillment, “Amerika hit us, and it felt like a kiss. In and through genocide and slavery, Amerika has taught us the true meaning of freedom and democracy.” Other indigenous and black persons seeking to “get ahead” in the Settler States will engage in defense, “I know, I know: it looks like Amerika was built on genocide and slavery, but it isn’t what it looks like. These were accidents of history. White settlers stumbled upon indigenous and black peoples in a fit of absent-mindedness. An ensuing series of horrible misunderstandings, fueled by mutual fear and ignorance, eventually led to genocide and slavery. In other words, we ran into white men's guns, germs, and steel.”
Shifting our focus from the oppressed to the oppressor, the very same processes, wish fulfillment and defense, are at work in the oppressor’s refusal to empathize with the oppressed. It is wish fulfillment that allows the white nationalist to believe that the horrors of genocide and chattel slavery are part and parcel of either a “divine plan” or the “natural order” of things. The white nationalist in the guise of the Christian fascist proclaims, “Genocide and chattel slavery are horrors, yes, but they are like the horror of original sin: they are part of God’s plan.” Alternatively, the white nationalist as scientific racist proclaims, “Genocide and chattel slavery are horrors, yes, but the lion hunting the gazelle is also a horror. It is only natural for higher races to either dominate, educate, or exterminate lower races whenever possible and profitable for them.”
Defense, by contrast, allows the liberal globalist to deny that the Settler States have been and continue to be shaped by genocide and chattel slavery, echoing the defenses of the oppressed, “I know, I know: it looks like Amerika was built on genocide and chattel slavery, but it isn’t what it looks like. These were accidents of history. White settlers stumbled upon indigenous and black peoples in a fit of absent-mindedness. An ensuing series of horrible misunderstandings, fueled by mutual fear and ignorance, eventually led to genocide and chattel slavery. In short, black and indigenous peoples ran into white men’s guns, germs, and steel.”
Having given you an idea of what (re-)creating the past anew does not entail, I now feel prepared to tell you what (re-)creating the past anew does entail. To be brief, as I understand it, the sublime art of making reparations, of (re-)creating the past anew, is a two-step process. The first step, preparing to make reparations, is the artful deconstruction of wish fulfillments and defenses so as to enable us to acknowledge that which disturbs. The second step, making reparations, is the sublimation of disturbances via the artful reconstruction of that which has been disturbed.
As I see it, we who call for abolition and decolonization are still in the midst of the first step in this process. The wishful fantasies of white nationalism — the fantasy of God’s design and the fantasy of the white man’s natural superiority — no longer prevail in the Settler States as they used to, but they are still quite prevalent. What's more, the decline of the wishful fantasies of white nationalism has only ushered in the rise of the liberal globalists’ defensive fantasy of “guns, germs, and steel”. Those who call for abolition and decolonization have certainly done remarkable work to “see through” wishful and defensive fantasies that cover up the deeply disturbing realities of genocide and slavery, but there is a great deal of work to be done with respect to artfully deconstructing these fantasies, uncovering the deeply disturbing realities of genocide and slavery so that we no longer have to “see through” a cover up.
At this point, I feel that I ought to state for the record what I regard to be the deeply disturbing realities of genocide and chattel slavery.
Above all else, the wishful fantasies of white supremacists and the defensive fantasies of liberal globalists try to convince us that there is a divine plan, a natural order, or a historical accident beyond pleasurable and profitable cultural artifice that could explain genocide and chattel slavery in the Settler States. As I know it, however, the extermination of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of black peoples was not a part of God's plan, nor was it a part of the natural order, nor was it a historical accident. Much to the contrary, genocide and chattel slavery are both forms of pleasurable and profitable cultural artifice, and Amerikaners exterminated indigenous peoples and enslaved black peoples for pleasure and for profit. In other words, Amerikaners proposed, perpetrated, and perpetuated the cultural artifices of extermination and enslavement in order to get off and to get rich.
Going further and digging deeper, the cultural artifices of extermination and enslavement did not emerge in a vacuum, but were constructed atop other, pre-existing cultural artifices in order to enhance pleasures and profits derived thereby. Indeed, as I understand it, (i) the pleasures enhanced by the cultural artifices of extermination and enslavement were, first and foremost, the pleasures derived from the cultural artifices of patriarchy, and (ii) the profits enhanced by the cultural artifices of extermination and enslavement were, first and foremost, the profits derived from the cultural artifices of capitalism. It follows from this that the wishful and defensive fantasies that disavow the deeply disturbing realities of genocide and chattel slavery are secondary elaborations of and irreversibly entangled with the wishful and defensive fantasies that disavow the deeply disturbing realities of patriarchy and capitalism. Just as there is no divine plan, no natural order, and no historical accident beyond pleasurable and profitable cultural artifice that could explain genocide and chattel slavery, there is no divine plan, no natural order, and no historical accident beyond pleasurable and profitable cultural artifice that could explain patriarchy and capitalism. What’s more, it also follows from this that the sublime art of making reparations as practiced by those calling for abolition and decolonization is a secondary elaborations of and irreversibly entangled with the same art as practiced by radical black feminists and radical black anti-capitalists.
