Over the last half century, Western political discourse began shifting toward the politics of identity. The so-called “Culture War” is, to use Liberal Capitalist ideological language, an ‘unintended consequence’ of trying to address the ‘economic’ in socioeconomic issues through social means. Never mind the fact that economic problems demand economic solutions or that social issues demand social solutions. By trying to address an economic problem with a social solution, almost nothing productive will come out of it because the direction of political discourse will instead be floundering around in circles over the same issues.
The concept of a Totality implies the union of an entire diverse body of people who share a common National Consciousness, informing about their inward sense of Authentic Dasein within the State of Total Mobilization. It is meant to be inclusive of everyone and anyone who considers themselves a member. The Self exists as part of the Totality and separate from it and the same is to be said about the Totality. What ultimately binds the two is a State embodying the State of Total Mobilization.
Such thinking is impossible within a Civil Society, where everyone exists as Private Citizens governed by a “Parliament” (in political life) and a “Market” (in economic life). Even a social group of only two Private Citizens is consistently understood as individuals first and foremost.
The Civil Society resembles a monolith bound to a “Social Contract” guided by the State of Natural Rights. The State of Natural Right’s attempts to adapt certain aspects of the State of Total Mobilization, the result being Production for Utility, has led to questionable acts of conformity and uniformity. It becomes inevitable for one to lose sight of themselves, their sense of inward freedom that Neoliberalism cannot seem to comprehend. Thus, the desire to set oneself apart from Civil Society, to regain one’s sense of Dasein, has led to the proliferation of antagonisms centered around identity, the result being identity politics.
There is always an “Oppressor” and the “Oppressed” whose relationship is irreconcilable and framed on a moral plane in terms of an Absolute Good and an Absolute Evil. Either “one is for” or else “one is against.” That famous Bush 43 quote with the Either/Or statement after 9/11 is what comes to mind here because there are no Both/And statements, let alone Neither/Nor statements. In the State of Natural Rights, Civil Society is going to be discriminatory in one form or another, whenever and wherever some Private Citizen decides to deviate from the Social Contract binding all Private Citizens to Civil Society, the Market and Parliament.
Intersectionality Theory in Feminist ideology sought to understand those implications after the Death of Bretton Woods and the Reagan Revolution, ascertaining how those discriminations manifest themselves in a Civil Society. For the Totality of a Conservative Socialist Council Democracy (as opposed to the Civil Society of a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy), is there a way to rationalize what is being conveyed in the following chart?
It seems like there are “two Civil Societies” occupying one Civil Society as two separate humanities. The Totality, as one humanity united around a shared National Consciousness, has two ways of interpreting this phenomenon. One Civil Society feels oppressed because they could never become that other Civil Society without being reduced to caricatures, their alienation and isolation rendering them social outcasts. Alternatively, there is a sense of oppression that, no matter how far somebody stretches the boundaries of their own imagination, they could never completely differentiate themselves from Civil Society.
This is because Intersectionality Theory is trying to take the philosophical struggle to go beyond the Cartesian Subject/Object Duality and the Mind-Body Problem, reapplying and recontextualizing that struggle in non-philosophical circumstances. Recalling my own discussions of Feminism and Intersectionality on the ARPLAN Blog, “Germanic Woman” and “Soviet Woman” are two Figures embodying a common Anti-Bourgeois Typus. They are both women, yes, but their personal and interpersonal experiences are going to be very different within the State of Total Mobilization. Different National Consciousness, different senses of Authentic Dasein, different political-economic and social context.
What Intersectionality Theory seeks to argue, in the contexts of Germanic Woman and Soviet Woman, is that neither is more “feminine” than the other within the State of Total Mobilization. Even in the presences of Germanic Man and Soviet Man and all their children, the only things that ought to hold them back are their Life-Energy and their Will-to-Power. Anything less in the State of Total Mobilization is not good enough. Discrimination resembles a coercive rendition of the Socialization of Young Minds in which either Germanic Woman or Soviet Woman claims their Authentic Dasein to be morally superior to the other Woman. Soviet Woman keeps a Chamber Pot inside her bedroom at night and Germanic Woman has a Composting Toilet for fertilizing her garden. Are we to believe that either woman is “uncivilized” or “inferior” all because they chose not to use a toilet with running water? Also, is there a way for us to designate this sort of thinking with the Work-Standard?
In Liberal Capitalist economic thought, when something is perceived as being superior to the rest of the competition at the Market, it is almost customary to compare it to “The Gold Standard.” The meaning behind the usage is ambiguous at best because the term implies that someone or something is as “Good as Gold“; when directed at a woman, one is essentially objectifying her in terms of Kapital and Schuld.
Under the Work-Standard, however, it is an absurd non-sequitur to literally compare someone or something to the Work-Standard itself. For unlike the Gold Standard, there is always a very fine distinction between Arbeit and the person or thing creating the Arbeit within the LER and LERE Processes.
Intersectionality Theory insists that just because Germanic Woman and Soviet Woman have their own Intents for not using a toilet with running water, that does not mean they should be deemed “uncivilized” or “inferior” to an American Woman who actually uses one. Moreover, Intersectionality Theory rejects a binary notion that one has to personify the Figures of Germanic Woman and Soviet Woman to justify not having to use a toilet with running water. Regardless of whether American Woman happens to be living in Thomas Jefferson’s America and not Alexander Hamilton’s America, there is always that possibility that she too might arrive at similar conclusions. In fact, one does not need to be living in the Soviet Union, the German Reich, or these United States to contemplate having a Chamber Pot or a Composting Toilet as part of their Household.
Granted, there is a genuine limitation associated with applying Intersectionality Theory. Outside of the social relations between Civil Society and the Private Citizen, the Totality and the Self operate under entirely different circumstances. Applying Intersectionality Theory within the parameters of Production for Profit and Production for Utility will yield findings conducive to Neoliberalism. Applying it in Production for Dasein is favorable to Pure Socialism. The National Consciousness is decisive!
Categories: Philosophy
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