Essay One
The Sublime Art of Making Reparations
Kintsugi, Psychoanalysis, and the Sublimation of Disturbing Realities
Part IV.
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 misrepresentation 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 America, I want to take some time to recognize the wish fulfillments and defenses that are characteristic of the oppressed and the oppressor in America. Keeping the example of the battered wife in mind, let us first consider the oppressed, the indigenous and black peoples of America. You must recognize that it is difficult, extremely difficult, for indigenous and black peoples in America to acknowledge the disturbing events that have shaped and continue to shape the American experience for them.
Indeed, for indigenous and black peoples, it is an almost unbearably disturbing reality that America has refused to make reparations for genocide and chattel slavery and that America continues to reap the rewards of genocide and chattel slavery. This reality is most unbearable for those indigenous and black people who would “get ahead” in the service of America’s most powerful political economic institutions.
To “get ahead” in America, many indigenous and black persons engage in wish fulfillment, “America hit us, and it felt like a kiss. In and through genocide and slavery, America has taught us the true meaning of freedom and democracy.” Other indigenous and black persons seeking to “get ahead” in America will engage in defense, “I know, I know: it looks like America 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 lead 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 America has been and continues to be shaped by genocide and chattel slavery, echoing the defenses of the oppressed, “I know, I know: it looks like America 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 lead 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 America 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.