Posts
Introduction
Never has a world of such abundance served so few. Why have Western societies settled for
this? Even as inequality, environmental
degradation, and racial injustice endlessly expand, most energy is expended on
the diffusion of crises in order to return to a ‘sense of normalcy.’ Nowhere does mainstream political thinking
provide a space for questioning the value of ‘normalcy’ or the assumption that
is represents an ideal stage of human political development. Under the backdrop of this rampant
exploitation and extreme inequality, we are told that technological and human
development have largely ‘figured things out.’
The contradiction between these two realities could not be clearer. If society has achieved answers to our most
fundamental questions and technology allows us to transcend social problems,
then why are these problems only worsening over time? In the pages of the site, I will attempt to
reveal insights and answers to these questions by exploring and applying the concept
of the post-political. This is in no way
academic work-I don’t know if I’ll have the time to properly cite all of my
ideas- but it will be logically sound and well-developed over time. I plan to discuss this concept through posts
that both explore the theoretical components in more detail and that apply it
to contemporary political and media discourse.
It is my belief that the depoliticization of everyday life is the
primary ideological maneuver that allows structures of exploitation and
inequality to continue unabated.
What is the post political?
At first glance, to characterize our current state as
seemingly post-political appears inaccurate at best: everything is politicized; even
micro-interactions have been integrated into a broader culture war that seeks
to ascribe deeply important political meaning to all spheres of representation.
Of course, the belief that we are in a hyper-politicized media environment begs
the question of what is meant when we say political or politicized. In the US, it’s usually taken to mean
anything associated with official political processes- politicians, elections,
ballot initiatives, etc. It is also expressed in cultural terms through the
cynical marketization (bastardization) of identity politics.
Focusing on these arenas may have to deal with politics,
but it is an avoidance of what should properly be called the political. This is a crucial distinction that will be
unpacked time and again in the pages of this site. It is a distinction that is
not benign but intentionally naturalized as part of a capitalist ideology
inextricably linked to unabated inequality and exploitation. While politics
is conveyed as addressing the highest needs of society, in reality it works to obfuscate
and suppress dissent with the socio-economic structure.
To begin, politics should be understood as the contingent
ordering of life. Politics is largely
what we presume it to be- a matter of the battles and decisions made within our
official democratic channels over the management of the people. It takes are political and economic
structures as a given, and seeks optimization within them. The politicians that
fight over how many immigrants to admit, the elections between the two major
political parties, or debates about the scope of economic relief are all
examples of politics. It is similar to what Robert Cox described as problem
solving theory; theory that presupposes the necessity of our present
socio-political and economic structures.
By taking them as a starting point it tasks politics as attempting to
maximize welfare within the given order. These are no doubt somewhat
important on the level of pure material comparison- lives are altered, and in
some instances lost (though a central ideological purpose of politics as
political is to overstate these distinctions). The drawback, however, lies in what politics
fails to account for- the political.
Because politics presupposes the presence and validity of
our socio-economic structures like government, elections, economic ordering,
and the like, it does not question the methods used to organize society, nor
does it question the purpose of those structures. It’s an ahistorical
understanding of the intersection between power, possibility, and agency.
The political must be conceived as directly addressing the
form and purpose of these socio-economic structures. It recognizes that these structures are not
natural outcomes- they are products of decisions made by people, fore fronting
that the political is dependent on human agency even as the political order
is naturalized to mask that agency.
The political is also a recognition that antagonisms are fundamental
elements in any socio-economic order.
Even at its most abstract, “change” is always a product of a disharmonious
situation. If there were no conflict,
opposing viewpoints, antagonistic or hierarchical relationships, there would
never be need for change. Stability
would be the norm, and advancement impossible.
When thought of this way, the argument that we have moved beyond the
political is absurd on its face because it presupposes something that has never
existed: a natural order from which our structures emerge. This concept is the crucial core that
distinguishes between politics and the political. While we perceive our world as
hyper-politicized, it is always from a specific perspective and through
specific assumptions that naturalize our socio-economic structures by diverting
energy and thought into politics-as-management.
Another way to phrase this is that currently, we view politics-as-political,
when in reality they are two distinct approaches.
Why depoliticization?
Distinctions between politics and the political are not
natural or benign. They are products of
many individuals and groups through the past and present, each enacting their
agency to construct and order our socio-political structures. To understand why these distinctions are
maintained, we must examine the role of ideology. Here ideology is conceived as the “common
sense” (Gramsci) way of thinking ingratiated in the people, and necessary to
maintain the hierarchical structures society is organized around. This “common sense” does not spontaneously
emerge in any given event, but adds over time through our everyday
understandings of what is logical, rational, necessary, etc. As theorized by Žižek, it’s crucial to
recognize that ideology is not something distorting our conception of reality-
ideology is the common sense of our reality.
Ideology serves three functions in its quest to perpetuate
and maintain status quo hierarchies: it
naturalizes, historicizes, and eternalizes.
Each of these functions creates a political discourse that elevates
elements of our government, law, economy, and culture as ‘beyond debate’,
‘incontestable,’ or ‘facts of life.’
Naturalization is the framing of socio-political structures as
reflections of human nature or our innate desires. Nature is elevated as a signifier that’s
resilience makes it impervious to human action or questioning. Nature is something that predates us and will
survive beyond us- how can we question nature?
