Sexual Revolution- Violence, Feminism and Victim-Identity
I’d be particularly interested in feedback on this article. I’ve been over it a few times and I feel as though there is something vital I’m not being clear about, but for the life of me I can’t put my finger on it at the moment...
Because there has been much wrong to redress, victim-identity has wound itself round the fundamental ontology of feminist identity like a particularly virulent weed. Victim-identity ensures victimhood. We see this in pop psychology, in “recovery” literature for addicts, and in the liberal interpretation of many movements for the empowerment of those who have been unjustly denied access to the unquestionable perks of western civilization.
The question is: how to we address and correct nonessential inequities without establishing the roles of “perpetrator” and “victim,” that is, preventing them from being universalized into aspects of a larger gender identity, or of a specific personal identity. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that this is the problem.
There has been a significant amount of violence against women in human history. The crucial point is that our concept of Woman qua Woman must not bear the scars of this violence. Christ and Chiron, our Jung-flavoured victim-archetypes, bear the same burden: a false perspective. A notion that the individual or the world is sick or sinful, and must be healed or justified. Our existence provides us with experiences of suffering, and these, it is true, must be reconciled by the formula of the black school. But this perspective cannot be seen from our essential nature unless it has been “hurt,” that is, obstructed (AL I:22), and must rend the veil which has descended between itself and the light. This does require a redemption or resolution on a personal scale, but it is never a phenomenon that exists independent of experience and conditions. Sin/Suffering is in reality existential, not original. The victim-identity, however, is predicated on suffering, and so can never escape it. One veil only leads to another. It is directed toward further shells of tormented thought and matter, not toward the essence itself.
Which brings me to the crux of the point: the troubling conflation of feminist objectives with humanitarian values. As I’ve discussed previously (and again here) in the Sexual Revolution thread, humanitarianism has shifted our cultural taboos, and it is violence rather than sex which is seen as unacceptable and must be hidden in a world of mass media fantasy. This has made its impression on many movements for social justice in the twentieth century, which are always quick to affirm their desire to create change only through non-violent means. Non-violence, however, doesn’t overcome violence.
There are a lot of different kinds of violence, and I submit that several of them will be necessary before significant gains can be made in the field of gender-identity. The act of creating change is itself violent, whatever the liberals would have you believe, because no change can be created without the violent destruction of the previously established order. Unfortunately, the same schools which focus on feminist ideas also, almost universally, espouse a humanitarian value system which engrains students with a hostility toward aggression and violence, the mastery and conscious direction of which will be absolutely necessary to realize the stated goals of personal and social change.
What do I mean by this, exactly?
There is a feminist myth, which oddly enough seems to be modelled upon the patriarchal notions of gender roles ostensibly rejected by this philosophy, which designates the capacity for violence and aggression (and in that- the capacity to create change through direct influence) as a particularly male characteristic. While not as popular as it may once have been, the academic heritage of this idea still makes itself felt in the mainstream discourse about gender and violence. This is the shadow of humanitarian values seeking to expel violence from the notion of female identity, and it is not an attitude which makes for strong women in a meaningful sense of the word. The perpetuators of this myth are the people who use “strong” as a word which generally means “has survived terrible abuse.” This seems to me a gross distortion of the english language.
While there is certainly strength in maintaining one’s personality and identity throughout such treatment, there is a difference between the strength of endurance, that is, the strength to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and the strength to OVERCOME. This requires aggression, the Will to Power, and self-discipline. The strength of endurance, remarkable though it may be, is purely passive. While the strength of endurance is, man or woman, often necessary to cultivate and develop the strength to overcome, one must have that goal in mind to make use of the opportunities provided by the strength of endurance.
It is this capacity, Woman in the capacity of warrior, that feminism in the sense of true female empowerment fulfils itself, because it is in this capacity that the female identity begins to project itself into the world. I will hardly be the first to observe this, the idea has been around since the beginning of twentieth century feminism, but it has never been a popular one in academic circles. On the personal level of an individual woman, emancipation will take an act of violence. It doesn’t necessarily need to be physical violence (though the advantages of this must be emphasized) but it is required to overcome a definite opponent to begin this cycle. The basic magical act, that of causing change in reality in conformity with one’s Will by breaking down the obstacle/opponent through an act of force, is essentially an act of aggression and of violence. Mastering this is the key to mastery itself.
The essential step is replacing the “wounded healer” model indicated by Chiron (which seems to be an apt symbol of the Oprah-world of self-help crap) or the self-sacrificing Christ with a model which sees the beauty and necessity of suffering as the spice of eventual victory. I tread carefully here, because I don’t want to be misunderstood. The problem is as I have stated at the outset: addressing and correcting the restriction and violence that has been placed on women without imposing a victimhood.
It is bad enough that someone should suffer a crime, but that someone should suffer further because of the fact that they have been the victim of a crime is not acceptable. While one does not wish to diminish the transgression, if we make the fact of the crime into an issue of central importance, the victim will never be able to walk away from it and free their identity of victimhood. If one’s identity becomes enmeshed with the ideas of “ignored wife,” “battered girlfriend,” or “rape victim,” then the crime becomes a part of one’s self. The victim may hate the fact of the crime, but when it is encompassed into the identity, that hate begins to express itself through SELF-DESTRUCTION, as the victim has become, in their own eyes, a symbol of the thing they despise.