Indeed, the reality of the matter is this: if reparations are to be made for the horrors of genocide and chattel slavery, reparations will also need to be made for the horrors of patriarchy and capitalism. It is no wonder that the liberal globalist wants to repudiate white supremacy without making reparations for it: making reparations for genocide and chattel slavery would call capitalism into question. It is also no wonder that the white nationalist is also a misogynist: the pleasures that they take in oppressing peoples of other races are built on the pleasures that they take in oppressing women. The example of the battered wife that I used to introduce wish fulfillment and defense earlier was not chosen arbitrarily. As I see it, the deeply disturbing character of men who dominate women using threats of deprivation and violence are at the root of capitalism, genocide, and chattel slavery.
Capitalist oligarchs are, above all else, men socially endowed with the means to take advantage of women threatened by poverty. Some capitalist oligarchs use their social endowments for their own direct pleasure. Others take indirect pleasure in hoarding and lording their endowments over men who are not so well endowed, brandishing their stockpiles of wealth as if they formed an oversized phallus.
Genocidal murderers are, above all else, men socially endowed with the means to take advantage of women threatened with extermination. Some genocidal murderers use their social endowments for their own direct pleasure. Others take indirect pleasure in hoarding and lording their endowments over men who are not so well endowed, brandishing their stockpiles of weapons as if they formed an oversized phallus.
Slave masters are, above all else, men socially endowed with the means to take advantage of enslaved women. Some slave masters use their social endowments for their own direct pleasure. Others take indirect pleasure in hoarding and lording their endowments over men who are not so well endowed, brandishing their retinues of docile bodies as if they formed an oversized phallus.
Before making any meaningful reparations for slavery and genocide, we will need to uncover the reality that so many of our customs and institutions are cultural artifices that enable men to take direct and indirect pleasure in the domination of women. Again, it is not enough to “see through” the wishful and defensive fantasies that cover up this disturbing reality: this disturbing reality must be uncovered and exposed for us to see. Going further, we must recognize that the uncovering of disturbing realities is but a first step. The art of making reparations must go beyond uncovering disturbing realities concealed by wishful and defensive fantasies; it must also enable fantasies that (re-)integrate and (re-)frame disturbing realities.
The art of making reparations is not hostile to fantasies in general; it is only hostile to wishful and defensive fantasies that cover up disturbing realities. Fantasies that (re-)integrate and (re-)frame disturbing realities, instead of covering them up, are called sublimating fantasies, and the art of making reparations appreciates and enables sublimating fantasies.
Sublimating fantasies are the gold powdered lacquer used to glue together the fragments of the shattered teacup: they do far more than simply expose the disturbing realities that wishful fantasies and defensive fantasies cover up. Sublimating fantasies draw our attention to disturbances, yes, but they also draw our attention to the fragility of that which has been disturbed. Going further still, sublimating fantasies draw our attention to the fact that we can and should take care to artfully repair the precious teacup that has been disturbed and broken, for there are wonders to be had in doing so. That being said, however, it is important to stress that sublimating fantasies do not prevent future disturbances and breakages. The tea cup that has been shattered can always be shattered again and again, by unforeseeable accident, by negligence, or by design.
Those of you who know me personally will have guessed where I am heading with all of this. For those who haven’t guessed it, I shall put all my cards on the table: the precious teacup that has been shattered by the advance of patriarchal capitalism is the precious teacup of primitive matrixial communism, the supplement at the origin of human culture. Ay, and the sublime art of making reparations that I am proposing here is the art of (re-)creating primitive matrixial communism anew. Again, however, you must understand that the art of making reparations never returns anything to its primitive state. The art of making reparations is not patching, conservative, static; rather, it is creative, dynamic, open. To (re-)create primitive matrixial communism anew is to transform it, and the result of the art of making reparations would be something queer that both defers to primitive matrixial communism and differs from it. It is, of course, true that every repair tends to a more primitive structure that precedes it but, as Christopher Alexander writes, “[artful] repair not only patches [primitive structures] — it also modifies [them], transforms [them], sets [them] on the road to becoming something else, entirely new.” The result is, in other words, a “neo-primitive” construct.
