Essay One

The Sublime Art of Making Reparations

Kintsugi, Psychoanalysis, and the Sublimation of Disturbing Realities

Part VII.

The apparent civil war between white nationalists and liberal globalists in America 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. 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 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 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 penchant for violent behavior 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 displays of violence.

Putting all of this together, America’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 women 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—are what 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 America’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 American 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 American 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 American customs and institutions, and we should continue to insist upon sublimating fantasies as we endeavor to reconstruct American 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 American 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 matriarchal communism, the general economy of leakiness and superfluity that animates the (de-/re-)composition of Mother Earth.