Because there has been much wrong to redress, victim-identity has wound itself round the fundamental ontology of feminist identity like a particularly virulent weed. Victim-identity ensures victimhood. We see this in pop psychology, in “recovery” literature for addicts, and in the liberal interpretation of many movements for the empowerment of those who have been unjustly denied access to the unquestionable perks of western civilization.
The question is: how to we address and correct nonessential inequities without establishing the roles of “perpetrator” and “victim,” that is, preventing them from being universalized into aspects of a larger gender identity, or of a specific personal identity. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that this is the problem.
There has been a significant amount of violence against women in human history. The crucial point is that our concept of Woman qua Woman must not bear the scars of this violence. Christ and Chiron, our Jung-flavoured victim-archetypes, bear the same burden: a false perspective. A notion that the individual or the world is sick or sinful, and must be healed or justified. Our existence provides us with experiences of suffering, and these, it is true, must be reconciled by the formula of the black school. But this perspective cannot be seen from our essential nature unless it has been “hurt,” that is, obstructed (AL I:22), and must rend the veil which has descended between itself and the light. This does require a redemption or resolution on a personal scale, but it is never a phenomenon that exists independent of experience and conditions. Sin/Suffering is in reality existential, not original. The victim-identity, however, is predicated on suffering, and so can never escape it. One veil only leads to another. It is directed toward further shells of tormented thought and matter, not toward the essence itself.
Which brings me to the crux of the point: the troubling conflation of feminist objectives with humanitarian values. As I’ve discussed previously (and again here) in the Sexual Revolution thread, humanitarianism has shifted our cultural taboos, and it is violence rather than sex which is seen as unacceptable and must be hidden in a world of mass media fantasy. This has made its impression on many movements for social justice in the twentieth century, which are always quick to affirm their desire to create change only through non-violent means. Non-violence, however, doesn’t overcome violence.
There are a lot of different kinds of violence, and I submit that several of them will be necessary before significant gains can be made in the field of gender-identity. The act of creating change is itself violent, whatever the liberals would have you believe, because no change can be created without the violent destruction of the previously established order. Unfortunately, the same schools which focus on feminist ideas also, almost universally, espouse a humanitarian value system which engrains students with a hostility toward aggression and violence, the mastery and conscious direction of which will be absolutely necessary to realize the stated goals of personal and social change.
What do I mean by this, exactly?
There is a feminist myth, which oddly enough seems to be modelled upon the patriarchal notions of gender roles ostensibly rejected by this philosophy, which designates the capacity for violence and aggression (and in that- the capacity to create change through direct influence) as a particularly male characteristic. While not as popular as it may once have been, the academic heritage of this idea still makes itself felt in the mainstream discourse about gender and violence. This is the shadow of humanitarian values seeking to expel violence from the notion of female identity, and it is not an attitude which makes for strong women in a meaningful sense of the word. The perpetuators of this myth are the people who use “strong” as a word which generally means “has survived terrible abuse.” This seems to me a gross distortion of the english language.
While there is certainly strength in maintaining one’s personality and identity throughout such treatment, there is a difference between the strength of endurance, that is, the strength to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and the strength to OVERCOME. This requires aggression, the Will to Power, and self-discipline. The strength of endurance, remarkable though it may be, is purely passive. While the strength of endurance is, man or woman, often necessary to cultivate and develop the strength to overcome, one must have that goal in mind to make use of the opportunities provided by the strength of endurance.
It is this capacity, Woman in the capacity of warrior, that feminism in the sense of true female empowerment fulfils itself, because it is in this capacity that the female identity begins to project itself into the world. I will hardly be the first to observe this, the idea has been around since the beginning of twentieth century feminism, but it has never been a popular one in academic circles. On the personal level of an individual woman, emancipation will take an act of violence. It doesn’t necessarily need to be physical violence (though the advantages of this must be emphasized) but it is required to overcome a definite opponent to begin this cycle. The basic magical act, that of causing change in reality in conformity with one’s Will by breaking down the obstacle/opponent through an act of force, is essentially an act of aggression and of violence. Mastering this is the key to mastery itself.
The essential step is replacing the “wounded healer” model indicated by Chiron (which seems to be an apt symbol of the Oprah-world of self-help crap) or the self-sacrificing Christ with a model which sees the beauty and necessity of suffering as the spice of eventual victory. I tread carefully here, because I don’t want to be misunderstood. The problem is as I have stated at the outset: addressing and correcting the restriction and violence that has been placed on women without imposing a victimhood.
It is bad enough that someone should suffer a crime, but that someone should suffer further because of the fact that they have been the victim of a crime is not acceptable. While one does not wish to diminish the transgression, if we make the fact of the crime into an issue of central importance, the victim will never be able to walk away from it and free their identity of victimhood. If one’s identity becomes enmeshed with the ideas of “ignored wife,” “battered girlfriend,” or “rape victim,” then the crime becomes a part of one’s self. The victim may hate the fact of the crime, but when it is encompassed into the identity, that hate begins to express itself through SELF-DESTRUCTION, as the victim has become, in their own eyes, a symbol of the thing they despise.