primitive (adj.) - late 14c., primitif, "of an original cause; of a thing from which something is derived; not secondary" (a sense now associated with primary), from Old French primitif "very first, original" (14c.) and directly from Latin primitivus "first or earliest of its kind," from primitus "at first," from primus "first". See dispatches “Overturning Humanism”, “Blackness and Primitiveness”, and “TEK & the Technosphere”.
matrix (n.) - late 14c., matris, matrice, "uterus, womb," from Old French matrice "womb, uterus" and directly from Latin mātrix (genitive mātricis) "pregnant animal," in Late Latin "womb," also "source, origin," from māter (genitive mātris) "mother". See “The Womb of Western Theory” by Joy James and The Matrixial Borderspace by Bracha Ettinger
commune (v.) - c. 1300, "have dealings with," from Old French comuner "to make common, share" (10c., Modern French communier), from comun "common, general, free, open, public". See dispatch “(Self-)Possession, (Anti-)Blackness, and Abolition”
The art of making reparations is not what white nationalists imagine it to be: it is not the tit-for-tat revenge of primitive matrixial communists against “advanced” patriarchal capitalists. Neither is the art of making reparations what liberal globalists imagine it to be: it is not compensation paid by those who have gained more under “advanced” patriarchal capitalism to those who would have gained more under primitive matrixial communism. The art of making reparations for the “advancement” of patriarchal capitalism would transform existing forms of cultural artifice so as to (re-)create primitive matrixial communism anew, restoring the potentials of primitive matrixial communism. Tit-for-tat revenge and compensatory pay-offs will never (re-)create primitive matrixial communism anew because they are not transformations of customs and institutions. Ay, the art of making reparations is, above all else, the art of transforming customs and institutions: it deconstructs those customs and institutions that conceal the disturbing realities of “advanced” patriarchal capitalism and it reconstructs these customs and institutions in order to restore the potentials of primitive matrixial communism.
Sublimating fantasies of a return to primitive matrixial communism are the fantasies that enable us to restore the potentials of such. White men sneer at fantasies of returning to primitive matrixial communism. They are sneering at me now as they read this. Projecting their own bad conscience onto others, white men make such fantasies out to be wishful and/or defensive fantasies, like their own fantasies of primal fathers dominating their harems and hordes. Certainly, some fantasies of primitive matrixial communism are wishful and some are defensive, but that does not allow us to dismiss all such fantasies tout court. White men who indulge patriarchal capitalist fantasies but are quick to dismiss fantasies of primitive matrixial communism are, of course, apologists for patriarchal capitalism. These white men are deathly afraid of encountering sublimating fantasies of primitive matrixial communism that would expose and draw attention to disturbing realities that they are desperate to keep covered up.
Sublimating fantasies of primitive matrixial communism would reveal that there is nothing divine, nothing natural, and nothing accidental about patriarchy, capitalism, genocide, and slavery: these are cultural artifices proposed, perpetrated, and perpetuated by violent and rapacious men who take pleasure in dominating women. At the same time, however, sublimating fantasies of primitive matrixial communism also reveal that there is nothing divine, nothing natural, and nothing accidental about primitive matrixial communism: primitive matrixial communism is only the cultural artifice of peoples who take pleasure in creating and nurturing life.
The apparent civil war between white nationalists and liberal globalists in the Settler States is a reaction against the fact that oppressed peoples have successfully begun to artfully deconstruct and uncover the disturbing realities of patriarchy, capitalism, genocide, and slavery by and through enabling fantasies of a return to primitive matrixial communism. Indeed, this apparent civil war revolves around determining what is the best way to keep these disturbing realities covered up: the white nationalist faction would double down on the offensive wishful fantasies of divine dispensation and natural superiority; the liberal globalist faction has forsaken offensive wishful fantasies and embraced the defensive fantasy of historical accident, “guns, germs, and steel”.
Liberal globalists tend to be rich white men for whom deprivation is a better means of oppression than direct violence. The defensive fantasy of guns, germs, and steel protects what is most vital for rich white men: the cultural artifices that endow these men with the means to take advantage of women threatened by poverty.
White nationalists tend to be poorer white men, those who can only oppress women and others if they have recourse to spectacular displays of violence. There are, of course, many rich white men in the white nationalist camp: these rich white men side with poorer white men because they have a taste for violent spectacles and cannot find gratification through deprivation alone. The offensive wishful fantasies of divine dispensation and natural superiority protect what is most vital for poorer white men and rich white men with a taste for violence: the cultural artifices that endow these men with the means to threaten women with spectacular displays of violence.