Historicization is the framing of these structures as the inevitable
result of linear history. This contains
an interesting contradiction wherein the characters and events of history have
agency- they made choices that bear down upon us in the present-while we in the
present are merely victims of our circumstances. The implication is that investing our
political energies into theorizing about alternate worlds is naïve at best. Eternalization is the framing of these
structures as eternal and enduring. Each
of these three functions works with the other to elevate a set of political and
economic assumptions as common sense and to cleanse current political actors of
responsibility for the decisions they make.
Taken together, naturalization, historicization, and eternalization are
the ultimate invocation of the common phrase “my hands are tied.” If nature, history, and the future all
dictate the inevitability of capitalism, how can any individual person,
decision, law, or policy be critiqued from the frame of the political?
Post-political thinking adeptly aids in the furthering of
all three functions of ideology. Focusing on politics as the contingent
ordering of political life naturalizes our socio-economic order by assuming it
as a given set of constraints (“this is the way things are done”; politics is
the art of the possible). It historicizes it by removing the agency of current
political actors in favor of a framing that presupposes the inevitability of
our current condition. It eternalizes in
both form and practice- it not only rhetorically constructs capitalism as an
inevitable method of organization, it also ensures its continuation! The result is depoliticization- the
intentional focus on politics in order to paper over the antagonisms
always operating in the political. These examples are in no way exhaustive, but
provide a basic framework for thinking through and against depoliticization.
The relationship between depoliticization and ideology is
complex, multi-faceted, and often morphs based on context. Despite this, there are consistent themes I
will explore and unpack in the pages of this site. First, depoliticization assumes consensual
modes of governance are always ideal.
Politics is conceived as a quest to suture antagonisms and find common
ground. Often, taking stances based on
values is seen as counterproductive or even harmful because it prevents
effective governance. As a result, depoliticization
is always an intrinsically conservative frame- its purpose is to default toward
minimizing change and controversy. Since
politics is the management of society, the centering of structural
socio-political criticism is seen as nothing more than a distraction from real
government. We see this as politicians
claim the path forward for America revolves around healing divides,
transcending political difference, and just doing ‘what’s right.’ The perversion at play here is that the
common sense of ‘what’s right’ is never scrutinized. Consensus becomes an ideal, making it a goal
in-and-of-itself. The material ideologies
ordering the policies agreed to through consensus become secondary concerns at
best. The process takes on greater
importance than the product. We often
accept this even though it defies our interpersonal experiences. We know from having to work with other people
or live in communities with our neighbors that there are situations where
consensus is often impossible or even detrimental to one party or the
other. This is especially true in the
structure of capitalism, where all social relationships are conceived as
competitive market interactions. It also
brackets off the question of hierarchical relationships (IE the we in
the phrase we can all agree on).
Second, depoliticization centers technocracy and
managerialism as the primary purpose of this consensus. Since political
divisiveness is an intrinsic evil or obstacle to be avoided, we need to rely on
experts that are somehow above the subjective experiences of politics. Credentials
serve as gatekeeping devices that determine ‘who is heard.’ This principle has
a direct connection to power- it naturalizes certain groups as having a right
to make decisions while others are naturalized as threats to good politics. The expert sets the boundaries for what is
normal, natural, and a realistic expectation, while non-expert forces sow
counterproductive division. Going back
to the Otto Von Bismarck quote “politics is the art of the possible”, experts
define the possible. Think here of the way establishment politicians frequently
dismiss criticism from the Left- ‘their values are all well and good, but they
don’t understand how things work and what it takes to get things done.’ Immigrants, black people, and the
dispossessed are frequently portrayed as disruptive forces that don’t comprehend
the necessity and inevitability of having to ‘get your hands dirty’ or ‘make
the tough calls.’ Their value-based
concerns are immediately discarded as out of touch with a reality that only
experts understand.
Depoliticization is then revealed as an ideological
operation in one of its purest forms. It
takes questions about who makes decisions, why they have that power, who the
decisions benefit, and how we could do things differently and discards them as naïve
and ignorant daydreaming. It also ignores the relationship between
socio-economic structures and the concept of “expertism” itself (the
institutions that deem one an expert are intrinsically connected to issues of
race, class, gender, economic opportunity, etc). All of these questions are cast aside as we
embrace the common sense of expertism.
Conclusion
I hope to further develop each of these ideas in turn over
the coming months (years?). This
introductory post is meant to serve as a broad overview of the concepts that
form the perspective on the insights and analysis I hope to offer. Ideological criticism is always a rich source
of material- by definition, ideology saturates culture, mass media, and political
discourse. Artifacts from each provide
opportunities to unpack the processes of depoliticization in ways we can
observe in our everyday lives. Criticism
can guide us in how to evaluate and create meaningful distinctions in political
discourse. My goal is to use this space
as a place to articulate, develop, and connect new ways for me to understand
politics, culture, and current events. I
hope that readers can do the same.
Further reading:
The Post-Political and Its Discontents Spaces of
Depoliticisation, Spectres of Radical Politics
Mapping Ideology
https://www.versobooks.com/books/1132-mapping-ideology