The Duality of Privilege and God-Man-Child

Here we must again return to a point discussed in Dawn of Everything. While the sovereign projects the identity of a “super human” or a “God on Earth,” being an authority above all adults and thus a sort of “super adult,” the same sovereign also is restricted. Different cultures place different restrictions. Some say the feet of the sovereign may never touch the ground, and thus must be carried everywhere. The privilege of the sovereign may entitle them to care-taking. Indeed, when one thinks of the European monarchs from which European (and settler colonial) tradition descends, we notice a strange Infantilization: as a child, the sovereign is guarded, groomed, clothed, fed, sometimes even carried, and otherwise attended to their whole waking life. All of the resources of a kingdom are at their disposal, as though they were being raised by the combined work of an entire nation.

They are the authority above adults, but require more care and attention than infants. This is the paradoxical duality of the sovereign, who is both parent and child of a people. The representation inverts the reality, while the reflection happens to their subjects: “children” of the monarch, unable to make their own decisions, under the monarch’s care, while actually doing all of the work to keep everything going.

This duality, and inverse duality, bleeds through to our modern concept of privilege.

The “man” under patriarchy (at least “Western” patriarchy) is represented as power and independence. The man needs nothing and thus owes nothing to anyone. The man controls and is not controlled, which is intimately related to independence as dependence can make someone vulnerable to control. The image of “man” projects power and invulnerability. At the same time “man” is a bumbling fool who can’t be held accountable for his inability to control his sexual urges. He must be fed and cared for, as though another child. His worst behaviors must be dismissed with phrases such as “boys will be boys” and “locker room talk.” The absurdity of the concept of human “independence” is impossible to understate.

Even if an individual moves to a cabin in the woods and lives a completely self sustained life, they have still been raised and taught. There is still an unpaid debt to a social entity. This is, perhaps, why it is so much more useful to think in terms of obligations than rights. Rights can be claimed and protected with violence alone, but obligations reveal the true interdependence that sustains us. A “man” may assert his rights. Yet, on some level, we all know that the “man” of patriarchy acts as a child who is not mature enough to recognize his obligations.

Similarly, white violence and white fragility reflect the same dichotomy. “The master race” somehow always needs brown folks to make things and perform reproductive labor for them. For those who vocally embrace whiteness, a “safe space” is a joke. DEI shows weakness. Yet, when presented with an honest history adults become children who are incapable of differentiating between criticism and simple facts. They become the ones who must be kept safe. The expectation to be responsible for one’s own words and actions, one of the very core definitions of being an adult, is far too much to expect. They must be protected and coddled. Their guilt needs room, needs tending, needs caring. White people cannot simply “grow the fuck up” or, as they may say of slavery that was not actually ever abolished, “fucking get over it.”

And again, interestingly, it is rights that they reference: “Mah Freeze PEACH!” One may find it hard to distinguish between such tantrums and their own child’s assertion that anything she doesn’t like is “not fair!” No, these assertions fail to recognize the fundamental fabric of actual adult society: those obligations we hold to each other.

While law enforcement is the ultimate representative of sovereign violence, privileges allow a gradated approximation of the sovereign. Those who are “closer” in privilege to the sovereign may, for example, be permitted to carry out violence against those who are father away. The gradation of privilege turns the whole society, except for the least privileged, into a cult that protects the privilege system on behalf of the most privileged.

This is where it becomes important to consider the ideology behind the sovereign ritual. Participation within the sovereign ritual denotes to the participants elements of the sovereign. That is, all agents of the sovereign are, essentially, themselves micro kings or dictators. By carrying out the will of the sovereign, these micro king or dictators can, by extension, act outside of the law.

They also believe themselves to take on the aspect that they believe exist in the sovereign. Through acting on behalf of the sovereign they become the projection of the character of the sovereign. That is, If the sovereign projects the illusion strength, then they believe themselves strong. If the sovereign projects the illusion of sexual potency, they believe themselves to be sexually potent. If the sovereign projects the illusion of wealth, they believe themselves on the verge of wealth.

Yet the ritual can only continue so long as enough people participate in the ritual. The ritual is a collective illusion, a story we build together. Children pretend themselves into all kinds of world. Adults don’t stop pretending, we simply forget that we’ve been pretending the whole time. Though a regime could even take your life, and force you to behave as though you were a believer, nothing on Earth is powerful enough to make you actually believe. That power, the power to believe the illusion, is in you alone.

The game we are choosing to play is one that has been given to us, not one we have chosen, not one we have crafted. Nothing stops us from creating a new game. Nothing stops us from playing something else. Nothing except the limits of our own creativity, and the fear that imposes those limits.