Putting all of this together, the Amerikaner’s apparent civil war is revealed to be a class war amongst white men: rich white men have repudiated the offensive wishful fantasies of white supremacy and they are threatening to deprive poorer white men of their patriarchal powers. Oppressed peoples are the proxies of rich white men in this apparent civil war: rich white men hypocritically claim to have repudiated the offensive wishful fantasies of white supremacy in the name of oppressed peoples; poor white men are hypocritically avenging themselves against rich white men by attacking oppressed peoples; and oppressed peoples of all races and sexes are being forced to devote more time and energy to defending themselves against poorer white men and they are being cajoled into the arms of rich white men.
Rich white men cajole the “best” amongst the oppressed (i.e., the most “professional” and most “marketable” amongst the oppressed) by “helping” them “earn” more and more money. The liberal globalist holds (i) that non-white men who “earn” enough money should be allowed to exercise the same patriarchal powers over poor women that rich white men do, and (ii) that women of all races who “earn” enough money should be protected against the indignities endured by those who haven’t “earned” enough. Rich white men cajole the “rest” of the oppressed peoples, the “wretched of the earth”, by “helping” them “learn” that the experience of deprivation under liberal globalism beats the alternative, the experience of both violence and deprivation under white nationalism. These two ways in which rich white men cajole oppressed peoples — “helping” oppressed peoples to “learn” and to “earn” the goods of patriarchal capitalism — define “philanthropy” under liberal globalism.
Rich white men will be even better off if things go their way. Those who have “earned” the title of “best of the oppressed” will live comfortably beside respectable rich white men, apologize for rich white men, and make rich white men’s “philanthropic” practices their own. The “rest of the oppressed” will turn to rich white men and their sycophantic apologists for protection from a new untouchable caste of poor, backwards, and violent white men. Poor white men have, of course, a sense that they are becoming a new untouchable caste but, alas, this has made a good portion of them cling more tightly to wishful fantasies of divine dispensation and natural superiority, and this is music to the ears of rich white men.
It should be clear to you now why the Amerikaner’s civil war is only “apparent”. From the vantage point of oppressed peoples who can see disturbing realities through a cover up, this apparent civil war over the uncovering of patriarchal capitalism’s disturbing realities is itself, in actuality, only a new way of covering up the disturbing realities of patriarchal capitalism. The student of psychoanalysis will also recognize this fact. A good Freudian will tell you that the psyche tends to create false conflicts between wishful and defensive fantasies when disturbing realities become more and more difficult to cover up. What’s more, a good Freudian will also tell you that psychoanalysis often stalls and becomes interminable when its subject becomes increasingly skilled at playing wishfulness and defensiveness against each other in order to cover up disturbing realities that the psychoanalyst threatens to uncover. We who would practice the sublime art of making reparations are in a position similar to that of the psychoanalyst in this regard: we have managed to artfully deconstruct many of the old wishful fantasies and a few of the newer defensive fantasies that separately work to cover up the disturbing realities of patriarchal capitalism, but we have not yet managed to artfully deconstruct the apparent conflicts between wishful and defensive fantasies that are now working to cover up these same disturbing realities. Ay, and our preparations for the making of artful reparations have stalled and become interminable as a result.
Delighted at the fact that our preparations for the making of artful reparations have stalled, the liberal globalists are doubling down on their argument. Liberal globalists are telling us that now is not an auspicious time to radically transform Amerikaner customs and institutions because these flawed and fragile customs and institutions are the only thing keeping the white nationalists at bay. The question is, however, has there ever been and will there ever be an auspicious time to radically transform Amerikaner customs and institutions? Going further, mustn’t the sublime art of reparations always be an untimely art? If we are practicing an untimely art, there is no reason why we shouldn’t persist in our efforts to artfully deconstruct the wishful and defensive fantasies that condition Amerikaner customs and institutions, and we should continue to insist upon sublimating fantasies as we endeavor to reconstruct alternative customs and institutions otherwise. Rich white men and their sycophantic apologists of all races and sexes will snarl and snap at us, but they will always snarl and snap at those who persist in pointing out the disturbing realities of patriarchal capitalism and insist upon making artful reparations.
The reader will, no doubt, have realized that this essay is a small contribution to the artful deconstruction of the apparent conflict between liberal globalism and white nationalism that defines Amerikaner politics today. For those of us calling for abolition and decolonization, this apparent conflict is a devious trap, and I have written this text in order to help myself and my fellow travelers better recognize this trap. My fellow travelers, we must avoid and disarm this trap if we are to continue the work of abolition and decolonization, the work of exposing the disturbing realities of patriarchal capitalism and restoring the potentials of the most primitive matrixial communism, the general economy of leakiness and superfluity that animates the (de-/re-)compositions of Mother Earth.
